News

Philosopher Peter Singer at UConn, Thursday, October 9th, at 7:00 pm

Eminent philosopher Peter Singer will be joining us to kick off our UConn Reads programming next week.

“No Dilemma for Vegans: A Response to Pollan”

Thursday, October 9th, at 7:00 pm, at the Jorgensen Center

The Jorgensen will be open at 6:00 pm for classes only and 6:30 for the general public.

Tickets are not required: this event is free and open to the public.

The UConn Reads Steering Committee would like to encourage faculty to require their classes to attend this event.  Interested faculty can reserve priority seating for their classes by emailing Kathleen.mcdermott@uconn.edu in the Provost’s Office as soon as possible.  We will have a check-in desk set up in the Jorgensen lobby, and faculty are welcome to email a class roster to Kathy McDermott to facilitate student check-in.
https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism
Many thanks are due to JC Beall for reaching out to Professor Singer, and to the co-sponsors for this event: Dining Services, the Human Rights Institute, Office of the Provost, Office of Global Affairs, Philosophy Department, and Humanities Institute.

Grant-Writing Workshop

Thursday, October 16, 2014

3:30 – 5:00 p.m.

Austin/CLAS room #301

The UCONN Humanities Institute will offer a grant-writing workshop for Humanities faculty on Thursday, October 16, 2014 from 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. in Austin/CLAS room #301.  Professor Mitchell Green, Professor of Philosophy will lead the workshop.  Professor Green recently joined the UCONN faculty and has been the recipient of grants from both the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  His presentation also will include a brief presentation by a representative from the CLAS Grants and Contracts department.  He will also offer a new opportunity for faculty participants to create working groups.  Participation is limited to 30 faculty members. 

 

Please contact the UCHI at uchi@uconn.edu or by telephone at (860) 486-9057 to reserve a space for the workshop.

New Director of UCHI

The University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (UCHI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael P. Lynch as Director of the Institute. His appointment became effective on July 1, 2014. Michael returns to the Institute as Director after having served as a member of the Advisory Board (2010-2012) and a Residential Faculty Fellow (2006-07).

Michael P. Lynch is Professor of Philosophy and has been at UConn since 2004. The author or editor of seven books including In Praise of Reason: What Rationality Matters for DemocracyTruth as One and Many, and True to Life, Lynch is the recipient of the Medal for Research Excellence from the University of Connecticut’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and has held grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Bogliasco Foundation. Lynch, whose work has been translated into multiple languages, is a contributor to the New York Times “The Stone” weblog, and has made appearances on NPR’s On PointThe Brian Lehrer ShowColin McEnroe and many others. He lectures frequently nationally and internationally, and is presently working on The Knowledge Machine: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data (W.W. Norton).

Michael recently shared his goals for the Institute in an interview for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences web post.

Michael replaces Sharon M. Harris as Director following her retirement from UConn after five years as Institute Director and nine years as Professor of English.

For more information, please see Dr. Lynch’s bio here.

UCHI Faculty Luncheon/Lecture Series

UCHI Faculty Luncheon/Lecture Series

Fall 2014

September 23, 2014

Tom Scheinfeldt (Digital Media & Design and Director of Digital Humanities in the Digital Media Center)

October 21, 2014

Kroum Batchvarov (Anthropology – Avery Point Campus)

November 18, 2014

Sylvia Schafer (History)

Talks take place at UCHI, Austin 301 at 12:30 pm. Lunch is provided and space is limited. Please contact uchi@uconn.edu or 486-9057 to reserve a seat.

Humanities Institute Initiatives Awards Announced

The Humanities Institute is pleased to announce that the following projects have been granted seed money as a Humanities Institute Initiative.

Recognized both for their keen scholarly engagement and for their potential as recipients of major external funding grants, the following projects represent the best of the new digital scholarship in the humanities:

  • Anke Finger, Literature, Culture and Languages: “ReMEDIAting Flusser”
  • Brendan Kane, History: “Reading Early Modern Irish: A Digital Guide to Irish Gaelic (c.1200-1650)”
  • Gregory Colon Semenza, English: “The History of World Literatures on Film: Web Resource”
  • Roger Travis, Literature, Culture and Languages: “An open-source platform for practomimetic, game-based learning”
  • Fiona Vernal, History: “Upper Albany Documentation Project (Hartford, CT)”

We congratulate these outstanding scholars and wish them the best for their year at the Institute.

UCHI Announces 2014-15 Fellowship Awards

The University of Connecticut Humanities Institute is pleased to announce its Fellowship Awards for 2014-15.

External Faculty Fellowships

  • Rachel L. Greenblatt, Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations: ”A Beautiful and Costly Procession: Jewish Street in Imperial Celebration-Prague and Frankfurt Festivities on the Birth of a Habsburg Crown Prince (1716)”
  • Joseph McAlhany, Carthage College, Classics: “Language, Tradition, and the Scholar: The Fragments of Marcus Terentius Varro”

UConn Faculty Fellowships

  • Fakhreddin Azimi, History: “The Ascendancy of Khomeini: Illusions of Secularity and Rise of Political Islam”
  • Frank Costigliola, History: “Kennan and Russia”
  • Martha Cutter, English: “Picturing Slavery: Illustrated Books and the Visual Culture of the Transatlantic Abolition Movement, 1820-1855”
  • Jeffrey Dudas, Political Science: “Regeneration through Rights: Law, Family, and the Making of Modern American Conservatism”
  • Hassanaly Ladha, Literatures, Culture and Languages: “The Idea of Africa: Hegel, Architecture, and the Political Subject”
  • Fiona Somerset, English: “The Implications of Consent”

UConn Dissertation Fellowships:

  • Gordon Fraser, English: “American Cosmologies: Race and Revolution in the Nineteenth Century,” Draper Endowed Fellowship
  • Christina Henderson, English:“Cities of the Future: Literary Utopias, World’s Fairs, and the Making of American Progressivism,” Draper Endowed Fellowship
  • Beata Alexandra Moskal, Linguistics: “Universals in Morphology and Morpho-Phonology,” UCHI Dissertation Fellowship
  • Lucia I. Garcia Santana, Literatures, Culture and Languages: “Transatlantic Intellectual Meridian: Spain in the Configuration of the Argentinean Field of Cultural Production (1900-1950),” UCHI Dissertation Fellowship

We congratulate these outstanding scholars and wish them the best for their year at the Institute.