WELCOME!
Welcome to the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere! Despite the ongoing pandemic and staff transitions, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere is looking back on a successful 2021-22 and forward to continuing its advancement of the humanities. Mostly virtual, sometimes hybrid, and other times in person, in 2021-22, the Humanities Center organized events and programming that attracted about 1,000 audience members locally and globally and provided funding for faculty, staff, students, and community members to organize programming for a total of about 3,000 audience members. In this letter, I highlight some of our past events and share our plans for this upcoming year.
2021-22 SPEAKER SERIES: Rethinking the Public Sphere Part III: Transforming Institutions
Last year’s speaker series addressed questions about institutions from public health and the university to museums and monuments. Humanities scholars and practitioners reflected on institutions and their transformation. From diverse interdisciplinary perspectives, speakers demonstrated their efforts to reimagine institutions and generate their transformation. Michele Bratcher Goodwin (University of California, Irvine) spoke about “Policing The Womb: Invisible Women & The Criminalization of Motherhood,” Paul M. Farber (Director, Monument Lab, Philadelphia) discussed “Topple: Reimagining Monuments,” and finally Joy Connolly (President, American Council of Learned Societies) envisioned “Collaboration and Change.”
You can watch “Co-Creating Knowledge: Collaboration and Change” by Joy Connolly (President, American Council of Learned Societies), an example of “Rethinking the Public Sphere Speaker Series here.
2021-22 CONVERSATIONS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Let’s Talk about Music!
The 2021-22 public engagement series Conversations in the Neighborhood high-lighted humanities perspectives on music in its global and local contexts. In conversations, community members, government officials, humanities scholars, and international artists shared experiences about a range of topics related to music.
You can watch “Sites of Transformation: Songs, Native Identity, and Healing,” an example of “Conversations in the Neighborhood: Let’s Talk about Music” here.
Summer 2022 KNOWING AND BELIEVING – Summer lecture series at the Institute for Learning in Retirement at Oak Hammock
CHPS continued its lecture series at the ILR at Oak Hammock in summer 2022 on the topic Knowing and Believing. Individual talks in the series analyzed histories and contemporary contexts on how we know and what we believe, as well as how to identify factual information. Youssef Haddad (Languages, Literatures, and Cultures) spoke on “Perspectives on Lying,” and Robert Kawashima (Religion) presented on “Adam and Eve and the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Christopher Dorst (Philosophy) discussed “Science vs. Pseudoscience: Finding the Difference.” Hina Shaikh (Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research) followed by offering “Data, Algorithms, and Everyday Life.” Pam Gilbert (English) talked about “Belief and Knowledge during Novel Challenges: Nineteenth Century Cholera Epidemics,” while Anton Matytsin (History) concluded the series by reflecting on “Skepticism and Certainty in the Enlightenment.”
UF SYNERGIES: CURRENT SCHOLARSHIP IN THE HUMANITIES
With the ongoing support from the Rothman Endowment, CHPS awarded Rothman Faculty Fellowships for summer 2022 and with the support of the Tedder Family Endowment, the Center awarded Tedder Family Doctoral and Rothman Doctoral Fellowships to doctoral students for research to support their dissertations. These awardees will present their research in our year-long series, “UF Synergies: Current Scholarship in the Humanities,” which will continue this coming academic year. For past and future series, visit here.
ONGOING INTERNAL GRANTS AND SUPPORT
CHPS continues its menu of awards, including the Library Enhancement Program, Support for Workshops and Speaker Series in the Humanities, the Rothman Faculty Summer Fellowships in the Humanities, the Programs in Public Humanities, the Summer Residencies for Ph.D. Students at the National Humanities Center, the Tedder Family and Rothman Doctoral Fellowships in the Humanities, and the Publication Subventions.
Soon we will publish our call for proposals for fellowships, grants, and public programs!
SPEAKER SERIES 2022-23
Rethinking the Public Sphere Part IV: Public Humanities
Find out more on the upcoming speaker series here.
This 2022-23 speaker series focuses on examples of public humanities. From African American heritage and preservation and questions about how philosophy can engage the public, to a discussion of the role of environmental humanities, this series focuses on the contributions of the humanities to public discourse.
The first public talk in the 2022-23 series will be:
Brent Leggs (Executive Director, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and University of Pennsylvania)
“Preserving Galaxy of Black landmarks is an Act of Racial Justice”
2:00 p.m. Friday, September 23, 2022 – Smathers Libraries 100
This will be followed by the event:
“Preserving African American Communities and Landmarks: A Conversation with Brent Leggs (African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund) and Community leaders of African American Neighborhoods and Sites”
6:00 p.m. Friday, September 23, 2022 – Cotton Club Museum, 837 SE 7th Ave
BIDDING FAREWELL TO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ALEXANDRA CENATUS
This year, we are bidding farewell to Alexandra Cenatus, Assistant Director for Programming and Public Engagement. We appreciate her programming with Conversations in the Neighborhood, the Humanities Engagement Scholars program, and her general support of the humanities center. We wish her all the best for the future!
We look forward to the upcoming academic year and invite you to participate in our upcoming programming and events!
Warmly,
Barbara Mennel
Rothman Chair and Director
Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere
University of Florida
August 15, 2022
Previous Letters from the Director: