This year the Humanities Collaboratory is collaborating with Arts & Humanities to organize the 2021/22 Inaugural Lectures, a celebration of those beginning their careers as Full Professors in the College.
Tuesday, Oct. 26 (Joint Lecture)
Elizabeth Hewitt, English
"Managing Time in a Plurality of Worlds"
Abstract: In the summer of 1787, a group of white men crafted a document designed to manage the sprawling size of a new nation and to establish a framework to provide for its perpetuity. This took time: twelve months from the beginning of the convention to ratification. And in the 233 years since, it has been amended and reinterpreted repeatedly. Yet it is enshrined as timeless. Why? To pursue this question, I turn to early US literary history and to a body of work that speculates on alternative Americas: poems and fictions that portray the nation in a distant future, or that discover other and better lands, or that turn to the past to reimagine alternative futures.
Greg Anderson, History
"Life in a Pluriverse of Many Different Worlds"
Abstract: The “one world” metaphysical foundations of our global capitalist order are now being vigorously challenged by a diverse range of constituencies, including Indigenous communities, ecological activists, and an ever-growing cross-disciplinary alliance of academics. Together these various critics encourage us to take seriously the idea that humans have always lived in a pluriverse of many different worlds, not in a universe of just one. For some years now, my own work has been exploring the far-reaching implications of this radical idea. In essence, it tries to show how the practice of a novel “pluriversal history” can support ongoing efforts to critique the “one world” world of capitalist modernity and enact more humane, more ecologically responsible alternatives.
Thursday, Nov. 18
Susan Lang, English
"Aviate, Navigate, Communicate: The Essential Interdisciplinarity of Research in Writing Studies"
Abstract: How does the crisis management mantra, “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate,” intersect with and in some ways exemplify the interdisciplinary nature of Writing Studies? As it turns out, perhaps in more ways than one would think. In addressing this question, I’ll first draw on past and current collaborations that demonstrate the need for writing studies researchers to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. Next, I’ll identify critical gaps our knowledge of writing and writing instruction that must be addressed as both the nature of writing and larger post-secondary institution curricular structures change. Finally, I’ll outline a program of research that can address some of these gaps, from identifying how writing is evolving in STEM disciplines to examining the role of AI in writing and writing instruction, and that emphasizes the essential interdisciplinarity of writing studies at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century.