Humanities News, Features, and Other Updates

Brown Bag: Great Lakes Romanticism, Mark Lounibos

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What:

Humanities’ Brown Bag talks kick off again on Friday, January 31 at 12pm in the Petersen Library with “Great Lakes Romanticism” a talk by Assistant Teaching Professor of English, Mark Lounibos.

Abstract: This emerging project aims to link the historical and cultural period of British Romanticism (1789-1832) to the Great Lakes region of North America, using digital mapping methods to identify locations, actors and events in the Great Lakes area which have influenced British Romantic culture.  In particular, the project’s goal is to emphasize and perhaps also recover the influence of Indigenous culture and thought on British Romanticism.   Although much work has been done on Transatlantic Romanticism, and some important contributions focus explicitly on indigeneity in this context, few have focused primarily on the Great Lakes region.  This waterway was a critical trade/exploration route, and therefore one of the most significant channels for contact with indigenous tribes in the interior of North America. The long-term goals of this project include the production of a digital resource for both scholars and the public, and the development of a Digital Humanities course.  

Who:

Presented by Mark Lounibos, Assistant Teaching Professor of English

Co-Hosted by the Department of Humanities and the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture

All are welcome to attend!

When:

Friday, Jan. 31, 2025 at 12:00 p.m.

Where:

The Peterson Library, Walker 318

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Café Français French Conversation Hour

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Parlez-vous français? Join us!

French conversation hour will take place in Walker 120C (in the HDMZ) twice monthly on Wednesdays through March. Whether you are a complete beginner, or a native French speaker looking to use your mother tongue, stop by for some casual conversation and cultural exchange. All levels of French are welcome!

  • Jan. 15
  • Jan. 29
  • Feb. 12
  • Feb. 19
  • March 12
  • March 26

For more information or to be added to our mailing list for French-related events, contact lalegref@mtu.edu

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La Peña Spanish Conversation Hour

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La Peña Spanish Conversation Hour will meet every other Tuesday in Walker 120A (in the HDMZ) for the spring semester.

The dates are:

  • Jan. 14
  • Jan. 28
  • Feb. 11
  • March 4
  • March 18
  • April 1

Join us for our next La Peña Spanish conversation hour!

All levels of Spanish are welcome, and you don’t need to be taking a Spanish class to participate. Stop by, chat and stay for a board game or bring your own!

¡Hasta pronto!

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Faculty Research Highlight: The Big Ride Project

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Assistant Professor of Communication, Culture, and Media Richard Canevez has big plans for the summer of 2025, when he will take on what he has titled “The Big Ride Project.” Richard has received a seed grant from the university’s Research Excellence Fund, as well as funding from the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture with which he is both funding this project, and hopes to publish a book documenting his experiences.

Assistant Professor Richard Canevez is collaborating with Studio 13 in Houghton to generate media for his upcoming research endeavor- The Big Ride Project.

From Richard:

The rise of American right-wing populism has been enabled in part by the politicization and targeting of institutions construed as left-leaning with harassment, hostile policy efforts, and in some cases outright violence. The range of institutions is broad, ranging from women’s healthcare to diversity-supporting organizations and even federal agencies tasked with environmental stewardship. This targeting has reduced these institutions to political footballs, exploiting an aggrieved and politically divided constituency for political gain.

But who are these institutions in reality? They reflect the people who are “where the rubber meets the road”: the professionals and volunteers. But what are their stories? How do their experiences and values shape these institutions and their mission? And how are they going to navigate the political divide in the upcoming years? And what can other institutions and their people learn from them?

In the summer of 2025, Rich Canevez (Asst. Professor of Communication, Culture, and Media at the Department of Humanities) will ride a bicycle from Houghton, MI to Chicago, IL and back on a route that covers over 900 miles by road, trail, and everything in between. In this time, he will gather the stories of professionals who staff these institutions, including libraries, institutions of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), reproductive rights, transgender affirming care, and environmental stewardship, dotted across one of the most politically divided and diverse sections of America. These stories and accounts will be layered with his own experiences, by covering the distance and connecting stories with notions of spatial divide and connection, as well as his own memories of being a ethnic minority raised in this curious section of America, with a personal relationship with many of the issues these institutions, and its people, face or continue to struggle with to this day.

You can visit the project’s website at thebigrideproject.carrd.co to follow along on his journey!

The Big Ride Project on Facebook | The Big Ride Project on Bluesky

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Presentation Focuses on User Experience Collaborations In the Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory

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Timothy Keirnan, Assistant Teaching Professor of Humanities
Timothy Keirnan, assistant teaching professor of humanities
Liz Miller, Director of The Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory (ACMAL)
Liz Miller,
ACMAL director

Presented by the RTC Brown Bag Program
November 8th, 2024, noon–1:00 p.m.
Petersen Library, Walker 318

Timothy Keirnan, assistant teaching professor in the Humanities Department, and Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory (ACMAL) Director Liz Miller will present a case study of collaboration between Humanities and Material Science at the next Brown Bag Program presentation. ACMAL is a facility serving both Michigan Tech and external researchers that houses an extensive array of electron microanalytical and X-ray instruments. Services are available for user training, sample preparation, and sample analysis. The collaboration with ACMAL focuses on the piloting of a new software application, Facility Online Manager (FOM), to help facilities across Michigan Tech manage their equipment and lab spaces to better serve students, faculty, and staff.

In cooperation with Assistant Teaching Professor Jenni Nance and her HU3121 students, Keirnan wrote FOM user guides for both students and lab supervisors. Nance and her students will be on hand for the presentation to lend their perspectives on the combination of service work and student projects for Michigan Tech’s Scientific and Technical Communication program. Keirnan and Miller are currently collaborating on the navigation and UX (user experience design) writing of the new FOM website, which will be rolled out to the university in the near future. They’ll also discuss future collaborations to measure and enhance the ACMAL customer experience.

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Groundbreaking Documentary ENO at 41 North Film Festival

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Eno and director Gary Hustwit at the 41 North Film Festival

The 41 North Film Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary, November 7-10, at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. Headlining this year on Saturday, November 9th, is the groundbreaking generative documentary Eno about visionary musician and artist Brian Eno, directed by Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Rams, Objectified) who will be in attendance at the festival.

A pioneer at the intersection of technology and art and a self-proclaimed “sonic landscaper,” Brian Eno has been an innovative and highly influential figure, shaping the sounds of artists such as David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, and Coldplay. Drawing inspiration from its subject, the film Eno also blends art and technology through its use of a bespoke generative software developed by Hustwit and creative technologist Brendan Dawes. The software uniquely sequences scenes from Hustwit’s interviews and footage, along with Eno’s own archive of hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage and unreleased music. No two screenings are alike, each one offering different scenes, order, transitions, and music.

Hustwit has been presenting the film live around the country and the world since its premiere at the 2024 Sundance film festival and will present two unique iterations of the film at 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The 3:30 p.m. screening will include a Q&A with Hustwit and Brendan Dawes (via Zoom) following the film. This event is co-sponsored by the College of Computing and the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems. Look for announcements about other featured events and the full festival program in the coming days. 

The 41 North Film Festival is sponsored by the Department of Humanities, the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, and the College of Sciences and Arts.

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Brown Bag: Histories from Ephemeral Documents – Researching the Difficult to Find in University Archives

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Andrew Fiss and Lindsay Hiltunen

What:

Please join the Humanities Department and RTC Graduate program for the Brown Bag event with Professor Andrew Fiss and RTC PhD Student Lindsay Hiltunen who is also the Michigan Tech University Archivist. The event will be held in the Petersen Library in Walker 318 at noon on October 4th. Histories from Ephemeral Documents: Researching the Difficult to Find in University Archives Researchers have a lot to learn from ephemeral documents in university archives. They present different pictures of local life than established histories, and yet as documents, they are often overlooked or misunderstood. This RTC Brown Bag encourages discussion about the value of such ephemera with short examples from RTC professor Andrew Fiss and Michigan Tech university archivist (and RTC PhD student) Lindsay Hiltunen. Fiss will present about a composition notebook from Motta Sims in the archives of Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Georgia. Ms. Sims in 1916 traveled to Spelman for a class in cooking. Her notebook’s form and content reflected the framing of cooking as scientific study, which proved important for the broader movement of home economics, yet because it’s contained in the files of a White president of the institution, the notebook could be overlooked. Hiltunen will present about the “Verna Grahek Mize – Save Lake Superior Campaign Collection” in the Michigan Tech Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections. The collection includes advocacy posters and cards from the late 1960s and 1970s, responding to corporate communications that represented Lake Superior and the southern lake basin as unproblematically pristine. Though Verna Mize has become a local legend, the contents of the collection show a history of local environmentalism both broader and more specific than Mize’s legacy. Join these researchers for a discussion of the promises and challenges of studying archival ephemera.

Who:

Presented by Andrew Fiss and lindsay Hiltunen

All are welcome to attend!

When:

Friday, October 4, 2024, 12:00 p.m.

Where:

The Peterson Library, Walker 318

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Richard Canevez Awarded 2024 REF Seed Grant

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Richard Canevez and Kette Thomas, Humanities, participate in a panel at the 2023 41 North Film Festival.
Richard Canevez, assistant professor of communication, culture, and media, has been awarded a 2024 REF Seed Grant.

Richard Canevez, assistant professor of communication, culture, and media in humanities, has been awarded a 2023 seed grant from the Vice President for Research Office Research Excellence Fund.

In its evaluation of the proposal the committee wrote: “The project will use narrative inquiry to gather and analyze information on the experiences of Ukrainian refugees, and thus is both timely and supportive of strategic goals of Michigan Tech related to global issues and those of the Humanities department.”

From the VPR web page, “REF-RS grants are designed to provide research faculty (including research scientists, engineers, and research assistant professors) and untenured, tenure-track academic faculty who have been in their current position with Michigan Tech for less than six years with additional resources to develop an externally supported research program.”

Canevez joined the humanities roster in spring 2023. His research focuses on social informatics, peace and conflict, social justice, and social movements and resistance, with a current focus on the war in Ukraine. He also teaches in communication, culture, and media, and will be teaching a course specifically in Power, Activism, & Technology next fall.

Congratulations, Dr. Canevez!

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Lindsay Hiltunen Appointed to Ottawa National Forest Resource Advisory Committee

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RTC PhD student and archivist in the University Archives, Lindsay Hiltunen, has been appointed to the advisory committee for the Ottawa National Forest.


University Archivist Lindsay Hiltunen (VPOL) has been appointed by Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack to the new Ottawa National Forest Resource Advisory Committee (RAC). Members of the RAC are vetted and designated by the secretary of agriculture and meet under Federal Advisory Committee Act regulations. All meetings are open to the public.

A Secure Rural Schools RAC provides recommendations to the U.S. Forest Service on the development and implementation of special projects on federal lands as authorized under the Secure Rural Schools Act and Community Self-Determination Act in Public Law 110-343. This act was most recently reauthorized for two years by section 41202 of Public Law 117-58 (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) and signed into law by President Joe Biden on Nov. 15, 2021.

Vilsack appointed Hiltunen, along with 14 others, to serve four-year terms on the Ottawa National Forest RAC. The inaugural meeting will be called in summer 2024.

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