Tuesday, April 27, 2010

How is Innovation Taught? On the Humanities and the Knowledge Economy

Former fellow (2008-09) Dan Edelstein’s recent essay in Liberal Education reflects on the central role the humanities play in developing innovative thinking. Edelstein asserts that while the humanities are not more innovative than the sciences, they do require students to practice innovative thinking earlier on in their studies. Read the full article»

Dan Edelstein is assistant professor of French at Stanford University and the author of The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2009).

Monday, April 19, 2010

Fellows Update Spring 2010

Here is what we have heard from you since February. Please stay in touch, and if you have news to share, send an email to shc-newsletter@stanford.edu.

2004-2005

BRETT WHALEN published his first book, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Harvard University Press, 2009).

1997-98

JOHN BENDER (also 1988-89) and Michael Marrinan (Art and Art History) published The Culture of Diagram (Stanford University Press, 2010). The Culture of Diagram explores a terrain where words meet pictures and formulas meet figures, foregrounding diagrams as tools for blurring those boundaries to focus on the production of knowledge as process. Read more about the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Diagram-John-Bender/dp/0804745056.

1993-94

PERICLES LEWIS Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Yale, recently published his third book, Religious Experience and the Modernist Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He is now working on a new edition of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, for which he is editing the 20th-century volume.

JOHN MORAN GONZALEZ published his first book, Border Renaissance: The Texas Centennial and the Emergence of Mexican American Literature (University of Texas Press, 2009). The Troubled Union: Expansionist Imperatives in Post-Reconstruction American Novels, which he first worked on as his dissertation during his fellowship year, will be published by Ohio State University Press in October 2010.

ALLEGRA GOODMAN has a new novel, The Cookbook Collector, appearing in July, 2010. Goodman’s short story “La Vita Nuova” is featured in the April 26 issue of The New Yorker. Read an email exchange between Goodman and Cressida Leyshon, a fiction editor at the magazine, about art, writing, and Goodman’s new novel, here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/04/this-week-in-fiction-allegra-goodman.html

HANS ULRICH GUMBRECHT will receive an honorary doctorate from Aarhus University, Denmark. Gumbrecht, the Albert Guérard Professor of Literature in the Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, will receive the honorary degree on Sept. 10, 2010, in conjunction with the university’s 82nd anniversary. Rumor has it the Danish queen will be present at the ceremony.

1992-93

MICHAEL FELLMAN has just published In the Name of God and Country: Reconsidering Terrorism in American History with Yale University Press. Read more about the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Name-God-Country-Reconsidering-Terrorism/dp/0300115105/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_3

1988-89

ANNIE FINCH published a book-length narrative and dramatic poem, Among the Goddesses: A Libretto in Seven Dreams (Red Hen Press). Her first book of poetry, Eve, was reissued as part of Carnegie Mellon University Press’s Classic Contemporaries Poetry Series, and her second book of poetry, Calendars, was released in an audio CD format, read by the author, by its original publisher, Tupelo Press. Annie also published two related textbooks with the University of Michigan Press: A Poet’s Ear: A Handbook of Meter and Form and A Poet’s Craft: A Complete Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry. Annie was awarded the 2009 Robert Fitzgerald Award for contributions to the art and science of prosody.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Humanities Center-SiCa Arts Writers/Practitioners in Residence 2010-11

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa) are pleased to announce that two international artists have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2010-11 as part of a jointly sponsored pilot program. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the artists will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and SiCa.

These residencies bring high-profile arts writers/practitioners into the intellectual life of the university, targeting artists whose arts practice and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and SiCa.

The following artists have been selected for the upcoming academic year:

Victor Gama is a creative musician, folklorist, instrument maker, and computer musician from Lusophone Africa. Born in Angola, Victor Gama’s music addresses the relationship between technologies and artistic traditions with a particular focus on musical styles and histories of Africa and the diaspora. Trained in electronic engineering, he draws on his interests in diasporic music and in computer generated music. During his residency, he will conduct a public solo performance of his music using his own designed musical instrument (Pangeia Instrumentos). He was jointly nominated by the Center for African Studies, the Department of Art and Art History, the Latin American Studies Center and his nomination was also supported by the Cantor Museum.

Milica Tomic is a Serbian artist working at the intersection of performance art forms, using video, film, photography, light, and sound installation. Her work centers on political violence, nationality and identity with an emphasis on the tensions between intimate experience and media-constructed images. Among her projects is the use of art to address war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo. During her residency, she will present a selected number of her works in which she used art in order to re-actualize past traumatic events. She has exhibited globally including at Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2003, Sao Paulo Biennale in 1998, Istanbul Biennale in 2003 and Sydney Biennale in 2006. Ms. Tomic was nominated by the Department of Drama.

While at Stanford, the artists will offer informal seminars, demonstrations, student workshops and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Mary Robinson Speaks at Stanford

Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson spoke about human rights at Stanford on Monday, drawing from her past work as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights and on her more recent work with nonprofits, such as Realize Rights. She focused on practical action and the role Stanford could play in the process. Robinson’s lecture was part of the Presidential Lecture series sponsored by the Office of the President and put on by the Stanford Humanities Center.

Read article in the Stanford Report: ”The world needs a ‘shared view’ of human rights, says Ireland’s former president”

Read article in The Stanford Daily: “Robinson speaks to Farm”

View the Presidential Lectures site for more information about Mary Robinson and her work

Friday, April 9, 2010

Stanford Humanities Center Names 2010-11 Fellows

The Stanford Humanities Center has named 21 fellows for the 2010-11 academic year. Chosen from a pool of nearly 500 applicants, including a record number of external applicants, the 2010-11 cohort comprises scholars from other institutions, as well as Stanford faculty and advanced Stanford graduate students. They will pursue individual research and writing for the full academic year while contributing to the Stanford community through their participation in workshops, lectures, and courses.

The Humanities Center will also host a series of month-long visitors throughout the year through two new programs: one for international scholars (jointly sponsored with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies) and one for arts writer/practitioners (jointly sponsored with the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts). These visitors, who were selected through a process of nomination by Stanford departments, will be announced separately.

Amy Appleford, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, Boston University
Learning to Die in London, 1350 - 1530

Alain Bresson, Marta Sutton Weeks Faculty Fellow
Department of Classics, The University of Chicago
Why Coinage? An Economic Analysis of the Development of Coined Money in Ancient Greece

Gordon Chang, Donald Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
China Elusive: Two-Hundred and Fifty Years of America-China Relations and the Pursuit of America’s Destiny

Max Edling, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, Uppsala University, Sweden
A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

Harris Feinsod, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Comparative Literature, Stanford University
Fluent Mundo: Inter-American Poetry, 1940-1973

James Ferguson, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Rationalities of Poverty and Social Assistance: Mapping New Conceptual and Discursive Constructions in Southern Africa

Lori Flores, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
Other Californias: Tracing Mexican American Lives, Civil Rights Activism, and the Coming of the Chicano Movement to Salinas Valley, 1945-1970

Daniel Hackbarth, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Art and Art History
Media as Medium: Raoul Hausmann, 1886-1971

Gavin Jones, Violet Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of English, Stanford University
Forms of Failure: American Literature and the Emotional Life of Class

William Leidy, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Bringing a New Word to the World Through Charismatic Scandal

Heather Love, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of Pennsylvania
The Stigma Archive

Cecilia Méndez, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Wars Within: Civil Strife, National Imaginings, and the Rural Basis of the Peruvian State

Giorgio Riello, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Global Cotton: Why an Asian Fabric Made Europe Rich, 1000-1800

Courtney Roby, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Classics, Stanford University
The Encounter of Knowledge: Technical Ekphrasis from Alexandria to Rome

Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Marta Sutton Weeks Faculty Fellow
Departments of American Studies and English, Amherst College
The Unpublished Republic: Manuscript Cultures of the Mid-Nineteenth-Century U.S.

Scott Saul, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of California, Berkeley
Becoming Richard Pryor: A Critical Biography

Londa Schiebinger, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
The Science of Race: Human Experimentation in the Atlantic World

Blakey Vermeule, Violet Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of English, Stanford University
Irony and its Relation to the Unconscious: A Literary Journey

Richard White, Donald Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
The Long Crisis

Ben Wolfson, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Philosophy
Intentional Action and Practical Knowledge

James Wood, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of English, Stanford University
Anecdote and Enlightenment, 1710-1790

The Center’s fellowships are made possible by gifts and grants from the Esther Hayfer Bloom Estate, Theodore H. and Frances K. Geballe, Mimi and Peter Haas, Marta Sutton Weeks, the Mericos Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the offices of the Dean of Research and the Dean of Humanities and Sciences.

Monday, April 5, 2010

David Holloway Weighs in on U.S.-Russian Nuclear Treaty

With an April 8 date set for the United States and Russia to sign a new nuclear arms reduction treaty, each country is preparing to cut their deployed weapons by about 30 percent. Former Stanford Humanities fellow David Holloway (2005-06) spoke with the Stanford News Service about the latest pact between the United States and Russia, and what the prospects are for further reduction of nuclear weapons.

Read the article: ”Stanford’s David Holloway weighs in on U.S.-Russian nuclear treaty to slated for signing this week”

Friday, April 2, 2010

Thai Protestors Shed Culture of Restraint

Stanford Humanities Center International Visitor Thitinan Pongsudhirak is quoted in the New York Times’ ”Memo from Bangkok,” by Thomas Fuller. Pongsudhirak is professor of international political economy at the Faculty of Science at Chulalongkorn University and a leading scholar on contemporary political, economic, and foreign-policy issues in Thailand.

Read the article: “Thai Protestors Shed Culture of Restraint.”

Thailand’s Battle of Attrition

Stanford Humanities Center International Visitor Thitinan Pongsudhirak discusses the demonstrations in Thailand in his New York Times op-ed “Thailand’s Battle of Attrition.” Pongsudhirak is professor of international political economy at the Faculty of Science at Chulalongkorn University and a leading scholar on contemporary political, economic, and foreign-policy issues in Thailand.

Read the op-ed: “Thailand’s Battle of Attrition.”