Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere - Annual Newsletter 2020-2021

THE ANNUAL NEWSLETTER

A YEAR IN REVIEW | 2020-2021

“The function of the university is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a center of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization.”

—W.E.B. DU BOIS

The Souls of Black Folk (Of the Wings of Atalanta)

Table of Contents Our Mission

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Staff and Advisory Board

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Director’s Letter

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Faculty and Doctoral Fellows

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Speaker Series: Data & Democracy

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Conversations in the Neighborhood: Let’s Talk about Food

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Programs in Public Humanities Grants

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The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: Intersections: Animating Conversations with the Humanities 14 Humanities Engagement Scholars

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Envision Humanities

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Books Published with Publication Subvention

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Library Enhancement Grants and Speaker Workshop Grants

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Residencies at the National Humanities Center

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Outlook

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Support the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

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Our Mission THREE INTERRELATED PURPOSES

1 To facilitate and promote the research programs of humanities scholars at the University of Florida (UF);

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To provide an intellectual space and a physical location within UF and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) for critical and collaborative discussions of the humanities that reach across and beyond individual disciplines;

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And to provide a place for outreach to the community in which we live and teach.

Building on the work of individual departments, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (CHPS) emphasizes collaboration and critical discussion as to its basic program models.

STAFF FALL 2021

THE ADVISORY BOARD, 2020-21

Barbara Mennel Director and Rothman Chair; Professor of Film Studies and German Studies

Hélène Blondeau, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Linguistics

Alexandra Cenatus Assistant Director for Programming and Public Engagement

M. Elizabeth Ginway, Spanish and Portuguese Studies

Lauren Cox Program Coordinator, 2020-2022; Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English

Roger Maioli dos Santos, English

Rhonda Black Office Manager

Ali Mian, Religion

Kaira Cabañas, Art History, College of the Arts

Jillian Hernandez, Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research

Anton Matytsin, History

Jennifer Rea, Classics Chris Smith, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTORS

ENVISION HUMANITIES SELECTION COMMITTEE, 2020-21

Sophia Acord, Alexandra Cenatus, Kristen Galvin, Barbara Mennel, Melany Vergara Suárez

Plato Smith, George Smathers Libraries Heather Vrana, History Laura Gonzales, English

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From the Director’s Desk To say that it was a challenging year would be an understatement.

The pandemic forced scholars to revise their research projects, left new undergraduate students disoriented on a virtual campus, overextended graduate students and faculty on Zoom sessions, and prevented members of the public from attending in-person events. Despite the practical and emotional challenges of the pandemic, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere had an immensely productive and engaging year, fostering new relationships, supporting research by graduate students and faculty, and expanding the horizon of career paths for graduate students.

The contributions by undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and members of the community centrally defined Conversations in the Neighborhood: Let’s Talk about Food, especially in the workshops and panels on Asian American Food Memories, Latinx Food Memories and Foods of the African Diaspora. The series mobilized discussion with global and local participants about how dishes define our heritage and how we can sustain access to healthy food on campus and in our communities.

This year saw the completion of programming for Envision Humanities: A Graduate Student Toolkit for the 21st Century. 475 audience members attended 23 events of the Envision Humanities program aimed at expanding graduate education in the humanities, introducing public humanities to graduate students, and diversifying career paths in the humanities. Events included reading groups, introduction to platforms for career paths, professional workshops, panels with alumni, and programs on public writing and podcasting. These kinds of resources have been lifesavers for graduate students discouraged by a decline in academic jobs during the pandemic.

500 audience members attended the speaker series on Data & Democracy, which offered a sustained, yearlong humanities engagement with artificial technology and machine-learning. Katherine Chandler (Georgetown University), Catherine D’Ignazio (MIT), Ruha Benjamin (Princeton University) and Sylvester Johnson (Virginia Tech) delivered public lectures and held workshops on work in progress, faculty and graduate student research projects addressing technology and the humanities, student reading groups, AI curriculum development, and funding opportunities. The conversations among faculty and students in the humanities and STEM fields will continue for years to come and set the stage to train students in humanities approaches to technology for a future well-rounded workforce.

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This past year also saw the conclusion of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, Intersections: Animating Conversations with the Humanities. For three years, four groups of faculty members and graduate students addressed the following grand-challenge questions: What would the world look like without mass incarceration? How can we engage ethical issues in public life? How do Black and Latinx people shape global and local cultures, politics and economies? How do technologies influence our lives, then and now? Ten undergraduate students graduated in 2021 as Intersections scholars. In their final videos, they reflected on the grand-challenge questions they investigated based on the three different courses they took and expressed how they would apply their knowledge in future education and careers.

Unfortunately, it was also a year in which we had to say farewell to two of our colleagues who moved on to the next chapters in their professional lives. Dr. Kristen Galvin, former Assistant Director for Graduate Engagement, has taken up a position as Assistant Professor of Art History and Director of the Art History Program at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Dr. Sophia Acord, longtime Associate Director of the Humanities Center, has taken up a new role as the Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives in the UF College of the Arts. We can rely on the strong foundation in programming that they built over the years as we move forward.

These are just some highlights of the diverse ways in which the Humanities Center catalyzed conversations around a range of topics from food and sustainability to rethinking graduate education in the humanities and feminist approaches to AI. We look forward to another year of Conversations in the Neighborhood and another installment of our speaker series on Rethinking the Public Sphere. We also hope to come together again in person to exchange ideas and collaborate on projects that advance the mission of the Humanities Center!

With gratitude to our supporters and collaborators,

Rothman Chair and Director Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

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Fellowship Spotlight The Center’s Doctoral and Faculty Fellowships provide funding to allow recipients to make significant progress on research projects.

This year, we profile two 2020-21 fellows from the Department of History — a doctoral candidate and mentor — whose archival work reveals the connections between policing, education, mass incarceration, and mass deportation in 20th and 21st century America.

David Meltsner (History), Tedder Family Doctoral Fellow The United Federation of Teachers and the Making of the School-To-Prison Pipeline David Meltsner is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Florida who is writing a dissertation on the school-to-prison pipeline.

In the 1970s, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) advocated for policies that established a foundation for the school-to-prison pipeline, a development that disproportionately pushes Black and Latino students out of school and into a punitive criminal justice system.

By highlighting and politicizing disorder in the city’s public schools, the UFT convinced lawmakers, city Board of Education officials, media, and the public to support policies and protocols that increasingly criminalized students. These measures entailed the heightened surveillance of students by security personnel and new technologies, such as closed-circuit television, walkie talkies and alarm systems; the suspension and expulsion of “disruptive” or “violent” students; and the utilization of police services to address delinquency and truancy.

Lauren Pearlman (History), Rothman Faculty Summer Fellow The Security State: The Rise of Private Security Industries in Post-World War II America Lauren Pearlman is an Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Florida. She is working on her second book project examining the rise of private security industries in post-World War II America.

Over the course of the 20th century, private military and security companies like Blackwater (now Academi), Dyncorp and G4S have helped to create a multibillion-dollar global security industry. The roots of G4S in the Wackenhut Corporation, a private detective firm founded in 1954 in Coral Gables, Florida, is one example of how companies created to supply local security guards expanded rapidly through state and military contracts to fight organized crime and surveil public spaces and transit systems. Today, these same companies are increasingly seen in conflict zones and lobbying for private prison and immigration detention center contracts. Consequently, they play major roles in extending state power and empire building through paramilitary activities throughout the Americas and beyond.

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FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCEMENTS 2021 ROTHMAN FACULTY SUMMER FELLOWS

2020 ROTHMAN FACULTY SUMMER FELLOWS

Ingrid Kleespies, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Victor Del Hierro, English Bonnie Ernst, Sociology and Criminology & Law

2021-22 TEDDER FAMILY DOCTORAL FELLOWS

Fiona McLaughlin, Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Meghna Sapui, English

Lauren Pearlman, History

Michael Stoop, Anthropology

2021-22 ROTHMAN DOCTORAL FELLOWS Brianna Anderson, English

2020-21 TEDDER FAMILY DOCTORAL FELLOWS Rachal Burton, English David Meltsner, History

Macarena Deij Prado, Art History Qingming Huang, Political Science Venu Mehta, Religion

2020-21 ROTHMAN DOCTORAL FELLOWS Laura Colkitt, Art History

Licínio Nunes de Miranda, History Allison Raper, Art History Jeeye Song, Political Science Emily Theobald, Music Georgios Topalidis, Sociology and Criminology & Law

Lauren Walter, Art History

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Speaker Series: Data & Democracy, 2020-21 Since its beginning, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere has strived to offer an annual speaker series that brings scholars and practitioners to campus to present their research to faculty, students, and members of the public. Since 2019, the series has turned to the question of rethinking the public sphere, a key component of the Center’s title. In the decadeplus since the Humanities Center’s founding, the understanding of the public sphere has developed from an idealist vision of rational encounter to a multitude of overlapping spheres shaped by stratification, medialization, and datafication. We ask how to theorize the public sphere in these emerging contexts.

In the 2020-21 academic year, the series focused on Data & Democracy to offer humanities approaches to the questions of algorithms and machine learning in their historical and contemporary contexts, while also looking to the future. The four speakers — Katherine Chandler (Georgetown University), Catherine D’Ignazio (Massachusetts Institute for Technology), Ruha Benjamin (Princeton University), and Sylvester Johnson (Virginia Tech) — responded to the challenges of current machine learning with wide-ranging insight.

Prof. D’Ignazio, the foremost scholar of feminist data science, surveyed biases in data science and offered methods on how to overcome them. In additional workshops, she responded to research projects by doctoral students and engaged in a conversation with faculty members on feminist methodologies in data science.

Prof. Benjamin similarly presented on the centrality of race in algorithmic biases and offered visions of alternative imagination of technology. Students who had read her book prior to her virtual visit had the opportunity to meet with her and discuss her work.

Finally, Prof. Johnson concluded the speaker series with an intellectual tour de force reflecting on the relation of technology and humanity, beginning with the question of who is accorded the feeling of pain and turning to contemporary human-machine integration in prosthetics. Generous with his time, Prof. Johnson met with different constituencies on UF campus, from faculty and administrators to students and research and foundation staff, to engage in a conversation about the UF AI initiative. Held virtually, the series attracted more than 500 attendees and engendered conversations about future scholarship, as well as ethical and just technology.

Prof. Chandler researches the history of drones, particularly in relationship to military history and their current use for humanitarian purposes. In addition to her lecture, she offered a workshop, in which advanced graduate students and faculty members discussed her recent work-in-progress.

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Voices from Lecture Attendees and Workshop Participants “Drones and artificial intelligence are changing the future of our society. Dr. Chandler’s lecture captured the use of drones and how this use has penetrated our military and civilian lives. The assumption of privacy may not be possible in the future because of the usage of drones.”

Brian Marra Undergraduate History major and Humanities Engagement Scholar

“Dr. D’Iganzio’s lecture was a terrific delineation of why feminist intersectional analysis is essential to data science; how race, gender, sexuality, class and other axes of power shape and are shaped by “big” data; and how feminist anti-racist data science can be a tool for social justice.”

Bonnie Moradi, Ph.D. Director, Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research; Professor of Psychology

“Dr. Benjamin’s visit was integral to current conversations on abolition, reformation, and technology. Her discussion with students was richly generous and invigorating as she shared mentorship and testimony. Her lecture and conversation reminded us that Black feminist theory remains an essential, foundational theory across all disciplines — especially, robotics and AI.” Kimberly Williams Ph.D. student, Department of English

“Dr. Johnson’s presentation and many generous meeting discussions provided UF participants a wealth of wisdom in how to approach research, teaching, and learning involving AI applications in a truly multidisciplinary manner. He spoke to the hunger that I have observed among our professional, graduate and undergraduate students for more opportunities to work and study across the humanities, arts, and STEM disciplines toward more holistic and sustained solutions to the pressing questions in AI, and I believe he has catalyzed our moving forward in creating such opportunities.”

Angela Lindner, Ph.D. Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs; Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Sciences

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Conversations in the Neighborhood: Let’s Talk About Food Conversations in the Neighborhood is a public humanities series developed by the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere in collaboration with the City of Gainesville Office of Equity and Inclusion. The program, led by Alexandra Cenatus, examines current social issues through nuanced approaches to knowledge production. It also fosters dialogues by bringing community members, government officials, humanities scholars, and artists together and selecting a theme embedded in people’s everyday lives, such as food or music.

The series allowed participants to delve into food-related stories. And since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the series to convert its in-person activities into virtual ones, it employed active engagement through Zoom breakout rooms, cooking tutorials, and recipe cards to build an online community.

The 10 events in the series followed a timeline of past, present, and future. The installment about the past placed dominant narratives and counter-narratives at the forefront.

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For example, “Food Memories of Latin America” featured panelists from various Latin American countries who shared their memories of their homeland. Marisella Veiga, one of the invited speakers, mentions that “traditional foods and foodways nourish people in various ways; for the newly arrived and even for those with over 60 years in a new land, traditional foods are a source of joy and comfort.” Marisella further adds, “As a former college professor turned independent writer, I was happy to be in a space, even virtual, with people interested in learning more about my experience.”

The segment on the present reflected on how the past continues to impact our current lives. In the United States, grocery stores shape people’s food habits. The discussion “Gainesville Food Producers” shed light on farmers who support food production. In this rich exchange with farmers from Gainesville and surrounding areas, the series showed their challenging work, particularly focusing on their adaptive strategies during COVID.

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The series’ installment about the future explored Asian and Pacific communities’ food culture in “Food Memories of Asia” with Vianna Quach (Vietnam), Min Ji Kang (South Korea), Aditta Riha (Bangladesh) and Prof.

Sandy F. Chang as moderator (Taiwan). The participants discussed the different layers of their Asian identities. Aditta Riha, for example, mentioned her love for Caribbean and Bangladeshi food. Min Ji Kang created a blog entitled “Community Food Waves” with information about Asian restaurants in Gainesville. Vianna Quach reflected on the ways in which she adjusted Vietnamese recipes because some Asian ingredients were not readily available in Gainesville.

Conversations in the Neighborhood: Let’s Talk about Food connected with more than 500 audience members. More importantly, it enabled its audience to think carefully about their relationships with food and reflect on how colonization, immigration, and climate change shape their eating habits.

Rethinking Collaboration in Public Humanities In 2020-2021, the Humanities Center funded three exciting collaborative public humanities projects. The first, “Growing Strong: Empowering Girls in the 21st Century through Stories of Classical Female Mythological Figures and Contemporary Women,” was a partnership between Girls Place and Anastasia Pantazopoulou (Ph.D. candidate, Classics) and Anthony Smith (Ph.D. student, Classics) to help young girls reflect on their identity by weaving together narratives of inspirational ancient Greco-Roman goddesses and contemporary women figures.

(Immigrant Family Liaison of Alachua County Schools) teamed up to connect local K-12 students with bilingual older storytellers to share intergenerational stories in Spanish.

In the third project, “Caribbean Voices: Connecting People and Sharing Stories,” John Nemmers (George A. Smathers Libraries, Curator of Architecture Archives and the Panama Canal Museum Collection) worked with Carmen Grimes-Eccles (Pan Caribbean Sankofa, Inc.) to uncover the contributions (although erased) of tens of thousands of West Indian laborers who built the Panama Canal.

In the “E-Telling Project: Social Patchwork and 21st-Century Literacies,” Alejandro Acero and Darian Hector (graduate students, Spanish and Portuguese Studies) and Kamil Leavitt

“For us, collaboration is a key element of the humanities. Collaboration allows us to share our knowledge, broaden our understanding of different fields, create spaces for social change and grow both as individuals and communities. As part of our collaboration with Girls Place, we had the opportunity to engage with sixth-to-eighth-grade girls of the broader Gainesville community and created an environment where they could consider their role as empowered young women in their personal lives and communities. This mutual process of growth prompted us to find ways to make our research accessible to diverse audiences and re-examine our roles in the structures and improvement of our non-academic and academic communities.”

Anastasia Pantazopoulou, Ph.D. candidate, Classics and Anthony Smith, Ph.D. student, Classics “Our public humanities project helped me see my resilience when faced with pressure and the importance of community learning amid unprecedented challenges. Alejandro Acero and I designed the E-Telling Project, which had bilingual (SpanishEnglish) adults speak with fifth-grade students from Gainesville Country Day School (GCDS) via Zoom. These volunteers shared stories with students about their childhoods and explained how meaningful it is to be bilingual and bicultural in Florida.

Students, in turn, created digital stories based on the stories shared by these volunteers.”

Darian Hector, graduate student, Spanish and Portuguese Studies

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Intersections: Animating Conversations with the Humanities The UF Intersections: Animating Conversations with the Humanities project launched with the award of a $400,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the University of Florida in 2017. The goal of the Intersections program is to explore grand-challenge questions rooted in the humanities.

As observed by UF President Kent Fuchs in his welcome to the Spring 2021 Intersections Symposium, “Making a difference starts with asking the difficult and complex questions that the humanities are best equipped to answer... and steering the conversation purposefully and in a fruitful direction.”

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At the core of the Intersections program are four grandchallenge questions created by interdisciplinary faculty working groups who received Intersections Research-Into-Teaching Grants.

In addition to conducting research and organizing creative activities together, each Intersections Group translated their research into teaching to introduce undergraduate students to their question, its importance, and how to address it.

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HOW CAN WE ENGAGE ETHICAL ISSUES IN PUBLIC LIFE? Convened by Prof. Anna Peterson (Religion) and Prof. Jaime Ahlberg (Philosophy) with members from Journalism, Smathers Libraries, and Brown Center for Leadership and Service.

This group developed two general-education Quest courses, created an undergraduate certificate in Ethics and Society, and organized Ethics Poster Fairs to showcase student projects across courses. Based on focus groups with UF students about their comfort talking about politically divisive issues, the group organized a series of Ethics Cafés and Ethics Panels to facilitate conversation on politically divisive subjects among UF students and the greater community.

HOW DO BLACK AND LATINX PEOPLE SHAPE GLOBAL AND LOCAL CULTURES, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS? Convened by Prof. Manoucheka Celeste (Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies Research) and Dr. Margarita VargasBetancourt (Smathers Libraries) with members from History; Oral History; Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies Research; Psychology; Journalism; Latin American Studies; and Sociology.

Based on their research about how Blackness travels globally and through the Americas, this group organized speaker series and events on Black and Latinx Knowledge Formations and created the dual-language online Haitian American Dream Timeline through the Smathers Libraries.

In Summer 2020, they developed an online wellness workshop series for people of color.

WHAT WOULD THE WORLD LOOK LIKE WITHOUT MASS INCARCERATION?

HOW DO TECHNOLOGIES INFLUENCE OUR LIVES, THEN AND NOW?

Convened by Prof. Jodi Schorb (English) and Stephanie Birch (Smathers Libraries) with members from History, African American Studies, Levin College of Law, and Latin American Studies.

Convened by Prof. Eleni Bozia (Classics) and Marty Hylton (Historic Preservation) with Members from the Digital Worlds Institute; Smathers Libraries; Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Political Science; and Computer and Information Science and Engineering.

This group began offering the general-education Quest course “Imagining Social Justice: The Long Civil Rights Movement.”

Based on their research on how to advance decarceration locally, this group hosted a series of conversations featuring individuals impacted by mass incarceration, connections between incarceration and disability rights, and creative and arts-based approaches to decarceration while also expanding library resources.

Each group invited doctoral students to join their collaborative work. These Intersections Group doctoral student members conducted related dissertation research to each group’s grand-challenge question in 2018-2020. Dr. Srimayee Basu, a member of the Intersections Group on Mass Incarceration who completed her Ph.D. in English in Summer 2020, explained that her participation in the Intersections program encouraged her to think about the humanities collaboratively and “made me push the disciplinary contours of my project.” In her new position as Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Irvine, she plans to continue to engage in interdisciplinary humanities research.

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This group created a teamtaught course “Imagineering the Technosphere” to help students examine the social and cultural dimensions of technologies from the past to the future through playing the augmented reality “UF Quest Game.” This group also hosted a series of events examining how humans can use technologies and digital storytelling tools to address critical social and environmental threats today.

COMPLETING INTERSECTIONS SCHOLARS In Summer 2019, CHPS launched the Intersections Scholar extracurricular program to support undergraduate students in preparing to confront these challenges from multiple perspectives in their lives and work. Over 150 students are currently involved in the Intersections Scholars program.

CHPS congratulates the following completed Intersections Scholars from 2020 and 2021 who were celebrated at the April 23, 2021, Intersections Symposium: INTERSECTIONS SCHOLAR ON ETHICS IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE Sara Lottman, Economics and Political Science with a minor in Philosophy and a certificate in Global Leadership and Change INTERSECTIONS SCHOLAR ON GLOBAL BLACKNESS AND LATINX IDENTITY Hannah Lazar, English and Political Science

INTERSECTIONS SCHOLARS ON MASS INCARCERATION Alexandra Gomez, Dontae Bellony, African Criminology and English American Studies and Sociology Travis Mazurek, Philosophy

Gabrielle Jette, Biochemistry

Ciara McAleavey, Political Science with a minor in Anthropology and a certificate in Public Affairs

Chase Law, Criminology

Kevin Quintana, Criminology with a minor in Philosophy Natalie Real, Anthropology and Criminology with a minor in Sociology Maria Echeverry, Anthropology and Criminology Brittany Findley, African American Studies and Political Science

Bailey Lovesky, Mathematics with minors in Sociology and UFTeach Mathematics Alex Sherman, Classical Studies with a minor in Mass Communication Kathryn Yachnis, PsychologyBehavioral Cognitive Neuroscience with a minor in African American Studies Liel Zoran, Psychology with a minor in Philosophy

Intersections is organized by the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere in partnership with George A. Smathers Libraries with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information, visit: intersections.humanities.ufl.edu CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

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Humanities Engagement Scholars The Humanities Engagement Scholars (HES) program shapes undergraduate humanities students’ academic experiences at UF through a variety of learning, service, and mentorship opportunities. Students attend two humanities events of their choice per academic year. In January 2021, for example, Julianna Panton (Psychology and African American Studies) attended the talk “Data Feminism” and learned about “structural forces of power and intersections.”

Students of HES also contribute to a humanities event once a year. During the pandemic, the program offered opportunities to volunteer virtually. Isabella Kemp (International Studies) instantly changed her daily routine to include homeschooling her nieces and holding FaceTime playdates.

The program requires students to take 12 credits of coursework in the humanities. Students who learned about subjects like Japanese culture and Victorian bodies reiterated how this requirement introduced them to the depth and breadth of the humanities.

Additionally, students of HES can participate in optional monthly discussions in the Humanities Center with speakers

on topics of scholarship and professionalization for undergraduate students. In February 2019, HES collaborated with Carly Vogelsang (Coordinator of the Office of Global Learning) and Amila Tica (UF Program Support Specialist) from the UF International Center by using trivia to connect international and humanities students. In January 2021, HES and the UF International Center teamed up again in a virtual setting. The students’ positive responses showed how trivia can serve as an entertaining learning tool.

HES also provides a mentorship program entitled Humani-Mentors to its students. Mentor and Ph.D. student Kimberly Williams (English) reveals that “this program was restorative because it provided a way to build and create something with Yasmine Adams (African American Studies major), my mentee. It was important to provide intentional care and guidance to her during a time of so much grieving. Yasmine was so intelligent, hilarious, and intuitive! Ultimately, my experience with my mentee was a reminder that mentorship is a relationship-building mechanism, so often forgotten but so richly needed for Black women.”

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Similarly, mentor and Ph.D. student Brianna Anderson (English) said, “Brian Marra (English and History major) and I attended a virtual event together, discussed career aspirations, and reflected on the current state of academia and the humanities. I also learned more about my field and my university as I sought out internships and other professional development opportunities that would benefit my mentee.”

In August 2020, Stephanie Chang (Advertising) joined the Humanities Center as an intern to collect stories of students in the HES program. In January 2021, Emily Vanover (Psychology), Isabella Alonso (Political Science) and Hannah Brady (Psychology) brought new perspectives to the program. And in May 2021, three undergraduate students — Jeffrey Hayden (History and International Studies major), Lisa Kurian (Applied Physiology and Kinesiology), and Trent Wintermeier (English major) — graduated from the program.

Through all of these opportunities, the HES program offers innovative ways to become engaged humanities students.

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Envision Humanities: A Graduate Student Toolkit for the 21st Century Envision Humanities affords graduate students opportunities to expand their skill sets, engage broader publics, and discover a variety of career pathways. Envision Humanities aims to enhance graduate training, alongside career exploration, to prepare students for positions within and beyond the university. Alongside workshops, panels, and reading groups, Envision Humanities includes an internship program and an institute in which graduate students explore the public humanities.

2020 PUBLIC HUMANITIES SUMMER INTERNSHIP PROGRAM This program provided graduate students with a substantive and experiential internship in the publicly engaged humanities. Interns worked closely with site supervisors at nonprofit organizations on specific projects that reinforce the site’s missions. Through this program, graduate students expanded their professional skills and networked while gaining meaningful humanistic work experiences beyond an academic setting.

During COVID-19 all internships were transitioned to a virtual format. In summer 2020, we awarded four Public Humanities Internships.

INTERNSHIP SPOTLIGHT Lauren Burrell Cox (English), Historical Researcher at The Hippodrome Theatre Lauren Burrell Cox (Ph.D . candidate, English) focuses on archival films and how they reactivate and engage with film history. She researched the history of Gainesville’s iconic Hippodrome Theatre and developed a podcast series on its founding. In collaboration with her host site, she received a $5,000 Community Project Grant from the Florida Humanities Council for the ongoing podcasting project as a direct result of the internship.

“This internship definitely gave me more insight into how a theatre operates as well as how community arts organizations function, which I think will be valuable knowledge going forward.”

Lori Lye (Spanish and Portuguese Studies), Program Development at Howard W. Bishop Middle School, A Community Partnership School Lori Lye finished her Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics in spring 2021. Her research focuses on the investigation of mobile applications for language learning. As a program development intern, she created organizational and management tools for Howard W. Bishop Middle School’s volunteer program. She assessed the needs of the volunteer program and evaluated curriculum for volunteer training and support.

“I was able to interview contacts in the industry and work in career pathways outside of traditional academia that humanities students are assumed to pursue.”

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GRADUATE PUBLIC HUMANITIES INSTITUTE - FEBRUARY 24-MARCH 25, 2021 The first Graduate Public Humanities Institute was a month-long series of virtual workshops and events introducing the methods, formats, and opportunities of the publicly engaged humanities. Through writing op-eds, curating exhibitions, and producing podcasts, the workshops and talks emphasized the public humanities as active practice and evolving process. Graduate students explored publicly engaged research, teaching, writing, preservation, and programming to learn about a range of career pathways from professionals who currently apply their advanced humanities degrees across different fields.

EVENT SPOTLIGHT - PODCASTING AS PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP “Podcasting as Public Scholarship” was a workshop led by the creators of the “American Girls Podcast,” Dr. Allison Horrocks and Dr. Mary Mahoney. The workshop leaders demonstrated how podcasting offers an accessible and meaningful way to connect with the public and share research in the humanities. They were also available for one-on-one

consulting later in the day for graduate students who wanted to discuss specific podcasting ideas.

The Keynote Speaker of the Institute was Dr. Katina Rogers, author of Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and Beyond the Classroom (Duke University Press, 2020). Dr. Rogers led a candid conversation on the present and future of

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humanities graduate training as a valuable public good. She addressed the role of humanities inquiry in the COVID pandemic and engaged modes of scholarly communication, diversity, and inclusivity in higher education, academic labor practices, and faculty support for graduate educational reform.

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Publication Subventions In 2015, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, in collaboration with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of the Arts, launched a competitive Publication Subvention Program in the Humanities that supports academic books under contract with a scholarly press with up to $1,500 per book. As of May 2021, 17 subventions have been awarded and 14 books have been published. In many cases, the publication subvention allows authors to include important illustrations and have the book priced affordably, increasing its impact and accessibility for faculty and students.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT

M. Elizabeth Ginway (Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies) published Cyborgs, Sexuality, and the Undead: The Body in Mexican and Brazilian Speculative Fiction with Vanderbilt University Press in December 2020.

The monograph expands the traditional purview of speculative fiction in all its incarnations (science fiction, fantasy, horror) beyond the traditional Anglo-American context to focus on work produced in Mexico and Brazil across a historical overview from 1870 to the present. The design of the book cover was selected by the Association of University Presses for its annual 2021 AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show.

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Emily Hind (Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies) published Literatura infantil y juvenil Mexicana: Entrevistas with Peter Lang in September 2020.

The book includes interviews with authors, critics and editors of Mexican children’s and young adult literature.

It reflects the history and the explosion of sales of children’s and young adult literature in Mexico by the 21st century.

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Maya Stanfield-Mazzi (Professor, Art History) published Clothing the New World Church: Liturgical Textiles of Spanish America, 1520-1820 with University of Notre Dame Press in February 2021.

This is the first book-length broad survey of church textiles of Spanish America, one that also closely examines selected local developments.

The subvention program is instrumental in supporting quality book publications at affordable prices for humanities scholars at UF.

Library Enhancement Grant Program in the Humanities Beginning in 2009, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere has used funds from the Rothman Endowment to sponsor a grant competition among University of Florida faculty and graduate students to expand the UF library collections in areas in and related to the humanities that are currently underserved. These acquisitions enable courses and research in exciting areas of the humanities new to the academy and new to UF.

LIBRARY ENHANCEMENT GRANT SPOTLIGHT Prof. Rachel Carrico (Dance Studies), Prof. Sarah Politz (Ethnomusicology), and Dr. Alan Asher (Smathers Libraries) to acquire multimedia resources for Dance and Ethnomusicology.

Prof. Ali Mian (Religion and Center for Global Islamic Studies) and Dr. Megan Daly (Smathers Libraries) for collection enhancement in Islamic Studies.

Prof. Ali Mian shares the following guest essay on the significance of this award for supporting Islamic Studies at UF: The academic study of Islam is an interdisciplinary enterprise that draws on humanistic and social scientific approaches to situate historical and contemporary Muslim thought and practice in broader, and sometimes comparative, frameworks of analysis. UF is an emerging center for the academic study of Islam and our faculty specialize in Islam in Africa, Islam and politics, Islam in Turkey, Qur’anic studies, and Islam in South Asia. We are home to the Center for Global Islamic Studies to promote greater public understanding of Islam as a global tradition. We also have numerous graduate students working on Islam-related subjects in Religion and other departments.

This grant is key to making UF’s library holdings in Islamic studies reflect the vision of the types of research projects being pursued by our faculty and students.

The funded acquisitions focus on newly released volumes in several areas of Islamic studies: (1) Islam in South Asia, (2) the history of Muslim theology, mysticism, and legalism, and (3) gender, sexuality, race, and migration in contemporary Islam. Many of the volumes purchased with this grant are now in the stacks or available for online perusal as e-book resources. The latest scholarship in these three areas also illumines broader methodological and theoretical issues in the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. For example, Diaspora and Media in Europe: Migration, Identity, and Integration is a volume that appeals to scholars in religious studies but also those in European studies, media studies, and racialization and migration writ large. These new acquisitions will not only enhance faculty research but also allow undergraduate and graduate students to write well-researched papers.

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SUPPORT FOR SPEAKER SERIES AND WORKSHOPS IN THE HUMANITIES Also beginning in 2009, the Center has used funds from the Humanities Endowment, Yulee Endowment, and Rothman Endowment to support faculty and graduate students in organizing one-day and longer-running events addressing critical topics in the humanities.

These lectures, conferences, workshops, film screenings, and performances with talkbacks present new humanities scholarship, foster the exchange of interpretations, and make these accessible to an audience coming from a variety of disciplines as well as the wider public.

One program in 2020-21 was Disaster and the Body, a series of events organized by Profs. Colleen Rua and Rachel Carrico in the UF School of Theatre + Dance. This project was originally imagined as a residency and symposium examining how artists create theatre and dance pieces as sites of healing and social critique in response to hurricanes and other forms of (un)natural disasters, as a way to explore issues of climate change, displacement, environmental racism, and the precariousness of the Gulf Coast and Caribbean. Adapting to the (un)natural epidemic of COVID-19, this project took the form of virtual discussions with guest artists, scholars, and UF classes, culminating in a multilingual Zoom Webinar on April 19, 2021. Webinar panelists included: Choreographer Michelle Gibson (Dallas, Texas); members of the Y no había luz theatre collective, Yari Helfeld and Julio Morales (San Juan, Puerto Rico); Alana Jackson (UF Center for Arts in Medicine); and Dr. Antonio Sajid López (UF Spanish and Portuguese Studies). Attendees left the event with a new understanding of the integral role of the arts and humanities in organizing recovery efforts, a discussion that is immediate and urgent in the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The UF Center for Arts, Migration, and Entrepreneurship has funded an ongoing working group to continue discussions around artists’ response to disaster.

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KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE HUMANITIES CENTER CALENDAR FOR THE FOLLOWING SPONSORED EVENTS TO BE HELD DURING THE 2021-22 ACADEMIC YEAR: 25th Annual Southeast Early China Roundtable (Prof. Stephan Kory, Languages, Literatures and Cultures) Music and Movement: A Speaker Series (Dr. Laura Dallman Rorick, Music) Medicine and Race: Yellow Fever and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere (Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig, Health Science Center Libraries)

Confronting the Legacies of Slavery and Oppression at the University of Florida (Prof. Sharon Austin, Political Science and African American Studies) Black Lives Matter and International Solidarity (Prof. Malini Schueller, English) Latin America Writes Back 2.0: Climate Change and Science Fiction (Prof. M. Elizabeth Ginway, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, and Prof. Terry Harpold, English)

Religion and Public Life in Polarizing Times (Prof.

David Hackett, Religion) Graphic Zine Interpretations: Listening to A Congolese Comic Artist & the African Digital Humanities (Prof.

Nancy Rose Hunt, African Studies and History) Revisiting the Color Line: Race and Racism in International Politics (Prof.

Aida Hozić and Prof. Ben Smith, Political Science)

For an up to date list of events and event details, please visit:

HUMANITIES.UFL.EDU/EVENTS/LIST

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Language, Gender and Identity in the Arab World (Prof. Youssef Haddad, Languages, Literatures and Cultures)

The National Humanities Center Virtual Residencies The National Humanities Center Virtual Residencies were awarded to Ph.D. students in UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Students attended two themed residencies: “How to Create Meaningful Online Learning Communities” and “Podcasting the Humanities: Creating Digital Stories for the Public.”

Through the residency on creating online learning experiences, students participated in an online learning environment that modeled best practices for undergraduate teaching. Throughout the program, participants worked in cross-university and interdisciplinary teams to create instructional materials for their teaching portfolio.

In the podcasting residency, students learned how to communicate humanities expertise in the accessible and publicly-responsive format of the podcast. Through the immersive virtual workshop, students focused on storytelling and gaining technical training while working in crossuniversity and interdisciplinary teams to storyboard an idea, create and collect audio content, and edit and publish a broadcast-ready podcast.

The 2020 NHC residency awardees Lauren Cox (Ph.D. candidate, English), Laken Brooks (Ph.D. candidate, English) and Dr. Vickie Machado (Ph.D., Religion) were subsequently invited to participate in the NHC’s virtual conference, “In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities” (April 7-11, 2021).

NHC AWARDEE SPOTLIGHT: LAKEN BROOKS (PH.D. CANDIDATE, ENGLISH) Laken Brooks is a third-year graduate student in the Department of English who researches accessible digital design and Appalachian culture. She is grateful to study podcasting so that she can weave those interests together. She argues that traditional Appalachian arts like pottery, folk music, and potlucks are valuable forms of communication. However, these Appalachian technologies have long been overlooked by people outside of the region.

Fortunately, podcasts can help highlight these Appalachian voices, metaphorical and literal, by allowing narrators to share their accents and their oral histories through new digital technologies.

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Outlook To The Academic Year 2021-22 SPEAKER SERIES: RETHINKING THE PUBLIC SPHERE III: TRANSFORMING INSTITUTIONS In 2021-22, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere will continue its multiyear series Rethinking the Public Sphere, with its third installation reflecting on Transforming Institutions. A diverse lineup of speakers will address a range of different institutions and their contexts from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, including law, health science, urban studies, and the humanities. In October 2021, Prof. Michele Bratcher Goodwin (Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Director, Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, University of California,

Irvine) will reflect on questions of equity in global health policies. Paul M. Farber (Director, Monument Lab, Philadelphia, and Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space, University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design) will share how the Monument Lab is rethinking monuments in public spaces in Philadelphia in early November 2021.

American cultural heritage on the national level and engage in a conversation about Gainesville on a local level as well. Joy Connolly (President, American Council of Learned Societies, former interim president of The Graduate Center of The City University of New York, distinguished professor of classics) will conclude the speaker series by presenting a vision of rethinking the humanities in March 2022.

In the 2022 spring semester, Brent Leggs (Executive Director, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund) will lecture on preserving African

CONVERSATIONS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD In 2021-2022, Conversations in the Neighborhood: Let’s Talk about Music will invite its audiences to think about their musical experiences. It will stress that music is a tapestry woven in visible and invisible historical imageries. It will raise the following questions in dialogue with humanities scholars and artists: How is music made? Where do artists find their inspiration? What role do songs play in our lives? What do we want music to do? This public humanities series will begin in September 2021 and end in March 2022. The series will have five events, allowing Gainesville’s communities to come together.

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Thank You For Supporting Our Work THE CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE THANKS ITS FRIENDS FOR THEIR GENEROUS GIFTS THAT SUPPORT OUR WORK ON A DAILY BASIS: Margaret and Robert Rothman

Waldo W. Neikirk

Abhimanyu Lokesh and Aimee Green

Susan and Warren Tedder

J.D. Smith Jr. and Flo Smith

Sophia Krzys Acord and Leslie Murray

Harold A. and Matilda J. Gokey

Jeanne Street and Cliff Dopson

Maya Stanfield-Mazzi and Manuel Mazzi

David Yulee

Jennifer and Michael Ramey

Jerome A. Yavitz

Richard and Cheryl Roberts

Shifra Armon and William Little Robert Neil Solomon

IN THE 2020-21 ACADEMIC YEAR, PRIVATE SUPPORT ENABLED US TO OFFER 13 DIFFERENT INTERNAL GRANT COMPETITIONS AND GIVE 33 INDIVIDUAL AWARDS TO FACULTY, STUDENTS AND MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. The Rothman Faculty Summer Fellowship

Library Enhancement Grant Program in the Humanities

Summer Residency for Ph.D. Students at the National Humanities Center

The Tedder Family Doctoral Fellowship

Virtual Manuscript Review Workshops

Virtual Ph.D. Student Winter Residency at the National Humanities Center

Support for Workshops and Speaker Series in the Humanities

Summer Podcasting Institute for Faculty at the National Humanities Center

2020 National Humanities Center Virtual Winter Podcasting Institute for Ph.D. Students

Programs in the Public Humanities

Publication Subventions

CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Reading Groups in the Humanities

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THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE, OUR PROGRAMMING AND OUR ABILITY TO MAKE FUTURE AWARDS DEPEND ON SUPPORT FROM FRIENDS LIKE YOU. For more information on highlighted funds and how you can make an impact, please visit humanities.ufl.edu/support-us.

Contributions by check can be made to the center at any time. Simply send your check made payable to “UF Foundation” with “Center for Humanities” referenced in the memo to UF CLAS Development, PO Box 117300, Gainesville, FL 32611.

To learn more about the various ways you can make a gift including pledges, matching gifts, and a variety of planned giving opportunities, please visit advancement.clas.ufl.edu or contact Steve Evans, Executive Director of Advancement, at (352) 273-3704 or sevans3@ufl.edu.

The University of Florida Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)3 organization; therefore, your gift may be eligible for a charitable income tax deduction.

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