Month: September 2016

Today: Micki McElya Book Presentation, at the UConn Barnes & Noble at Storrs Center on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 5:30 p.m

MickiUConn History Professor Micki McElya presents her new book, The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery

at the UConn Barnes & Noble at Storrs Center on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 5:30 p.m.

Arlington National Cemetery is America’s most sacred shrine, a destination for four million visitors who each year tour its grounds and honor those buried there. For many, Arlington’s symbolic importance places it beyond politics. Yet as Micki McElya shows, no site in the United States plays a more political role in shaping national identity.

Arlington commemorates sacrifices made in the nation’s wars and armed conflicts. Yet it has always been a place of struggle over the boundaries of citizenship and the meaning of honor and love of country. A plantation built by slave labor overlooking Washington, D.C., Arlington was occupied by Union forces early in the Civil War. A portion was designated a federal cemetery in 1864. A camp for the formerly enslaved, Freedman’s Village, had already been established there in 1863, and remained for three decades.

The cemetery was seen primarily as a memorial to the white Civil War dead until its most famous monument was erected in 1921: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, symbolizing universal military sacrifice through the interment of a single World War I Unknown. As a century of wars abroad secured Arlington’s centrality in the American imagination and more Unknowns joined the first at the tomb, inclusion within its gates became a prerequisite for broader claims to national belonging. In revealing how Arlington encompasses the most inspiring and the most shameful aspects of American history, McElya enriches the story of this landscape, demonstrating that remembering the past and reckoning with it must go hand in hand.

Micki McElya is Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut.

For more information, contact: UConn Bookstore at 860-486-8525

http://dailydigest.uconn.edu/publicEmailSingleStoryView.php?id=62892&cid=24&iid=2046

“Humility In Politics” Event Kicks Off UConn’s Public Discourse Research Project

Humility and vulnerability are no longer values that are rewarded in the political arena, and it’s up to individuals, and their relationships, to begin a sea change that could “trickle up” into political leadership.

That was the message Tuesday evening as prominent political figures, journalists, educators, academics and nonprofit leaders came together for a public forum, titled “Humility in Politics,” in Washington, D.C.

Panelists and moderators from the Humility in Politics forum at the Folger Shakespeare Theater was held on Tuesday, September 20, 2016 in Washington, DC Photos by GH Studios. © Garrett Hubbard 2016

The event, sponsored by UConn’s Humanities Institute and a $5.75 million investment in UConn by the John Templeton Foundation, kicked off a three-year research initiative, aptly named The Humility and Conviction in Public Life project.

The project aims to investigate how intellectual humility – through being aware of our own innate biases and responses to new evidence – can overcome current political divisiveness.

“This is an unprecedented attempt to apply humanities and social science research to solve problems in the political sphere,” said Michael Lynch, professor of philosophy and director of the Humanities Institute, in his opening remarks.

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Thursday, September 22, 2016, 2016 Presidential Race – featuring UConn President Susan Herbst and distinguished faculty, our Director Michael Lynch will be one of the panelists

Thursday, September 22, 2016

5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Hartford Public Library
500 Main Street
Hartford, CT

It’s finally upon us!  The Presidential election we’ve been digesting and debating for over a year is ready to commence and there’s still so much to talk about.  Please join UConn President Susan Herbst, along with faculty panelists Paul Herrnson, Micki McElya, and Michael P. Lynch for a discussion and question and answer session about the upcoming election. (For information on our panelists, please click more info next to their names in the left column)

The event will begin at 5 p.m. with refreshments and networking. At 5:30 p.m.the formal program will open.

To RSVP online for this event, please click “New Registration” in the top left-hand corner of the page.  All are welcome! We look forward to seeing you there.

This event is a collaboration of the Metro-Hartford Alliance and the University of Connecticut.

Questions? Please contact University Events & Conference Services at rsvp@uconn.edu or by calling (860) 486-1038.

https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=197703&

Humanities Institute/Folger Library “Transcribathon”, September 14th, 10 am – 4 pm

We invite you to take part in the Humanities Institute-Folger Library “Transcribathon,” to be held

Wednesday,  September 14th, 10 am – 4 pm in the Great Hall of the Alumni Center.

You’ve seen the First Folio, now try and read handwriting from Shakespeare’s time!

The Transcribathon is an event connected with the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Early Modern Manuscripts Online project, which is an effort to transcribe and digitize hand written documents from the Age of Shakespeare. [http://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Early_Modern_Manuscripts_Online_(EMMO)] Staff from the Folger will be on site to lead the event. Participants will transcribe and encode manuscripts, individually or in small groups. There will be food (lunch and pizza at the end of the day), fun, entertaining manuscripts, transcription sprints, prizes, and an easy-to-use online transcription platform called Dromio. UConn will be working on the seventeenth-century diary of the fascinating Rev. John Ward, who in addition to his church duties was a learned humanist and active in medical and scientific circles. Learn to read the original documents of the English Renaissance, and be a part of history by getting your name on the completed edition. Please join us, and encourage your students (classes welcome) and colleagues. The more the merrier!

For more information, contact: Brendan Kane at brendan.kane@uconn.edu.

Blog: UConn Early Modern Studies Working Group

We are pleased to announce the launch of the UConn Early Modern Studies Working Group, a program designed to foster community and collaboration among scholars and students of the early modern period. The Working Group will feature lectures and works-in-progress talks by UConn scholars and outside guest speakers, as well as other events related to early modern studies. The series is funded by the Humanities Institute in an effort to build upon the momentum created by UConn’s recent association with the Folger Shakespeare Library.

It is our hope that this program will have broad interdisciplinary appeal to anyone interested in the early modern period, including undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. We will update this blog with news on upcoming events.

Sincerely,
Hilary Bogert-Winkler, Ph.D. candidate, History
George Moore, Ph.D. candidate, English

UCHI director Michael Lynch, The “neuromedia” future, in meaningoflife.tv. Michael imagines a world where Google is built into our brains.

mol-2016-08-16-wright-lynch

 

 

Check out the ‘Brain Bytes: DHMS Weekly Blog’ by Anke Finger on the new Digital Humanities and Media Studies website

The Humanities Institute’s new area of Digital Humanities and Media Studies (DHMS), under the directorship of Anke Finger (LCL), seeks to engage the UConn community in debates, explorations, and exchange on all aspects related to the Digital Humanities and Media Studies.

http://dhmediastudies.uconn.edu/