College Centers and Services

BYU Humanities College Meeting 2014

COLLEGE CENTERS AND SERVICES

HUMANITIES CENTER

We have another exciting year taking shape, with virtually all of our considerable activity emerging from the work of our faculty. Highlights for the upcoming year include

• a new annual theme, “Disappearance,” with K. David Harrison of Swarthmore College invited to give our Annual Lecture (Oct. 17th) and Eric Hayot of Penn State the featured guest for the

Annual Symposium (Feb. 27th)

• weekly colloquia – Thursdays at 3:00 in JFSB 4010

• “Conversations” meetings – on provocative, cross-disciplinary scholarship or pertinent topics of broad concern – scheduled for Sep. 12th and Oct. 31st

• a distinguished lecturer associated with Black History month

• special events involving scholars from a dozen institutions (e.g., a symposium on lyric poetry, another on Romantic literature), with other events in the planning stages (e.g., a multi-institution event on environmental studies)

• the launch of new research groups (“African Worlds,” “Derrida and the Question of Religion”), with more planned or in discussion (on translation, the origins of critical theory, urban studies, and more)

• guest lectures co-sponsored with the Office of Digital Humanities (e.g., Ted Underwood, University of Illinois)

• several Humanities Lab DH projects

• one-year research fellowships for faculty with CFS

• ORCA Symposium Oct. 10th featuring excellent undergraduate research

On the horizon, hopefully:

• more resources for research groups, enabling greater student collaboration (in the form of research for course credit or paid assistantships) and a symposium for every group the middle year of a three-year funding cycle

• directed attention – and possibly resources – to what is already, almost unconsciously, one of the most vital public humanities efforts in the nation

• cross-departmental lunch groups on topics of shared interest or concern

• money for a book manuscript workshop (by application; details to follow)

• grant-writing workshops

OFFICE OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES (1163 JFSB)

The Office of Digital Humanities has now finished the first year of our revised academic minor, the Digital Humanities and Technology (DigHT) program. Our classes continue to be extremely popular for students from all majors in the college (and many from outside the college as well), and we are actively working with faculty from across the college on additional courses and subjects that will serve our students’ academic and career interests.

We have also worked closely with the Humanities Center and other departments throughout the college on several significant Digital Humanities-based research projects, utilizing tools such as literary text analysis, authorship attribution, and network-based data visualization. We continue to invite faculty to consult with us on how Digital Humanities methodologies might inform research you are working on.

INTERNATIONAL CINEMA

International Cinema has a new committee and a new course! Steve Riep finished his three year term this summer and has moved on to greener and less cinematic pastures. Matt Ancell from Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature joins Dennis Cutchins as faculty co-directors, and together with the indomitable Karmen Smith from the Dean’s Office, Romy Franks, and our terrific projectionists they are our new IC team.

We have created a new (or at least resurrected) International Cinema course that will be taught for the first time this fall semester. The 1.5 credit course meets from 4:00 to 4:50 on Tuesday evenings, just before the IC lecture series, and we still have room for more students. This is a chance for students to watch great films, listen to great lectures, and become “cinema-literate.”

We’ll continue our Tuesday Lectures this year, and invite all of you to attend. Please consider offering extra credit for students to attend lectures. They really are awesome. As we have in the past, we beg a favor from you: as an academic program that operates under the media educational clause, International Cinema cannot advertise to the public or even to the general university community. We therefore depend on you to educate and encourage your students regarding the program and to help them find us. Of course, we also work through social media (Yes, International Cinema is on Facebook and Twitter!) to get the word out about our weekly schedules, lectures, and some fun contests and hope you will give us a thumbs up!

Here are a few highlights from our 2014/2015 season:

• Several films dealing with WWI and marking the 100th anniversary of the start of the war including Joyeaux Noel (French), All Quiet on the Western Front (English), White Ribbon (German),

Gallipoli (English), and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Silent).

• No (Spanish). The true story of how Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet was voted out of office largely due to an irreverent grassroots ad campaign. Can humor and truth beat guns?

In a democracy they can.

• The Rocket (Laotian). A great film we discovered at several festivals. It’s the story of a small kid cursed with bad luck who decides to build a really big rocket. It’s sad and funny and inspirational, and we promise you’ll like it.

• The Good Road (Gujarati, India). This is one of our favorite Indian films released recently. Karmen likes it because there is neither singing nor dancing!

• Poetry (Korean). This is a super-touching film about an older woman who takes an extension course on poetry. If you’re teaching any poetry in the fall you’ll want your students to see this one.

• The Eye (Cantonese). A scary Chinese film about a girl who receives a cornea transplant, only to discover that her new eyes are cursed. Look for it during Halloween week.

• Romantics Anonymous (French). Simply the best romantic comedy we’ve seen for years. Bring a date to this Valentine’s week film.

As you know, International Cinema does not exist simply to entertain. As an academic program our educational objectives are as follows:

“To supplement the curriculum of BYU foreign language classes by providing frequent opportunities both to hear native speakers of such languages, and to experience the art and culture of the countries in which those languages are spoken; To supplement the curriculum of BYU English, film and humanities classes by showing classic and quality films from the canon of world cinema, as well as cinematic adaptations of great English literature; and to provide BYU honors students with frequent and consistent opportunities to complete the film component of their Honors Great Works requirement.”

Be sure to pick up a semester poster in the Plaza when you go to lunch. Posters will also be available outside the IC Office (3182 JFSB). During the semester you can find movie times and descriptions on our recorded message at (801) 422-5751 and at our website http://ic.byu.edu.

Join us, it will be a terrific year!

HUMANITIES PUBLICATION SERVICES

Professor Melvin J. Thorne, Director

The Humanities Publication Service (part of the Humanities Center) can help you achieve your publishing goals. Our services fall roughly into two areas:

1. The Faculty Editing Service will copyedit your manuscript before you submit it for publication, so that the book or journal editor who decides whether to publish your manuscript can get to the substance of your argument without tripping over mechanical problems. In 2013, the Faculty

Editing Service edited approximately 5355 pages of manuscript for 53 faculty members (18 from

Humanities).

2. The Humanities Publication Service also helps faculty members prepare journals and books for publication with a full range of production services. Periodicals produced through our service in 2013 (in whole or in part) included the following:

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment The Folklore Historian Literature and Belief Slovene Linguistic Studies TESL Reporter Humanities at BYU Locutorium AMCAP Journal Journal of the Western Archivist

In addition, we did final editing on book manuscripts (6 books), formatted book manuscripts into pages (2 books), and created indexes (3 books).

Email mel_thorne@byu.edu to get a more complete description of how the HPS can help you.

And remember: thanks to financial support from the College of Humanities, faculty in the college can use these services without charge.

HUMANITIES ADVISEMENT AND CAREERS

The advisement center has had a busy year! To start, we changed our name to Humanities Advisement and Careers. It is more in line with our goals to help students understand Humanities + and to encourage them to prepare for life after graduation alongside their studies. We have also spent a great part of our meetings over the past few months working on making sure our guidebook, website and other tools align with our newly revised mission and vision. We are excited for all of the good things we expect to see this coming year!

We also welcomed Rebecca Brazzale as a new part-time advisor. Rebecca was an intern during her graduate program in Spanish. During that time, she worked to bring the message of Humanities + to the graduate students in Spanish and Portuguese. Now that she has graduated, we are happy to have her working for us and helping us carry on the great work she started.

Our other advisors, Cathryn Schofield, Paula Landon and Sherami Jara, are enjoying working with our great students. We look forward to a new year and hope you will let us know how we can support you and your efforts from the advising side.

LDS PHILANTHROPIES AND THE COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES

Matthew B. Christensen

mbchristensen@byu.edu 4019 JFSB (o) 801-422-9151 or (m) 801-822-3343

My assignment to the College of Humanities has increased my excitement and passion for fundraising and finding ways to connect donors to projects with students and faculty. We have several ambitious goals for which we are actively raising money for and we are engaging both current and new donors that are thrilled about the work our college is doing.

By assignment from President Samuelson and the Board of Trustees, LDS Philanthropies (LDSP) is tasked to work with all past, current, and prospective donors in coordinating all donations to the priorities of the First Presidency—which includes BYU. My role is to be the lead in all fundraising efforts for the College of Humanities—particularly the dean’s priorities. Specifically, I work with donors at the “major gift” level ($25k and above). Because our generous donors are approached so often for worthwhile projects, the correlation of donors and is imperative and a primary function of LDSP. We respect donor inclination and introduce new opportunities for donor engagement.

DEAN’S PRIORITIES

The two priorities Dean Rosenberg has focused my efforts are raising funds for student internships and establishing a Humanities Center endowment. There has been a great deal of recent interest and giving in these two areas that indicates we are on the right track.

Occasionally faculty will come to my office to ask for my help on getting a project funded. I love hearing about the research and welcome anyone to stop by and share. In order for me to actively pursue fundraising the dean has asked that certain channels be observed in order to make sure our efforts and interactions with donors and potential donors are coordinated and strategic. Before I can approach donors an initiative first needs to be approved by your respective department chair and the dean. Once the dean gives me his approval we can begin taking the next steps.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Contributing to the success of students is the number one reason donors give to BYU in general and to the College of Humanities specifically. Donors never tire of hearing success stories about student experiences in scholarship or research. If you know an exceptional student-related story, please consider sharing it with me.

You are also encouraged to personally give to the college. One reason is we would like to develop an “every faculty member a donor” culture and legacy (donations are strictly private). Another reason is when the faculty gives to the college it can be a tremendous incentive for donors to give as well. Consider the power in telling donors that the College of Humanities has the highest employee giving percentage at BYU.

With so many marvelous projects and evidence-based success in our college, inviting donors to consider making a gift to the college has never been easier. The next year looks promising and will be filled with incredible donor-related experiences that will allow the college to continue to move forward in new and innovative ways.

CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Dr. Taylor Halverson is the CTL consultant assigned to the College of Humanities. The consultant’s role is to provide resources and individualized support to faculty members on all aspects of teaching and learning, training on pedagogical theory and practice, and, where needed, assistance with integrating technology into teaching and learning.

Taylor focuses his teaching, research, and professional work on helping others become lifelong learners. He does so through several core areas: (a) Improving teaching and learning; (b) Educational technology, including technology integration into teaching and learning; (c) Innovation, design, and creativity, including entrepreneurship; (d) Ancient Studies, including Biblical, Book of Mormon, and other scripture studies. He completed PhDs at Indiana University in Instructional Systems Technology and Judaism & Christianity in Antiquity. His master’s degrees are in Instructional Systems Technology (Indiana University) and Biblical Studies (Yale University). Taylor also holds a BA in Near Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University. Please see the CTL website for more information on Taylor.