Humanities News, Features, and Other Updates

41 North Film Festival Program Now Online

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41 North Film Festival Logo, 41 N Film Festival Nov. 1-4 2018This year’s 41 North Film Festival will be held November 1-4 in the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. The complete program is now online. The festival will feature events with several filmmakers, including Houghton native Heather Courtney (Where Soldiers Come From) who will be here with her new film, The Unafraid.

There will be panels on rural healthcare, STEM education, mining history, and a special work-in-progress screening of “Copperdog” (working title) about women mushers in our own Copperdog 150. The festival is free and open to the public. If you are not a student, please reserve a free ticket. Only one ticket needed for the entire event. Students should bring their Michigan Tech ID.

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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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RTC Colloquium: A Sixth Great Lake Beneath Our Feet

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Poster for the Fall 2018 RTC ColloquiumThe Department of Humanities is pleased to announce the first Rhetoric, Theory and Culture Colloquium of the semester titled A Sixth Great Lake Beneath Our Feet. Professor M. Bartley Seigel will read poetry from his current project and will be joined by students from his graduate seminar in poetics: Edzordzi Agbozo & Xena Cortez. Seigel is the author of the poetry collection, This Is What They Say, (Typecast Publishing, 2013).

Please join us on Wednesday, October 10 at 12 p.m. (noon) in the Rozsa Center Choral Room 120.

 

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Cumbria Faculty-Led Study Abroad Information Session

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Street scene in EdinburghHumanities professor Dana Van Kooy, along with Carl Blair (SS), and Libby Meyer (VPA) will host an information session for Cumbria 2019, a faculty-led study abroad program in northern England and southern Scotland: summer, Track B. The session will take place from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday (Oct. 10) in Fisher 130.

We welcome students from across campus. This program offers students an opportunity for foreign travel and for fulfilling HASS (humanities, arts and social sciences) and other General Education requirements in the fields of history, literature, music and archaeology. This session will provide students with information about course offerings, field trips, the application process, costs and scholarships.

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Perú Faculty-Led Study Abroad Information Session

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People standing in front of a large temple on a city street in Lima, PeruCarlos M. Amador will host an information session for the 2019 Lima, Perú Faculty-Led Study Abroad—Summer Track B. The session will take place from 5 to 6 p.m. today (Oct. 4) in the Walker Arts and Humanities HDMZ room 120A.

Students interested in study abroad, international minors and foreign travel are welcome to attend this meeting. Amador has led multiple study abroad trips in both Spanish and English. Information on scholarships, course offerings, pricing and international travel will be presented.

Light refreshments will be served. Forward any questions to Amador.

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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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Armistice and Aftermath Symposium

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World War One in the Copper Country logoThe WWI Armistice and Aftermath Symposium is a two-day event, Friday and Saturday (Sept. 28 and 29) that includes presentations, a film and concert, most on the Michigan Tech campus.

Armistice Day 2018 marks the centenary end of World War I. This symposium explores the conditions and impacts of the Great War as experienced during and afterward.

All events are open to the public and admission is free. The full program is available online. A box supper on Friday and a buffet lunch on Saturday are available for $5 and must be reserved in advance by no later than noon Wednesday (Sept. 26).

Friday’s events:

  • 4-5 p.m.: Sue Collins “Local Theaters, Propaganda and WWI.” Orpheum Theater, Hancock
  • 6-7 p.m.: Superior Wind Symphony, “Europe, America, and the World: An Outdoor Concert.” On Walker lawn if weather permits; otherwise McArdle Theatre
  • 7:30-8:30 p.m.: John Morrow Jr. (University of Georgia), “African American Experience in WWI and Aftermath.” Rozsa Lobby

Saturday’s events:

  • 8:45 a.m.: Symposium Committee Welcome, MUB Ballroom
  • 9-11:15 a.m.: Symposium Panels (see full program online)
  • 12-1 p.m.: Lynn Dumenil (Occidental College), “Women and the Great War.” MUB Ballroom
  • 1:15-3:45 p.m.: Symposium Panels
  • 7:30-9 p.m.: “Copper Country at the Silver Screen in 1918,” Rozsa Theater. A silent film program featuring a 1918 Charlie Chaplin film, film shorts, newsreel, and Four Minute-Man performance; music performed by Jay Warren, Chicago’s foremost Photoplay organist.
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