Humanities News, Features, and Other Updates

Patty Sotirin to Give Talk on Copper Country Mothers

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World War One in the Copper Country logoA talk on Copper Country Mothers during World War I by Patty Sotirin will take place tonight (Nov. 6) at the Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the talk begins at 6:15. Refreshments will be served. This event is part of World War I & the Copper Country.

Sotirin’s talk explains how mothers of sons in military service were critical figures in the Copper Country’s participation in the Great War. The war was a personal challenge for mothers, but made them public figures as well. Highlighting several local mothers whose boys went to war, Sotirin sketches what that experience was like for them based on letters, poems and newspaper stories. Beyond their personal pride and trials, the patriotic citizen mother ready to sacrifice her children for the nation emerged as a public focus for recruitment appeals, servicemen support and national grieving.

Special attention is given to the creation of the Gold Star Mothers and their sojourn at national expense to visit their boys’ graves overseas. Given women’s campaign for the vote and the importance of ethnic identity in the Copper Country, the experiences of mothers here highlight some of the tensions among motherhood, nationalism and citizenship that are still part of our collective story of motherhood and war.

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Modern Languages Holiday Celebration Date Announced

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Earth globes as Christmas ornamentsJoin Modern Languages faculty and students from 5 to 6 p.m. Wednesday (Nov. 28) in Walker 134 for a unique celebration of French, German and Spanish holiday traditions. Appearing live will be the French Canadian group, Maple Sugar Folk, as well as Sue Ellen Kingsley and Friends.

Learn holiday songs in each language for the sing-along and listen to traditional holiday music. Play Christmas Bingo and enjoy a variety of holiday treats from different cultures. No prior language experience required. Families are welcome.

For more information, contact Karin Schlenker.

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Award-winning Fiction Writer Diane Cook to Read Tuesday

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Diane CookAward-winning fiction writer Diane Cook will give a reading from her work from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday (Nov. 6) in ME-EM 112.

Cook is the author of the story collection Man V. Nature, and was formerly a producer for the public radio show This American Life. Man V. Nature was a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award, Believer Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.

Cook’s stories have appeared in Harper’s, Tin House, Granta and elsewhere and have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. Cook is the recipient of a 2016 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A Michigan native, she has served as a National Park volunteer on Isle Royale.

The reading is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow, with books available for purchase at the door.

This event is sponsored by the English Program, Department of Humanities and the Visiting Professor Lecturer/Scholar Series (VPLSS), which is funded by a grant to the Provost’s Office from the State of Michigan’s King-Chavez-Parks Initiative.

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Nancy Henaku Publishes in African Journal of Rhetoric

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Nancy HenakuNancy Henaku, Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture PhD candidate, has published a paper in the African Journal of Rhetoric titled “Rhetoric, Power and Political Crisis: A Rhetorical Discourse Analysis of Ghana’s 2012 Election Petition”.

Henaku argues that “courtroom discourse during Ghana’s 2012 election petition was not meant to just persuade the panel of judges and that power framed and determined what was significant in the courtroom interactions.”

Discursive construction of power during cross-examinations is complicated by the fusion of ‘legal’ and ‘political’ power which impacts the production of the three modes of proof (ethos, pathos and logos) and ultimately, determines the outcome of the case itself. —Nancy Henaku, RTC PhD candidate

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William De Herder Publishes Paper on Multiliteracies Center

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William De HerderWilliam De Herder, Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture PhD student, has published a paper in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal in which he discusses Michigan Tech’s own Mulitliteracies Center. The paper is titled “Composing the Center: History, Networks, Design and Writing Center Work.”

I hope that other centers might learn from our experience and consider deploying similar strategies to question and reflect on how their work can accommodate new technological realities and pursue social projects. —William De Herder

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Stephanie Carpenter Gives Talk and Reading at Flint Literary Festival

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Stephanie CarpenterStephanie Carpenter, senior lecturer in creative writing and literature, was a featured reader at the second annual Flint Literary Festival held on October 27.

Carpenter gave a talk called “Re-creating History,” reading from her own fiction and discussing how creative writers use objects and documents to imagine or uncover stories at the margins of the historical record.

Mona Hanna-Attisha and Journalist Anna Clark headlined the festival, reading from their works about the ongoing Flint water crisis.

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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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Free Family Bazaar Sunday

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Marching band from world war oneThe “World War I and the Copper Country” project (WW1CC) is hosting a family bazaar from 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 28) at the Dee Stadium Ballroom. This is free and open to the public. The event is a re-enactment of a 1917 “war relief bazaar” featuring live musical performances, activity booths, cake walks and dancing.

Performers include the Chassell Friends of Fashion modeling World War I-era attire, Noteworthy, 1918 Singers, Chassell Centennial Chorus, jazz by Dave Bezotte and Michigan Tech’s Superior Wind Symphony.

Visitors are invited to stroll the ballroom floor to see historical booths with war-related activities such as food conservation and victory gardening, military recruitment and war propaganda, scrapbooking, Red Cross bandage rolling, knitting and sewing. Have your picture taken in an old-time photo booth with a Copper Country soldier who served in the Great War.

“World War I and the Copper Country” is a collaboration between Michigan Tech, Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw and Finlandia University, and is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council.

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STEM Docs at the 41 North Film Festival

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41 North Film Festival Logo, 41 N Film Festival Nov. 1-4 2018

This year, the 41 North Film Festival will screen five films delving into history, issues and accomplishments relating to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) innovation.

The featured films look at high school students competing for an international prize (“Science Fair”), an early Silicon Valley startup (“General Magic“), internet censorship (“The Cleaners”), the first photograph of the moon taken from space (“Earthrise”) and the first solar-powered flight around the world (“Point of No Return”). Following the showing of “Science Fair” at 7 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 1) there will be a discussion featuring a panel of STEM educators.

Documentaries can bring important context and perspective to our understanding of STEM fields and their impact on the world. The films this year tell both celebratory and cautionary tales that should be both inspiring and thought provoking. —Erin Smith, Festival Director

The festival runs Thursday through Sunday, Nov. 1–4 at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. Times and information for specific films and events can be found on the festival website. As always, the festival is free and open to the public.

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Frankenstein at 200: Upcoming Roundtable Discussion of Post Humanism

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Frankenstein at 200 Roundtable Discussion event poster

Join us from 4 to 5 p.m. Wednesday (Oct. 24), in Rekhi Hall 101 for a roundtable discussion on posthumanism.

In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” or “The Modern Prometheus,” characters ask one another and the novel’s readers what it is to be human: “Do you understand this feeling?” “Was [humanity] at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?” and “The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty.”

Echoing Prometheus, Hamlet and Faust, these characters contemplate and unsettle the boundaries between the human and the inhuman, between the automaton, the monstrous and the machine; between the godly and the ungodly, between what is natural and unnatural.

To continue our celebration of the 200-year publication anniversary of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” we are hosting a roundtable discussion about posthumanism. What does it mean to live in a time of increasingly sophisticated embodiments of artificial intelligence, dehumanizing economies, diminishing resources and environmental catastrophes?

To focus our discussion we’ll be reading Andy Mousley’s short article, The Posthuman, which speaks to the depiction of posthuman figures and realities in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Everyone is welcome. Contact Dana Van Kooy for a copy of the article.

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