University of San Diego Humanities Center Events Spring 2023

SPRING 2023 | UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO

Events

© Emma Stibbon, Amboy Crater, Mojave Desert, intaglio print with hand coloring, photograph Stuart Bunce

Humanities Center

M E S S A G E F R O M T H E DI R E C T O R It is a delight to present the Humanities Center’s calendar of events for Spring 2023. Our multiyear exploration of natural landscapes and human meaning continues this semester as we turn our attention

USD’s Humanities Center is dedicated to the exploration of the human condition and the limitless ways in which human beings understand and interact with our world.

to the desert, and a prominent feature of our programming on that

To support the Humanities Center or be added to our events mailing list, contact College

desert theme will be an important exhibition of work by the British

of Arts and Sciences Director of Development Tania Batson at tbatson@sandiego.edu.

artist Emma Stibbon. That exhibition will be just one of many stimulating events at the center as we continue our wide-ranging exploration of the human condition in its protean and everfascinating forms. I look forward to seeing you in the spring.

Brian R. Clack, PhD, A. Vassiliadis Director of the Humanities Center and Professor of Philosophy

Discussion

Special

Series

© Emma Stibbon, Boom or Bust, intaglio print with hand coloring, photograph Stuart Bunce

Exhibitions

Screenings 10: Shirin Neshat

There’s More Live

On View: Jan. 27 to March 3

Thursday, Feb. 2, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center Gallery, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall

Thursday, March 16, at 12:30 p.m.

Shirin Neshat is a multidisciplinary artist whose mostly black-and-white photographs and films have been featured in museum exhibitions and permanent collections for more than 30 years. She was born in Qazvin, Iran, but moved to the United States in 1974.

Thursday, April 20, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

After studying art in Los Angeles and attending UC Berkeley, Neshat moved permanently to New York City. Although she did not

There’s More Live is a storytelling event where guests share meaningful

return to her birthplace in Iran until 1993, Neshat’s influential works consider the multivalent experience of women living under a

experiences or challenges they’ve overcome, providing insight into the

fundamentalist regime. Roja (2016) is the final work in a trilogy of videos, called Dreamers, which Neshat began in 2013. Loosely

human condition. The series highlights USD’s liberal arts tradition by

autobiographical, Roja exposes the artist’s desire for reunion with her family in Iran, particularly her mother, even as it embraces

exploring the human condition through the practice of Changemaking.

Neshat’s fascination with dream states and uncanny narratives. This will be the 10th iteration of the popular Screenings series.

Listen to previous recordings of live events at theresmore.sandiego.edu.

Just Deserts: Southwestern Landscapes by Emma Stibbon On View: March 13 to May 15 Humanities Center Gallery, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall

The Medieval University and the Question of Education: Understanding the Past, Envisaging the Future Thursdays, Feb. 9, 16, 23 and March 2, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 The Medieval University and the Question of Education series will explore the medieval origins of our modern university system. It will examine the

Emma Stibbon is a British artist whose work

philosophical, theological and social issues which drove the development

considers the complexities of extreme

of the medieval university, with an aim of gaining greater awareness of the

environments. Her depictions of arctic ice and

various purposes for which an education system is established, and the

glacial melt have been celebrated in exhibitions

various methods by which education is imparted.

throughout Europe. Since 2018, Stibbon has include the deserts of the American Southwest.

Natural Landscapes and Human Meaning Part Two — The Desert

Just Deserts is the first survey of the artist’s

Tuesdays, from Feb. 21 to April 25, at 4 p.m.

work done in California and Arizona. Just Deserts

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

expanded her inquiry of harsh landscapes to

follows Some Bodies: Oceanic Imagination in Contemporary Art as the second in the planned series of six exhibitions focused on the themes of Natural Landscapes and Human Meaning at the Humanities Center Gallery. Emma Stibbon will be in conversation with Derrick Cartwright on Tuesday, March 21.

(Left) Photo by Marcus Leith/Royal Academy of Arts, London

In the fall of 2022, the Humanities Center commenced an ambitious threeyear exploration of the connection between the human imagination and the diverse array of landscapes in our world. Having focused upon the ocean in the first part of this series, our attention turns to what John Van Dyke in 1901 called “the great silence, the grim desolation” of the desert.

Our two gallery exhibitions showcase the desert-laden work of Emma Stibbon and Shirin Neshat, while in a wide-ranging series of panel discussions and presentations, scholars from multiple disciplines will reflect upon the inspiring, frightening and evocative power of desert landscapes.

A First Look at the Desert: What It Is and What It May Evoke

Religion, Spirituality and the Desert

February 21

March 28

Minerva Lecture: Marie Simovich and Mike Wells on The Anza-Borrego Desert

Ken Layne’s Desert Oracle

February 28

The Imaginative Desert: Representations in Art and Literature March 14

Just Deserts: Emma Stibbon in Conversation with Derrick Cartwright March 21

April 4

The Desert and the Wilderness: Perspectives from Science and Philosophy April 11

Border Crossings: The Desert in Our Time April 18

The Desert as Home April 25

Individual

Events Frontiers in Frontiers: Global Cultural Diplomacy Farrah Karapetian in Conversation with Andrea Torreblanca, Director of Curatorial Projects, INSITE Wednesday, Feb. 22, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 INSITE was founded as a binational initiative in 1992 to produce artworks in the public sphere through collaborations among artists, cultural agents, institutions and communities. Usually, artists are invited to respond to the site where the institution is based — a pattern we see in most biennials. When Andrea Torreblanca was appointed director of curatorial projects in 2018, she reversed the model. She wondered how to begin a transcontinental conversation without traveling and to invite others to reflect on their own history from their own place. Could this prompt a different engagement and dialogue in each region? These are some of the ideas that evolved into COMMONPLACES, which resulted in inviting curators to edit one special issue of the INSITE Journal and develop a project with an artist in their places of residence. The work now takes place in multiple locations around the globe, from Peru to Johannesburg and, of course, in our Baja California region.

Refugee Film Festival Thursday, April 13, 20 and 27, at 5 p.m.

Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Theatre The Humanities Center and the MS in Humanitarian Action at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice present the International Rescue Committee’s annual Refugee Film Festival, a fundraiser supported by the Otto Family Foundation. Screenings of documentary films are accompanied by expert speakers from the community of displaced persons the International Rescue Committee serves.

Relocating: An Environmental Case for Open Borders Mario Ivan Juarez-Garcia, visiting professor of Philosophy, University of San Diego Marcel Sanchez-Prieto, associate professor of Architecture, University of San Diego

Architecture and the Housing Question

The First Black Archaeologist John W. I. Lee, PhD, professor of Ancient Greek and

Juliana Maxim, PhD, Shannon Starkey, PhD, and

Persian History, UC Santa Barbara

Can Bilsel, PhD, Department of Art, Architecture

Friday, Feb. 17, at Noon

+ Art History

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall,

Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 5:30 p.m.

Room 200

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall,

Professor Lee discusses his book, The First Black

Room 200

Archaeologist: A Life of John Wesley Gilbert

Responding to the recent book, Architecture

(Oxford, 2022), which investigates the pioneering

and the Housing Question, this panel will ask:

work of John Wesley Gilbert, an African

What does it mean to read and write about

American classical scholar, teacher, community

architecture and housing in our historical

leader and missionary born into slavery in rural

moment? How do we incorporate the

Georgia in the middle of the Civil War. The book

experience of the recent global crises and the

follows Gilbert’s career from the segregated

shocks that accompany them into new ways

schools of Augusta, Georgia, to Brown University,

of conceptualizing the housing question? By

to his hiring as the first black faculty member of

the housing question, we refer to a historically

Augusta’s Paine Institute, through his travels in

recurrent problem: How have the design,

Greece, Europe and the Belgian Congo. Gilbert

provision and management of shelter for large

was one of the first Americans of any race to

numbers around the world helped alleviate

conduct archaeological work in Greece. His

or, conversely, justify inequality, be it classed,

career, largely unknown today, is compelling on

racialized or gendered?

its own merits as a story of African American

Ghostly Ideals: The Hauntology of Black Religious Leadership Kyle E. Brooks, PhD, assistant professor of Homiletics,

achievement in the age of Jim Crow. Cosponsored by the Classical Studies and Africana Studies programs and the Department of History.

Studies, Methodist Theological School in Ohio

Batman and the Joker: Contested Sexuality in Popular Culture

Thursday, Feb. 9, at 12:15 p.m.

Chris Richardson, PhD

Zoom Meeting: 942 3453 9520

Wednesday, March 1, at 4 p.m.

Worship, and Black Church and African Diasporic

In profound and problematic ways, the life, death and afterlife of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

Jr. have served as materials for constructing

Batman and the Joker: one of the most popular

a ghostly ideal of charismatic sociopolitical

and heated fictional rivalries ever inked. But what

leadership – so much so that five decades after

if Bruce Wayne’s consistent difficulties courting

This discussion, inspired by Professor Juarez-Garcia’s upcoming publication, introduces the

his assassination, many still ask who or where

women and the Joker’s colorful tricks were

relationship between open borders and environmental policies. Juarez-Garcia argues that opening

is the next King? Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s

challenging gender norms and heterosexuality?

borders is fundamental for human adaptation and resilience in the midst of climate change. He

concept of hauntology, Brooks makes the case

Dr. Chris Richardson will present his new book,

restates the most important argument against open borders in light of global warming: political

that the genealogy of Black religious leadership

Batman and the Joker: Contested Sexuality in

sovereignty. He shows that open-borders policies are not contrary to the idea of sovereignty. He

in sociopolitical life, particularly from the

Popular Culture, and explore the ways that readers

argues that the belief that closed borders are essential for sovereignty must be reexamined in

modern civil rights era to the present, has been

and creators of the superhero genre negotiate

light of the high levels of uncertainty that characterize complex environmental changes. Finally, he

haunted, so to speak, by a nostalgic mythology

gender, identity and sexuality. Richardson will

speculates whether this is just the first step toward the end of nation-states and the metamorphosis

of Black male clerical authority.

discuss how queer readings of Batman and the

Thursday, May 4, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

of political organization in the dawn of global warming. Perhaps this major environmental shock will force us to reinvent our political systems, once again. Moderated by Farrah Karapetian, assistant professor of visual art, University of San Diego.

Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence Thursdays, March 16 and 23, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

The Apocalyptic Other: Nostos, Gog and Magog, and Revelation in the Age of COVID

Studies Program and the LGBTQ+ and Allies

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Commons.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall,

body problem and the question of the role of artificial intelligence in human society. Will computers

Room 200

be capable of cognition, self-awareness and sentience (strong AI)? Or is consciousness so unique

Ranging from Homer’s Odyssey to the enigmatic

to organic life that it can never be manufactured? Coordinated by Susie Paulik Babka, PhD, associate

poetry of holocaust survivor Paul Celan in a

professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and element chair of the Humanities

presentation that combines historical essay and

Center’s technology and humanities program.

elegy, Professor McAllister reviews his recent

New Directions in Digital Humanities

experiences as a scholar of apocalyptic thought

This was Paris in 1970: The Computer, the Archive and the Undergraduate Curriculum Catherine Clark, PhD, associate professor of History and French Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thursday, March 30, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 Catherine Clark will explore her work at the intersection of machine learning and photographic urban history via the 100,000 photographs of a 1970 amateur photography contest launched to document the city of Paris. She will also reflect on the challenges and possibilities of funding research in digital humanities and shaping the undergraduate teaching of computing in the humanities. Catherine Clark serves as faculty director of MIT’s Programs in Digital Humanities. She is the author of Paris and the Cliché of History (OUP, 2018), winner of the 2020 Wylie Prize for the best book in French cultural studies.

sponsored by the Department of Communication,

Department of Visual and Performing Arts at the

development of artificial intelligence. Consciousness factors into debates about ethics, the mind-

digital humanities.

and unexplored in mainstream comic studies. CoDepartment of English, Gender and Women’s

This series investigates the nature of consciousness with a view toward implications in the

methodologies and connections between fields such as history, cultural studies, film studies and

analysis that have generally remained implicit

Colin McAllister, DMA, assistant professor in the

Monday, Feb. 13, at 5 p.m.

The New Directions in Digital Humanities series will explore humanistic inquiry using evolving digital

Joker can open new forms of understanding and

living through what felt like an apocalyptic moment, in the process drawing into discussion Gog and Magog, two demons of the eschatological imagination, and their presence in Revelation commentaries of the medieval period. At the end of a journey of terror, trauma, isolation, and loss, McAllister finds space for hope and redemption — perhaps the best of what apocalyptic writing can do.

Seed Celestial: A Reading and Conversation with Poet Sara Burnett Monday, April 3, at 4 p.m.

Innovative Student Projects in Digital Humanities

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

Monday, May 1, at 2:30 p.m.

Seed Celestial is a book of poetry in which author Sara Burnett weaves together themes of immigration,

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

gun violence, motherhood, feminism and climate change. The book was recently selected as the

This event will showcase work in the digital humanities from students in The Video Essay course, a

winner of the 2021 Autumn House Poetry Prize. In her poems, Burnett questions what it means to

Humanities Center seminar. Students will present their work in the context of the New Directions in Digital Humanities Spring 2023 series exploring humanistic inquiry using evolving digital methodologies and connections between film studies and digital humanities. Organized by Visiting Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Hannah Holtzman, PhD.

raise children in a time of dire climate change and grapples with how to honor her Cuban heritage while rejecting the colorism and chauvinism that she finds entwined within it. In this event, Burnett will read selected poems from her book and talk about her inspiration and her creative process. She will discuss how her education in the Greek classics shaped her as a student and a writer, and about how her family history and personal identity shape the way she sees and moves through the world.

Illume Special

Guests

ILLUME SPE AKER SERIES SPECI AL GUEST

Visions of Sappho Nigel Spivey, PhD, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge Wednesday, Feb. 15, at 5 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 Renowned as an extraordinary lyric poet in her own lifetime, Sappho of Lesbos has been a literary celebrity for more than 2,500 years. Her poetry –

so far as it survives – seems charged with

personal feelings and powerful self-expression.

So, what did she look like? Or rather: What have her readers, over the centuries, wanted her to look like? Presenting fresh visual evidence, and reassessing some old iconic favorites, Nigel Spivey (senior lecturer in classics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge) considers the “portrait” of Sappho in its various symbolic forms: as an image of the female poet, an image of passion both tragic and fulfilled and, eventually, an image of female-to-female desire.

ILLUME SPE AKER SERIES KNAPP LECTURE

ILLUME SPE AKER SERIES SPECI AL GUEST

Red and Black Alchemies of Flesh: An Audience with Tiffany Lethabo King, PhD

Ken Layne’s Desert Oracle Ken Layne Tuesday, April 4, at 4 p.m.

Tiffany Lethabo King, PhD, Knapp Chair of Liberal Arts

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

Wednesday, March 15, at 5 p.m.

Desert wilderness has inspired cultures, prophets, poets and outlaws since the earliest human

Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Theatre Tiffany Lethabo King is associate professor of

civilizations. Desert Oracle, the decade-long project of Joshua Tree writer Ken Layne, explores the mythic and spiritual aspects of America’s southwest through small-press periodicals, a late-night

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the

radio show and, most recently, an acclaimed book collection that was on the Los Angeles Times

University of Virginia. Professor King’s work

bestsellers list throughout 2022. Layne’s work is inspired by nature mystics such as John Muir, Mary

is animated by abolitionist and decolonial

Hunter Austin and William Blake, reflecting his belief that environmental stewardship comes from deep

traditions within Black Studies and Native/

ecoregional ties to the land, wildlife and especially storytelling culture.

Indigenous Studies. In her Knapp Chair Lecture, Dr. King will discuss themes from her forthcoming book, Red and Black Alchemies of Flesh: Conjuring a Decolonial and Abolitionist Now, in which she invokes both Black and Native queer feminist thought to link to the power of the erotic, to think beyond the carceral and casual

ILLUME SPE AKER SERIES KNAPP LECTURE

Murals and Social Justice: The Creative Journey of Guillermo “Yermo” Aranda and the Chicano Mural Movement in San Diego Guillermo “Yermo” Aranda, Knapp Chair of Liberal Arts Monday, April 17, at 6:30 p.m.

violence of the state, and to imagine a bold and

Warren Auditorium, Mother Rosalie Hill Hall

beautiful future of inclusion and belonging.

Better known as Yermo within the numerous communities where he works, Guillermo Aranda is a multimedia artist who was born and raised in San Diego within a family of artists, craftspeople and musicians. With close to 100 murals to his name, located throughout the state of California, Yermo will reflect and speak to his creative and intellectual contributions to the Chicano art mural movement that has yet to be fully documented. Co-sponsored by the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center.

ILLUME MINERVA LECTURE SERIES

Marie Simovich and Mike Wells on The Anza-Borrego Desert: The Desert on Our Doorstep Marie Simovich, PhD, and Mike Wells Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 In this special lecture, Marie Simovich and Mike Wells will present elements of the dramatic landscape of the Anza-Borrego desert, describing how this region evolved over time and how the organisms within it have adapted to its heat and aridity. Until their respective retirements, Dr. Simovich was a faculty member in USD’s Department of Biology, while Wells was superintendent of the Colorado Desert District.

From 2001 to 2017, they co-taught a class on desert biology, and this class formed the basis of their co-authored book, A Natural History of the Anza-Borrego Region: Then and Now.

usdhumanities usdhumanitiescenter

ILLUME SPEAKER SERIES

M I N E R VA L E C T U R E S E R I E S

The Illume Speaker Series features renowned faculty scholars,

The Humanities Center’s Minerva Lecture Series is designed to honor the ideas of retired and emeriti USD faculty

invited thought leaders and prominent public figures to advance

members and to provide a showcase for their reflections on the life of the mind, such wisdom as is acquired after

the liberal arts and inspire lifelong learning.

a lifetime of work in the field of education.