NEW DATE: Fellowships and Grants Virtual Retreat

Posted on November 15, 2023December 5, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

If you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact us at uchi@uconn.edu or by phone (860) 486-9057. We can request ASL interpreting, computer-assisted real time transcription, and other accommodations offered by the Center for Students with Disabilities.

The Faculty Success Initiative presents:

Fellowships and Grants Virtual Retreat

December 15, 2023, 2:00pm
Live • Online • Registration required

Take a break from grading and get your fellowship/grant applications in shape for winter deadlines!

Please join us for a collective writing retreat dedicated to helping faculty and graduate students who are planning to apply for fellowships and grants this winter.

The event will begin with a brief introduction to resources that can aid you in researching opportunities and preparing materials.

We will then have two brief (25 minute) writing sprints, with one 20 minute breakout session in which people can discuss their projects and ask questions.

Fellow’s Talk: Jordan T. Camp on the Geography of Fascism

Posted on November 3, 2023November 6, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

Southern Questions: W.E.B. Du Bois, Antonio Gramsci, and the Geography of Fascism

Jordan T. Camp (Associate Professor, American Studies, Trinity College)

with a response by Victor Zatsepine (History, UConn)

Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

In this talk, Jordan T. Camp establishes a link between W.E.B. Du Bois and Antonio Gramsci through their respective approaches to the “southern question.” Drawing on Du Bois’ insights about the overthrow of Reconstruction and fascism in the United States and Antonio Gramsci’s writing about the emergence of fascism in post-World War I Italy, Camp traces an alternative geography of fascism and an alternate trajectory of anti-fascist political theory. He demonstrates how both theorists deployed symbolic, geographic, and ideological representations of “the South” in their writings. He further illuminates how they both treated the “southern question” relationally and illustrate the need for comparisons between racist and fascist nationalisms in different historical-geographical contexts. In linking Du Bois and Gramsci, Camp illustrates their ongoing relevance for understanding reactionary populist appeals to racism, nationalism, and xenophobia. In doing so, he suggests how their writing can be “translated” in order to confront the southern question in our own time.

Jordan T. Camp is an Associate Professor of American Studies and founding Co-Director of the Social Justice Institute at Trinity College, and a Visiting Fellow in the UConn Humanities Institute. He is the author of Incarcerating the Crisis: Freedom Struggles and the Rise of the Neoliberal State (University of California Press, 2016); co-editor (with Christina Heatherton) of Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter (Verso, 2016); and co-editor (with Laura Pulido) of the late Clyde Woods’ Development Drowned and Reborn: The Blues and Bourbon Restorations in Post-Katrina New Orleans (University of Georgia Press, 2017). He is the co-host and co-producer of the Conjuncture podcast and web series. He is currently working on a new book entitled, The Southern Question.

Victor Zatsepine is an associate professor appointed jointly to the Department of History and the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute at UConn. His research is focused on the history of modern China, the Russian Far East, and Northeast Asian frontier lands. He embraces transnational and trans-regional approaches to examine the movement of people, ideas, and goods across borders. After the publication of Beyond the Amur: Frontier Encounters Between China and Russia, 1850–1930 (UBC Press, 2017), he has continued research on East Asian frontiers, regionalism, border towns, the Chinese and Russian diaspora, migration and Western Imperialism. Over the past decade he has presented his research at major international conferences and workshops and in published articles.

Access note

If you require accommodation to attend this event, please contact us at uchi@uconn.edu or by phone (860) 486-9057. We can request ASL interpretation, computer-assisted real time transcription, and other accommodations offered by the Center for Students with Disabilities.

Applying to Graduate School

Posted on October 30, 2023November 9, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

Applying to Graduate School

with David Richards (Human Rights, UConn)
Victoria Ford Smith (English, UConn)
and Lauren Terbush (School of Law, UConn)

November 10, 2023, 2:00pm
Live • Online • Registration required

Thinking about graduate study in the humanities or social sciences? Come learn from faculty who make the decisions about admitting students into graduate programs in English, Human Rights, and the Law School about what they look for in applicants, and what mistakes you should avoid. There will be ample time for questions.

This is an Honors Event. Categories: Career, Professional, & Personal Development.
#UHLevent10662

David Richards is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Human Rights, as well as Associate Professor of Political Science, at the University of Connecticut.

Victoria Ford Smith is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in English at the University of Connecticut.

Lauren Terbush is Director of Admissions at the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Fellow’s Talk: Ana María Díaz-Marcos on Ernestina G. Fleischman

Posted on October 27, 2023October 30, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

Recovering Ernestina G. Fleischman’s Life and Work

Ana María Díaz-Marcos (Professor, LCL, UConn)

with a response by Oscar Guerra (DMD, UConn)

Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

Why do so many women vanish from history after leading exceptional lives? Ernestina González Fleischman (1896–1976) is an emblematic case that illustrates the erasure of women´s agency and achievements from historical accounts.

Ernestina led an awe-inspiring life marked by political activism, international visibility, and intellectual relevance. She was a librarian, a Spanish teacher, a writer, and an antifascist leader who tirelessly engaged in public activities. Her voice became a staple for the Spanish-speaking community in New York who listened to her nightly radio program Voice of fighting Spain during the forties. She published in at least three New York-based Spanish newspapers, and delivered public speeches on topics of human rights, antifascism, feminism, anti-imperialism, and peace efforts. Her highly international profile illustrates women’s transnational protests at their best, as she actively participated in women’s antifascist networks in USA, Spain, France and Mexico. It is difficult to explain how such a prominent figure in the arena of the anti-fascist Hispanic hubs in the United States and Spain has been wiped out from history.

This talk documents the archival research that has made possible the recovery of her legacy and her writings and will focus on crucial moments in her biography: a personal tragedy during the Spanish Civil War, two exiles, her leadership and fierce activism in New York arena of civil rights, and the investigation and trial by the Committee on Un-American activities.

Ana María Díaz-Marcos is a Professor of Spanish Literature at the Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages. Her research interests include Spanish literature and theater, feminism and gender studies, and Hispanic antifascism in the press. She has published a monograph on representations of fashion in modern Spanish literature entitled The Age of Silk (2006). Her book Thinking out of the Box: Spanish Writers and the Quest for Emancipation (2013) examines the rising of a feminist consciousness in Spain. She is the editor of an open-access anthology of plays written by contemporary Spanish women playwrights: Escenarios de crisis: dramaturgas españolas en el nuevo milenio (2018). Her latest Digital Humanities projects include a bilingual exhibition about the history of the antifascist newspaper La voz (1937-1939) that was published in New York, a collection of articles from that newspaper that illustrate the intersections of Pan-Hispanic feminism and antifascism in the thirties, and a collection of cartoons from the press entitled “Sketches of Harlem” by Puerto Rican artist José Valdés Cadilla, that is on display at CUNY this Fall.

Oscar Guerra is an Emmy® award-winning director, researcher, and educator. He is an Associate Professor of Film and Video at the University of Connecticut and a producer at PBS FRONTLINE. Dr. Guerra’s focus is storytelling that promotes critical thinking and social investment. He aims to produce media that provides a way for underrepresented groups to share and disseminate counterstories, contradict dominant and potentially stereotypical narratives, and strengthen their voices and identities. Dr. Guerra’s career spans the spectrum of television environments, music, multimedia production, documentaries for social change, promotional video, immersive media, and vast international experience.

Access note

Writing a Successful Grant or Fellowship Application

Posted on October 24, 2023November 1, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

The Faculty Success Initiative presents:

Writing a Successful Grant or Fellowship Application

with Micki McElya (History, UConn)
Debapriya Sarkar (English, UConn)
and Anna Ziering (Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Oglethorpe University)

November 2, 2023, 2:00pm
Live • Online • Registration required

This panel discussion will feature advice from UCHI alums who occupy the ranks of senior faculty, mid career faculty and junior faculty in the humanities who have been successful in writing grant and fellowship proposals. Please be sure to bring along the first page of a draft of your own proposal (even in the very early stages) for workshopping and feedback.

Micki McElya is a professor of History at the University of Connecticut. She was a UCHI Faculty Fellow in 2021–2022.

Debapriya Sarkar is assistant professor of English at the University of Connecticut. She was a UCHI Faculty Fellow in 2019–2020.

Anna Ziering is assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Oglethorpe University. She was a UCHI Graduate Research Scholar in 2021–2022.

Fellow’s Talk: Serkan Görkemli on the Crisis Aesthetic

Posted on October 20, 2023October 20, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

Queer Immigrants and the Crisis Aesthetic in Short Fiction

Serkan Görkemli (Associate Professor, English, UConn)

with a response by Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann (LCL & El Instituto, UConn)

Wednesday, November 1, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

Tobias Wolff once said, “Good stories thrive on difficulty.” Indeed, conflict and, more broadly, crisis are central to the literary genre of the short story and its characters and plot. In this talk, Görkemli will focus on this “crisis aesthetic” in his discussion of You’re Always Welcome Here, his UCHI fellowship project, a collection of fifteen short stories ranging from traditional character-driven narratives to experimental, mixed-form pieces. Featuring queer immigrant and non-immigrant characters in NYC during the Trump presidency and the COVID pandemic, You’re Always Welcome Here roils with personal, political, and existential crises. Görkemli will discuss the genre of the short story, multiple crises in a narrative, and the importance of storytelling to record and reflect on recent events that continue haunting us. Stepping into the shoes of queer immigrant characters who face seemingly unresolvable crises, the audience will contemplate disidentification and allyship in short fiction.

Serkan Görkemli (he/him) is originally from Türkiye and is an associate professor of English at the University of Connecticut in Stamford. His research and publications focus on LGBTQ+ literacies and storytelling. He is the author of two books: Sweet Tooth and Other Stories, a collection of interconnected LGBTQ+ short stories set in Turkey (University Press of Kentucky, 2024; 2022 prose selection for UPK’s New Poetry and Prose Series), and Grassroots Literacies: Lesbian and Gay Activism and the Internet in Turkey (SUNY Press, 2014; 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication Lavender Rhetorics Book Award). Serkan has a PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition from Purdue University. While at UCHI, he will complete his third book, You’re Always Welcome Here.

Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann (they or she pronouns) is a scholar of Caribbean literature and intellectual history and the author of Writing the Caribbean in Magazine Time (Rutgers University Press, 2021). Katerina’s essays on literary magazines, literary infrastructure, and Caribbean textual and intellectual circulation also appear in MLN, Small Axe, South Atlantic Quarterly, The Global South, The Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, and Inti. Katerina is also a member of the Aimé Césaire research group of the Francophone manuscripts team at the École normale supérieure in Paris and a translator of contemporary Cuban literature. At UConn, Katerina is associate professor of Spanish and Caribbean Studies in the Literatures, Cultures and Languages Department and El Instituto: Institute for Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.

Access note

Fellow’s Talk: Birgit Brander Rasmussen on Indigenous Literacies

Posted on October 18, 2023October 18, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

Signs of Resistance, Signs of Resurgence: Indigenous Literacies, New Media, and Anti-Colonial Imaginaries in Native American Literature and Culture

Birgit Brander Rasmussen (Associate Professor of English, Binghamton University SUNY)

with a response by Zehra Arat (Political Science, UConn)

Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

What would American literature look like if it began in 901?

Ancient and diverse literary cultures interacted for centuries before Europeans arrived in the Americas. Peoples, corn, stories, and technologies moved along trade and migration routes connecting the continents for millennia.

Many around the world continue to believe, incorrectly, that European settlers brought literacy to these continents. The colonial conflict brought multiple forms of literacy into contact and conflict. In the “textual conflict zone,” indigenous literacies, like pictography, become signs of resistance in the colonial era that are reclaimed as signs of resurgence in the digital present.

Contemporary Native writers, artists, and activists use digital media to connect past and present, pictography and digital media. Digital Indigenous literacies invite new ways of thinking about literature, writing, history, and even time itself.

Birgit Brander Rasmussen is Associate Professor in the English Department at Binghamton University (SUNY), located on unceded Onandaga land. She wrote the award-winning book Queequeg’s Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature and co-edited The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness.

Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat is Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. She studies human rights, with an emphasis on women’s rights, as well as processes of democratization, globalization, and development. In addition to her scholarship, she has been active in professional organizations in various capacities (e.g., Founding President, Human Rights Section of APSA); she has served on the editorial boards of several journals and book series and is currently the editor of the book series “Power and Human Rights” by the Lynne Rienner Publishers. Her work is recognized by several awards, including the APSA Award of Distinguished Scholar in Human Rights (2010).

Access note

The Popular Culture Initiative: Can You Fall in Love with ChatGPT?

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

The Popular Culture Initiative presents:

Can You Fall in Love with ChatGPT?

A Panel Discussion and Live Podcast Recording

October 23, 2023, 4:00pm
Konover Auditorium

A panel discussion and live podcast recording featuring AI expert Dan Rockmore (Dartmouth College), Anna Mae Duane (Director, UCHI), Stephen Dyson (Associate Director, UCHI), and Jeffrey Dudas (UConn Political Science).

How will current and next generation AI reshape our understanding of conversation, companionship, and even love? Taking in the latest technical developments and inspired by movies such as Spike Jonze’s Her, join us! Catered reception to follow. Sponsored by the Popular Culture Initiative of the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute.

Dan Rockmore is professor of mathematics and computer science at Dartmouth College, and the Director of the Neukom Institute for Computational Science. His writings on AI and the humanities have appeared in the New Yorker, LA Review of Books, and Slate.

Anna Mae Duane is Professor of English and Director of the UConn Humanities Institute. She teaches and writes in the fields of American Studies, African American Literature, and the Medical Humanities. She’s particularly interested in how definitions of youth and childhood shape culture and policy in ways that require the abdication of rights in order to claim care. She is the author or editor of six books including Educated for Freedom: The Incredible Story of Two Fugitive Schoolboys who Grew Up to Change a Nation, and Child Slavery Before and After Emancipation: An Argument for Child-Centered Slavery Studies. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Japan-US Friendship Commission. Her public-facing scholarship includes publications in Salon.com, Slate.com, and an ongoing podcast.

Stephen Dyson is the associate director of the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, and a professor of political science. Dyson’s work concerns the politics of popular culture, especially science fiction, and the psychology of political leadership. He is the author of Imagining Politics (University of Michigan Press, 2019); Otherworldly Politics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015); Leaders in Conflict (Manchester University Press, 2014); and The Blair Identity (Manchester University Press, 2009). His work has appeared in Extrapolation, British Politics, International Security, and Political Psychology, among other venues.

Jeffrey R. Dudas is Professor of Political Science and Affiliate Faculty of American Studies at the University of Connecticut. He specializes in the areas of American law, politics, and culture and focuses, in particular, on the many facets of the American politics of rights. He joined the UConn Political Science department in 2004 after earning the M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Washington.

Faculty Success: Dealing with Resistance with Jane Elliott

Posted on October 11, 2023October 17, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

The Faculty Success Initiative presents:

Dealing with Resistance: When Research Time Is Hard to Use

with Jane Elliott

October 20, 2023, 1:00–3:00pm
Live • Online • Registration required

Register
From single hours carved out of the teaching week to hard-won sabbatical leaves, finding time for research can feel like an achievement in itself for most academics. Because we strive and strategize to create this time, it’s particularly frustrating when we still can’t seem to use it the way we want. At the very moment we finally have the brain space to start reading or writing, we often find ourselves doing something else instead.

If you’ve experienced this dynamic, you know it can feel almost like an out-of-body experience. One minute, you’re reviewing the chapter outline you drafted months ago, the next you’re in your email replying to a message about committee work that could definitely wait.

Although this dynamic feels mysterious, what’s actually happening is very concrete and technical. There’s a specific feedback loop that gets created between our sense of how precious and rare this time is, and our resistance to using it fully. It comes down to the expectations, thoughts and feelings we bring to these moments—all of which can be changed.

In this workshop, I’m going to explain exactly how this feedback loop gets activated, what its component parts are, and how to dismantle them so you can use your research time with ease. Although you won’t need to share any of your personal reflections with the group if you don’t want to, you will have time to practice with tools and bank some progress in real time. Along the way, you’ll learn:

Why this resistance can’t be resolved via time-management techniques (spoiler alert: it’s not because you’re not trying hard enough!)
How the perception of time-scarcity and urgency actually create resistance
When enforcing strict research goals backfires and why
Why understanding resistance as ‘procrastination’ isn’t helpful
How to reframe your relationship to research time in a way that will actually work.

Jane Elliott is a professor of contemporary literature at King’s College London, a coach and a writer. Her coaching practice grew from her experience mentoring students and junior colleagues. She specializes in helping smart people get out of their own way.

Medical Humanities: A Daughter’s Long Goodbye, Screening and Q&A

Posted on October 4, 2023October 4, 2023 by Della Zazzera, Elizabeth

The Medical Humanities & Arts Initiative presents:

“A Daughter’s Long Goodbye” Screening & Discussion with filmmaker Steven G. Smith

October 19, 2023, 4:30pm
Homer Babbidge Library, Screening Room 2119A

Leandra Manos has spent nearly three years as the full-time caregiver for her 86-year-old father who is in the late stages of dementia. The award-winning documentary A Daughter’s Long Goodbye (dir. Steven G. Smith) chronicles Leandra’s journey balancing COVID-19, unemployment, and caring for her aging father. Filmmaker and photojournalist Steven G. Smith will join for a discussion and Q&A after the film screening.

The Faculty Success Initiative presents:

Fellowships and Grants Virtual Retreat

Southern Questions: W.E.B. Du Bois, Antonio Gramsci, and the Geography of Fascism

Jordan T. Camp (Associate Professor, American Studies, Trinity College)

with a response by Victor Zatsepine (History, UConn)

Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

Access note

Applying to Graduate School

Recovering Ernestina G. Fleischman’s Life and Work

Ana María Díaz-Marcos (Professor, LCL, UConn)

with a response by Oscar Guerra (DMD, UConn)

Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

Access note

The Faculty Success Initiative presents:

Writing a Successful Grant or Fellowship Application

Queer Immigrants and the Crisis Aesthetic in Short Fiction

Serkan Görkemli (Associate Professor, English, UConn)

with a response by Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann (LCL & El Instituto, UConn)

Wednesday, November 1, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

Access note

Signs of Resistance, Signs of Resurgence: Indigenous Literacies, New Media, and Anti-Colonial Imaginaries in Native American Literature and Culture

Birgit Brander Rasmussen (Associate Professor of English, Binghamton University SUNY)

with a response by Zehra Arat (Political Science, UConn)

Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 12:15pm, Humanities Institute Conference Room (HBL 4-209)

The event will also be livestreamed with automated captioning.

Access note

The Popular Culture Initiative presents:

Can You Fall in Love with ChatGPT?

A Panel Discussion and Live Podcast Recording

The Faculty Success Initiative presents:

Dealing with Resistance: When Research Time Is Hard to Use

The Medical Humanities & Arts Initiative presents:

“A Daughter’s Long Goodbye” Screening & Discussion with filmmaker Steven G. Smith

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