Humanities News, Features, and Other Updates

What’s it like to create solutions for people you won’t know in your lifetime? This wicked problem is faced by designers, artists, engineers, software developers, research scientists, information architects, content strategists—creatives of all sorts.

Jonathon Colman, product usability and lead content strategist at Facebook, offers some answers in his talk, “Wicked Ambiguity,” at 7 p.m. Monday (Sept. 18) in Walker 134.

In addition to his primary responsibilities at Facebook, Colman helps to recruit and place college interns. A Michigan Tech alumnus, Colman earned his BS in scientific and technical communication in 1997. Before joining Facebook in 2013, he worked in digital marketing and search engine optimization for REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) and the Nature Conservancy.

This even is sponsored by the Department of Humanities.

Elizabeth Flynn, professor Emerita (HU), recently published a chapter, “Feminist Perspectives on Postcolonial Rhetorical Practices: Spivak’s Cosmopolitan Erudition and Nazer’s Surveilled Silence,” in Rhetoric and Writing Studies in the New Century: Historiography, Pedagogy, and Politics edited by Cheryl Glenn and Roxanne Mountford (Southern Illinois University Press, 230-254).

The Café Français is resuming its activities from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays in Walker 120C (HDMZ) every week, and is open to any level of French-speaker.

There will be light refreshments and snacks provided.
Contact Dany Jacob with any questions.

The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics, edited by L. Syd M Johnson (HU) and Karen S. Rommelfanger (Emory University) has been published by Routledge. The handbook offers an informed view of how the brain sciences are being used to approach, understand and reinvigorate traditional philosophical questions, as well as how those questions, with the grounding influence of neuroscience, are being revisited beyond clinical and research domains.

Click here for more information.

A visit and lecture by author Daniel Tammet is the one highlights of Orientation Week at Michigan Technological University. Tammet, author of the bestselling “Born on a Blue Day” will speak to students as part of the Reading As Inquiry program.

Now in its 14th year, Reading As Inquiry asks first year students to read a specific book. Tomorrow, students will attend an address by the author and engage in a discussion with fellow students and a staff facilitator. “Born on a Blue Day,” this year’s required reading, is a memoir of Tammet’s life with Asperger syndrome and savant syndrome and was named “Best Book for Young Adults” in 2008 by the American Library Association.

Possessing an incredible memory and aptitude for math and numbers, Tammet holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits and has the ability to learn languages in short periods of time.

Robert Johnson, professor of rhetoric, composition and technical communication in Tech’s Humanities department, explained why “Born on a Blue Day” was chosen. “The program is called ‘Reading as Inquiry,’ so we look for books that will inspire conversation,” Johnson says. He says there’s more to choosing the summer reading than whether it’s a good book. “We also have to consider their qualities of a public speaker, their availability during Orientation Week and, frankly, the cost of getting them here.”

L. Syd M Johnson (HU) presented “Creating Transgenic Pigs as Organ Donors: A High-tech Solution to a Low-tech Problem?” at the 10th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences, in Seattle, WA on Aug. 21. She co-chaired the conference session “Ethical Considerations for New Technologies Using Animals.”

L. Syd M Johnson (HU) was interviewed by Big Think in “CRISPR-Cleaned Piglets Have Been Cloned for Organ Donation,” on the ethics of research that advances the potential to use genetically modified pigs to grow human organs for transplantation. See here.

Michigan Tech’s Cyndi Perkins (UMC) and M. Bartley Seigel (HU) are among the writers scheduled to be on hand during the 2017 Upper Peninsula Authors Book Signings—on the porch at Grandpa’s Barn Books in Copper Harbor.

The book signing is in conjunction with Copper Harbor’s Art in the Park from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 19-20). Grandpa’s Barn is owned by Lloyd Westcoat (GLRC). Seigel, one of the contributors to “And Here:100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017,” will be on the porch from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday.

Perkins will sign copies of her novel “More Than You Think You Know,” from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday. A total of 17 writers and artists will be on the porch during the two days.

Grandpa’s Barn is located behind Copper Harbor’s one-room school and is adjacent to the Grant Township Park.