March 17, 2010 @ 9:00 am
Pyle Center
Thanks to all participants and attendees of the 2009 Conference on Public Humanities! Listen to the talks given by Harry Brighouse and Julia Reinhard Lupton here:
Julia Reinhard Lupton, "Pushing the Envelope: My Life Inside Academia, and Out"
Accompanying PDF slides available at Julia's blog.
Harry Brighouse, "Justice, Privilege, and the Role of the University in Society"
Information on the 2010 conference will be available in the fall.
The Conference on Public Humanities is a one-day event on bringing the humanities to wider publics in our communities, schools, nonprofits, digital spaces, and more. Featuring the work of graduate students in and outside of The Center for the Humanities' Humanities Exposed (HEX) program.
2009 Conference schedule:
9:00 Harry Brighouse, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Justice, Privilege, and the Role of the University in Society
Universities confer advantage on the already-privileged – they admit young people who come from homes in the more advantaged sectors of society and credential them so that they can secure entry into jobs in the more advantaged sectors. Governments subsidize this process, privileging it over other ways of developing human capital. Harry Brighouse will argue that the only way such an institution can be justified is by providing substantial benefits to the rest of society, with an emphasis on those who do not benefit directly from a university education. He will explore what this means for scholars and graduate students in the Humanities in particular, in terms of how we conceive of our vocation, and how we should supplement our research and on-campus teaching with outreach work.
9:45 Olivia Donaldson (French), Hannah Nyala West (History), Annie Kaatz (Comparative Literature), Brett White (Spanish & Portuguese), Jim Hollar (Afro-American Studies), Sagashus Levingston (English and Afro-American Studies)
Bridging Gaps: The Humanities, The Sciences, The Community
In this round-table discussion, participants will dialogue about the need and benefit of crossing academic borders through interdisciplinary work and community partnerships. Panelists will share their own interdisciplinary and community work. Following introductions, panelists will open up for discussion and invite questions.
11:00 Frederick Gibbs (History of Science), Carrie Roy (Scandinavian Studies), and Maria Bibbs (English)
Digital Humanities for a Wider Public
The presentation will briefly highlight the merits of web-based information mapping and navigation for scholarly collaboration, interdisciplinary learning, and offering an engaging format to the public. Frederick Gibbs will address the nature of 'digital humanities;' the variety of possibilities it brings to teaching in/outside the classroom; and how technology can help humanities scholarship become more accessible to a wider public. Carrie Roy will discuss how interactive map-based navigation, in combination with timelines, can also offer an important, dynamic view of our history and world. In changing the way we access and navigate information, we can begin to understand new relationships and possibilities in research and understanding. Maria Bibbs will discuss her incorporation of digital writing and blogging into her HEX project, the AIDS Network Writing Workshop. The project creates a safe space for social interaction, writing, and fellowship for people who are living with HIV/AIDS, but one unanticipated consequence is that participants often find it difficult to meet when they feel ill or lack transportation. Thus Maria has introduced an online component of the writing workshop to facilitate active participation and make the workshop resources and the benefits of community, idea exchange, and feedback more accessible.
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine
Keynote Address: Pushing the Envelope: My Life Inside Academia, And Out
Julia Reinhard Lupton is founding director of Humanities Out There, an educational partnership between the School of Humanities at UC, Irvine and local public schools. She is also the director of UCI's Humanities Core Course and the co-author of several books on D.I.Y. (do it yourself) design. Her talk will discuss her different projects in the general context of the public humanities: how can we build connections between universities and communities using the momentum and materials of humanistic inquiry?
2:15 Rebecca Lorimer (English) and Tessa Lowinske Desmond (English)
Humanities and Food: Harvesting the Pedagogical Possibilities
Two HEX scholars engaged in writing and language learning projects will discuss the fruitful relationship between their work and partnering community gardens, farms, and food pantries. Tessa Lowinske Desmond is designing a humanities-based curriculum and implementing a Spanish/English language exchange program for adult learners in Quann Community Garden, where she has gardened for three years. Rebecca Lorimer is leading her UW-Madison intermediate composition students through writing projects with MACSAC, Community Groundworks at Troy Gardens, and the food pantry at the Goodman Community Center. They will each describe how the pedagogical underpinnings of their projects--literacy learning, distributed cultural capital, community engagement--are enhanced by the humanism of food and food settings. They find that focusing scholarship on food sites allows scholar-teachers to weave discussions of access, human rights, and globalization into their humanities work.
3:15 Liz Vine (English), Stephanie Youngblood (English), Mark Lounibos (English), John Bradley (English), and Anya Holland-Barry (Musicology)
Panel: Art in the Community: The Question of Art’s Political and Social Function?
This panel will consider the question of the relationship between discussions of art in an academic setting and an engagement with it in a wider community sphere. Given this context, we draw on examples from music, life-writing, and poetry to ask how we develop effective community projects and what forms they might take.
