Humanities News, Features, and Other Updates

Category: Humanities

Dana Van Kooy Edits Essay Collection

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Dana Van KooyDana Van Kooy has edited a special edition of essays about Teaching Romantic-period drama for Romantic Textualities, a peer-reviewed, online journal. These eight essays contribute new insights about a variety of topics, including William Blake, visual spectacle and theatrical form, the intersections between biography and tragedy in Mary Mitford’s work, gender and Goethe’s “Faust,” politics and Sheridan’s “Pizarro,” and the changing cultural landscape of the Atlantic world in George Colman the Younger’s “Inkle & Yarico.”

Each highlights the relevance of Romantic-period drama and theatre as a textual, performative, and a visual art form. Contributors include scholars from University of Pittsburgh, UCLA, Aldo Moro University (Italy), Mount Saint Vincent University (Canada), Montclair State University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Two Exhibits Open Concurrently at the Rozsa Center Gallery Friday

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World War One in the Copper Country logo

“American and French Propaganda Posters” and “Shell-Shocked: Footage & Sounds of the Front,” are two separate exhibits that are meant to be seen together.

Both are part of the community-wide centennial commemoration of the “Great War, World War I & the Copper Country,” running through Nov. 11.

During the gallery opening reception, Stefka Hristova (HU) will give a talk entitled, “Iconography & War.” World War I called for broad public participation through multiple avenues: joining the military, buying liberty bonds or saving stamps, conserving food, taking up a public job. Everyone was expected to do their part, and new modes of propaganda were key to ensuring society’s “total mobilization.”

“American and French Propaganda Posters,” reflects numerous appeals to mass mobilization, resulting in some iconic images from the American campaign, for example, James Montgomery Flagg’s “Uncle Sam” and A.E. Foringer’s “Greatest Mother in the World” for the American Red Cross.

Hristova’s talk will take a closer look at the posters to reveal patterns of representations of men, women and children that tie into changing norms of social propriety.

In contrast to the patriotic rhetoric of propaganda posters, the immersive multimedia display of “Shell-Shocked” brings to life the reality of soldiers who fought the war, inviting visitors to experience soldiers’ journey from training to combat, from life at the front to demobilization and return home, if they survived the war’s abuses.

An installation space featuring a custom circular steel truss equipped with six 40” screens, twelve loudspeakers and 6,000 watts of available amplified power, “Shell-Shocked” recreates the sounds to accompany historic silent film footage of the war.

The installation was crafted by Kent Cyr (VPA) and Christopher Plummer (VPA) with sound-design assistance from students Luke Johnson, Brendan Espinosa and Noah Budd from the Visual and Performing Arts Department, Sound Design-BA program.

“American and French Propaganda Posters” are on loan from the permanent collection of the Marquette Regional History Center. The exhibits are made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council (MHC), an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the WW1CC program do not necessarily reflect those of the NEH or MHC.

Light refreshments will be served at the opening reception, 5-7 p.m. Friday (Sept. 7). The exhibits will run until Oct. 2, during gallery hours: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday – Friday and 1 to 8 p.m. Saturday.

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Tolu Odebunmi Receives IGALA 10 USA-based Scholar Travel Grant

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Tolu OdebunmiRTC PhD candidate, Tolu Odebunmi recently received a IGALA 10 USA-based Scholar Travel Grant of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in June 2018 with academic support from Dr. Victoria Bergvall. The grant was to assist her to present at the International Gender and Language (IGALA) conference at the University of Botswana in Gaborone, Botswana. The conference theme was “Gender, Language and Sexuality in Multicultural Contexts.” Odebunmi’s paper was titled “A Critical Discourse Study of ‘Sex trash talk’ in Liberian protests.” The grant was administered through the University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH, USA), and was aimed at graduate students whose abstracts have been accepted by the IGALA conference scientific committee.

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Nancy Achiaa Frimpong Presents at Comics Studies Society Conference

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Nancy FrimpongRTC Master student, Nancy Achiaa Frimpong presented a paper on August 11, 2018 at the Comics Studies Society conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The conference theme was “Mind the Gaps! The Futures of the Field”. Frimpong presented on the topic “Ebola Virus Disease as Colored: The Case of American Online News Dissemination of Comics.” Her presentation received financial support from the Graduate Students Government Travel Grant, and the Humanities Department Travel Grant; and academic mentorship from communication and culture professor, Dr. Sue Collins.

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The CinOptic Enterprise Team Wins First Place!

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CinOptic team photoThe Humanities Department’s CinOptic Enterprise Team won first place in the Enterprise Team competition at the 2018 Design Expo for their poster and presentation. Pictured, from left to right are:
Back: Zach Martens (STC), Sarah Lindbeck (STC), Noah Kozminski (STC), Shaun Burriss (Math Ed), McKenzy Rehfus (CCM)
Front: Eric Smith (VPA), Abigail Kuehne (CCM)
Photo by: Nathan Shaiyen, CCM and CinOptic member.
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Joel Beatty and Stefka Hristova Co-author Book Chapter

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Joel Beatty and Stefka Hristova wearing graduation robesRTC graduate, Joel Beatty, and professor Stefka Hristova have co-authored a chapter in the book, Surveillance, Race, Culture, published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Their chapter is titled “Articulating Race: Reading Skin Color as Taxonomy and as Numerical Data”. According to Dr. Hristova, the chapter “explores the transformation of race into biodata at the turn of the 20th century”. The book is edited by Susan Flynn, University of the Arts, London; and Antonia Mackay, Oxford Brookes University. 

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La Peña Conversation Hour Dates Announced

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students sitting at a table playing Spanish ScrabbleJoin us at la Peña, the Spanish conversation hour hosted by the Department of Humanities and the Modern Languages Program. We come together several times during the academic year to speak Spanish in an informal social gathering. Come relax, meet Spanish speakers of all levels, and have a light snack and refreshment. Friends welcome!

La Peña is held from 5-6 p.m in Walker 120A. Join us on the following Tuesdays for Fall 2018:

  • September 11
  • September 25
  • October 9
  • October 30
  • November 13
  • November 27

 

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Laura Kasson Fiss Presents Paper at The Body and the Page Conference

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Laura Kasson-FissLaura Kasson Fiss presented a paper entitled “The Bodies of the Idler’s Club: A Quantitative Analysis of Column Contributors” at The Body and the Page, an international conference jointly hosted by the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals and the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada in Victoria, British Columbia.

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