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THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES
CONTENTS
WELCOME
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COMMUNITY
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Strengthening relationships among students, faculty, and staff in the humanities at NYU
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ENGAGEMENT Connecting with the public by hosting intellectually stimulating events
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INNOVATION
Experimenting with projects and programs to celebrate the humanities in new ways
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ALLIANCES
Supporting deep humanities awareness and education through external partnerships
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WELCOME
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THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES
As another academic year comes to a close – the Center’s ninth in operation, and my ninth and final one as faculty director - my main feeling is one of gratitude. First and foremost, to Gwynneth Malin, Chris Alexander, Deni Valentin, Alexandria Martinez and Shari Wolk, our marvelous and dedicated staff, who are on the ground at 20 Cooper Square all day, every day, making events happen, working behind the scene to sustain our multiple communities, ensuring that NYU and the world know what is going on in their midst. To CoFaculty Director Ulrich Baer who graciously stepped in last year when I was teaching in Italy and who will continue on as faculty director in the fall. To the provost’s office and the NYU administration for their support over the years. To the Mellon Foundation for a long-ago gift to NYU for humanities education – which helped to found the Center in 2007 – and for a much more recent grant for diversifying the humanities and enabling a new series of freshman seminars, “On Being Human,” the kind of curricular innovation of which I thought we could only dream. To members of our advisory board and hard-working selection committees to whom all we offer is lunch, a congenial setting, and the chance to familiarize themselves with the spectacular work being done across the University. To our many collaborators – Eric Banks of the NY Institute for the Humanities, Erika Goldman of Bellevue Literary Press, Eric Klinenberg from the Institute for Public Knowledge, Yanoula Athanassakis of the Environmental Humanities Series, Marion Thain with Digital Humanities – just to name a few – who have helped make the year’s events such a success. To the NYU faculty who serve as mentors throughout the summer – time they could be dedicating to their own research – for the undergraduates who come from all over the country as part of the Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative program. To other Humanities Center directors and staff across the state who partner, with Mellon, in choosing and supporting graduate Public Humanities fellows. To colleagues such as Elizabeth Kolbert and Jhumpa Lahiri for their willingness to accept our invitation to come to the Center and share their work and ideas. And finally, to the remarkable faculty, graduate students, staff, and undergraduates of NYU whose worksin-progress, talks, books, essays, translations, exhibits, and films provide ongoing sources of inspiration. Over a decade ago, a task force of one dozen faculty and deans recommended that NYU come up with a capacious definition of the humanities and then act accordingly by setting up a center to nurture all those who consider themselves humanists. Through a number of initiatives since the Center’s inception, and particularly since moving into 20 Cooper Square in October of 2008, we’ve attempted to extend our reach as broadly as we can, through our Great New Books in the Humanities events, Authors’ Cocktails, “What Can You Do with a Ph.D. (Or MA, or BA) in the Humanities,” working research groups, team-teaching grants, fellows’ programs, humanities ambassadors, and annual sessions on writing a dissertation or getting a first book published – to cite only a handful of initiatives to which others have been added, as the pages in this book attest. On a campus that isn’t really a campus, across a university that contains seventeen schools, humanists turn up in unexpected places. It’s been a privilege meeting doctors interested in narrative studies, neuroscientists interested in art history, business faculty interested in philosophy. The serendipitous conversation over a cup of coffee or glass of wine can and does lead to collaborations and the discovery of 5
shared interests that help move the university forward, providing new models for solving problems or simply for getting along – not always an easy thing in our day and age. The place this happens most systematically is at the fellows’ lunches, our weekly meetings of six faculty fellows and seven doctoral fellows. This past year we created a new lunch series for an undergraduate cohort of eleven juniors. Changing the lives of thirteen – now twenty-four – scholars a year through animated conversations, shared intellectual trajectories, and the gift of time to think and write, may seem like a drop in the bucket, particularly at a place as vast as NYU. But we’re now well upward of 100 alumni, and the friendships that form during the year are enduring ones. Given the extent to which dozens of former fellows remain in touch, as faculty send news of their accomplishments and graduate students update us on their brilliant careers, Alison Lurie’s wry comment, even if uttered in a different context, seems to hold: the academic relationship is one of the few things on earth not subject to the force of entropy. This is not to say there are no challenges ahead. Doing more to extend our reach to our global campuses; helping to prepare our graduate students for careers outside the academy, and our faculty to be supportive and knowledgeable about what those careers might be; embedding ourselves more deeply in the local community; balancing attention to research in cutting-edge areas with attentiveness to work in more traditional fields; continuing to make the case to undergraduates that a humanities education is a valuable education, in every sense of the word; and as always, seeking out funding opportunities. But for now I look forward to nurturing these relationships of the past nine years and to following the exciting directions I’m convinced the Center will take in the near future.
JANE TYLUS Faculty Co-Director Professor, Italian Studies and Comparative Literature July 2016
OUR TEAM ULRICH BAER Faculty Co-Director Vice Provost for Faculty, Arts, Humanities and Diversity GWYNNETH MALIN Director CHRIS ALEXANDER Media and Communications Coordinator DENELIA VALENTIN Administrative Aide ALEXANDRIA MARTINEZ Graduate Student Assistant (Academic Year) SHARI WOLK Graduate Student Assistant (Summer 2016)
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Strengthening relationships among students, faculty, and staff in the humanities at NYU
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ADVISORY BOARD The Center’s Advisory Board meets throughout the year to guide the strategic vision of the Center and to discuss current issues impacting and informing the humanities. Board Members serve for a three-year term. New members this year include Professors Crystal Parikh, Shelley Rice, and Laura Slatkin. We are grateful to Joy Connolly, Dean for the Humanities, for her support over the last five years, and we congratulate her on her new position as Provost at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. 2015-2016 MEMBERS THOMAS AUGST Associate Professor of English, Faculty of Arts & Science
ERIC KLINENBERG Director, Institute for Public Knowledge; Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Arts & Science
ULRICH BAER Faculty Co-Director, Center for the Humanities; Vice Provost for Faculty, Arts, Humanities & Diversity; Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts & Science
CHRISTOPHER LESLIE Lecturer; Co-Director, Science and Technology Studies Program Tandon School of Engineering GWYNNETH MALIN Director, Center for the Humanities Adjunct Instructor of History
ERIC BANKS Director, New York Institute for the Humanities JOY CONNOLLY Dean for the Humanities; Professor of Classics, Faculty of Arts & Science J. M. DELEON Ph.D. Candidate, Performance Studies, Tisch; Adjunct Assistant Professor of Performance Studies, Tisch; and Social and Cultural Analysis, Faculty of Arts & Science AISHA KHAN Associate Professor of Anthropology; Associated Faculty, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Faculty of Arts & Science PERRI KLASS Professor and Academic Director, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute; Professor of Pediatrics, NYU School of Medicine
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SUSAN MURRAY Associate Professor of Media, Culture & Communication, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
THELMA THOMAS Associate Professor of Fine Arts, Institute of Fine Arts JANE TYLUS Chair, Advisory Board; Faculty CoDirector, Center for the Humanities; Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts & Science JERRY WAKEFIELD University Professor; Professor of Social Work, Silver School of Social Work Professor of the Conceptual Foundations of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine
CRYSTAL PARIKH Associate Professor of English, Faculty of Arts & Science; Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis SHELLEY RICE Professor of Photography and Imaging Tisch School of the Arts LAURA SLATKIN Professor, Gallatin School of Individualized Study MICHAEL STOLLER Director of Collections and Research Services, Division of Libraries
THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES
NEW FUNDING FROM THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION We are very pleased to announce that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the NYU Center for the Humanities, previously called The Humanities Initiative, a significant grant to support new programming. The grant will deepen the Center’s engagement with the public, support a postdoctoral fellow, increase the diversity of our audience and participants. The Mellon Grant will also fund a series of Freshman Seminars, under the title, “On Being Human,” to be offered annually in the College of Arts and Science and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. The seminars will focus on concerns vital to the humanities, ranging from issues such as human rights and public health to the role of the arts and literature in shaping empathy. Faculty are especially encouraged to introduce freshmen to the cultural and historical riches of New York, and funding will facilitate field trips as well as invited speakers. The grant will also fund a public events series including events on the Environmental Humanities, and NYU’s Prison Education Initiative, which brings college education to incarcerated individuals at New York State’s Wallkill Correctional Facility. We are grateful to the Foundation for their generous support, which allows us to expand our mission of convening humanists, deepening our understanding of the concept of the human, and redefining the role of the humanities within the University and in the public realm.
On November 11, 2015, we hosted a reception in honor of the Mellon grant to our Center. Speakers included Faculty Fellow Faye Ginsburg (2014-15), Public Humanities Fellow Cara Shousterman (2013-14), Ulrich Baer, and Jane Tylus. [PICTURED LEFT TO RIGHT] Cristle Collins Judd, (Senior Program Officer, Mellon Foundation), Patrick Deer (Faculty Fellow 2015-2016), Andrew Needham (Faculty Fellow 2015-2016) and Cara Shousterman (Public Humanities Fellow 2013-2014).
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“We are extremely grateful to the Mellon Foundation for supporting our programs and the innovative scholars who engage students, colleagues and the wider public on the big questions that require responses from a range of disciplines.” Ulrich Baer, NYU’s vice provost for faculty, arts, humanities, and diversity and Professor of German and Comparative Literature.
“This grant will help the Center continue its commitment to a strong humanities curriculum and fulfill its core mission to diversify the humanities and its faculty. It will also help us engage students in thinking about how we produce knowledge about the human condition – and how they can contribute to that process.” Jane Tylus, Faculty Co-Director of the Center for the Humanities and Professor of Italian Studies at NYU.
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RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS for DOCTORAL STUDENTS AND FACULTY
[LEFT TO RIGHT] Hi’ilei Julia Hobart, Sean Nesselrode, Andrew Needham, Charlton McIlwain, Sean Larson, Patrick Deer, Jane Tylus, Valeria G. Castelli, Gwynneth Malin and Lana Povitz.
Every year, our Center supports a cohort of faculty and doctoral students who come together as a scholarly community at our Center. Since 2013, our doctoral fellow cohort has also included two Public Humanities Fellows, funded as part of The New York Council for the Humanities program. This year’s fellows represented the breadth of the humanities at NYU, with scholars working in areas ranging from the history of black photography to that of the Weimar Republic, to the origins of ice production in Hawaii to the rhetoric and representations of war. At our Tuesday lunches this fall, fellows discussed a variety of issues of mutual interest: academic freedom, accountability, the role of the archive, Black Lives Matter, digital humanities, translation, and voice in academic writing. During the spring fellows presented excerpts from their work in progress. Midway through the year, we gathered for a weekend writing retreat in the Hudson Valley. A number of fellows also collaborated on hosting a spring symposium on GIFs – Graphic Interchange Formats – attended by a students, faculty and outside media experts.
“This year at the Center has felt like an absolute gift. I had the space and the time afforded to complete writing my dissertation with a cohort that is smart, open, generous, and kind in their feedback. And, of course, the interdisciplinary scope of the cohort lead to really rich discussions of our work and the humanities at large.” 2015 - 2016 Fellow
“It was a model display of collegiality, and providing an opportunity to engage and learn from a diverse group of folks across disciplines and positions within the university.” 2015 - 2016 Fellow
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2015-2016 FELLOWS NARGES BAJOGHLI Doctoral Student Fellow Department of Anthropology Project: Paramilitary Media: Revolution, War, and the Making of the Islamic Republic of Iran
SEAN NESSELRODE Doctoral Student Fellow Institute of Fine Arts Project: The Harvest of Modernity: Art, Oil, and Industry in the Venezuelan Twentieth Century
VALERIA G. CASTELLI Public Humanities Fellow Department of Italian Studies Project: Ethics, Performativity and Action in Contemporary Italian Documentary Film (2001-2014)
LANA POVITZ Public Humanities Fellow Department of History Project: A Taste of What It Takes: Food Activism in New York City, 1960s-1990s
PATRICK DEER Faculty Fellow Department of English Faculty of Arts and Science Project: Surge and Silence: Understanding America’s War Culture
MYISHA PRIEST Faculty Fellow Gallatin Project: How I Wish I Could Live on That Shore: African American Literature and Culture of the Antebellum Waterways
HI’ILEI JULIA HOBART Doctoral Student Fellow Nutrition & Food Studies and Public Health Project: Tropical Necessities: Ice, Territory, and Taste in Colonial Hawai’i
LUKE STARK Doctoral Student Fellow Media, Culture and Communication Project: Self-Managed Feeling: Psychology and Interaction Design from Smartphones to the ’Anxious Seat’
SEAN LARSON Doctoral Student Fellow Department of German Project: Built on Sand: Reality in the Weimar Republic After the Revolution
DEBORAH WILLIS Faculty Fellow Photography and Imaging Project: C. M. Battey, Portrait Photographer
ANNA MCCARTHY Faculty Fellow Department of Cinema Studies Project: The Monster at the End of the Book CHARLTON MCILWAIN Faculty Fellow Media, Culture and Communication Project: The Racial Web: A History of Black Politics, Organizing & Activism on the Internet ANDREW NEEDHAM Faculty Fellow Department of History Project: The Metropolitan Origins of the Climate Crisis
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UNDERGRADUATE HUMANITIES FELLOWS For the first time in the Center’s history, we convened a group of Undergraduate Humanities Fellows who took part in Friday lunch discussions. Nominated by their departments and schools, these outstanding young scholars, all second-semester juniors, plan on writing senior theses and applying to graduate school. Our weekly meetings were joined by this year’s doctoral fellows, who provided advice and insider information on applying to graduate school and writing dissertations. Each undergraduate also presented on his or her workin-progress.
“We learned about the importance of passion—passion for life, our work, and the seemingly ‘insignificant.’ The humanities encompass a world dedicated to the investigation of all that makes us wonder, act, and inspire.” Isabeaux Mitton (Departments of Art History and Politics)
“The most valuable part of this experience for me was meeting other undergraduates who think academia is exciting, and uncovering all of the unexpected ways that our research interests intersected. ”
SPRING 2016 COHORT Michael Abraham (Gallatin School of Individualized Study) Andrew James Bergman (Department of Classics) Rachel Abigail Greenblatt (Department of Performance Studies) Daniel Rubin Lieberson (Department of Italian) Isabeaux S. Mitton (Gallatin School of Individualized Study) Kyungtae Na (Department of Comparative Literature) Cristian Rosa (Department of History) Karl T. Rosenberg (Department of Computer Science and German) Isabella Felipa Lima Schumann (Department of Art History and International Relations) Harper Shalloe (Department of Cinema Studies) Sean L Waxman (Department of French)
Harper Shalloe (Department of Cinema Studies)
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BIG
QUESTIONS REQUIRE COLLABORATIVE RESPONSES
DYNAMIC, DIALOGIC, DIRECT: TEAM-TEACHING TO ENGAGE STUDENTS IN EXCHANGES WITH GREAT MINDS Our Team-Teaching program fosters dynamic teaching and new pedagogical approaches across humanistic disciplines. This year, the Center allocated funds to four team-teaching pairs for courses to be offered in the 2016-2017 academic year. The funding enables faculty to incorporate innovative sessions, invite guest speakers, allow for hands-on sessions in NYU and non-NYU institutions, and incorporate class visits to locations in the NYC area. For example, Joyce Apsel (Liberal Studies Program) and Michael Dinwiddie (Gallatin School of Individualized Study) will invite political activists, scholars, artists, filmmakers, and others to discuss the legacy of apartheid and the on-going struggle of civil rights and disarmament in contemporary societies. The class will visit Washington, DC, the United Nations headquarters in New York, and the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at Bobst Library.
2015-2016 TEAM TEACHING RECIPIENTS Language to be Looked at and/or Things to be Read: Materiality and Dematerialization in Art and Poetry 1965-1980 [Spring 2017] ROBERT SLIFKIN Assistant Professor Institute of Fine Arts
Movements for Justice and Rights: “Let Them Lead the Way” [Fall 2016] JOYCE APSEL Master Teacher of Humanities Liberal Studies Program MICHAEL DINWIDDIE Acting Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs Associate Professor, Gallatin School of Individualized Study Narrating the Market: Capitalism in European and US Literature and History [Fall 2016] LEIF WEATHERBY Assistant Professor, Department of German STEPHEN GROSS Assistant Professor, Department of History and CEMS The Art of the Psalms in Medieval European Culture [Fall 2016] KATHRYN A. SMITH Professor, Department of Art History ANDREW ROMIG Assistant Professor, Gallatin School of Individualized Study
LYTLE SHAW Professor, Department of English, FAS
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WORKING RESEARCH GROUPS Our Working Research Groups provide funding for faculty and graduate students to meet regularly over the course of two years, to invite experts, artists, officials, activists and others to NYU, and to explore the humanities through new and interdisciplinary approaches. Our groups often invite the public to take part in aspects of their programming in order to engage broader communities, both within and beyond the academy. One example of this year’s many events: On November 3rd, 2015, the Global Modernism Working Research Group launched their collaborative with a spirited kick-off event, as scholars shared their research, analyzed cultural production from 1890-1960, and addressed recent innovations in the study of modernism. NEW GROUPS Artist Archive Project – David Wojnarowicz Over the course of two years, faculty, staff, and graduate students at NYU are undertaking a pilot project to develop a model for creating digital archives relating to exhibiting and conserving contemporary art. The pilot project will focus on the technical, logistical, and ethical concerns associated with the work of David Wojnarowicz. His archive in the Fales Library Downtown Collection will serve as a principal resource for the research, in conjunction with questions raised by curators at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Global Modernisms The Global Modernisms Group at NYU provides collaborative space for scholars to engage questions including: how can modernist studies work across disciplines in order to enrich our understanding of art, culture, or history? What is the role of modernist studies as a model for academic work in an increasingly globalized scholarly community? Through works-in-progress roundtables, lecture events, museum visits, a reading group devoted to new works in the field, and collaborative workshops on topics like teaching global art history, the Global Modernisms Group provides an interdisciplinary discussion about the expansions, challenges, and opportunities of the field. Sense Matters, Matters of Sense Sense Matters seeks to build upon the critical work of the past two decades on the concept of affect. Affect theory placed questions of feeling, emotion, and sexuality at the center of disciplines that seek to interpret and intervene within the social. From the cybernetic study of feedback within complex systems, to more psychoanalytically-inflected studies of affect’s potent place in subjectivity, affect has been highly productive in bringing scholars into cross-disciplinary conversation. But “sense” as we mean to deploy it here differs from the work “affect” did and continues to do. Sense foregrounds questions of significance, resonance, and shared meaning. It avails us of philosophical debates going back to antiquity even as it looks to how contemporary neuroscience is redefining the bounds of perception. In the first year, the group looked at the following questions: the fictive historiography of Walid Raad, synaesthesia in the Classical Era, the sense of the archive in contemporary art of the Middle East, and the political life of sensation in contemporary US politics. For recent news, please visit sensematters.org. 14
GLENN WHARTON Clinical Associate Professor Program in Museum Studies, Faculty of Arts & Science MARVIN TAYLOR Director, Fales Library & Special Collections Division of Libraries KELLY SULLIVAN Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow Department of Irish Studies, College of Arts and Science LORI COLE Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program
TAVIA NYONG’O Associate Professor Department of Performance Studies Tisch School of the Arts GAYATRI GOPINATH Associate Professor Department of Social and Cultural Analysis
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BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER TO CREATE NEW KNOWLEDGE FUNDING FOR CONFERENCES We have reinstituted our funding to assist with conferences and symposia at NYU. Intended to augment the funds of schools and departments, these small grants support conferences with a humanistic focus. We invite applications from faculty in full-time positions at NYU. Awards may be made for up to $5,000 per conference depending on need. SUPPORTED CONFERENCES Art, Archaeology, and the First Emperor: A Global Approach LAN-YING TSENG Institute for the Study of the Ancient World Communists in the Civil Rights Movement TIMOTHY JOHNSON Division of Libraries Digital Art History Online: A Symposium on Publishing JONATHAN HAY Institute of Fine Arts
Proximities, Limits, Distances: Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Performance Theories and Practices JO LABANYI Department of Spanish and Portuguese Revolution and its Narratives: A Round-table discussion REBECCA KARL Department of History Shakespeare and the Global Body KATHERINE WILLIAMS NYU Abu Dhabi The Mechanics of Extraction: Comparing Principles of Taxation and Tax Compliance in the Ancient World ANDREW MONSON Department of Classics True, Good, Beautiful: Politics and Forms of Virtue in Xi Jinping-era China LILY CHUMLEY Department of Media, Culture, and Communication
Dúchas: Irish Landscapes and Environmental Legacies KELLY SULLIVAN Department of Irish Studies Eat Spain up KRISHNENDU RAY Department of Food Studies and Nutrition Envisioning Accessible Futures: Disability, Caregiving and Photography—American and French Perspectives FAYE GINSBURG Department of Anthropology Mistakes Were Made 2.0 ERICA ROBLES-ANDERSON Department of Media, Culture, and Communication
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FROM DEEP RESEARCH TO PUBLISHED BOOK: FUNDING FOR BOOK PUBLICATION SUBVENTIONS
Our subvention program is designed to assist with costs involved in the publication of a monograph, edited scholarly collection, catalogue, or translation. Here is a selection of some of the forthcoming books that were awarded grants during this academic year. 2015-2016 AWARDEES GIANPAOLO BAIOCCHI, Gallatin School of Individualized Study Democracy in Motion: The Limits of Globalizing participation
STÉPHANE GERSON, Department of French Nostradamus: How an Obscure Renaissance Astrologer Became the Modern Prophet of Doom ALAN ITKIN, Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program Underworlds of Memory MARA MILLS, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication On the Phone: Deafness and Communication Engineering
JINI KIM WATSON, Department of English Critical Horizons: The Postcolonial Contemporary ALLEN S. WEISS, Tisch School of the Arts Varieties of Audio Mimesis: Musical Evocations of Landscape LARRY WOLFF, Department of History The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage
ROBERTA NEWMAN, Department of Liberal Studies Here’s the Pitch: The Amazing, New, Improved History of Baseball and Advertising JOANNE NUCHO, Department of Near Eastern Studies Everyday Sectarianism: Infrastructures, Public Services and Power in Urban Lebanon
RODNEY BENSON, Media, Culture, and Communication Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison LUCAS CHAMPOLLION, Department of Linguistics Parts of a Whole: Distributivity as a Bridge between Aspect and Measurement
S.J. PEARCE, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures No Achievement But Through Arabic: Judah ibn Tibbon and the Andalusi Culture of Reading in Exile
LILY CHUMLEY, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, Creativity Class: Art School and Culture Work in Post-socialist China
MICHAEL RECTENWALD, Liberal Studies Program Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature
LAILA FAMILIAR, NYU Abu Dhabi Saaq al-Bambuu (The Bamboo Stalk): The Auhtorized Abridged Edition for Students of Arabic
DAVID SIDER, Department of Classics Hellenistic Greek Poetry: A Selection
SIBYLLE FISCHER, Department of Spanish Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison
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ZEB TORTORICI, Department of Spanish Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America
LEAH SOUFFRANT, Expository Writing Program Plain Burned Things: A Poetics of the Unsayable MARION THAIN, Department of English and Global Liberal Studies Program The Lyric Poem and Aestheticism: Forms of Modernity
[TOP] Creativity Class: Art School and Culture Work in Post-socialist China by Lily Chumley. [BOTTOM] Nostradamus: How an Obscure Renaissance Astrologer Became the Modern Prophet of Doom by Stéphane Gerson.
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A VIBRANT COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS, ARTISTS, WRITERS AND THINKERS: CELEBRATING NYU AUTHORS On March 2, 2016, NYU Press and the Center for the Humanities hosted our eighth annual Authors’ Cocktails to acknowledge NYU faculty and students who published a book on a humanities-related topic during the previous year. One of the most festive events of the year, our 2016 cocktail party was attended by over two hundred colleagues from across the university as we celebrated all that our faculty and students have done to advance our understanding of the human condition.
This year, we featured the remarkable number of 187 titles. Scan here for a full list of the books that were honored at this festive event.
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ENGAGEMENT
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HIGHLIGHTING CUTTINGEDGE SCHOLARSHIP Every month, we sponsor an evening of conversation centered around a recently-published book by an NYU faculty member through our Great New Books in the Humanities series. Books featured this past year reflect the rich variety of interests of our faculty, ranging from the Latin poet Lucretius, the concept of extraterritoriality, the role of abstraction in African-American art, and the subject of freedom in contemporary philosophy and literary theory. Especially notable this past year was the publication of several major books by our faculty in the field of Latin American studies. In October, to honor the publication of The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil, author Barbara Weinstein (Department of History) and Mary Roldan, Sinclair Thomson, and James Woodward discussed race, gender, and regional inequality in the formation of national identities in Brazil. In December, a panel of scholars discussed Gallatin School of Individualized Study Professor Alejandro Velasco’s Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela, which examines how residents of Venezuela’s largest public housing community pursued full citizenship during the heyday of Latin America’s democracy. In March, Arjun Appadurai and Julie Skurski joined Arlene Davila (Department of Social and Cultural Analysis) to investigate Latin American consumer culture as discussed in Davila’s El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America. Professor David Konstan presents on the relationship between Lucretius, mathematics and the atomic theory.
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BOOKS CELEBRATED THIS YEAR INCLUDED: LEARNING ZULU: A SECRET HISTORY OF LANGUAGE IN SOUTH AFRICA Mark Sanders EL MALL: THE SPATIAL AND CLASS POLITICS OF SHOPPING MALLS IN LATIN AMERICA Arlene Dávila LUCRETIUS AND MODERNITY Jacques Lezra Liza Blake ABSTRACTIONIST AESTHETICS: ARTISTIC FORM AND SOCIAL CRITIQUE IN AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE Phillip Brian Harper BARRIO RISING: URBAN POPULAR POLITICS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN VENEZUELA Alejandro Velasco THE SUBJECT OF FREEDOM: KANT, LEVINAS Gabriela Basterra THE COLOR OF MODERNITY: SÃO PAULO AND THE MAKING OF RACE AND NATION IN BRAZIL Barbara Weinstein
In response to Mark Sanders’ book, Learning Zulu, Professor Ato Quayson examines the act of language learning within the context of a multilingual environment.
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TALKING “ALT AC” On April 12, 2016, over 65 doctoral students joined us for a lively conversation with professionals from within the academy and beyond to tackle the question, What can you do with a PhD in the Humanities? Cosponsored with the Graduate School of Arts and Science and moderated and convened by Center Director, Gwynneth Malin, the panel included educational technologists, librarians, and university administrators, all with PhD’s in the humanities. Speakers discussed their career trajectories and offered alternatives to tenure-track teaching positions as well as advice about how to look for a job outside the academy. The evening then moved on to fifteen-minute “career speed-dating” sessions with the panelists, followed by a networking reception.
Jenny Kijowski [TOP RIGHT], Educational Technologist and Associate Director Rebecca Amato [BOTTOM RIGHT] reflect on their personal and professional journeys, and respond to questions from moderator Gwynneth Malin [BELOW], Director of the Center for the Humanities.
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ENHANCING DIGITALLYENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP Each year, our Center sponsors events with NYU Digital Humanities (NYU DH) that showcases research by NYU faculty and graduate students, providing connections within the University and beyond to a broader DH community. Our fall panel, “Digitization: What is Lost and What is Found? ” featured experts considering the changing nature of access to cultural works online and the impact on humanities research. In the spring, our Center co-sponsored the NYU Digital Humanities Project Showcase with Digital Scholarship Services and NYU DH. This day-long event organized by Zach Coble, Kimon Keramidas and Marion Thain enabled faculty, staff, and students to learn about each other’s work, create connections, and start new conversations. Topics covered included Art, Politics, Scholarship, and the Digital; Mapping NYC; and Algorithmic Ways of Reading.
At our DH Project Showcase, Assistant Professor Moacir P. de Sá Pereira [BOTTOM LEFT] discussed software for mapping literary references to New York City, and Alexei Taylor of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics showcased Tome, an online publication platform for students and scholars.
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PRISION EDUCATION & NYU
Prison Education Program (PEP) student Jamal Sapp [ABOVE], Instructor Piper Anderson [RIGHT] and Associate Professor Nikhil Singh share stories of their experiences participating in the NYU Prison Education Program.
At NYU, we view the promotion of higher education opportunities for those experiencing incarceration as a contribution to the creation of a more humane and just society, and as a reflection of NYU’s commitment to public service. A group of faculty, deans, and administrators at NYU have taken on this challenge through the Prison Education Program (PEP). Through this program, NYU offers educational programming leading to an Associate of Arts (AA) Degree in Liberal Studies at Wallkill Correctional Facility, located in Ulster County, NY. By offering transferrable credits and education support services, we are committed to developing educational opportunities both for our students in prison and upon their release. On October 20, 2015, faculty and students from the PEP program shared information about the creation of the PEP at NYU and addressed current issues in prison education at a panel called Why Prison Education, Why Now? For more information on the Prison Education Program (PEP), please visit: www.prisoneducation.nyu.edu
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JUMP-START YOUR WRITING! In 2014-2015, we offered two panels specifically designed to serve our community of writers. Given the popularity of these two events, we offered them both again this past year. On December 16, 2015, writing coach, Theresa MacPhail shared her advice about jump-starting the writing process. On May 11, 2016, Theresa MacPhail returned with more advice on how to have a productive summer of writing. Susan Ferber, senior editor from Oxford University Press, provided insights on the book proposal process and Professor Jini Kim Watson (Department of English) talked about how to revise the dissertation into a book.
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Jini Kim Watson [TOP LEFT], Ulrich Baer and Susan Ferber discuss strategies on developing workflow strategies and adopting a positive mindset to remain productive throughout the summer.
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SPECIAL CONVERSATIONS While many of our events are part of series or ongoing programming, we are always interested in new formats and conversations suggested by members of NYU. And while the majority of our events focus on the work of NYU colleagues, we periodically invite special guests from the broader academic and New York metropolitan communities to take part in conversations with our faculty. This past year we hosted several evenings with particularly distinguished guests, They included two Pulitzer-prize winners for Fiction, Paul Harding (for Tinkers, published with Bellevue Literary Press, housed in NYU’s Medical School), and Jhumpa Lahiri (for Interpreter of Maladies) as well as Harvard Professor of Romance Languages and Literature Doris Sommer, whose Work of Art in the World proposes radical changes for arts and humanities pedagogy. Sommer spoke in conversation with Gallatin Professor Stephen Duncombe about her new book, while Harding was on a panel with David Oshinsky (Department of History) and Erika Goldman (Editorial Director of Bellevue Literary Press) as part of a “Campfire” series promoted by the Pulitzer Centennial Committee. Jhumpa Lahiri and Co-Faculty Director Jane Tylus (Department of Italian Studies) spoke about Lahiri’s recent book, In altre parole, translated into English earlier this year, and the challenges of writing in a language not your “own.”
Photo Credit: Liana Miuccio
Jhumpa Lahiri [TOP RIGHT] presented In Other Words, and David Oshinsky [ABOVE] read passages from his book Polio: An American Story.
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THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES
In other events, James Fraser and Rene Arcilla, both professors in the Department of Humanities and Social Science in Steinhardt, coordinated a panel with Hasia Diner (Department of History) and Megan Laverty (Teacher’s College, Columbia) on “Teaching as a Vocation”, which explored both the ethical and practical dimensions of teaching in the 21st century. And Marc Redfield, of Brown University, discussed his recent book, Theory at Yale, with Co-Faculty Director Ulrich Baer, Jacques Lezra (Department of Comparative Literature), Eyal Peretz (Department of Comparative Literature, Indiana University) and Susanne Wofford (Gallatin School of Individualized Study) examining the affinities between theory and deconstruction that developed in the American academy in the 1970s by way of the Yale Critics. 27
Marc Redfield [TOP RIGHT] discussed his recent book Theory at Yale: The Strange Case of Deconstruction in America
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INNOVATION
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Experimenting with projects and programs to celebrate the humanities in new ways
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HOW TO BE HUMAN IN AN AGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS: A NEW PUBLIC EVENTS SERIES SPONSORED IN PART BY THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION A new events series called On Being Human: Environmental Humanities organized in collaboration with NYU’s Department of Environmental Studies and the Animal Studies Initiative and under the guidance of Yanoula Athanassakis, Co-founder of the series, convenes major scholars, activists, and experts to debate the social, scientific and humanistic challenges presented by past, present and future environmental conditions. Our speakers are deliberately chosen to address concerns of relevance to everyone, but they are especially targeted to NYU’s undergraduates, so that they can participate in highlevel, engaging debates convened by the Center. The series showcases new modes for communicating research and encourages active participation from the audience as it addresses issues ranging from environmental justice to climate change, food security, and animal welfare vs. rights.
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On February 10th, 2016, we hosted Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction and staff writer for The New Yorker, for a conversation with Professor Eric Klinenberg (also Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK) at NYU) to address the pressing themes of catastrophe and natural disaster in the time of the Anthropocene. The two speakers discussed two major themes: the role of stories of hope and resilience in the face of mass extinction and natural disaster, and the role of personal choice and collective activism with respect to food and diet.
Eric Klinenberg’s Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago [TOP LEFT] and Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History [BOTTOM RIGHT] were featured at this event.
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Co-Directors Keegan Kuhn [TOP] and Kip Andersen share the story behind Cowspiracy and discuss the effects of meat production and consumption on our environment.
On March 8th, 2016, we hosted directors and producers Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn to discuss their documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, about the environmental footprint of the cattle industry and its role in climate change. The film has become a touchstone for environmental activists, and the audience comprised a significant number of undergraduate students as well as members of the general public.
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At our Vegan Athletes event, Rich Roll [TOP LEFT], David Carter, Michelle McMacken and Dominick Thompson [BOTTOM RIGHT] discuss their personal journeys as vegans, and respond to questions by moderator Yanoula Athanassakis [BOTTOM LEFT].
On March 22nd, 2016, NYU welcomed a group of people who are changing the way we see the connections between what we eat and how we live. Co-sponsored by the Animal Studies Initiative and the Center for the Humanities, “Vegan Athletes” featured panelists David Carter, Dr. Michelle McMacken, Rich Roll, and Dominick Thompson and was introduced NYU Faculty Fellow in Animal Studies, Nicolas Delon. “Vegan Athletes” packed an auditorium of over 500 guests interested in issues of food security, race and masculinity, environmental justice, and basing food choices on ethical, moral, political, and health-related concerns. This final issue in particular highlighted the need for the humanities to mediate between these occasionally overlapping, occasionally competing demands. This event was made possible by the Animal Studies Initiative at NYU, the NYU Center for the Humanities, the NYU Sports and Society Program and the Animal Welfare Collective at NYU.
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ALLIANCES
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Supporting deep humanities awareness and education through external partnerships
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MENTORING THE NEXT GENERATION OF SCHOLARS: LEADERSHIP ALLIANCE MELLON INITIATIVE (LAMI) For the past four years, the Center for the Humanities has been pleased to sponsor the NYU-LAMI Summer Research Program for undergraduates from historically underrepresented groups. This nine-week intensive summer program prepares outstanding undergraduates for doctoral study in the humanities. Students conduct their own research under the supervision of NYU faculty mentors in their fields of study. Our summer 2016 group worked on their writing and studied research methodologies, while also taking a GRE preparation course offered online. Most importantly, students each design and execute an original research project for presentation at the Leadership Alliance National Symposium in July.
ALISHA BRUCE Howard University Project: Black Power, White Ideals: The Paradox of a Colonized Revolutionary Paired with Faculty mentor Millery Polyné, Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, Gallatin
DANIELLE JONES Dartmouth College Project: “Every Negro Walk in a Circle”: NonLinear Temporality in Beloved, Kindred, and The Book of Night Women Paired with Faculty mentor Michael Ralph, Associate Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Metropolitan Studies, Social and Cultural Analysis, Africana Studies, American Studies; Director of Metropolitan Studies
AMARA LAWSON-CHAVANU University of California, Los Angeles Project: “Georgia Peach”; Rasheeda, Laboring Pleasure and the Complexities of Southern Respectability Paired with Faculty mentor Jennifer Morgan, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, History; Chair of Social and Cultural Analysis
PROGRAM STAFF Gwynneth Malin Director, NYU Center for the Humanities Amy Weiss Adjunct Lecturer & Academic Coordinator GUADALUPE MADRIGAL University of California, Los Angeles Project: Bordering Butterflies: The Opposing Narratives of Newspaper Coverage During the Mexican Repatriation Paired with Faculty mentor Charlton McIllwain, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity, Steinhardt; Associate Professor, Media, Culture, and Communication; Faculty Fellow, 2015-16
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EMILY SUN Brown University Project: Unsettling the Body: Women of Color Feminist Aesthetics in the Artwork of Patty Chang and Xaviera Simmons Paired with Faculty mentor Karen Shimakawa, Chair and Associate Professor, Performance Studies
Ben Stewart Clinical Associate Professor, Expository Writing Program Shari Wolk Program Assistant, Doctoral Candidate, Media, Culture, and Communication
THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES
PUBLIC HUMANITIES FELLOWSHIP The Humanities Center Initiative of the
The Graduate Student Public Humanities Fellowship was developed in partnership with the New York Council for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and seven humanities centers at universities in New York State. This fellowship encourages emerging humanities scholars to conceive of their work in relation to the public sphere. Fellows train in public scholarship methods and explore the public dimensions of their research by working with community organizations and seeking to reach audiences beyond the academy. This past year we were delighted to welcome our two public humanities graduate fellows, Valeria Castelli (Department of Italian) and Lana Povitz (Department of History), to our fellows’ community at the Center.
PARTNER INSTITUTIONS The City University of New York The Center for the Humanities Columbia University Heyman Center for the Humanities Cornell University Society for the Humanities New York University Center for the Humanities State University of New York at Buffalo Humanities Institute State University of New York at Stony Brook Humanities Institute Syracuse University Humanities Center
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT for the HUMANITIES (NEH) The NEH Summer Stipends Program is a national program that provides awards for individuals to pursue scholarly work in the humanities during the summer. Projects may contribute to scholarly knowledge in a particular discipline or to the general public’s understanding of the humanities, and they may address broad topics or focused research in a single field. Recipients typically produce scholarly articles, books, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly tools in either traditional print or electronic formats. NYU may submit proposals from two faculty members to the NEH, and the Center coordinates this nomination process each summer.
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NYUHUMANITIES.ORG Created in 2007, the NYU Center for the Humanities draws on the talents and energies of our faculty and students across the University to provide a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion and collaboration in the humanities and arts. To foster and enhance the humanities community at NYU, the Center sponsors a number of endeavors aimed at promoting interdisciplinary dialogue, teaching, and research. The Center is a member of CHCI, a global consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes to share experiences, identifies major concerns in humanities scholarship, programming, and institutions, and to link us more closely to other initiatives in other locations, including the Global South. Funding for the NYU Center for the Humanities is provided by Provost David McLaughlin and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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