A research unit of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Alan Lightman to speak as Distinguished Lecturer
Imagining the future of food in 2040
2014-15 IHR Fellows to explore “Affect and Reason�
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institute for humanities research 2014-15
alan lightman, author of the bestseller einstein’s dreams
science humanities
at the crossroads of
distinguish and the
2015 annual IHR
Does science ever intersect with art, language, and literature? Physicist, novelist, essayist, and author of the bestseller Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman, explores this question and investigates the relationship between the sciences and the humanities. Lightman will be featured as the 2015 IHR Distinguished Lecturer in February 2015. His lecture will explore human affect and reason at the crossroads of science and the humanities. Lightman is Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was the first faculty member to receive an appointment in both the humanities and sciences. Through works such as The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew (2014), Lightman explores everything from multiple universes to the perception of time to the question of God’s existence, illustrating along the way the value of being a humanist and physicist simultaneously.
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hed lecturer Lightman’s prolific writing reflects his long engagement with both the sciences and the humanities, with works of fiction (such as Good Benito and Song of Two Worlds) and nonfiction (such as Great Ideas in Physics and The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science) counting among his more than twenty books published to date.
A major university and community event, the Annual Distinguished Lecturer program brings to campus a prominent figure whose work highlights the importance of humanities research. While on campus, speakers discuss humanities trends with the Institute’s advisory board and participate in informal sessions, allowing ASU colleagues to discuss related research interests. For more information or to attend this year’s Distinguished Lecture, see our website at ihr.asu.edu.
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director’s message
Sally Kitch, Director
Who needs the humanities? That question, often unstated, may trouble many involved in evaluating higher education funding priorities, success, and social contributions. At the Institute for Humanities Research (IHR) at Arizona State University (ASU), the answer to that question is a resounding “everyone.” The humanities deal with the ideas that drive human action and the historical and cultural contexts for every decision human beings must make and every challenge we must face, from fossil fuel consumption to the United States’ role in the Middle East. A better question, then, is who doesn’t need the humanities?
The IHR’s mission is to advance the humanities as a site of vital research that makes a difference in the world. Prime examples of that kind of research can be found among the many seed grants the IHR awards and in this year’s individual and collaborative IHR Fellows research projects focused on “Affect and Reason,” especially historical evidence of the interconnection of human capacities too often separated in contemporary life. In addition, the IHR Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Alan Lightman, author of The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew (2014), will address the relationship between the arts, humanities, and science in spring 2015. And the IHR Nexus Lab, partially funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will continue to work with ASU humanists as they bring their research activities into greater visibility and to engage with real-world puzzles and challenges. By making available new strategies for discovery based on computing and data, the Nexus Lab can expand the purview of humanities research and grow networks of collaborators. The IHR’s ongoing relationship with ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability is a vital collaboration that helps to integrate humanities concerns with language, ethics, idea systems, history, values, and human motivation, into scientific and technological explorations of environmental sustainability. The IHR is also the North American headquarters for (and West Cluster site of) an international Mellon Foundation-funded project focusing on “Humanities for the Environment.” The IHR will host the third workshop for the West Cluster in October 2014, when ASU scholars, as well as scholars from other universities, will apply transdisciplinary knowledge to the specific problem of food sustainability. This workshop will feature a public lecture on the future of food by renowned environmental activist, Dr. Vandana Shiva on October 30, 2014. A national meeting will follow at the IHR in 2015. The IHR has also received funding from President Crow’s Carnegie Foundation funds to consolidate work in the environmental humanities across the ASU campus and make it more visible and collaborative for future externally funded projects. The IHR has also launched an initiative to enhance research in the area of the Medical Humanities, a growing interdisciplinary field that includes scholars in areas such as medical ethics, narrative medicine (which seeks to promote the practical use of narrative in patient care and research on narrative in relation to our experiences of health, pain, and wellbeing), history of medicine, healthcare policy and development, and cross-cultural analyses and critiques of healthcare delivery. As ASU deepens its relationships with the Mayo Clinic and the developing Mayo Medical School, the IHR will be sponsoring programs specifically aimed at bringing a humanities perspective to healthcare research, training, delivery, and policy. This year we will kick off our collaboration with a series of lectures and workshops on campus and at the Mayo Clinic. I am honored to be directing the IHR at such an exciting time. There are many ways for ASU faculty and the greater Phoenix community members to engage with our funding opportunities, projects, and programs. I invite you to explore what is new and upcoming at the IHR to learn more about humanities research at ASU.
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meet the new IHR staff
Jennifer Quincey
Assistant Director
Jennifer took on the role of Assistant Director after working in research administration with the IHR for over three years. A firm believer in the IHR’s mission of promoting socially engaged humanities research, she is looking forward to continuing her work with the IHR community in this new capacity. Jennifer comes to this position with a PhD in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis.
Susan Anderson
Special Projects Specialist Susie recently graduated from Arizona State University with an MA in art history. Her work focused on medieval art and Animal Studies, which gives her a unique perspective on the humanities and just what it means to be "human." Formerly a Graduate Research Assistant for the IHR, she is looking forward to contributing to the success of an institution that both supported and inspired her during her graduate career.
Addy Bareiss
Research Advancement Specialist, Sr.
Addy comes to the IHR with a background in non-profit public education and community outreach. She completed an MBA at Kansas State University in 2006 and an MA in Gender Studies at ASU in 2011. Her interest and expertise in quantitative data and passion for humanities, particularly community engagement, make her an asset to the Research Administration team.
Jacqueline Hettel
Assistant Director, IHR Nexus Lab Coming from Stanford University Libraries as the Linguistics, Philosophy, and Textual Research Librarian, Jacqueline brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and insight to the IHR Nexus Lab as the Assistant Director. She received her PhD in English from the University of Georgia, specializing in Linguistics, Computational Research Methods, Digital Humanities, and Rhetoric and Composition, where she was also the Chief Research Assistant for the Linguistic Atlas projects.
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2014 IHR transdisciplinary book award winner
Writing with Scissors
American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance In the days before Google and the blogosphere, Americans still valued interaction with media and preserving historical events that mattered to them, despite their lack of virtual tools to deal with the nascent age of information. So with the tenacity and ingenuity so typical of the 19th-century American spirit, a new method of recording and interacting with media came to the fore: scrapbooking. This under-studied trend in American popular culture touched the lives of everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Susan B. Anthony, from emancipated slaves to confederate soldiers. Ellen Gruber Garvey’s pioneering book, Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance, explores the profoundly personal relationship Americans have had with media over the last 150 years through the lens of scrapbooking, which was both an intensely personal and democratic exercise in information processing. By taking newspaper clippings, sermons, and other pieces of information that they found relevant, Americans managed to interact with their media sources in a manner that would otherwise have been impossible due to race, sex, or class barriers. Garvey’s book provides a novel take on our familiar national history, recounting events, both major and minor, as told by the individuals who lived them and recorded them in their scrapbooks. Garvey will speak at the annual Humanities Faculty Authors’ Reception, hosted by the Institute for Humanities Research and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on October 9, 2014. This event recognizes and celebrates humanities faculty authors from Arizona State University and the substantial body of humanistic research reflected in their publications. The IHR will also honor the annual IHR Transdisciplinary Humanities Book Award winner. Ellen Gruber Garvey is Professor of English at New Jersey City University and the author of the award-winning book The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gendering of Consumer Culture. For more information or to RSVP for this event see, our website at ihr.asu.edu.
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2014-15 IHR fellows theme “affect and reason” Humanists have been central to reconsidering the active role that emotions play in the constructions of reason, truth, subjectivity, and narrative. Building on recent analyses of the unconscious and studies of the phenomenology of the senses in the social, cognitive, and developmental sciences, humanities scholars have come to understand the production and channeling of affect as a central category in scientific fields once considered “value neutral.” They have also begun to reanalyze the role of human emotion in shaping and regulating ancient and modern communities through various discursive forms, ranging from religious and mythic narrative to modern advertising. The 2014-15 IHR Fellows Program brings together ASU faculty and visiting scholars from a diverse range of disciplines whose research delves into the power of affect across time and space, fields of knowledge and the varieties of personal experience, analyzing how the mobilization of affect shapes cultural, political, religious, scientific, or aesthetic understandings and how the invocation of affect interacts with taboos and sanctions, and/or compounds its relations with the world of objectivity and rationality. In April of 2015 the IHR Fellows will participate in a symposium exploring these ideas surrounding “Affect and Reason.” The chosen ASU Fellows for 2014-15 are (pictured top to bottom): Cora Fox (Associate Professor, Department of English); Bradley J. Irish (Assistant Professor, Department of English); Xiaoqiao Ling (Assistant Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures); and Victoria E. Thompson (Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies). The 2015 Visiting Fellows are Michael Mayer (Assistant Professor, Department of History, Political Academy of the State of Bavaria) and Jillian Porter (Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, University of Oklahoma).
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building bridges in the job market from humanities to industry Featured Seed Grant Award Each year, graduates from humanities programs must weather the assault of trite, pessimistic employment forecasts from their peers, whose incredulity regarding their chosen field of study is most succinctly summed up in a short five-word phrase: “Good luck finding a job.” Yet the inability of many to perceive the worth of an education in the humanities, especially in writing, is not due to any dearth in applicability of humanist educational paradigms. In fact, the humanist disciplines have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to the rapidly changing socio-economic climes. Rather, it is the existence of an “informational gap” between employers and graduates from the humanities which contributes to the perceived devaluation of a humanist education. Eva Brumberger and Claire Lauer (Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication) in collaboration with Mark Hannah (Department of English) have been awarded an IHR Seed Grant to pursue research that seeks to close the aforementioned informational gap between employers and graduates.
IHR sponsors research dedicated to animal studies Research Cluster spotlight Despite its slightly misleading designation, the emerging field of Animal Studies is an entirely distinct discipline from its counterpart based in biological research. Animal Studies is aimed at appraising the multitudinous ways in which humans create and interpret just what it means to coexist with nonhuman life. Given its hermeneutical focus, it is no surprise that the humanist disciplines are at the forefront of this profoundly interdisciplinary field of research, which incorporates a diverse range of theoretical perspectives, from functionalism to feminism. Ron Broglio (Department of English), Corine Schleif (School of Art), and Ben Minteer (School of Life Sciences), were selected as one of the 2014-15 IHR funded Research Clusters based on their commitment to improving the humanities at ASU by furthering the goals of Animal Studies as a discipline. The ultimate goal of the cluster is to establish a graduate certificate in Animal Studies at ASU as a way of promoting the discipline in the related fields of the biological sciences, social sciences, and geography.
expanding models for humanities research the 2014-15 IHR faculty seminar series Humanities research in the twenty-first century can entail an ever-increasing range of methodologies and approaches that allow scholars to ask new questions and expand their inquiries in new directions. Today humanists may find themselves modeling data, digitally mapping their historical and literary finds and analyses, engaging in performance, creating research networks, curating (not just using) virtual archives, thinking visually, collaborating in pairs or groups in laboratory and studio environments, and expanding their research questions into a variety of non-humanities fields. The 2014-15 IHR Faculty Seminar Series, “Expanding Models for Humanities Research,” will explore and evaluate such approaches to humanities research through presentations by ASU faculty and visiting scholars. The series will begin on September 19th with a lecture and discussion led by Andrea Lunsford of Stanford University (emerita) on “The Necessity of Collaboration.” Professor Lunsford will historicize her argument that writing is essentially collaborative, even when the writing seems to be done by a solitary author. She will review the role collaboration plays in writing in various disciplines and discuss why humanists must rethink their commitment to singular authorship, giving examples of the benefits that will come with understanding, and embodying, a collaborative model. For the rest of the series, chosen ASU Faculty members will explore the potential of collaboration, performance, and laboratory and studio models for humanities research, as well as other methodological topics. For more on the next presentations of the Faculty Seminar Series, see ihr.asu.edu.
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toward a just and sustainable future: dinner 2040 Humanists are in a unique position to provide a voice for many that are often excluded from environmental discourse, in addition to contributing a deeper meaning to social justice and sustainability. With this in mind, ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research is exploring the theme of “Toward a Just and Sustainable Future” as part of the Humanities for the Environment (HfE) project, which was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI). At the seat of the West Cluster of the HfE, the Institute for Humanities Research is hosting three workshops, all of which aim to promote behavioral, attitudinal, and affective transformation as a form of activism oriented toward reimagining social and ecological justice in the Anthropocene. The first workshop took place in November 2013, with the theme “Imagining Communities, Technologies, Responsibilities, and Justice in the Anthropocene.” Expert consultants for this event included Rebecca Tsosie (Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law) and Giovanna DiChiro (Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change, Swarthmore College), who led a session on “Identifying principles of environmentally sustainable and socially just practices through transnational and historical comparisons,” and Mark Tebeau (School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies) and Ed Finn (School of Arts, Media and Engineering), who led a session on “Defining just digital technologies.” Workshop II was held in February 2014, with the theme “Imagining Communities in the Anthropocene: Multi-Species Relationships” and beta-tested two companion projects – “Living with Critters” and “Life Overlooked.” “Living with Critters” focused on how abundant wildlife (e.g., in one’s backyard, neighborhood, region, etc.), and charismatic megafauna (e.g., endangered species, typically in small populations, and often with little human interaction), as well as other well-known taxa, are leveraged by environmental groups to try to encourage the public to care about animals. Toward these ends, Workshop II opened with guest speaker Jon Mooallem’s talk, “Billy and Teddy: Fear, Disinterest, and Compassion for Wildlife,” followed by guest speaker Nalini Nadkarni’s “Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees.” Workshop III, which applies transdisciplinary knowledge to the specific problem of food, is scheduled for October 2014 and will attempt to engage community partners in imagining “Dinner 2040,” a vision for the future of food systems in Maricopa County. All participants will come together to participate in an intensive one-day design charrette to imagine the future of food, to understand Arizona’s food history, and to examine evolving practices in sustainable food farming, harvesting, distribution, and preparation. Environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva will present a guest lecture co-sponsored by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies on Thursday, October 30, 2014. Shiva is a physicist, winner of the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, and author of a number of books including Making Peace with the Earth (2013).
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digital humanities at the IHR nexus lab The digital humanities demonstrate how research methods use data and computation to draw new insights into texts and history, but how do the digital humanities connect the humanities to other disciplines? The IHR Nexus Lab for Digital Humanities and Transdisciplinary Informatics envisions pathways for the humanities to contribute to broader interdisciplinary problem-solving for challenges such as climate change, social justice, health care, resource management, and civic engagement. Founded in 2013, the Nexus Lab’s mission is to grow and network digital humanities resources and expertise at Arizona State University, across the Southwest Region, and worldwide. Activity ranges from training workshops, to sustained working groups among faculty and students, to coordinated original research projects that pull together experts from around the ASU system. Faculty and students are encouraged to explore possibilities offered by both small-scale research and largescale high performance computing resources. Projects taken up by the Nexus Lab vary in their emphasis but all strive to broaden the scope of what the humanities can contribute to interdisciplinary research. In concert with research partners from around the university, the lab explores ways to join the critical methods of the humanities to prototypes of decision support systems that inform work in the fields of medicine, engineering, and energy. One project works with policy analysts to use text mining to investigate economic thought over the last forty years with an eye towards booms, busts, and models of economic growth. The Nexus lab also works with Code For America to partner ASU and community developers in the effort to create new tools for civic engagement and community action in the Phoenix metro area. For more information about the Nexus Lab visit nexus.lab.asu.edu.
“The Nexus Lab envisions pathways for the humanities to contribute to broader interdisciplinary problem-solving for challenges such as climate change, social justice, health care, resource management, and civic engagement.� Michael Simeone, Director, IHR Nexus Lab
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Photo Credit: Cartography Associates
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tim cresswell and IHR fellows explored concepts of home In April the IHR Fellows Symposium, “There's No Place Like Home,” highlighted the work of the 2013-14 ASU and Visiting Fellows. The two-day event began on April 3 with a lecture by guest speaker Tim Cresswell from Northeastern University. The symposium critically examined ideological constructions that both inform and challenge concepts of home by questioning the ways that geographies, histories, and imagined and lived experiences are reflected in the places we call home. “How does place at a moment in time relate to what is assembled at the same objective location later?” asked Cresswell. He further argued that one must understand that “dwelling is dwelling in time as much as it is in place.” Because places are always changing, “if we return to the assemblage of place that is home,” stated Cresswell, “we can see that there are forces at work that stabilize its identity. These range from the laws that make it my property to the maintenance that’s needed to stop it falling down.” Likewise, Cresswell suggested that home could also be destabilized through these same forces. During the April 4 sessions, the Fellows shared their projects with the ASU community, welcoming comments and questions. Opening Friday’s session, Ersula Ore (Department of English), and Corine Schleif (School of Art), were joined by Susan Anderson (Graduate Fellow, School of Art) who spoke about humans’ and animals’ responsibilities in “Making Home.” In subsequent sessions, participants considered “Imagining Home” and “Leaving Home” as the audience heard from Visiting Fellows Harvey Green (emeritus, Northeastern University) and Abigail Manzella (University of Michigan-Columbia), as well as ASU Fellows J. Eugene Clay (School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies), Desirée Garcia and Bambi Haggins (Department of English), and Shannon Lujan (Graduate Fellow, Department of English). Discussants explored home as an invented space of belonging through cultural representation and media and textual images. An exploration of "Leaving Home" included physical and imagined realities as participants looked at the processes of migration and recreating home spaces.
Matt Rahner, Eminent Domain
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listenn: acoustic ecologies of the southwest deserts featured seed grant award Recipient of an IHR Seed Grant for the 2014 calendar year, Listenn: Acoustic Ecologies of the Southwest Deserts Re-Imagined is an interdisciplinary collaborative project that explores remote embodied landscapes of pristine national park and UNESCO Biosphere reserves and sites of environmental significance through sound. Directed by Garth Paine (School of Arts, Media and Engineering) with core input from Daniel Gilfillan (School of International Letters and Cultures), Sabine Feisst (School of Music), and Leah Barclay (School of Arts, Media, and Engineering), the project focuses on community awareness, sustainability, environmental engagement, critical inquiry, and interpretative discourse around questions of how digital technology and rich media environments can be used to create experiences of being present in remote environments. At its core, the Listenn project explores a range of research questions about the role and function of sound and the perception of sound for a deeper understanding of questions pertaining to place, presence, belonging, and sustainability. The immersive sonic productions, which form the foundation of Listenn, provide a palpable framework within which such a phenomenology of human experience of the world can be experienced, shared, examined, and understood. The research project has organized a symposium on October 16 – 17, 2014, which will reflect on project outcomes, promote the project, and commission for new works derived from the field recordings made during the initial phase of the project to showcase the future possibilities of acoustic ecology as remote embodied experiences of protected high value landscapes. To learn more about the project and experience the acoustic field recordings from the six National Park and Biosphere Reserve sites, please visit the project web portal at http://listen.ame.asu.edu.
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Photo Copyright and Credit: Garth Paine
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jenny norton research cluster spotlight: local and global fem The Local and Global Feminisms and the Politics of Knowledge Research Cluster, including Ann Hibner Koblitz, Charles Lee, Karen Kuo, Karen Leong, and Heather Switzer (School of Social Transformation), focused on theories of intersectionality and feminist knowledge within a global and transnational framework. In March
2014, to support their research, the cluster invited Professors Khiara M. Bridges (Boston University School of Law) and Chandan Reddy (University of Washington) to speak about how the state defines, regulates, and disciplines unruly bodies – defined by race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. While Bridges focused on the ways in which the medical system
Debjani Chakravarty©, Violent Journeys, Used with permission of the artist.
to keep within bounds Colleen Donohoe
no place like home? an exhibition of the usual/familiar No place like home? An exhibition of the usual/familiar explored the idea of home on cultural, emotional, intellectual, religious, philosophical, political, and spiritual levels – as a place, a space, a myth, a source of identity, a promised land, a state of being, a war zone, an impossibility, and an inalienable right. Home can suggest security, belonging, memory, and comfort, or arouse feelings of dread, alienation, and pain. This exhibition asked the viewer what it meant to create a home or to be without one, what happens when we leave home and arrive in a new place, and how relationships with culture, history, emotion, intellect, religion, philosophy, politics, and spirituality affect the idea of home. No place like home? was displayed January 6 – April 25, 2014. This exhibition, sponsored by the Institute for Humanities Research, was curated by Elysia Michaelsen, and included works by the following artists: Giovanna Valderas, Ryan Standler, Anne M. Klimt, Stephanie Burke, Zachary Betts, Maria Dimanshtein, Sharon Harper, Tres Roemer, George Bedall, Matt Rahner, Kihyun Kwon, Courtney Richter, Dean Dablow, Evelyn Davis Walker, Steven McCarthy, and Peter Nelson.
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minisms and the politics of knowledge regulates the bodies of pregnant women of color, Reddy explored how the United States continually legislates freedoms for some bodies while enacting violence upon others. In an informal atmosphere that encourages networking across disciplines, groups of ASU
scholars meet regularly to explore a theme through IHR Research Clusters. This cluster is funded by the Reverend Jenny Norton who supports an annual Research Cluster at the IHR. The Norton fund is designed to stimulate research about women in any field and on any topic.
Support Structure (underhand)
Depart
P. Roch Smith
Tres Roemer
Dream at MOMA
Shitty Cooking
Kihyun Kwon
Stephanie Burke
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comparative genocide: never again? never before? Research Cluster spotlight “Never again” and “never before” are equally powerful and problematic statements born out of the horrors of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Yet genocide was committed many times before and after the Nazi murder of the European Jewry. This IHR Research Cluster, including Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, Katherine Osburn, Mark Tebeau, and Volker Benkert (School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies), seeks to establish a framework to better understand genocide, as well as the post-trauma process of healing in order to better prevent future cases of prejudice, marginalization, and genocide. The three instances this cluster focused on were the Holocaust, the U.S. displacement and slaughter of Native Americans, and the massacre of Tutsi in Rwanda. This seems especially timely as we are not only commemorating important anniversaries of atrocities (20-year anniversary of Rwanda, 2014, and 70-year anniversary of the Holocaust, 2015), but also because these three instances of mass violence will be part of a Chandler, AZ museum on genocide, built by the East Valley Jewish Community Center. Together with its museum partners, the cluster seeks to answer the underlying question: “Can we develop a universal moral and philosophical frame of reference of atrocity that still manages to do justice to the vast differences of mass atrocities on three different continents at different times?” To explore these issues guest lecturer from the Institute of History of Religion at the Freie University Berlin, Germany, Björn Krondorfer, spoke about German families’ complicated relation to their national past, and shared his personal experiences in a lecture and roundtable in April 2014. J.J. Carney from the department of Theology at Creighton University presented “‘A Muhutu in our Sense is a Poor and Simple Man’: The Sociopolitical Dimensions of Ethnic Discourse in Colonial Rwanda.” Following his lecture Professors J.J. Carney, Bjorn Krondorfer, and Katherine Osburn participated in a roundtable discussion to explore these separate occurrences of genocide. The research cluster hopes to continue to foster debate within the academy and wider community about how to address genocide – which inherently involves dimensions of personal forgetting and collective memory – in an adequate yet sensitive manner when presenting these troubling epochs in human history in the planned museum.
Photo Credit: East Valley JCC
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stephen greenblatt 2014 distinguished lecturer Pulitzer Prize Award winner and Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, Dr. Stephen Greenblatt, was featured as the 2014 IHR Annual Distinguished Lecturer in March. Dr. Greenblatt is a renowned literary critic and scholar with expertise in Renaissance and Shakespeare studies. One of the founders of “new historicism,” Greenblatt contributes prominent scholarship that emphasizes a literary work’s original history and context while seeking connections to the present. In the 2014 Distinguished Lecture, entitled “Tell My Story: The Human Compulsion to Narrate,” Stephen Greenblatt examined the innate human affinity for storytelling, appraising the issue through the lens of the Biblical account of Genesis and Shakespeare’s King Lear. Greenblatt began his lecture with the apocryphal accounts of Adam, Eve, and the Fall of Man, discussing mythical tales which sought to “fill in the gaps” in the history of Adam and Eve subsequent to their expulsion from Eden. The central actors in these narratives seem to be cognizant of the need to pass on their story; six days after the death of Adam, it is described that Eve instructed her children to record the lives of their parents for posterity. This recounting of the origins of mortality as portrayed in the Genesis accounts led Greenblatt to briefly indulge in various facets of evolutionary biology, a counterintuitive yet fitting ballast to the biblical stories. As Greenblatt noted, there exists a fundamental and crucial link between death and birth, insofar as nature tempers one’s natural decay until the organism has been able to rear its youngest offspring to the point of selfsufficiency. After the attainment of selfsufficiency by the youngest member of the genetic family, the parents to this offspring have become, biologically speaking, superfluous. As Greenblatt explained, senescence is unnatural when considered from this evolutionary biological viewpoint; or, to put it in the immortal words of Shakespeare’s King Lear, “Age is unnecessary.” Events like this are made possible by the Friends of the IHR, such as Donor Reverend Jenny Norton, to whom the IHR would like to extend special thanks for her continued support.
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‘Tell My Story’
The Human Compulsion to Narrate Photo Credit: Rose Lincoln/Harvard University
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seed grant projects 2014-15 “Building Bridges From Humanities to Industry: An Investigation of Job Advertisements in Professional Writing Careers” Eva Brumberger, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communications Claire Lauer, Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communications Mark Hannah, Assistant Professor, Department of English
“Carlos Montezuma’s Wassaja Newsletter: Digitization, Access and Content”
David Martinez, Associate Professor, American Indian Studies Joyce Martin, Curator and Associate Librarian, Labriola National American Indian Data Center Jodi Reeves Flores, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for Digital Antiquity
featured research cluster projects 2014-15 “Animal Studies Research Cluster”
Ron Broglio, Associate Professor, Department of English Corine Schleif, Professor, School of Art Ben Minteer, Associate Professor, School of Life Sciences
“Interpreting Contemporary Violence: Mexico, U.S.”
Julia A. Murphy Erfani, Associate Professor, New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Luis F.B. Plascencia, Assistant Professor, New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
2014-15 fellows "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Emotion in Early Modern England: A Proposed NEH Seminar and Collection" Cora Fox, Department of English Bradley J. Irish, Department of English
"Across the Traumatic Divide: Affective Journeys that Restructure Reason" Xiaoqiao Ling, School of International Letters and Cultures
"The Sentimental Public: Emotion, Politics and the French Revolution" Victoria E. Thompson, School for Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
2014-15 visiting fellows "Democratization and Emotionalization of Democracy in the USA and the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949-1990" Michael Mayer, Department of History, Political Academy of the State of Bavaria
"Economies of Feeling: Russian Literature, 1825-1855"
Jillian Porter, Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, University of Oklahoma
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2014-15 advisory board Sally Kitch
Julia Himberg
Director, IHR
Regents’ Professor, Foundation Professor, Distinguished Humanities Professor, Women and Gender Studies
Cora Fox
Associate Director, IHR Associate Professor, Department of English
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Bernard Kobes
Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Cassie Lamp
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Aaron Baker
Associate Professor, Department of English
Eric Oberle
Assistant Professor, School of Letters and Sciences
Wendy Cheng
Assistant Professor, School of Social Transformation
Mark Cruse
Associate Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures
Julia Sarreal
Assistant Professor, School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies
Tamara Underiner
Maria Luz Cruz-Torres
Associate Professor, School of Social Transformation
Associate Dean for Research, Herberger Institute for Design in the Arts, Associate Professor, School of Film, Dance and Theatre
Chad Haines
Kent Wright
Assistant Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
our vision Humanities research is not just about whether human beings can do something, but also about whether we should do it; not just about where we are, but also about how we got here; not just about what people do, but also about what human activity means; not just about what to call something, but also about the importance of labels, language, art, and music as symbolic systems. Humanities research does not just identify what is real, but it also explores where ideas of reality come from. IHR scholars explore such issues and concepts as sustainability, human origins, immigration, and natural disasters, and utilize historical, philosophical, and creative perspectives to achieve a deeper understanding of their causes, effects, and cultural meanings. Major IHR programs include: IHR Fellows Program IHR Competitive Seed Grant Program Research Clusters IHR Annual Distinguished Lecturer Events including lectures, seminars, and research workshops
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Institute for Humanities Research Arizona State University PO Box 876505 Tempe, AZ 85287-6505
tempe campus | social sciences building | room 107 | 480-965-3000 | ihr@asu.edu
support humanities research at ASU The Institute’s vision is to advance and support vital humanities scholarship that makes a difference in the world. Through the Institute’s support of such transdisciplinary research, ASU humanities scholars of art, theatre, literature, film and media studies, history, philosophy, and religion collaborate regularly with engineers, biologists, geographers, social scientists, and others—applying a humanities perspective to research projects in many fields.
what will private investment make possible?
Private funding will open exciting new avenues of humanities research to the Institute. Moreover, private donations supplement the limited financial awards now available to scholars at the onset of their projects. Investments from donors like you give faculty a competitive advantage when they seek additional federal, state, and foundation funding. As a result, your initial support, along with the Institute’s funding, enables scholars to multiply their research resources—and multiply their impact.
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Since its inception, the Institute has supported 55 research clusters, 82 seed grants, 49 ASU fellows, and 19 visiting fellows. With your help, we can significantly increase those numbers and expand the valuable research taking place at ASU.
private investment opportunities
You may choose to support one of the opportunities below, or you may prefer to rely on an ASU development officer to guide your gift to the most promising and immediate area of need within the IHR: IHR Annual Book Award Research Clusters Seed Grant Program Fellows Program Annual Distinguished Lecturer IHR Faculty Working Groups Endowed Professorship For more information on how to support the IHR, visit http://ihr.asu.edu/about/humanities/support, or call our office at 480-965-3000.
Institute for Humanities Research | 2014-15