Month: January 2016

February 19, 2016, STEVE PINCUS “The Heart of the Declaration: The Patriots’ Case for Energetic Government”

Storrs Campus
Austin,  Stern Room 217

Steve Pincus will present a talk entitled:

“The Heart of the Declaration: The Patriots’ Case for Energetic Government”

Why did George Washington tell his troops that the Declaration of Independence was a call to defend the British constitution against the British army? To answer this puzzle requires coming to grips with Patriot political ideas as they developed in the British Atlantic world from the 1730s through the 1770s. By restoring British American Patriot discussions to their imperial context it becomes clear that the American Patriots were concerned that George III’s government had done too little rather than too much. In particular the Patriots complained that George III’s government had done too little to promote immigration, support commerce and tradition British North America away from a slave-based economy.

A book by Brendan Kane, Associate Director of the Humanities Institute and Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut, was included by Choice in its list of Outstanding Academic Titles for 2015.

Every year in the January issue, in print and online, Choice publishes a list of Outstanding Academic Titles that were reviewed during the previous calendar year. This prestigious list reflects the best in scholarly titles reviewed by Choice and brings with it the extraordinary recognition of the academic library community.

“Elizabeth I and Ireland” edited by Brendan Kane, University of Connecticut and Valerie McGowan-Doyle, Kent State University, Ohio. Cambridge University Press 2014.

The last generation has seen a veritable revolution in scholarly work on Elizabeth I, on Ireland, and on the colonial aspects of the literary productions that typically served to link the two. It is now commonly accepted that Elizabeth was a much more active and activist figure than an older scholarship allowed. Gaelic elites are acknowledged to have had close interactions with the crown and continental powers; Ireland itself has been shown to have occupied a greater place in Tudor political calculations than previously thought. Literary masterpieces of the age are recognised for their imperial and colonial entanglements. Elizabeth I and Ireland is the first collection fully to connect these recent scholarly advances. Bringing together Irish and English historians, and literary scholars of both vernacular languages, this is the first sustained consideration of the roles played by Elizabeth and by the Irish in shaping relations between the realms.

‘The first sustained study of both Elizabeth I’s relationship to the conquest of Ireland and Irish views of Elizabeth I’.

‘Coordinates the study of early modern Irish- and English-language sources around a common theme for the first time’.

‘The multidisciplinary approach allows readers to experience some of the intellectual, social and linguistic richness of the period’.

 

February 4, 2016. Professor Susan Haack, “Credulity and Circumspection: Epistemological Character and the Ethics of Belief “


Credulity and Circumspection: Epistemological Character and the Ethics of Belief
.
Professor Susan Haack, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law at the University of Miami

 

 
Sponsored by The Humanities Institute’s Public Discourse Project and the Department of Philosophy