Humanities News, Features, and Other Updates

Category: Faculty

Stefka Hristova Publishes Paper on Space and Power in the Iraq War

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Stefka HristovaStefka Hristova, associate professor of digital media, has published a new paper titled “Charting the Territory: Space and Power in the Iraq War” in ACME: An International Journal of Critical Geographies. She argues that the 2007 mapping and walling of Baghdad’s neighborhoods “exemplifies the materialization of the cell technique, and Carl Schmitt’s articulation of three modes of empty space in relation to territory”; and that “the walling process was an attempt to produce what [she] call[s] a ‘continuous security’, predicated upon the assumption of a population’s characterized belonging to the circumnavigated territory.”
The full paper is available online.
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Faculty and RTC Graduate Students Present at OSCLG Conference

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R.T.C. group at conference. Pictured from left to right: Victoria Bergvall, Toluulope Odebunmi, Sara Potter, Patty Sotirin, Nancy Henaku, Modupe Yusuf, Nada Mohammad Alfieir, and Nancy Achiaa Frimpong.Michigan Tech Humanities graduate students and professors presented scholarly work at the annual Conference of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender in Lake Tahoe, Nevada October 3-6, 2018.

Masters Graduate student Nancy Achiaa Frimpong presented “Skin Colour on Sale: Advertising and Postfeminism”. Doctoral Graduate student Nada Mohammad Alfieir presented “‘I Didn’t Understand Anything!’ A Muslim Mother’s Narrative Reflections on Privacy, U.S. Sex Education, and a Daughter’s Denials”. Doctoral Graduate student Sara Potter presented “Motherhood as a Jointly Constructed Narrative”. Doctoral Graduate student Modupe Yusuf presented “African Women as Symbols of Feminist Persistence”. Ph.D. candidate Toluulope Odebunmi presented “Women and Politics in West Africa: An Analysis of Feminist Criticisms Against Liberia’s Ellen HJohnson Sirleaf”. Ph.D. candidate Nancy Henaku presented “Resistance, Discursive Activism and Gender Politics in Ghanaian Social Media: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis” and also served as the student representative on the OSCLG Board. Ph.D. candidates Nancy Henaku and Toluuope Odebunmi presented papers on the panel, “African Women Performing Persistence: Tales of Historical and Contemporary Contributions to Global Activism”.

Professor Victoria Bergvall presented “Missing Voices in the WEIRD Discourse of Gendered Neuroscience: Transnational Feminist Discourses of Nature and Nurture in Gender/Sex/Sexuality”. Professor Patty Sotirin presented “Militarized Mother Legacies: Talking with WWI Mothers”.

Pictured from left to right: Victoria Bergvall, Toluulope Odebunmi, Sara Potter, Patty Sotirin, Nancy Henaku, Modupe Yusuf, Nada Mohammad Alfieir, and Nancy Achiaa Frimpong.

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Free WW1CC Film Screening Tomorrow

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Pierre Niney and Paula Beer in Frantz movieThe Modern Languages Program will host a screening of the François Ozon’s 2016 film Frantz at 7 p.m. tomorrow (Oct. 4) in Walker 134. The screening is free and open to the public.

Film synopsis: In 1919 Quedlinburg, Germany, a young woman named Anna is still mourning the death of her fiance, Frantz Hoffmeister, in the Great War while living with his devastated parents. One day, a mysterious Frenchman, Adrien Rivoire, comes to town both to pay his respects to Frantz’s grave and to contact that soldier’s parents. Adrian explains that he knew Frantz and gradually he wins Anna and the Hoffmeisters’ hearts as he tries to connect with them. But the truth of his motives unveils no easy answers to their complex personal conflicts with each other and the dead man linking them (from IMDB pro).

The screening is part of World War I in the Copper Country (WW1CC), an extensive program of events and exhibits commemorating the WWI Armistice. Partners include Michigan Technological University, the Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw, and Finlandia University. WW1CC is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the WW1CC program do not necessarily reflect those of the NEH or the MHC.

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Faculty and Graduate Student Present at Armistice Symposium

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World War One in the Copper Country logoThree faculty members and a graduate student presented on various topics related to the First World War at the Armistice & Aftermath: a World War One Symposium. The symposium is part of the commemoration of the Copper Country’s involvement in WWI. Ramon Fonkoue presented on “Art and activism in Abel Gance’s film Jaccuse: Revisiting anti-war sentiment in French art and society a century later”. Dany Jacob’s presentation was titled “’Pour la France! Pour ma famille!’: Legacies in Rouad’s Champs d’honneurs”. Laura Fiss also presented on “Recalling the trenches from Club Window: Contrasting perspectives in Dorothy Sayers and P.G. Wodehouse”. Graduate student Edzordzi Agbozo presented on “World War One & Africa: Contesting history, nation, and identity in ‘Western Togoland’”.

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Sarah Bell Returns from Kluge Center Fellowship

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Sarah BellSarah Bell, Assistant Professor of Digital Media, has returned this Fall from The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. where she was researching as Digital Studies Fellow. Her project was “Speak & Spell to Siri: A Media History of Voice Synthesis” as part of her book manuscript From Speak & Spell to Siri: A Media History of Voice Synthesis. Bell was also awarded previous fellowships from the Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Strong Museum of Play, Michigan Technological University’s Research Excellence Fund, the Computer History section of the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

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Patty Sotirin Awarded ADVANCE Grant as Co-PI

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Patty SotirinPatty Sotirin is a co-principle investigator on a project that has received a $1,000,000 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. Adrienne Minerick (School of Technology) is the principal investigator. Sonia Goltz (School of Business and Economics), Audrey Mayer (School of Forest Resources and Environmental Sciences/Social Sciences) and Andrew Storer (School of Forest Resources and Environmental Sciences) are also Co/PIs on the project titled, “ADVANCE Adaptation AMP-UP Continuous Improvement Process to Transform Institutional Practices and Culture.” This is a three-year project.

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