Humanities News, Features, and Other Updates

Category: News

Dive Deep at the 41 North Film Festival, November 6-9, 2025

Published
By
deep sea organism seen in documentary How Deep Is Your Love at the 41 North Film Festival

This year’s 41 North Film Festival invites audiences to engage with a slate of over 20 creative and thought-provoking films that explore the complexities of contemporary life—from the depths of the natural world to the heights of human resilience. The festival features a diverse lineup of acclaimed and emerging filmmakers whose work takes up urgent social questions through compassionate, sometimes fierce, and always artful storytelling. Panels and guests will offer context and perspectives on many of the films. The festival will be held November 6-9 in the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, with additional films screening in Fisher 135 in partnership with MTU Film Board. All films are free and open to the public. Donations and volunteers are appreciated and welcome.

Folktales documentary at the 41 North Film Festival

The festival opens Thursday, 11/6, with Folktales (Ewing/Grady, 2025), which follows teenagers at a Norwegian folk school in the Arctic as they navigate the path to adulthood (with a little help from each other and their sled dogs). Balancing the generational scales is Cat Town, USA (Napolitino, 2025), the story of an elderly couple who run a retirement home for senior cats (Friday, 11/7).

Bradley Garrett in Underland at the 41 North Film Festival

Our featured presentation on Friday evening is Underland (Petit, 2025), loosely based on Robert Macfarlane’s bestseller of the same name. A poetic meditation on what lies beneath the earth, the film weaves together three stories of underground exploration. A discussion with featured social geographer and urban explorer, Dr. Bradley Garrett, will follow.

On Saturday, 11/8, How Deep Is Your Love (Mortimer, 2025) takes us on a voyage with scientists who study and catalog deep-sea species in ocean territories that may soon be mined. In the evening, the festival presents Natchez (Herbert, 2025), which examines questions of historic preservation in a town defined by and dependent on its conflicted antebellum past.

Adaptive Mountain Bikers in Best Day Ever at the 41 North Film Festival

Sunday afternoon, 11/9, the rocky terrain of disability advocacy and accessibility is traversed by two films. Best Day Ever (Knight/Berne, 2025) highlights adaptive mountain biking, and the lessons learned when a Vermont community builds an adaptive mountain biking trail system. Following is Reid Davenport’s new film, Life After, which examines the implications of Medical Aid In Dying (MAID) legislation for disabled people, who may suffer pressure to end their lives rather than receive the necessary support to live them.

The festival’s final two films take us back to the animal kingdom with Flow (Zilbalodis, 2024), the Oscar-winning animated feature. This lyrical and hypnotic film tells a completely wordless story about a cat who must work with other species to survive a great flood. Closing out the festival on Sunday evening is the hilarious and educational documentary, Listers: A Glimpse into Extreme Birdwatching (Reiser, 2025).

Albert Birney in OBEX at the 41 North Film Festival

Film Board will partner again with the festival and screen two films in Fisher 135: Rian Johnson’s  2006 neo-noir film, Brick, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and OBEX (Birney, 2025), a fantasy film set in pre-Internet 1987, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January.

Sponsored by the department of humanities, the department of visual and performing arts, the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, and the College of Sciences and Arts. For more information, check the festival website or contact Erin Smith, ersmith@mtu.edu.

Continue Reading →

What Are Humans For? Stuart Kendall, Visiting Scholar Oct. 2-3

Published
By
What Are Humans For? Visiting Scholar Stuart Kendall

The Department of Humanities, together with the College of Sciences and Arts, are pleased to welcome Dr. Stuart Kendall to campus on October 2nd and 3rd for a series of presentations, classroom visits, and scholarly discussions related to interdisciplinary scholarship.

Dr. Kendall’s keynote presentation, titled What Are Humans For? will take place on Friday, October 3rd, at 4:00pm in the U. J. Noblet Forestry Building Atrium. The talk will focus on the present and future of interdisciplinary study, examining the strategies of several exemplary interdisciplinary thinkers. This public talk is free and open to all.

Leading up to this presentation, Dr. Kendall will be joined by Institute of Computing and Cybersystems guest, Dr. Ian Bogost, for a Scholar Lunch discussion on Thursday, October 2nd, at 12:15pm in the Library East Reading Room*. All are welcome.

Next we invite graduate students and faculty of the Colleges of Sciences and Arts and Computing, and across campus, to a presentation by Dr. Kendall titled We Scholars, which aims to center the human within interdisciplinary study and research. This talk will take place on Thursday, October 2nd, at 3:00pm in the U. J. Noblet Forestry Building Atrium.

Abstract for What Are Humans For?

Recent and profound technological and environmental changes have brought about a paradigm-shift in the production, consumption, and legitimation of both knowledge and know-how. These changes have in turn challenged many of our social institutions and traditional disciplines. Rather than reiterating proposals made from the perspective of a specialized discipline, this lecture will examine the strategies of several exemplary interdisciplinary thinkers whose modes of thought sought to embrace exploration and change: Ivan Illich, Vilém Flusser, and Gregory Bateson, among others. One goal will be to relocate questions of art and technics, as well as those of disciplines and institutions, in models of human experience. In response to challenge and change, the lecture pursues an interdisciplinary inquiry into human experience in order to open a methodological toolbox of strategies and tactics for conviviality.

Portrait of Dr. Stuart Kendall in front of a stone wall with vines and flowers.

About Stuart Kendall

Stuart Kendall is an historian of thought and media and design theorist. As a writer, editor, and translator, his books include a critical biography of Georges Bataille, The Ends of Art and Design, Gilgamesh, and a number of edited and translated volumes. He has lectured and run workshops at colleges, universities, conferences, and colloquia nationally and internationally. Teaching appointments have included the California College of the Arts, Stanford University, Boston University, and SUNY Stony Brook. As an academic leader, he created new majors, coursework concentrations, and assessment tools in interdisciplinary humanities, environmental and animal studies, and media and design history, theory, and criticism. His core interests include problems in ecological consciousness, embodiment, and communications media.

*if the East Reading room is unavailable due to ongoing classroom renovations, Scholar Lunch will take place in the U. J. Noblet Forestry Building Atrium

Continue Reading →

Modern Languages & Cultures Fall 2025 Open House

Published
By
Faculty Members Laurie Corbin (French) Estela Mira Barreda (Spanish) Stephanie Rowe (German) Leyre Alegre-Figuero (Spanish) and Maria Bergstrom (Advising)

Join us for the Modern Languages & Cultures Open House on Wednesday August 20th, from 4:30-6:00 pm in Walker 120A!

 Students are invited to come with any questions they may have about Modern Language & Cultures Minors, courses, AP/IB scores, and social activities, as well as meet faculty members and fellow students. You could earn up to 9 placement credits with previous language knowledge!

We will also answer questions related to Modern Languages & Essential Education, as our courses also count towards Essential Education.

Those who have previous German or Spanish knowledge, but have not already taken the placement test may do so at this time as well, or beforehand: https://www.mtu.edu/humanities/undergraduate/modern-languages/register/.

Exception: Students who scored high on the AP or IB exam are automatically given a waiver for third-year courses; or students who are transferring a course.

Questions? Contact Leyre Alegre-Figuero lalegref@mtu.edu

Continue Reading →

In Praise of Football: Poetics, Aesthetics, Politics, & Identities of the Ball with Guest Speaker Daniel Noemi Voionmaa

Published
By

On Friday, April 4th at noon visiting Speaker Daniel Noemi Voionmaa will be giving a public talk titled “In Praise of Football: Poetics, Aesthetics, Politics, and Identities of the Ball” in EERC 103.

This event is free and open to all. Dr. Voionmaa is Professor of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies at Northeastern University. He will be visiting Spanish classes throughout his visit in addition to the public talk.

Abstract:

On December 18, 2022, 1.5 billion people watched the penalty kicked by Gonzalo Montiel, at Lusali Stadium in Doha, that gave Argentina its third World Cup. Probably, many more heard about it in the following days. Indeed, Qatar’s World Cup was the epitome of global sports entertainment: the world was not only one, but it was also, literally, a globe, a foot-ball. The 2026 USA-Canada Mexico World Cup is expected to surpass those numbers.

Not a long time ago, in 1930, Argentina had played its first final (without so much success: Uruguay won 4 to 2). The Estadio Centenario was packed; perhaps a few thousands listen to it on the radio (we don’t have the exact numbers), nobody watched it on TV (that happened only in 1954, and just for a few Central European countries. Color came in 1970). Many things have changed in football since that evening in Montevideo, in 1930, no doubt. However, if we were able to hear a conversation of a group of friends after a football match in 1930 and in 2025, we would be surprised how similar they are. Like in life –a comparison many times drawn—change and continuity are simultaneously present. Like life, football can be thought and analyzed from many points of view: tactics and strategies on the field, attitudes of fans in the stands, the politics it involves, a never-ending market-oriented paraphernalia, nationalist discourses, philosophical discussions – postmodern takes, existentialist reverberations, post-structuralist analyses, psychoanalytical insights–, and a myriad of cultural and artistic artifacts and productions. Football, soccer, fútbol, calcio, futebol is, as Eduardo Archetti once said, a mirror of our societies (and ourselves), but also a mask that covers and hides who we are and who we want to be.

In these remarks, I will attempt to show, using specific examples, how football has not only created a vast and multilayered imaginary, one in which politics and economics play a key role; but also that it has produced an artistic and poetic corpus that, perhaps, is as attractive as the beautiful game itself.

Leave a Comment Continue Reading →

2025 Modern Languages Film Series Announced

Published
By

Modern Languages at Michigan Tech is proud to present our Spring 2025 Film Series!

The films this year, under the theme “Dystopian Futures” will screen on consecutive Wednesdays at 7pm in Fisher 135, and are free and open to the public.

Still from "We Might As Well Be Dead showing a woman in a security uniform laying on the floor of a cramped apartment. Next to her another woman's head can be seen through the mail slot of a closed door with her hair hanging through.

We Might As Well Be Dead

Screening March 12, 2025

Sinelnikova 2022 | Germany

Security officer Anna lives with her 16-year-old daughter in a remote high-rise on the edge of a forest. The building provides its occupants a safe haven until the caretaker’s dog disappears and irrational fear spreads.

Still from the film showing a gray, dystopian landscape with a small doorway to an elevator shaft in the middle of the frame. A figure in a full-face oxygen mask walks to the left.

Aire: Just Breathe

Screening March 19, 2025

Tonos 2024 | Dominican Republic

In the year 2147, a virus as a result of a Great Chemical War has left all men on the planet sterile, bringing humanity to the brink of extinction. Biologist and scientist Tania tries to inseminate herself to ensure the survival of the human species, assisted by an artificial intelligence system called VIDA. However, everything changes when Azarias appears, a traveler with a dark past and possibly one of the last men on the planet.

An attractive young woman lays in a rectangular black tub filled with black liquid below a large half-circle window with washed-out white light shining through.

The Beast

Screening March 26, 2025

Bonello 2023 | France

In the near future the rise of AI has led to humans being deemed useless because their emotions compromise their decision-making. Gabrielle undergoes a procedure that will purify her and get rid of her emotions, a procedure which involves delving into their past lives.

Please join us for this great lineup of films from around the world!

For more information about Modern Languages minors at Michigan Tech, visit https://www.mtu.edu/humanities/undergraduate/modern-languages/

Leave a Comment Continue Reading →

Faculty Research Highlight: The Big Ride Project

Published
By

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

Continue Reading →

Groundbreaking Documentary ENO at 41 North Film Festival

Published
By
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.

Continue Reading →

Richard Canevez Awarded 2024 REF Seed Grant

Published
By
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!

Leave a Comment Continue Reading →

Hernandez-Ramos Inducted into STC Student Honorary Society

Published
By
Scientific and Technical Communication major Aracely Hernandez-Ramos was inducted into the Society for Technical Communication’s student honorary society Sigma Tau Chi.

Aracely Hernandez-Ramos was inducted into the Society for Technical Communication’s student honorary society Sigma Tau Chi in a ceremony at the society’s annual conference on May 18th. Membership into the society is an honor awarded to students enrolled in a technical communication program who “[…] have a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or above, are exemplary in participation in STC, and demonstrate a potential for significant contribution to the profession. In 2024, only two STC student members were awarded this distinction.”

Hernandez-Ramos is an undergraduate in humanities’ scientific and technical communication program, as well as the president of MTU’s student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. She is also a coach at the Michigan Tech writing center, and can commonly be seen around the department.

Our heartfelt congratulations to Aracely!

Leave a Comment Continue Reading →

Congratulations to Humanities 2024 Graduates!

Published
By
Humanities undergraduates posed with department head Scott Maratto at spring commencement on Saturday. Back row: Scott Maratto, Michael Bunker (CCM), Daniel Ryan (STC), Austin McFarlane (STC), Elsie Burton (STC). Front Row: Charlotte Haanela (English), Karissa Sanders (English), Kara Laramore (English), Cameron Gorelick (English), Aspen Stampfler (English), Maddie Nass (STC), Grace Parsekian (STC), Mindy Pierre (STC).

A total of 21 graduate and undergraduate students crossed the stage on Friday and Saturday at Michigan Tech’s annual spring commencement ceremonies.

18 Undergraduates, one masters, and two PhD students were honored over the weekend for having completed, or nearly completed, their degrees across four humanities programs.

Our 2024 graduates will go on to a wide variety of pursuits, from careers in communications, media, and academia; to graduate study in fields like law & policy, and archival studies; to traveling and studying abroad. We are so proud to see our students representing the diversity a humanities degree has to offer!

The department would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to the following students:

Communication, Culture, and Media: Melissa Dowler, Lyndsay Lagreid, Elijah Poirier, Cole Risko, Ashton Verduin.

English: Cameron Gorelick, Charlotte Haanela, Kara Laramore, Karissa Sanders, Aspen Stampfler.

Scientific and Technical Communication: Michael Bunker, Elsie Burton, Joshua Jongema, Austin McFarlane, Maddie Nass, Grace Parsekian, Mindy Pierre, Daniel Ryan.

Rhetoric, Theory & Culture: Genevieve Delali Antonio (MS), Samantha Quade (PhD), Tori Reeder (PhD).

2024 Commencement Photos

Leave a Comment Continue Reading →