Tahrir Tales
Plays from the Egyptian Revolution
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The Public Discourse Project Seminar: Lauren Barthold
Date: 12/6 Babbdige Library 4th floor room 4/209 meeting
Title: Giving Birth in the Public Square: Dialogue as a Maieutic Practice
If we are living in a “post-fact” age, and if deliberation relies on facts, how are we to conceive of public discourse? Must one either futilely shout the facts louder and louder or else turn away from facts, and thus rational discourse, altogether? This paper initiates a way to conceive of public discourse that avoids the facts versus violence dilemma. I begin with a close reading of the opening scene of Plato’s Republic that, I claim, demonstrates dialogue as a third way beyond force or rational persuasion. I then consider Allan Bloom’s and Hannah Arendt’s interpretations of the political relevance of Socratic dialogue. In concluding, I argueagainst Arendt that it is the tension between wonder and opinion lying at the heart of dialogue that renders dialogue a relevant political activity, one that connects us with others and in so doing creates a viable, pluralistic polis.
Four members of the University of Connecticut Early Modern Studies community have been selected to participate in events at the Folger Institute in Washington, D.C. this Fall.
New York Times: Fake News and the Internet Shell Game, UCHI Director Michael P. Lynch
Public Discourse Project seminar, Paul Bloom
Paul Bloom (Psychology and Cognitive Science, Yale)
Location: UCHI, Babbidge Library, 4th Floor, Room 4/209
Title: Against Empathy
Many psychologists, philosophers, and laypeople believe that empathy is necessary for moral judgment and moral action-the only problem with empathyis that we sometimes don’t have enough of it. Drawing on research into psychopathy, criminal behavior, charitable giving, infant cognition, cognitive neuroscience, and Buddhist meditation practices, I’ll argue that this is mistaken. Empathy is a poor moral guide. It is biased, short-sighted, and innumerate-we should try to do without it. We are much better off, in both public policy and intimate relationships, drawing upon a combination of reason and distanced compassion.
UConn Political Theory Workshop: Sandy Grande
Indigenous Refusals of Settler-Capitalist Notions of Precarity and Aging: The Struggle for Indigenous Elsewheres
Sandy Grande
Connecticut College
11/15
Location: Babbidge Library, 4th Floor, Room 4/209
Time: 4-5:30pm
The notion of precarity has emerged as a way of describing the effects of neoliberal policy on the human condition. Though the impact is broad, the precarity instigated by the settler project has been enacted and extracted upon the bodies of the marginalized, and within such communities, the most vulnerable: the sick, the young, the elderly. This paper examines the privatization and commodification of the body as one of the greatest affronts to sovereignty, compelling not only materialist analyses but also those that account for the immaterial – the soul, the sacred. The author begins with an examination of how issues related to end of life care and the question of whether to “live or let die” are constructed through (neo)liberal discourses of personal choice as conditioned by “culture.” Next, it is argued that such discourses serve to obfuscate the a priori role of the capitalist state where the frail and aged can only be viewed as a “crisis” of decreased labor power and increased expenditure; an amortization that has only worsened under neoliberalism. Thus, the aim of the paper is to present Indigenous discourses that situate the problematic of living/being beyond the scope of imperial interest and that are defined by mutuality.
Sandy Grande (Quechua) is a Professor of Education as well as the Director of the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) at Connecticut College. Her research interfaces critical Indigenous theories with the concerns of education. Her highly acclaimed book, Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought was recently published in a 10th anniversary edition (2015). She has published in The Journal of Settler Colonial Studies,The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy,Harvard Educational Review; she also contributed a chapter to Robert Lake and Tricia Kress’ Paulo Freire’s Intellectual Roots (Bloomsbury 2013). In addition to her scholarly work she has provided eldercare for her parents and remains the primary caretaker for her 88 yr. old father.
“Democracy and Disagreement” by Michael P. Lynch, Director of the Humanities Institute and Professor of Philosophy
“The best lack all conviction,” William Butler Yeats noted, “while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Rarely has the Irish poet’s famous warning against the perils of dogmatism seemed more apt. As a nation, we are so deeply divided that our disagreements extend past values, past even the facts, to the very meaning of what a fact is. As a result, many in the United States believe there is no point in talking to the other side. Why bother, when you already know you are right and they are wrong?
Interdisciplinary Workshop: Intellectual Humility and Public Deliberation
Interdisciplinary Workshop: Intellectual Humility and Public Deliberation
http://humilityandconviction.uconn.edu/events-2/workshops/fall-2016-workshops/interdisciplinary-workshop-intellectual-humility-and-public-deliberation/
Brain Bytes: DHMS Blog, Who’s my Audience? Defining Readerships and Joining Conversations
On October 24th, about 25 people gathered for the first DHMS Meet & Greet at the Humanities Institute’s new library location. Representing different campus groups, including librarians, professors, graduate students and one undergraduate, the group discussed how to build our fledgling community, how to obtain training in digital tools, and how to translate familiar methods of scholarly inquiry and venues of publication into digital formats. Brendan Kane gave a superb and inspiring presentation of his “Project in Process”: “Reading Early Modern Irish” with the help of interactive texts in the original and in translation, complete with grammatical and lexical references built by an international network of scholars. While political issues surrounding the use of social media, for example, were on many peoples’ minds – what happens to privacy? – one particular question stuck with me: who is my potential audience outside of print formats? Indeed: how DO you determine, find, and even secure an audience for your scholarly blog, your tweets, your online exhibition or your video?
In print venues, the path from author to readership is pretty much set in stone or paved in concrete: you present your research paper to small audiences at various conferences, in addition to soliciting responses from your peer reading networks or teaching some of the content in your classes. Following feedback and rewrites, you submit your article to an established, peer-reviewed journal, and, upon some more revision, the journal publishes your work. Voilà, your print article is available to those who subscribe to the journal or who search specific databases for your topic. Unless your publisher presents your article – or your book – to a larger public via open access platforms, your audience is limited to closed infrastructures. At the same time, you can rely on thorough quality control and on tapping into an established brand within your field. You know scholars in your field read the journal. There are slight deviations of this path, but this is essentially it. Ah yes, and then there are copyright issues and monetary transactions. But that’s not for this blog post…
Digital venues, in contrast, offer a MUCH bigger audience – a website or blog with, potentially, a global audience, and your social media accounts can invariably be found on the internet. So how do you reach those you seek to speak to or with whom you would like to engage in conversation? The Chronicle’s ProfHacker is a solid source for these sorts of questions, with Ryan Cordell addressing the benefits of tweeting, and Lee Skallerup Bessete reflecting on how twitter usage has changed over the years. For starting your academic or scholarly blog, InsideHigherEd published Liana Silva’s recommendations, while Pat Thomson’s recent article in the Times Higher Ed points to more selfish reasons to start your own blog: improving your writing. Of course, there is a top-10 list for this new enterprise as well, in this case assembled by Tom Crick and Alan Winfield. And it is always instructive to study some of the best, as curated and presented by Alexis Madrigal in 2013.
Most of these authors point to one important element of establishing an audience, no matter what part of your research you make available or which venue or medium you choose: you should not engage one without the other. If you are blogging, let others know on twitter or other social media that you just published a new post. Read others’ posts. Follow others on twitter. Mention your just-out print book on your blog or add the link to your twitter account on your website. You don’t just seek an audience – you also become one. You don’t just build networks within your research community and audiences “out there” that may find your work interesting – you also network within audiences yourself. So, it’s really not that different from print, it’s just much bigger and much more public. As Bianca Elena Ivanof and Caspar Addyman argue: it’s how to be an academic in the 21st century. Thank you, everyone, for coming on Monday!
#SheffMovement Design Challenge
The Sheff Movement, in collaboration with UCHI, UConn’s Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Hartford Public Library, The Hartford Foundation, The Sillerman Center, Achieve Hartford, Hartford Parent University and CREC, hosted a Design Challenge to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sheff v. O’Neill decision.
The event aimed to promote meaningful public discourse and engagement that will ultimately strengthen Greater Hartford’s ongoing efforts to address racial and socioeconomic isolation and related inequities.
The Design Challenge brought together educators, researchers, students, parents, and other community members to work collaboratively to
- Co-create a vision for achieving quality integrated education for all Hartford’s children;
- Reinvigorate the court-mandated process of providing all Hartford’s children a quality integrated education;
- Generate fresh new ideas, and outline strategies to meaningfully advance the goal of quality integrated education over the next three to five years.
We thank all of our partners for what was a lively and generative event, and invite you to watch this space for follow-ups from the Design Challenge and on other UCHI-Public Humanities community partnerships!
