IPRH Newsletter 2016

FALL 2016

newsletter

Publics

2016–17

DIRECTOR’S LETTER As the director of IPRH, I find myself on the receiving end of a veritable avalanche of news about the fate of humanities scholarship and teaching. Hardly a day goes by when someone does not share a headline story about the imminent demise of the humanities with me.

Falling enrollments, fiscal crises, the priority of STEM—all of these

These days, directors of humanities centers like IPRH are

are said to test the “value proposition” of humanities work. At

arguably the defenders-in-chief of the humanities in question.

a time when departments of religion, African American studies,

To be sure, there is a lot to defend and preserve. But there is a

women’s studies, French and philosophy are facing closure in

lot to adapt and transform—not simply to meet the times but

some institutions, and the future of American Indian Studies at

to shape the horizons we can see now and anticipate those

Illinois remains unclear, these are not merely rhetorical questions.

that are unforeseeable as well. A feminist historian by training,

The stakes are high and the consequences, real.

I incline toward a future-oriented, offensive mode. We need

Pundits across the globe are engaged in vigorous debates about these issues. As at Illinois, some of the most powerful voices are scientists and engineers who understand that universities have an obligation to support research across many domains of inquiry and cultivate graduates with equally broad horizons.

to acknowledge the importance of the past and recognize its entanglement with the present and the future. This is the promise of the humanities now: to be fully engaged in the contemporary world while building frameworks for interpreting how and why that world unfolds as it does.

Alumni too recognize that the grand challenges facing them in

Last year’s IPRH theme, “Intersections,” spoke directly to that

the workplace can and must be tackled imaginatively as well as

promise. In addition to hosting a talk on the poetry of John

via technological fixes. We know that faculty doing research in

Donne and a screening and Q&A with the director of the film The

the humanities and their many cognate fields train students in a

Search for General Tso, we welcomed the chairman of the National

diversity of approaches to thinking about where they come from,

Endowment for the Humanities, William Adams, and sponsored a

where they are going, and why. Humanists, in short, enable us

“Cell Phone Slam!” event, where we heard a dozen presenters tell

all to navigate the fractious terrain of the world not just as data

us what their cell phone means to them—in six minutes or fewer.

collectors but as fully informed citizens.

We opened and closed our year with creative writers, spotlighting

Audience at the screening of The Search for General Tso

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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

iprh.illinois.edu

Wallace Stevens Award-winning poet Joy Harjo and the

European, and Eurasian Center, which are hosting the

U.S. poet laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera. And we launched

Russian journalist and LGBTQ spokesperson Masha

a popular blog, Reading Matters@IPRH, where we heard

Gessen on campus in October. Look for our new blog

about what people at Illinois and in our community are

series, Philosophy in the Public Square, hosted by

reading (go.illinois.edu/ReadingMatters).

Kirk Sanders. And once again, we will frame our year

At the intersection of public university research and private foundation partnerships, we have benefited tremendously from generous grant support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. We were awarded a

through poetry, with readings by our own Janice Harrington in October and the former U.S. poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey in April. Please see page 8 for a full calendar of upcoming events.

renewal of our Humanities Without Walls grant for $4.2

A year ago, IPRH was on the move—from its location

million (humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu). Relatedly,

on Pennsylvania Avenue to its newly refurbished digs

we partnered with the Library, the I School, and African

at the Levis Faculty Center. My profound thanks to

American Studies to win a scholarly communications

Stephanie Uebelhoer, Kelly Delahanty, Jason Mierek

grant, Publishing Without Walls (publishingwithoutwalls.

and Nancy Castro for enabling everything we do at

illinois.edu), from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,

IPRH to run smoothly. In large part due to their labors,

even as we launch the Bio-Humanities Research Group

we are now happily at home in Levis. But I would not

funded by our recent Emerging Areas in the Humanities

say we are “settled.” The humanities at Illinois remain

grant, also from the Mellon Foundation, this fall (see p. 5).

unsettled—restless and perpetually unsettling, in the

This coming 2016–17 year at IPRH we grapple with a concept that hails past, present and future all at once: “Publics.” Last fall, I invited faculty and students to assemble and talk about what kinds of programming we should envision to build out that concept. From parks to

best sense of the word. Please read on to see what we have been up to. Keep abreast of current events at IPRH through our website and on Twitter. And please, contribute a short piece to Reading Matters!

Meanwhile, my door is always open.

housing, to local history to surveillance, to art to queer publics, we are sponsoring a broad range of talks, walks and performances that illuminate what “Publics” signify both today and going forward. We are joining with a number of units in these efforts, including the Program

Antoinette Burton Director

in Jewish Culture and Society and the Russian, East

Announcing the IPRH David F. Prindable Internships Thanks to the generous sponsorship of longtime IPRH supporter and External Advisory Committee Member David F. Prindable, University of Illinois undergrads now have a new internship opportunity at IPRH. Mr. Prindable’s well-timed gift establishes the first ever paid undergraduate internship at IPRH and enables humanities majors to gain on-the-job work experience while learning about and supporting the fruitful work of the humanities community on campus. IPRH wishes to express its sincerest appreciation to Mr. Prindable for endowing this internship, which not only facilitates the work of IPRH but also, and perhaps most important, helps to broaden the ways IPRH enriches the undergraduate experience on campus. Thank you, Mr. Prindable.

Meet MaryCate:

Stay tuned: IPRH will solicit the next round of applications for the 2016–17 David F. Prindable Internship early this fall 2016 semester. Applications from U of I undergrads in all relevant fields are welcome. Please share this opportunity widely!

of IPRH and about potential future programming and

Applications are due September 30, 2016.

MaryCate for all her excellent work and wishes her every

Junior MaryCatherine Most (Journalism and Political Science major) served as our inaugural IPRH David F. Prindable intern in 2015–16. MaryCate assisted with a pamphlet and online exhibition showcasing 50 years of U of I research funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and acted as IPRH’s undergrad outreach liaison, surveying undergraduate students on campus about their views and perceptions communication initiatives. MaryCate also earned a highly coveted spot in the Smithsonian Institution’s internship program and thus spent summer 2016 in our nation’s capital, where she worked as a Digital Experiences Intern at the National Air and Space Museum. IPRH thanks success in her senior year ahead.

iprh.illinois.edu

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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This year, the Humanities Without Walls (HWW) grant was renewed by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for $4.2 million.

Rebecah Pulsifer (English) and Melissa Sifert (Art History) discuss their experiences at the 2015 HWW “Alt Ac” Workshop.

The grant, which builds on a two-year grant awarded in December 2013, will fund four more years of continuing scholarly collaboration through a consortium of fifteen humanities institutes in the Midwest and beyond.

The renewal grant comes with exciting changes to HWW’s two signature initiatives. The theme of the next Grand Research Challenge initiative will be “The Work of the Humanities in a Changing Climate,” which invites proposals that explore climate change per se and that think about the changing “climate” for humanists more generally. The grant also supports summer pre-doctoral workshops, which will continue to be organized by the Chicago Humanities Festival. These workshops are designed to help graduate students in the humanities think about a variety of career alternatives. In 2017 and 2019 they will be open to all graduate students in U.S. PhD-granting institutions. In 2018 they will accept predoctoral candidates from within the HWW consortium universities.

This past year HWW awarded the second round of Global Midwest funding to 10 projects. In summer 2016, 30 pre-doctoral fellows were chosen to participate in the second three-week “Alt Ac” workshops in Chicago.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HUMANITIES WITHOUT WALLS CONSORTIUM AND THESE INITIATIVES, PLEASE VISIT:

humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu.

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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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ANDREW W. MELLON FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM EMERGING AREAS IN THE HUMANITIES In 2015, IPRH received a grant of $2,050,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon

inter-generational research groups—in Bio-Humanities, Environmental

Foundation to support the development of emerging areas in the

Humanities, and Legal Humanities—which will run consecutively until

humanities. The grant sponsors faculty, post-doctoral, and pre-doctoral

2022. These groups will model multi-disciplinary collaborations and will

fellowships, as well as undergraduate internships, to form three robust,

develop new curricular opportunities for undergraduates on campus.

Andrew W. Mellon Bio-Humanities Research Group IPRH is pleased to introduce the members of the newly constituted Mellon Bio-Humanities Research Group, which launches this fall 2016. Please see the calendar of events on page

Sam Frost

8 for an exciting slate of Bio-Humanities related programming.

And do keep an eye out for the undergraduate Bio-Humanities

Faculty Fellow

courses developed this year to launch in Fall 2017.

Political Science / Gender and Women’s Studies

Rosine Kelz

Daniel Liu

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Post-Doctoral Fellow

PhD, Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, 2014

PhD, History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2016

“‘Beyond the human?’: Concepts of Humanity, Responsibility, and Agency in Political Theory and Biotechnology”

“Vision and Calculation of Living Matter”

Lydia Crafts

Rebecah Pulsifer

History

English

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

“Empire’s Laboratory: Race, Ethics, and Medical Experimentation in Guatemala during the Cold War”

Undergrad Interns

“Signifying Nothing: Intelligence and Intellectual Disability in British Modernism”

Sneha Adusumilli Molecular and Cellular Biology Miranda Dawson Bioengineering Sana Khadri English and Integrative Biology

Call for Applications: Mellon Faculty Fellowship in Environmental Humanities, 2017–20 The next Mellon-funded research group to launch will be the Environmental Humanities Research Group, which commences fall 2018. This academic year, IPRH will solicit applications for the Mellon Faculty Fellow in Environmental Humanities, who will direct the group, including its programming and curriculum development.

Applications are due February 15, 2017.

For full fellowship terms and application details, visit the IPRH website at: iprh.illinois.edu/fellowships/mellon/faculty.html

iprh.illinois.edu

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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IPRH Faculty Fellows: Publics Tim Dean

Daniel Gilbert

English

Labor and Employment Relations “Public Works: A Cultural History of Public Sector Labor”

“Public Women and Public Men: A Genealogy of Sex Work”

Luisa-Elena Delgado

A. Naomi Paik

Spanish and Portuguese

Asian American Studies “Insecure Empire: Legal Quandaries and the Outsourcing of U.S. Security”

“The Transparent Heart: Visceral Truths in the Public Sphere”

Terri Weissman Art History, Art + Design

Tyler Denmead

“This is What Democracy Looks Like: Freedom, Action, and Revolutionary Dreams”

Art Education, Art + Design “Youth in the Creative City”

Annual Theme 2017–18: PARADIGM SHIFTS IPRH is pleased to announce that the theme for the 2017–18 IPRH Fellowship year will be “Paradigm Shifts.” It feels very much like we are living in a moment of paradigmatic change—when revolutionary promise and structural uncertainty abound and old logics collide with new lexicons before our very eyes. A conceptual rubric derived from Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolution, the paradigm shift is, perhaps, a highly portable metaphor: a pluripotent frame in our own time.

Or is it crisis and transformation by any other name? IPRH seeks scholars grappling with paradigm shifts in the past and the present; working through such shifts as method or form; and thinking with or against the

...when revolutionary promise and structural uncertainty abound and old logics and new lexicons collide before our very eyes.

notion of norms in whatever quarter of the university they find themselves. We anticipate a lively Fellows Seminar where the implications for interdisciplinary approaches to the concept can be tried and tested in an atmosphere of spirited and collegial experimentation.

IPRH welcomes applications from all disciplines and departments with an interest in humanities and humanities-inflected research. We invite applications from faculty and graduate students that focus on any aspect of “Paradigm Shifts.” The theme also provides an opportunity for artists to consider the relevance of “Paradigm Shifts” in their creative practice. IPRH is especially interested in fostering interdisciplinary work.

Applications are due December 2, 2016.

IPRH-Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow

IPRH-Ragdale Fellow

Nili Belkind

Janice Harrington

(Ph.D., Ethnomusicology, Columbia University, 2014), “Music in Conflict: Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Cultural Production”

Creative Writing, English

Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Professor Harrington spent four weeks this summer 2016 in residence at Ragdale, an artists’ and writers’ retreat located in Lake Forrest, Illinois, pursuing work on an in-progress book of poems currently titled Domestic Arts, which draws on African American history, memory, and culture to trouble narrow conceptions of women’s work.

Anita Mixon Communication “Rupturing the Boundaries of Public and Private Spheres: A Rhetorical History of Women’s Work in Black Chicago, 1919–1939”

Graduate Student Fellows: Publics

Mark Sanchez

Raquel Escobar

History

History

“Recapturing a Lost Democracy: Philippine Exile Politics and International Opposition to Ferdinand Marcos, 1965–1986”

“Reconcile the Indian, Reconcile the Nation: Transnational Indian Reform in the Era of Inter-American Politics”

Maggie Shelledy

Christine Hedlin

English

English

“Against Social Death: Rhetorical Resilience at the Intersection of Higher Education and the Prison”

“Novel Faiths: A New Secular Theory of the Nineteenth-Century American Novel”

Anca Mandru

Kerry Wilson

History

Institute of Communications Research

“Making Socialists: Literature and Science in the Service of the Romanian Left (1880–1914)”

“Black Motherhood in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter”

iprh.illinois.edu

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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UPCOMING EVENTS

September

14 Creative Writers Showcase: BEHROOZ GHAMARI-TABRIZI

(History and Sociology)

Initiative in American Cultures, with co-sponsorship from IPRH.

22 Bio-Humanities Interchange

Felicity Callard (Durham University / Director of Hubbub at Wellcome Collection). Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

28 Critical Digital Humanities@ Illinois: Scholarly Commons Brown Bag Workshop

October

6 “The Legitimate Use of Police Force? A Dialogue of Law and Practice” with CRAIG FUTTERMAN (Law, University of

Chicago), with Michael Schlosser (Police Training Institute) and Rebecca Ginsburg (EPOL / Landscape Architecture, Director Education Justice Project)

10–15 “Hidden Histories” Campus Tours Organized by the Public History and Student Research IPRH Research Cluster.

13 Lecture: SIMONE BROWN (Sociology, University of Texas at Austin).

13 Undergrad Inside Scoop: SIMONE BROWN Co-sponsored by African American Studies.

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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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26 Conversation: MASHA GESSEN (Journalist, author, and

activist ), with Chris Benson (African American Studies and Journalism).

Organized in partnership with the CAS/MillerComm Lecture Series.

Co-sponsored by the Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center and the Program in Jewish Culture and Society.

29 Humanities Without Walls “Alt Ac” Brown Bag A panel

discussion with John Moore (English), Sara Thiel (Theatre), Andrea Stevens (English, Theatre, and Medieval Studies), Vicki Mahaffey (Kirkpatrick Professor of English and Gender and Women’s Studies), Derek Attig (Assistant Director for Student Outreach, Graduate College), Antoinette Burton (Director, IPRH), and Jason Mierek (Project Manager, Humanities Without Walls)

19 Creative Writers Showcase: JANICE HARRINGTON (English).

An Evening of Poetry and Jazz, with Justin Copeland and friends (School of Music).

“Digital Writing Assignments” with John Gallagher (English). Cosponsored by the Scholarly Commons of the University Library.

15 Symposium: Secrecy and Publics Presented by the Trowbridge

27 Antena Brownbag Workshop: Language Justice as an Element of Social Justice A

workshop with Antena co-founder Jen Hofer. Co-sponsored by the Krannert Art Museum.

November

3 Lecture: JACOB DLAMINI (History, Princeton). Co-Sponsored by the Center for Historical Interpretation of the History Department.

6 IPRH at the Chicago Humanities Festival: JIMENA CANALES (History).

“The Physicist and the Philosopher.”

Co-sponsored by the Chicago Humanities Festival. See page 10 for more information.

10–11 Bio-Humanities Interchange With Joan Fujimura (Sociology , University of Wisconsin) and Zaneta Thayer (Anthropology, University of Colorado). Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Co-sponsored by the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.

December

7 Critical Digital Humanities@ Illinois: Scholarly Commons Brown Bag Workshop Case

Studies and Dean of the College, Brown University). Co-sponsored by Program in Jewish Culture and Society.

Study: “The Globalization of the Phonograph Industry, 1905-1914: A Statistical and Visual History” with Harry Liebersohn (History), Harriett Green (English and Digital Humanities Librarian), and Zachary Riebeling (PhD, History). Co-sponsored by the Scholarly Commons of the University Library.

February

30–31 Bio-Humanities Symposium: Experiments in Thinking the Human Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Co-sponsored by the Beckman Institute for Science and Technology, the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

1 IPRH Reads: High Rise Stories with author Audrey Petty.

A Public Square@Illinois event.

April

3 Taking the Humanities Public: Communicating Your Research to a Wider Audience Co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research — Humanities, Arts, and Related Fields.

12 Inside Scoop: A Conversation with Natasha Trethewey

14 Symposium: Public Spaces: The Art and Sound of Displacement Jillian Hernandez

8 Critical Digital Humanities@ Illinois: Scholarly Commons Brown Bag Workshop “Data

(Ethnic Studies / Critical Gender Studies, UC San Diego) and Ashon Crawley (Ethic Studies, University of California, Riverside). Co-sponsored by FAA, VAR, Religious Studies, African American Studies, Art + Design, Music, Gender and Women’s Studies, Urban and Regional Planning, and Geography.

23 Queer Publics Lecture: TAVIA NYONG’O (Performance Studies,

28 Bio-Humanities Undergraduate Research Symposium Supported by the

New York University). Co-sponsored

by Gender and Women’s Studies.

March

7 Culture Talk: BARRY LOPEZ

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

(Author, essayist, and writer). Cosponsored by the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Krannert Art Museum, and the Center for Advanced Study.

12 Reading: Natasha Trethewey (19th Poet Laureate of the US, 2012– 14). A book-signing will follow the presentation.

Visualization for the Humanitites” with James Whitacre (Library) and Elizabeth Wickes (Library). Cosponsored by the Scholarly Commons of the University Library.

27 Undergrad Inside Scoop: MAUD MANDEL (History / Judaic

May

1 IPRH Prizes for Research Ceremony and Reception

For full event information, please visit iprh.illinois.edu.

9 Conversation: Music in Conflict with Nili Belkind (Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow) and Ted Swedenburg (Anthroplogy, University of Arkansas).

iprh.illinois.edu

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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IPRH AT THE CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL 2016 THEME: SPEED

Tickets go on sale September 20 to CHF members, and September 27 to the general public. The full schedule and ticket details can be found at chicagohumanities.org.

IPRH is honored to partner with the Chicago Humanities Festival to co-sponsor the following presentation by Illinois history professor Jimena Canales.

The Physicist and the Philosopher November 6, 2016 | 3:00 p.m. | Chicago Cultural Center | 78 E Washington St

JIMENA CANALES

In 1922, Albert Einstein and the great French philosopher Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. In The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time, historian of science Jimena Canales tells the remarkable story of how this clash impacted fields from logical positivism to quantum mechanics and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. Further, she explains how then-new technologies— such as wristwatches, radio, and film—helped shape people’s conceptions of time.

Jimena Canales is the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of numerous scholarly and journalistic texts on the history of modernity, focusing primarily on science, technology and art. Her books include A Tenth of a Second (University of Chicago Press) and The Physicist and The Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time (Princeton University Press). Canales was awarded the “Prize for Young Scholars” of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science and the Charles A. Ryskamp Award from the American Council of Learned Societies.

IPRH Application Deadlines, 2016–17

SEP 30

David F. Prindable Internship

MAR 1

OCT 14

IPRH-Ragdale Residential Creative Fellowship

MAR 15

APR 7

DEC 2

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IPRH Campus Fellowships

JAN 20

Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowships in Bio-Humanities

FEB 15

Mellon Faculty Fellowship in Environmental Humanities

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

iprh.illinois.edu

Mellon Undergraduate Internships in Bio-Humanities Prizes for Research in the Humanities IPRH Research Clusters

RESEARCH CLUSTERS, 2016–17 Hiding in Plain Site: Seeing and Feeling the Everyday Prita Meier Art History, School of Art + Design Interdisciplinary Cuban Studies Workshop Ellen Moodie Anthropology Helaine Silverman Anthropology New Directions in Queer Studies Martin Manalansan Anthropology / Asian American Studies Chantal Nadeau Gender and Women’s Studies Siobhan Somerville English / Gender and Women’s Studies

Public History and Student Research Daniel Gilbert School of Labor and Employment Relations Kathryn Oberdeck History Recovering Prairie Futures: Midwestern Innovation and Inter-disciplinary Design Developments Anita Say Chan Institute of Communications Research / Media & Cinema Studies Michael Twidale School of Information Science

For full descriptions of this year’s research clusters, visit iprh.illiniois.edu.

Reading Matters@IPRH This past year, IPRH launched Reading Matters@IPRH, a blog series for readers at Illinois and in the community to share their passions and pass along tips for reading that educates, inspires, comforts, unsettles—reading that moves us, in short, to want to communicate how we feel about what we read.

Reading Matters will continue this year and we want to

You can write a paragraph or two, or a longer

hear from you. What are you reading? What’s by your

reflection. You can be serious or playful. We’ve had

bed, on your Kindle or on your iPad? What novels,

subject matter from fantasy fiction to short stories to

poems, monographs, articles or blogs are you in the

children’s books to travel writing to cookbooks. What

throes of? Does the medium matter? What do you

we are curious about is what—and how—you are

recommend that we all read?

reading now.

See the entries published so far at go.illinois.edu/ReadingMatters.

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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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THE YEAR IN REVIEW

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This year has been a busy one for IPRH! We moved into our new space on the fourth floor of the Levis Faculty Center just in time for our opening reception. We kicked off the year’s events with a reading from recent Wallace Stevens Award-winning poet Joy Harjo and ended with a reading from US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, who also met with faculty and students during his visit to campus. We had lectures from Melissa Sanchez and Sidonie Smith, as well as a Q&A session with director Ian Cheney after a screening of his film The Search For General Tso. We hosted panels on the role of scholarly expertise, collaboration, “alt ac” careers for post-docs, the Grand Challenge Learning program, and the University of Illinois Press’s Women in Print project.

We organized two Critical Digital Humanities Brown Bags in collaboration with the Scholarly Commons. We gathered a dozen faculty, staff, and students from campus and the community to present at our “Cell Phone Slam!,” where each one told us, in six minutes or fewer, what their cell phone meant to them. We ended the year with our annual Research Prize awards ceremony.

1. IPRH Director Antoinette Burton and Levis renovation project manager Angela King. 2-3. Joy Harjo. 4. Carla Cáceres, Ruby Mendenhall, Waïl S. Hassan, Renée Trilling, and Craig Koslofsky. 5. John Randolph, Paul Arroyo, Chloe Ottenhoff, Brad Tober, Valerie Hotchkiss, and Antoinette Burton. 6. Brown bag led by Harriett Green. 7. Mark Steinberg, Gregg Lambert, Antoinette Burton, Jane Desmond, and Jonathan Inda. 8. Martin Manalansan and Ian Cheney.

9. Lauren Goodlad, Terri Weissman, Jamie Jones, and Ruby Mendenahll. 10. Brown bag led by Eleanor Dickson. 11. Matt Ando, Melissa Edwards, Kirk Sanders, Jeff Filippini, Linda Herrera, Assata Zerai, Maryalice Wu, Kevin Hamilton, Tori Metcalf, Fiona Munro, Valerie Hotchkiss, Alejandro Lleras, and Stephanie Foote. 12. Melissa Sanchez. 13. Sidonie Smith. 14. IPRH Research Prize winner Patricia J. Fleming and Antoinette Burton. 15-16.Juan Felipe Herrera.

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The National Endowment for the Humanities marked its 50th Anniversary in 2015. In celebration of 50 years of NEH engagement at the University of Illinois, IPRH held a series of events—including a visit from NEH Chairman William “Bro” Adams—and created a booklet and online exhibition, highlighting some of the many

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NEH awards won by faculty at Illinois in recent years. You can view the online exhibition at illinoisneh50.omeka.net and the booklet at issuu.com/iprh.

1. NEH Chairman William “Bro” Adams. 2. IPRH’s NEH 50 Booklet 3. Allyson Purpura, Mara Wade, Peter Organisciak, and Chairman Adams at a lunch with recent NEH recipients. 4. Vice Chancellor for Research Peter Schiffer, Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson, Chairman Adams, IPRH Director Antoinette Burton, and Interim Provost Ed Feser.

5. University of Illinois President Timothy Killeen and Chairman Adams.

6. Representative Rodney Davis and Chairman Adams.

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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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The Odyssey Project IPRH is pleased to partner with Illinois Humanities to bring the Odyssey Project to the Champaign-Urbana community. Based on the nationally renowned Clemente Course model, the Odyssey Project brings free humanities courses to income-eligible adults with limited to no access to higher education, courses for which students can earn up to six college-level credits.

Once again this 2015–16 year, our invaluable community partner Urbana Adult Education Center hosted the class meetings. One of the highlights of the year included a visit by William “Bro” Adams, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, to one of the Odyssey Project class sessions, when he was in town to celebrate the 50th anniversary of NEH. Chairman Adams met with students and discussed the significance of civic engagement in the work of the humanities, and students shared many ideas regarding ways to bolster programs such as Odyssey. Also in this past year, this endeavor received further recognition when President Obama awarded the 2014 National Humanities Medal to the Clemente Course in the Humanities, on which the Odyssey Project is based.

The 2016 Odyssey Graduation ceremony took place at the I-Hotel Conference center in May, at which attendees were treated to student presentations that demonstrated the robust development of ideas among program participants. 2016 Odyssey Project

Valedictorian Stephanie Alumbaugh shared her view that “through active learning (gaining knowledge, experience, understanding), like what we have experienced through the Odyssey Project, …each of us can help make a positive influence or difference in our society.”

IPRH wishes to thank the 2015–16 instructors, who made that active learning possible: Dr. Dale Bauer (Literature), Dr. Samuel Byndom (Director and US History), Dr. Malaika McKee (Philosophy) and Adrienne Pickett (Art History). They will be teaching again in 2016–17, joined by Jeremy Bhonos as graduate coordinator.

In 2016–17, we are delighted to celebrate the 10th year of this remarkable public engagement effort, which is supported by the generosity of the Provost’s Office, Illinois Humanities, and IPRH, and offered in partnership with the Urbana Adult Education Center. To learn more about the Odyssey Project in Champaign-Urbana and how you can help to support it as it moves into its second decade, go to iprh.illinois.edu/giving.html and see at right.

Education Justice Project Education Justice Project director Rebecca Ginsburg was honored this spring by an invitation to participate in a White House roundtable with administration officials and other prison education leaders from across the country. The subject was the role of universities in criminal justice reform. Administration officials sought to secure ideas and support for an exciting new initiative that will open opportunities for hundreds of thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals and their families.

The Fair Chance Higher Education Pledge was officially announced by Education Secretary John King a few weeks after the meeting, on June 10, 2016. With this effort, the White House is inviting colleges and universities to demonstrate their ongoing commitment to reducing barriers to access to higher education.

Their commitment might take various forms, such as reviewing the appropriateness of criminal justice-related questions on application materials

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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

iprh.illinois.edu

and supporting prison education programs like the Education Justice Project. More information about the pledge is available at 1.usa.gov/24FxmTr. The University of Illinois is currently considering signing the pledge, thereby joining Rutgers University, Cornell University, the University of Washington, and many others. EJP supports national-level efforts to expand educational opportunity, and is proud that we’ve been able to help set the administration’s agenda in this area.

IPRH Gift Fund

We are grateful to our donors, whose generous gifts help make our activities possible. Thank you for your investment in IPRH.

You can support IPRH’s programing and humanities research in the following ways: • Named annual lecture • Faculty or graduate-student fellowship awards

Giving to

• Post-doctoral fellowship award in a designated area of the humanities

IPRH is a robust hub of humanities and arts-related activities that benefit the campus, the Champaign-Urbana area, and the broader scholarly community. Please consider making an investment in our future by making a gift of any kind to support our programs.

• Creation of an endowment for IPRH • Named award for faculty or student achievement • Named lecture hall or seminar room

The Odyssey Project Fund

Your support can help provide free humanities courses for income-eligible adults through a variety of ways: • Program Endowment • Second year of courses • Endowed undergraduate internship

• Mentoring and transitioning services • Spanish language courses • Endowed graduate research fellowship

• Donations can be made by contacting the IPRH Director at iprh@illinois.edu or (217) 244-3344, or online through the IPRH website at iprh.illinois.edu/ giving.html. You can also donate by contacting our new Advancement Officer, Tony Pomonis (English ’02), at (217) 300-3470 or apomonis@illinois.edu. Tony expanded the local chain of Merry Ann’s Diners from one location to four, and he offers his own experience as proof that a humanities degree equips you with the skills needed for career success. Tony will be traveling the country regularly and may be in your neighborhood soon.

• Many companies will match or even double or triple your gift to the college.

Simply request and complete the Matching Gift Form from your company’s Human Resources Office, then mail it along with your gift check. See if your company has a matching gift program at http://www.uif.uillinois.edu/matching.

I’ve learned countless lessons ranging far beyond my own field. The topics covered by these events have spanned a map as large as human endeavor.

—Richard Powers National-Book-Award-Winning novelist iprh.illinois.edu

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Established in 1997, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign promotes interdisciplinary study in the humanities, arts, and social sciences.

IPRH serves as the primary locus for and promotes endeavors related to these fields on the University of Illinois campus and beyond. IPRH plans and hosts numerous lectures, symposia, and panel discussions on a wide variety of topics, bringing distinguished scholars from the United States and around the world to our campus; grants fellowships to Illinois faculty and graduate students and to post-doctoral scholars to support their research and scholarly activities; provides awards that recognize excellence in humanities research on our campus; awards grants to support collaborative research; and coordinates faculty and graduate-student reading groups.

The Odyssey Project Samuel Byndom Director odysseyproject@illinois.edu 217-384-3530

Education Justice Project Rebecca Ginsburg Director info@educationjustice.net

IPRH Advisory Committee 2016–17 Anita Say Chan Media and Cinema Studies Jonathan Ebel Religion Bonnie Mak Information Sciences

IPRH Staff

Erik McDuffie African American Studies and History

Antoinette Burton Director aburton@illinois.edu, 217-244-3344

Justine Murison English

Nancy Castro Associate Director ncastro@illinois.edu, 217-244-7913 Kelly Delahanty Communications Coordinator iprh_coordinator@mx.uillinois.edu, 217-300-2028 Kevin Hamilton Coordinator of Digital Scholarly Communication kham@illinois.edu, 217-244-2369 Jason Mierek Humanities Without Walls Project Manager hww-manager@mx.uillinois.edu, 217-300-3711 Paula Baucum-Williams Humanities Without Walls Grants Specialist pbaucumw@illinois.edu, 217-300-5535 Stephanie Uebelhoer Office Support Associate suebelho@illinois.edu, 217-244-3344

D. Fairchild Ruggles Landscape Architecture Mark D. Steinberg History and Slavic Languages and Literatures Robert Tierney East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative and World Literature

External Advisory Committee Emary C. Aronson Ann Merritt David Prindable Ruth Watkins Dan Whaley

T (217)244.3344

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

F (217)333.9617

Levis Faculty Center, Suite 400

E-mail iprh@illinois.edu

919 West Illinois Street

Website iprh.illinois.edu

Urbana, Illinois 61801