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Political Theory Workshop to Host Tacuma Peters at UCHI

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Tacuma Peters (Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley) is the first speaker of this year’s Political Theory Workshop (PTW). His talk is entitled “Black Caribs, Indigeneity, and Resistance in Eighteenth Century St. Vincent.” UConn Philosophy Ph.D. Candidate Darian Spearman will serve as the event discussant. PTW is co-sponsored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (UCHI). Peters’ talk is also co-sponsored by the REP Graduate Certificate Program.

PTW event flyer

The Schedule of UCHI Fellows Talks for 2019–2020

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As is customary, every year each of our resident fellows delivers a talk on their ongoing research while at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute. These talks are open to the public and take place at UCHI at the Homer Babbidge Library, 4th Floor. More details will be disseminated on social media prior to each talk.

Giving

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Support the Humanities Institute

The Humanities Institute greatly appreciates your support.

Donations may be used for:

  • research fellowships
  • graduate dissertation fellowships
  • study groups
  • conferences
  • special initiatives
UCHI

As UConn’s premier institute for research in the humanities, fellowships and lectures are highly competitive and awarded only to outstanding projects.
Private support helps sustain excellence across the humanities.

Participation in the events of the Institute is always welcome.

To stay informed about the programs and events of the Institute, please subscribe to our listserv  or email us at uchi@uconn.edu

A gift to the Humanities Institute may be given in several ways: to our existing fund , through the creation of a new fund to support current activities,
or through an endowment to support programs in the future.

For more information about giving to the Humanities Institute contact the Director of the Institute, Michael P. Lynch at mylynch@uconn.edu or (860) 486-9057.

Together Event

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When: 9:00AM – 12:00PM

What: Initiative on Campus Dialogues “Office Hours”

Where: Humanities Institute Seminar Room, Babbidge Library, 4th Floor

Organizers: Initiative on Campus Dialogues

Interested to offer a dialogue on confronting racism in your classroom, but wish to know a little more about process, possibilities and potential pitfalls? Drop in on the Humanities Institute’s Initiative on Campus Dialogues (ICD) “office hours” where participants in ICD will be available to walk through different dialogic approaches, share their experiences discussing difficult questions, workshop strategies for running a structured conversation in the classroom, and generally do what they might to answer your questions. Those confirmed for the day include the following:

  • Hilary Bogert-Winkler (PhD Candidate, History; ICD)
  • Sian Charles-Harris (PhD Candidate, NEAG; ICD Fellow)
  • Gina Devivo-Brassaw (Associate Director for Community Outreach Programs, Services, and Initiatives)
  • Richard Frieder (ICD Fellow)
  • Brendan Kane (History; ICD)
  • Cynthia Melendez (PhD Candidate, International Studies-Latino Studies)
  • Dana Miranda (PhD Candidate, Philosophy; ICD)

 

When: 7:00PM – 8:45PM

What: Confronting Racism Together: A Model Dialogue

Where: Dodd Center, Konover Auditorium

Organizers: Brendan Kane, Humanities Institute; Glenn Mitoma, Dodd Center

Description:  Join UConn leaders as they take part in a public dialogue exploring their experiences with racism. Dialogue is one of the most powerful tools we have in confronting racism. But actual dialogue – as opposed to debate, deliberation or conversation – rarely occurs. In part that is because it can be challenging: the bravery it takes to speak honestly and unscripted, and the discipline to listen with empathy and be present, can be difficult in a world so crowded with stimulus and distraction.  Confronting racism, however, requires such bravery and discipline, such honesty and presence. It also needs people who through their public truth-telling can inspire others to truly dialogue over racism. Please join us as members of our community take part in this important conversation, facilitated by Valeriano Ramos of Everyday Democracy. Participants are drawn from across the University:

  • Sulin Ba (Associate Dean, School of Business)
  • Kazem Kazerounian (Dean, School of Engineering)
  • Ian McGregor (PhD Candidate; Curriculum and Instruction, NEAG)
  • Joelle Murchison (Chief Diversity Officer)
  • Mark Overmyer-Velazquez (Director, UConn Hartford Campus)
  • Jeremy Teitelbaum (Provost)
  • Irma Valverde (USG President)

https://together.uconn.edu/

 

The UCONN Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research on Women and Girls of Color and The Humanities Institute

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The UCONN Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research on Women and Girls of Color (“The Collaborative”) is a part of the national Collaborative, comprising over 50 institutions and universities, with Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry and the Anna Julia Cooper Center at Wake Forest University, serving at its helm. These institutions and universities are signatories to a national commitment to support research on women and girls of color. UCONN committed to this effort as early as November 2015, and 2016-2017 served as the inaugural year of full programming dedicated to promoting research and campus and community engagement of research and discourses on women and girls of color.

Part of UCONN’s commitment included funding two post-doctoral fellowships and several research projects on women and girls of color, related to environment and public health and STEM and pipeline issues. (See the research abstracts, here). In an effort for The Collaborative to build a brain trust committed to sorting through research topics, discourses, and contemporary issues affecting women of color, as they relate to the two themes, it co-sponsored research workshops with the Humanities Institute.

The Collaborative also joined with UCHI in co-sponsorship of its research workshops to promote The Collaborative’s Brain Trust(s) for its Post-Doctoral Fellows, Research Fellows, and contributing scholars at the University of Connecticut. The Humanities Institute has contributed to these Research Workshops by hosting a welcoming, supportive, and enriching intellectual space to flesh out ideas and refine multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research on women of color.

UCHI looks forward to continued work with the Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research on Women and Girls of Color!

 

Self-Evident Truths: Contesting Equal Rights from the Revolution to the Civil War

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Richard Brown, distinguished professor emeritus of history, on Jan. 16, 2014. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)
Richard Brown, distinguished professor emeritus of history, on Jan. 16, 2014. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

- America’s Ongoing Struggle for Equal Rights -

UConn Today  by - Kenneth Best - UConn Communications

The ideal of equal rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence was at the core of the founding of the United States on July 4, 1776. Yet the young nation struggled with every form of social inequality, despite the declaration that “all men are created equal.” In a new book, “Self-Evident Truths: Contesting Equal Rights from the Revolution to the Civil War” (Yale University Press 2017), Richard D. Brown, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus and Founding Director of the Humanities Institute , traces how the ideal was tested over issues of race and ethnicity, religious freedom, gender and social class, voting rights, and citizenship. He spoke with UConn Today about how some of these issues continue to evolve.

Read More >

 
 Brown_newbookBook Information

Self-Evident Truths: Contesting Equal Rights from the Revolution to the Civil War

 A detailed and compelling examination of how the early Republic struggled with the idea that “all men are created equal”.
How did Americans in the generations following the Declaration of Independence translate its lofty ideals into practice? In this broadly synthetic work, distinguished historian Richard Brown shows that despite its founding statement that “all men are created equal,” the early Republic struggled with every form of social inequality. While people paid homage to the ideal of equal rights, this ideal came up against entrenched social and political practices and beliefs.Brown illustrates how the ideal was tested in struggles over race and ethnicity, religious freedom, gender and social class, voting rights and citizenship. He shows how high principles fared in criminal trials and divorce cases when minorities, women, and people from different social classes faced judgment. This book offers a much-needed exploration of the ways revolutionary political ideas penetrated popular thinking and everyday practice.
 

Richard D. Brown is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, and the Founding Director of the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut. His previous books include Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700–1865;The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in Early America, 1650-1870; and the coauthored microhistory The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest, and Justice in Early America.

New Book by UCHI Associate Director Alexis L. Boylan.

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"Six men, all artists, find their way to New York City at the turn-of-the-twentieth century and find friendship and love. They are also crushed emotionally and creatively by capitalism."

Arriving in New York City in the first decade of the twentieth century, six painters-Robert Henri, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, Glackens, George Luks, and George Bellows, subsequently known as the Ashcan Circle-faced a visual culture that depicted the urban man as a diseased body under assault. Ashcan artists countered this narrative, manipulating the bodies of construction workers, tramps, entertainers, and office workers to stand in visual opposition to popular, political, and commercial cultures. They did so by repeatedly positioning white male bodies as having no cleverness, no moral authority, no style, and no particular charisma, crafting with consistency an unspectacular man. This was an attempt, both radical and deeply insidious, to make the white male body stand outside visual systems of knowledge, to resist the disciplining powers of commercial capitalism, and to simply be with no justification or rationale. Ashcan Art, Whiteness, and the Unspectacular Man maps how Ashcan artists reconfigured urban masculinity for national audiences and reimagined the possibility and privilege of the unremarkable white, male body thus shaping dialogues about modernity, gender, and race that shifted visual culture in the United States. -
 
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The winner of the inaugural Sharon Harris Book Award is Associate Professor Micki McElya for her 2016 book,

The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery.

The book award committee, chaired by Professor Peter Baldwin and including Professors Natalie Munro, Chris Vials, Janet Pritchard, and Rosa Chinchilla said this about their selection:

The Sharon Harris book award honors not only the legacy of Dr. Sharon Harris, but also the legacy of the humanities in general by recognizing a book that "demonstrates scholarly depth and intellectual acuity and highlights the importance of humanities scholarship." Dr. Micki McElya’s book The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery does all of this and more. The book traces the history of Arlington National Cemetery from a plantation worked by slaves to a symbol of national honor and pride. Its finely detailed early chapters engage the social history of slavery, and the conflicting understandings of race and gender during and after the Civil War.  The story proceeds to explore the use of the cemetery as a site where ideas of nationhood, citizenship, and inclusivity were worked out in the twentieth century. Clearly written, meticulously researched, and keenly attuned to significant social contradictions, The Politics of Mourning tells a story of national importance that will engage the interest of general readers as well as scholars. Thus, it serves to remind the public of the value of humanities scholarship in American life.

Harvard’s book page: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737242

Dr. Micki McElya was a finalist:

UConn Humanities Institute announces 2017-18 Fellowship Awards

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The University of Connecticut Humanities Institute is pleased to announce its UConn Residential Faculty and Dissertation Fellowship awards for 2017-18

Distinguished Visiting Fellow
JILL LEPORE

Visiting Scholars:

  • Deirdre Bair (English & Comparative Literature) – “Bio/Memoir: The Accidental Biographer”
  • Rebecca Gould (Comparative Literature, Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies) – “Narrating Catastrophe: Forced Migration from Colonialism to Postcoloniality in the Caucasus”

UConn Faculty Scholars              

  • Eleni Coundouriotis (English) – “The Hospital and the State: Readings in Anglophone Fiction”
  • Ruth Glasser (Urban Studies/History) – “Brass City, Grass Roots: The Persistence of Farming in Industrial Waterbury, CT, 1870-1980”
  • Kenneth Gouwens (History) – “A Translation of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia of Literati”
  • Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar (History) – “Becoming Atlanta; Political Power, Progress in the Capital of the New South”
  • Nancy Shoemaker (History) – “A History of Soap: Oils, Chemistry, and the Rise of the Global Composite”
  • Harry van der Hulst (Linguistics) – “It Means What you See (But You Have to Look for It)”

UConn Dissertation Scholars:

  • Jorell Meléndez-Badillo (History) – “The Lettered Barriada: Puerto Rican Workers’ Intellectual Community, 1897-1933”
  • Sarah Berry (English – Draper Fellowship) – “The Politics of Voice in Twentieth-Century Poetic Drama”
  • Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco (Philosophy) – “Action-Guidance in Complicated Cases of Suffering”
  • Laura Wright (English – Draper Fellowship) – “Prizing Difference: PEN Awards and Multiculturalist Politics in American Fiction”