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institute for humanities research fall 2013
As part of the IHR’s on-going Digital Humanities Initiative, the IHR Nexus Lab for Digital Humanities and Transdisciplinary Informatics will incubate new digital projects and foster broadly-based collaborations and research partnerships. The lab will also explore computation as a means to empower research in the humanities to engage new questions and challenges. The Nexus Lab will open this fall under the direction of Michael Simeone. Coming to ASU from the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (I-CHASS) housed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Simeone was the Associate Director for Research and Interdisciplinary Studies. His current research explores the intersection of humanities and advanced computing and informatics. He received his PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ihr nexus lab
In November the Nexus Lab will launch with a series of events and will feature a lecture entitled “Digital Humanities, Recursive Communities, and the Future of Scholarly Communication” by Matthew Gold, Associate Professor at New York City College of Technology (CUNY) and author of Debates in the Digital Humanities (2012).
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Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013
The Nexus Lab is set to provide the infrastructure necessary to allow ASU faculty to expand their reach and initiate a technologically based humanities research program. It will also provide a point of connection between faculties from across the University. For graduate students, the lab will provide opportunities to develop important skills, work as part of a research team, pursue their own research while contributing to others’ work, and establish intellectual and professional networks locally, nationally, and internationally. The newly launched lab will empower humanities researchers and scholars with the tools needed to create answers to 21st century local and global challenges.
Daniel Gilfilan, IHR Nexus Lab Faculty Advisory Committee, Director: “The launch of the Nexus Lab represents a core component of the IHR’s efforts to support and expand humanities-driven transdisciplinary research at ASU and beyond. The lab will serve as an intellectual incubator, giving experimental new approaches a space for research and conversation, as well as a seedbed for a growing community of scholars and practitioners at ASU who are incorporating digital and computational methods into their work.”
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director’s message Who needs the humanities? That question, often unstated, may be the elephant in the room during discussions of higher education funding priorities, success, and social contributions. At the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University, 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 U.S. role in the Middle East. So, 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 “The Humanities and Home.” In addition, IHR Distinguished Lecturer, Stephen Greenblatt, will be speaking about the importance of storytelling to the human condition on March 18, 2014. And the new Nexus Lab, partially funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will further enhance ASU humanists’ ability to bring their research activities into greater visibility and to engage with real-world puzzles and challenges. Other IHR research projects that make a difference include the IHR co-sponsored “Future of Food Project,” in partnership with the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. A new IHR collaboration with the Global Institute of Sustainability, entitled “The Humanities and Arts in Sustainability,” will showcase in lectures and presentations various humanities and arts research activities that contribute to scientific and technological explorations of that topic. Of particular importance in the coming three years is the international Mellon Foundation-funded “Humanities for the Environment” project for which the IHR is the North American headquarters. The IHR will host three workshops in 2013-15 in which ASU scholars, as well as scholars from other universities, will address human responsibility, multi-species relationships, and transdisciplinarity in/for the Anthropocene (See “Mellon Grant”on pg. 10-11 for more information). I am honored to be directing the IHR at such an exciting time. We welcome your participation in our projects and programs. Please explore what is new and upcoming at the IHR to learn more about humanities research at ASU.
meet new members of the IHR staff Cora Fox, Associate Director
Associate Professor in the Department of English at ASU, Cora Fox joins the IHR as the Associate Director. Her research interests include continental Renaissance poetry and drama, the history of emotion and sexuality, and gender. Cora holds an MA and PhD in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but grew up in New York City, where she developed her passion for attending plays, concerts, and museums. Having a “big picture” orientation she brings her experience with interdisciplinary studies and university policy to the IHR team where she will be working with the Fellows program and aiding in program development.
Diana Maalouli, Account and Operations Specialist
Diana Maalouli joins the IHR with a BA in Educational Studies from Empire State College, NY. She is currently in the process of completing her M.Ed. in Leadership Education from Northern Arizona University. Growing up in Lebanon allowed her to gain an appreciation of nature and she enjoys hiking, biking, and traveling. The IHR attracted her as it fit in well with her educational and career goals, and piqued her curiosity to learn more about the humanities. Her talents in organization and time management make her a valued part of the IHR.
Breezy Taggart, Communications and Event Coordinator
Breezy Taggart came to the IHR as the Communications and Event Coordinator upon completion of an MA in Art History and Curatorial Studies from Brigham Young University in June 2013. She has a passion for the humanities and is inspired by the IHR’s approach to transdisciplinary research. Her experience with museum event planning and execution makes her a welcome member of the IHR team.
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Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013
ron broglio announced 2013 IHR book award winner Award winning book asks the question: What is it like to be an animal? On September 17th, Ron Broglio, Associate Professor of English at ASU was awarded the 2013 Transdisciplinary Humanities Book Award for his work, Surface Encounters: Thinking with Animals and Art at the Humanities Faculty Authors’ Reception, which recognizes and celebrates humanities faculty authors from ASU and around the U.S. and the substantial body of transdisciplinary humanistic research reflected in their publications. In Surface Encounters Broglio uses phenomenology and contemporary art as tools to better understand encounters between humans and animals. Contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst, Marcus Coates, Carolee Schneemann, and Olly and Suzi, are instrumental to Broglio’s discussion about humans’ perception of animals as the Other. These artists comment on and even attempt to break down the traditional gaze with which humans look upon animals. “Art provides material speculative negotiations at the edges of culture. It challenges culture to re-think the limits of what culture itself can mean.” Broglio continues, “In the case of artists working alongside animals, it is a leap into a nonhuman way of being.” Past winners of the IHR Transdisciplinary Humanities Book Award include Rob Nixon, Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Prasad Boradkar, Associate Professor of Industrial Design at ASU, for Designing Things: A Critical Introduction to the Culture of Objects, Silvia Spitta, Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College, for Misplaced Objects: Migrating Collections and Recollections in Europe and the Americas, Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Associate Professor of English at ASU, for Border Fictions: Globalization, Empire, and Writing at the Boundaries of the United States, and Marita Sturken, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, for Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch and Consumerism from Oklahoma to Ground Zero.
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opening the geese book When used in the service of the humanities, technological advancement allows old doors to be opened, bringing the treasures of the past into the present. Through innovative technologies and with the support of an IHR Seed Grant, project directors Volker Schier, Musicologist at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Corine Schleif, Professor of Art History at ASU’s School of Art, highlighted their international project “Opening the Geese Book” last fall. The project focuses on the lavish and whimsical illuminated, two-volume liturgical manuscript known as the Geese Book. The volumes are known for their fanciful imagery of animals, dragons, and wild people. The work takes its name from an illustration showing a choir of geese singing from a large chant manuscript with a wolf as their choirmaster. Produced in Nuremberg, Germany between 1503 and 1510, the book preserves the complete mass liturgy compiled for the church of St. Lorenz and was used until the Reformation in 1525. In 1952 the parish presented the book to “the American people,” in gratitude for rebuilding the church after the destruction of WWII. The manuscript now resides in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York – the largest book in this famous collection. The ambitious aim of this project is to explore a multisensory work of the past using multimedia technologies of the present. Now available for online viewing (http://geesebook.asu.edu), the Geese Book offers sound files with a selection of chants,
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English and German videos explaining how the book was made, and the digital duplication of the books’ pages. According to Schier and Schleif, the most important result of this project is that “the Geese Book serves as a pilot project that seeks to explore the many possibilities that digital multimedia technology has to offer for research and publication in the humanities.” The Geese Book is considered an open project that will expand as more and more resources become available, offering itself as a template for future opportunities. The Geese Book project serves as an exceptional example of not only transdisciplinary collaboration, but also transnational cooperation. Schier and Schleif worked in partnership with Utrecht media designers Jan de Rode and Geeske Baker, the Schola Hungarica of Budapest and their directors Janka Szendrei and Laszlo Dobszay, both professors at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, German Organist Matthias Ank, the church of St. Lorenz in Nuremberg, the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum in New York, as well as archives and museums in Nuremberg. An extensive description of the manuscript was compiled by codicologists Ingeborg Neske and Elisabeth Remak-Honnef from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Along with a Seed Grant from the IHR, the project was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013
2013 IHR faculty seminar series “Human and Non-Human Agency”
“Human and Non-Human Agency,” is the overall theme of the IHR 2013-14 Faculty Seminar Series. The location of agency within the human subject has defined many disciplines traditionally categorized within the humanities. Yet recent challenges to foundational notions of the subject, such as those introduced by thing theory, actor-network theory and posthumanism, have offered a range of radical critiques to this very notion of agency. In response to these developments, the 2013-14 IHR Faculty Seminar Series will analyze core assumptions about agency, the human, and the nonhuman.
In four seminars over the course of the year, eight faculty members will present various approaches to understanding agency in relation to the human and the nonhuman. This series draws faculty, students, and community members together to discuss the concerns and methodologies that characterize and distinguish humanities research. All seminars will be held in the IHR Conference Room in Social Sciences 109 and include a light lunch.
Kick-off event: Technology, Agency and Complicity: SPECFLIC 1.9 Friday, September 13, 12-1:30 p.m., Social Sciences building, Room 109
Adriene Jenik, Professor and Director, School of Art Adriene Jenik discussed her 2013 film entitled “SPECFLIC 1.9” that addresses concerns of the future in regards to the public educational research institution.
The Agencies of Catastrophe
Histories of Agency: Matter and Being
Methods, Practices and the
and Disaster
Monday, Nov. 18, 12-1:30 p.m. Social Sciences building, Room 109
Agency of Things
Tuesday, Oct. 1, 12-1:30 p.m. Social Sciences building, Room 109 Aaron Baker, Associate Professor, English Department Contagion, Fractal Narrative and Global Cinema Baker examined Contagion as a film that explores the contemporary conceptions of identity and how experience is formulated by digital technology, jet travel and economic globalization.
Bradley D. Ryner, Assistant Professor, English Department The Cosmopolitical Economy of The Merchant of Venice Ryner’s presentation will look closely at the concept of “cosmopolitics” in The Merchant of Venice and how agency is established in the bond between humans and their modes of currency.
Thomas Puleo, Assistant Professor, School of Politics and Global Studies Supra-Human Agency
Michael A. Tueller, Associate Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures Mind and Voice among the Ancient Greeks
Puleo discussed the unseen agency that lies within natural events such as earthquakes, and how its existence expands the traditional understanding of agency.
Tueller analyzes the writings of Ancient Greeks to explore the location of agency within the mind and its link with the voice.
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Thursday, January 30, 12-1:30 p.m. Social Sciences building, Room 109 Prasad Boradkar, Associate Professor, HIDA Configuring Things Boradkar utilizes his experience with Indian copper craftsmen to portray the relationships that people and objects share and how they affect one another. Kostalena Michelaki & Richard Toon, Associate Professor and Associate Research Professor, School of Human Evolution & Social Change “Until they grow legs and start running around…” Exploring resistance to material agency in archaeology and museum studies Michelaki and Toon ask, “What do we stand to lose, if we embrace the new ontology of things and what do we stand to gain? What will we have to give-up to open our epistemological horizons and transform our practice?”
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2013-14 highlighted events at-a-glance
october mfa reading series: rachel blau duplessis oct. 23 | 12 p.m. | social sciences 109
international guest lecture: ana silvia monzon monterroso “women confronting justice in guatemala: struggles and challenges� nov. 1 | 1:30-3 p.m. social sciences 109
manifesting literary feminisims: a conversation with using GIS and networks to study the rachel blau duplessis disease, slavery, and elite networks in oct. 23 | 4:30-6 p.m. | social sciences 109 oct. 28 | 4 p.m. | coor hall 4403
lecture by david quammen “the next big one: animal infections, spillover, and the threat of pandemic nov. 7 | 5:30 p.m. marston exploration theater
faculty seminar series histories of agency: matter and being nov. 18 | 12-1:30 p.m. social sciences 109
ihr nexus and transd ribbo
coor hall, 4t
january faculty seminar series methods, practices, and the agency of things jan. 30, 2014 | 12-1:30 p.m. | social sciences 109
r.s.v.p. for IHR events | visit http://ihr.asu.edu/news-events/events | new events are added regularly, s
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Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013
e history of n brazil
lecture by hiroshi motomura “what’s at stake in comprehensive immigration reform? legalization, amnesty and the rule of law” oct. 24 | 5:30 p.m. | armstrong hall 116
lab: digital humanities disciplinary informatics on cutting and lab tour: nov. 20 | 10:30 a.m. th floor reception area
november ihr nexus lab: digital humanities and transdisciplinary informatics lab open house nov. 20 | 10:30am-3:00 p.m. coor hall, 4th floor reception area
ihr nexus lab: digital humanities and transdisciplinary informatics lecture with matthew gold “digital humanities, recursive communities, and the future of scholarly communication” nov. 21 | 2 p.m. | social sciences 109
ihr nexus lab: digital humanities and transdisciplinary informatics “envisioning humanities research through digital technologies”: a roundtable discussion nov. 22 | 9:30 a.m. social sciences 109
march 2014 distinguished lecture stephen greenblatt “‘tell my story’: the human compulsion to narrate” march 18, 2014 | 5:30 p.m. | old main | carson ballroom
so check our website for the most current information
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stephen greenblatt to be 2014 distinguished lecturer “‘tell my story’: the human compulsion to narrate” march 18, 2014, old main, carson ballroom Pulitzer Prize Award winner and Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University Stephen Greenblatt will be 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 for connections to the present. He has published twelve books and is the editor of seven collections of criticism. Some of his accolades include the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and the 2011 National Book Award for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, the Distinguished Humanist Award from the Mellon Foundation, two Guggenheim Fellowships, MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize, and Harvard University’s Cabot Fellowship, among many others. In addition to his critical acclaim, Greenblatt’s 2004 book on the life of William Shakespeare, Will in the World, remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for nine weeks. He has been a visiting professor across the world in Paris, Bologna, London, Beijing, Kyoto, Torino, Trieste and Florence.
IHR part of an a.w. mellon foundation grant to the consortium The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) a three-year grant of $1.2 million for “Integrating the Humanities Across National Boundaries,” an initiative designed to foster new forms of collaborative research and partnerships among the organization’s international membership. ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research will be one of the major partners in this innovative, international, transdisciplinary project. The grant supports two large-scale pilot projects through 2015. The two pilot projects initially funded under the grant, “Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging” and “Humanities for the Environment,” collectively involve the participation of CHCI members from every region of the organization’s membership. The major objective of this largescale experiment is to foster innovative programmatic ideas and new forms of collaborative research across regional, national, and disciplinary boundaries, driven by and involving CHCI’s membership of over 180 humanities centers and institutes. The project will explore the ways in which a networked consortium can foster scholarly innovation in the humanities on a global scale. “The Humanities for the Environment” (HfE) project is an outgrowth of a member-driven initiative, launched in 2008 and led by ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research Director, Sally Kitch, Sarah Buie of Clark University, and David Phillips of Wake Forest University. The project is comprised of member organizations concerned with various aspects of environmental
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humanities and will be animated by questions about the role of the humanities in the age of the Anthropocene, a concept developed by scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer to identify a new era in which human activity is significantly reshaping the biogeochemical processes of the planet and putting the future of all life at increasing risk. Participants in the HfE project will ask, in consequence, how, within this moment, we might reenvision definitional protocols that have been common in the humanities (the epistemological distinction between ‘human’ and ‘natural’ history to take one example), together with the multitude of responses the arts and humanities disciplines have given to the fundamental question of what it means to be human. Rather than attempting to define a single research agenda adequate to that demand, the HfE project will establish three research ‘observatories’ – one each in Australia, Europe, and North America (in the North American case, the observatory will support three regional clusters, Southeast, West, and Northeast). Each observatory will spend the first two years of the project addressing a particular thematic strain within the Anthropocene humanities. In the final year of the project, representatives from each observatory will convene for an international conference to discuss their research and plan for a possible ensuing phase of the initiative. “What we are hoping to do is begin to identify what the real issues are, what the questions are, how we need to reframe and reshape our approaches to the natural world, and our
Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013
2013-14 fellows and “the humanities and home” Extreme Sensescapes: The Medieval Birgettine Environment, Fashioned through Art and Architecture, Music and Rituals Corine Schleif, School of Art Lynching and the Making of a National Community: A Rhetoric of Civic Belonging Ersula J. Ore, Department of English Making Home: People, Places, and Mediated Pieces of American Dreams Desirée Garcia, School of Transborder Studies Bambi Haggins, Department of English “Blessed Are the Homesick”: Home in the Imagination of Russian Religious Exiles, 1700-1917 J. Eugene Clay, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies Fiction, Material Culture, and the Creation of a Mythic American Past Harvey Green, Department of History, Northeastern University Permanent Transients: Representations of Internal Migration and Community in U.S. Women’s Writing Abigail Manzella, Department of English, University of Missouri
When Hurricane Katrina dispersed 500,000 people from the Gulf Coast region of the United States, the identity of these people — whether they were migrants, refugees, or a part of a new American diaspora — came into question. The country felt
uncertain as to how to recognize a mass of moving people as though internal migrations had never occurred before historically, though in fact they had. Visiting Fellow Abigail Manzella will be in residence in the Spring semester of 2014. Her book project analyzes how finding a sense of home through the histories of space and movement is inflected by race, gender, and locality in select pieces of literature. This study includes perspectives on an African American woman’s journey south toward progressive self-development in opposition to the Great Migration in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Latina/o migrants’ blending of myths in Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus, a dominantly white migrant society fleeing the Dust Bowl to create a new racialized sense of what community means in Sanora Babb’s Whose Names Are Unknown, and Julie Otsuka’s depiction of the effects of internment on Asian Americans during World War II in When the Emperor Was Divine. Manzella will show the importance of understanding the aesthetics of human movement and their textual reconfigurations so we can all better interpret the signs of internal migrations we experience today.
m of humanities centers and institutes membership in the natural world as human beings, which is why we call the current era the Anthropocene,” Kitch said in a recent interview. “We now are geologic agents and not just recipients of what Mother Nature decides to do.” The Institute for Humanities Research at ASU will serve as the site of the West Cluster, as well as the headquarters for the North American Observatory. Joni Adamson, ASU Professor of English and Environmental Humanities, has been appointed as co-PI for the West Cluster activities and will work with Sally Kitch to organize three workshops bringing researchers from member institutions together with recognized experts to explore the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. “The grant itself puts ASU and the IHR at the center of a significant project on sustainability that is focused on the humanities, and this kind of funding is difficult to achieve. Most funding agencies associate sustainability with science and technology,” Kitch said. “The Mellon Foundation is forward looking in recognizing that science and technology not only cannot solve the problems alone but have also been part of creating the problems that we are now grappling with in terms of climate change, pollution levels, various kinds of scarcities, and decreasing biodiversity—all elements of the problem that we’re working on. And, in fact, we’re learning to call sustainability a wicked problem because such problems are defined by their complexity, by the idea that no one perspective or disciplinary approach can solve them, and by their origins in
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the ideas and actions of the people who are now charged with solving them.” The IHR will convene the West cluster with the support of ASUbased national leaders in environmental humanities: Professors Joni Adamson, Julie Anand, Ron Broglio, Nalini Chhetri, Netra Chhetri, Maria Cruz-Torrez, Ed Finn, Paul Hirt, Mark Lussier, Ben Minteer, Joan McGregor, and Rebecca Tsosie. Non-ASU scholars involved in this project come from the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Arizona, Michigan State University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Portland State University, and University of California, Davis. Additionally, the Western cluster at ASU will organize and host the meeting of the North American Observatory clusters in spring 2015, preceding the international conference. “To reduce the impact of the human footprint on the earth requires numerous enormous changes in the way we think about what it means to be human; what it means to be on the planet with other species; what it means to truly care about and plan for the future. The humanities contribute a great deal to the overall solution, but what needs to happen is collaboration among people with different knowledge bases,” Kitch said. “Through the CHCI, ASU now has a place at the international table for promoting this idea, and, we hope, in helping to solve this wicked problem.”
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2013 distinguished lecturer donna haraway In March the IHR welcomed its 2013 Distinguished Lecturer, Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. In the lecture, Haraway called upon her audience to work, play and think in terms of multispecies cosmopolitics, a new approach to recuperating the Terrapolis on which we live. After centuries of genocides, environmental destruction and its unevenly distributed suffering, and rampant killing of species, as well as individuals, Haraway suggests that humans turn to SF—string figures, science fiction, speculative fabulation, and speculative feminism—as mechanisms for envisioning the future. Working homing pigeons provide guidance for SF thinking, especially as seen through the methodologies and theories of practicing zoo-ethno-graphers. Their investigations of multispecies attachment, detachment, inter- and intra-
patience, and inter- and intra- action bring together the social sciences, humanities, arts, and biological and physical sciences and offer crucial tools and knowledge(s). However, these investigations also reveal stunning human ignorance(s) about how to inhabit the world with other animals, rather than to observe and control them. Haraway concluded her lecture with examples of innovative projects that study both human and nonhuman workers engaged in linked effort in differentiated ways that none of our cosmopolitan knowledge traditions now know how to articulate, but must learn to do so. Haraway is an internationally recognized feminist theorist and philosopher of science and technology. She has published widely influential works in the fields of cultural and women’s studies, political theory, primatology, literature, and philosophy. In September 2000, Haraway was awarded the highest honor given by the Society for Social Studies of Science, the J.D. Bernal Prize, for lifetime contributions to the field.
the future of food in the anthropocene The “Anthropocene” conveys a new geological epoch in which humans have been altering the biological, geological, and chemical processes of the planet. Human-caused global climate change, a major example of anthropogenic change to the natural environment, poses enormous challenges to the production, consumption, transport, and sale of food. Funded by a College of Liberal Arts/IHR Seed Grant, Mark Cruse, an Associate Professor of the School of International Letters and Culture, and Joan McGregor, a Professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, use the personal connection we have to food to assemble a co-laboratory that will address the “wicked problem” or profound complexity of the food systems we have built. They will take advantage of ASU’s unique position as a sustainability research center and its Southwest geography to study the natural and cultural dimensions of food in the Anthropocene.
archiving the lucy fossil ASU professor Donald Johanson, the man who discovered the Lucy fossil in 1974, says he has always been a collector. Through the efforts of an IHR Seed Grant a small part of Johanson’s collection of personal correspondence, scientific papers, diaries, photographs, and notes amassed during his four-decade career was displayed at the Hayden Library during April and May of 2013. The display featured Johanson’s 1978 scientific paper describing the new species, Australopithecus afarensis. Lucy was the oldest, most complete skeleton of an adult ancestor of humans when Johanson found her in a remote gully in northeastern Ethiopia.
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“The Lucy’s Legacy Project” seeks to develop provocative humanities-based questions on what it means to be human. It also seeks to explore questions about the collection, how the materials support certain narratives attached to paleoanthropological pursuits, and how academic rivalries punctuate and fire the public imagination. Moreover, this project was the first step in analyzing, cataloguing, and preserving a collection of materials from a significant scientist and research institute that tell a story of the history of anthropology during the last quarter of the 20th century.
Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013
imaginatio(n)ow art exhibit The featured artwork of the Spring 2013 art exhibit, themed Imaginatio(n)ow, addressed the immediacy of the imagination/imaginary, how the artist uses imagination not only as a source of inspiration, but also as a method for mentally and visually processing our constantly changing world, and how the human imagination allows us to transform reality or liberate the ways we think, feel, and experience our lives. The concepts of imagination and the imaginary are of particular interest to scholars in the humanities as the imagination can be a double-edged sword. Myth, metaphor, and narrative can empower sound ethical decision-making, resuscitate our humanity when we falter, enliven forgiveness, love, and hope in the human heart, and engender powerful visions that create better lives. Yet, imagination may also condemn humanity to irrational delusions, apocalyptic visions, prophetic fascination with dark endings, and unethical imaginary motifs and practices. These concepts were considered by artists who exhibited their work in Imaginatio(n)ow and visually interpreted these ideas within the exhibition.
“Without maps or manifest” by Christopher Reiger
This exhibit was curated during the Spring of 2013 by Christina You-sun Park and featured artwork by Jonathan Leo Brown, Maryann Buchanan, Nathaniel Clark, Charmagne Coe, Madison Creech, Francoise Duresse, Catherine Eyde, Jeff Falk, Elite Henensen, Mary Hood, Colleen Keough, Jennifer Kitson & Kevin McHugh, Farr Ligvani, Amy Masters, Lauren Orchowski, Jill Pabich, Janice Pittsley, Christopher Reiger, Eileen Standley, Irene Visa, and Carly Zufelt.
IHR seed grant winners study the pilgrimage tour to the ganges river by millions “Just as certain limbs of the body are purer than others, so are certain places on earth more sacred—some on account of their situation, others because of their sparkling waters, and others because of the association or habitation of saintly people,” is an important idea from the Mahabharata that ASU faculty members, Christine Buzinde and David Manuel-Navarrete, are exploring in Hindu culture today. With funding through an IHR Seed Grant, Buzinde, Associate Professor of Community Resources and Development, and Manuel-Navarrete, Assistant Professor of the School of Sustainability, are investigating the Hindu religious ritual of visiting and washing at the Kumbh Mela. This ritualistic bathing in the Ganges River is the largest religious gathering in the world as over 120 million devotees participated in this year’s festival. Located in the city of Prayag (Allahabad) at the confluence of India’s three major rivers — the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati — this year’s pilgrimage marked a jubilee year. Despite the fact that the Ganges River is considered to be highly polluted, pilgrims attest to the purifying effect of the ritual.
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Buzinde and Manuel-Navarrete’s research team is collaborative in nature and includes Jyotsna Kalavar, Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Human Development at Penn State University, and Neena Kohli, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Allahabad, India. Their investigation uses interviewing to gain insight from clergy, laypeople, government and tourism officials. According to Buzinde, this investigation can “unveil valuable knowledge about the relationships between cultures and places, the broader dynamics between human beings and ecological systems as well as the nexus between spirituality and sustainability.” Buzinde and Manuel-Navarrete’s research and trip to Allahabad was made possible through an IHR Seed Grant. In fall and spring competitions each year, projects are selected for Seed Grant awards of up to $7,500 for individual researchers or up to $12,000 per team. These grants further advance faculty research and often improve the quality of grant proposals to external funding agencies. The Institute supports those projects that best address its mission and that have strong prospects of receiving external funding.
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seed grant projects happy place: the emotional life of cities
Hilary Harp, Associate Professor, School of Art Barry Moon, Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies Patrick Grzanka, Honors Faculty Fellow, Barrett, the Honors College Kevin McHugh, Associate Professor, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
intersections between spirituality and sustainability at kumbh mela: the case of religious tourism and the ganges Christine Buzinde, Associate Professor, School of Community Resources and Development David Manuel-Navarrete, Assistant Professor, School of Sustainability Jyotsna Kalavar, Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State New Kensington Neena Kohli, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, India
mapping affect to understand and impede the reproduction of violence in latin america
Cynthia Tompkins, Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures José Bernardi, Associate Professor, The Design School David William Foster, Regents Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures Cecilia Menjívar, Cowden Distinguished Professor, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics Daniel Rothenberg, Professor of Practice, School of Politics and Global Studies
nature, culture, and history at the nation’s edge: humanities perspective on the u.s.-mexico borderlands Paul Hirt, Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies Cody Ferguson, Postdoctoral Assistant, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies
NEH summer seminar on gabriela mistral
Elizabeth Horan, Professor, Department of English David William Foster, Regents Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures Gary Keller, Regents Professor and Director, Hispanic Research Center
public literacies: a data visualization prototype project Elenore Long, Associate Professor, Department of English Shirley Rose, Professor, Department of English
the endeavor: humanities-art science toward creative collaboration
Ron Broglio, Associate Professor, Department of English Adriene Jenik, Professor and Director, School of Art Ann Kinzig, Professor, School of Life Sciences
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the black, the white, the accurate: transformational textural and visual research on colonial latin america
Gary Keller, Regents Professor and Director, Hispanic Research Center Robert E. Bjork, Foundation Professor and Director, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies David William Foster, Regents Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures Jaime L. Lara, Research Professor, Hispanic Research Center and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
restoring and re-storying the hidden cultural landscape of the colorado river basin
Dan Collins, Professor, School of Art Meredith Drum, Assistant Professor, School of Art Helen Rowe, Assistant Research Professor, School of Life Sciences Eric Margolis, Associate Professor, Hugh Downs School of Communication
the future of food in the anthropocene
Mark Cruse, Associate Professor, School of International Letters and Culture Joan McGregor, Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies
working toward peace and reconciliation in myanmar: abating buddhist-muslim tensions
Juliane Schober, Director, Center for Asian Research, Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies Yasmin Saikia, Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies
jenny norton research cluster local and global feminisms and the politics of knowledge Karen Kuo, Assistant Professor, School of Social Transformation, Asian Pacific American Studies Karen Leong, Associate Professor, School of Social Transformation, Women and Gender Studies Ann Hibner Koblitz, Professor, School of Social Transformation, Women and Gender Studies Heather Switzer, Assistant Professor, School of Social Transformation, Planning, Governance, and Globalization Charles Lee, Assistant Professor, School of Social Transformation, Justice and Social Inquiry
The Reverend Jenny Norton has provided funding to support an annual Research Cluster at the IHR. The Norton fund is designed to stimulate research on women in any field and on any topic. The Jenny Norton Research Cluster will receive an award up to $1,750 to support their activities and may include partial or full support for a visiting scholar. For additional information on eligibility, procedures, and deadlines, visit http://ihr.asu.edu./funding/research-clusters.
Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013
research cluster projects theories of immigration: policymaking, transnationalism, return
Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Associate Professor, Department of English Cecilia Menjivar, Professor, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
material texts: histories and futures
Erin A. McCarthy, Academic Associate, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies George Justice, Dean of Humanities, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Professor, Department of English Eric Wertheimer, Associate Vice Provost and Professor, Graduate Education
never again? – never before? comparative genocide and the planned holocaust and tolerance museum in chandler, arizona
Katherine Osburn, Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, Assistant Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies Mark Tebeau, Associate Professor and Director of Public History Volker Benkert, Lecturer, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies
critical ethnic studies in arizona
Wendy Cheng, Assistant Professor, School of Social Transformation Beth Blue Swadener, Professor, School of Social Transformation Sujey Vega, Assistant Professor, School of Social Transformation
2013-14 advisory board Sally Kitch
Director, IHR Regents’ Professor, Foundation Professor, Distinguished Humanities Professor, Women and Gender Studies
Cora Fox
Ron Broglio
Associate Professor, Department of English
Julia Himberg
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Associate Director, IHR Associate Professor, Department of English
Rudy Guevarra
Kent Wright
Patricia Huntington
Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Assistant Professor, School of Social Transformation
Professor, School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies
Leah Sarat
Young Oh
Eric Oberle
Bernard Kobes
Assistant Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Assistant Professor, School of Letters & Sciences
Tamara Underiner
Associate Dean for Research, Herberger Institute for Design in the Arts, Associate Professor, School of Film, Dance & Theatre
Associate Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures
Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Marivel Danielson
Associate Professor, School of Transborder 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 • Events including lectures, seminars, and research workshops • Research Clusters • IHR Annual Distinguished Lecturer
semester report
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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.
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 480965-3000.
Since its inception, the Institute has supported 53 research clusters, 68 seed grants, 41 ASU fellows and 17 visiting fellows. With your help, we can significantly increase those numbers and expand the valuable research taking place at ASU.
tempe campus | social sciences building | room 107 | 480-965-3000 | ihr@asu.edu Institute for Humanities Research Arizona State University PO Box 876505 Tempe, AZ 85287-6505
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Institute for Humanities Research | Fall 2013