USD Humanities Center Calendar of Events Fall 2022

FALL 2022 | UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO

Humanities Center

M E S S A G E F R O M T H E DI R E C T O R I am delighted to present the Humanities Center’s calendar of events for Fall 2022. This semester sees the start of our extended exploration of natural landscapes and human meaning, with

Events

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.

exhibitions and talks focused on the great theme of the ocean.

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

This project takes its place among an exciting program of events,

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

in which the Humanities Center probes deeply the nature of the human condition in its many and varied manifestations. I look forward to seeing you in the fall.

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

Illume Special

Guests

BOOK L AUNCH

ILLUME SPE AKER SERIES SPECI AL GUEST

Women’s Work: How Culinary Cultures Shaped Modern Spain

Robotic Encounters with the Charismatic Microfauna of the World Ocean

Rebecca Ingram, PhD, Department of Languages,

Mark D. Ohman, PhD, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division, Scripps

Cultures and Literatures

Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Wednesday, September 28 at 4 p.m.

Wednesday, October 5 at 5 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall,

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

Room 200

The freely drifting animals of the open sea, the zooplankton, include a

Famous chefs, Michelin stars, culinary

remarkably diverse array of animal life that is markedly different from

techniques and gastronomical accolades attract

the fauna we know from our experience as terrestrial organisms. These

moneyed tourists to Spain from all over the

zooplankton are gatekeepers of major ocean processes ranging from

world. Even with this global attention, we know

regulation of the carbon cycle and Earth’s climate to the survival and

little about how Spanish cooking became a

feeding success of many fishes, seabirds and marine mammals. This

litmus test for demonstrating Spain’s modernity

presentation will introduce some of the splendid and aesthetically pleasing

and, relatedly, the roles ascribed to the modern

organisms of the planktonic world, drawing on images taken by a new

Spanish women responsible for daily cooking.

autonomous robotic, Zooglider, which was developed at the Scripps

Ingram will present her new book, Women’s

Institution of Oceanography. Professor Ohman will also illustrate ceramic

Work, and discuss how efforts to articulate a

models of zooplankton recently created by an artist in Amsterdam, inspired

new, modern Spain infiltrated multiple genres

by Zooglider. Mark D. Ohman is a distinguished professor of the graduate

and media, including those about food. Culinary

division, and a biological oceanographer in the Integrative Oceanography

writing engaged debates about women’s roles

Division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. He is

in Spanish society and reached women at the

the lead principal investigator of the NSF-supported California Current

site of much of their daily labor — the kitchen

Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research site. He researches zooplankton

—

and shaped thinking about their roles in

modernizing Spain. Dr. Ingram will be in discussion

predator-prey interactions and utilizes the marine zooplankton to help understand both ocean climate change and climate variability.

with Amanda Petersen, PhD, and Martin Repinecz, PhD. Sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the Food Studies Initiative.

ILLUME SPE AKER SERIES SPECI AL GUEST

Merpeople: A Human History

LCL+HC LECTURE SERIES

The River Ceases to Be: Environmental Concerns in Contemporary Amazonian Poetry Ana Valera Tafur, PhD

Vaughn Scribner, PhD, Associate Professor of British American History at the

Thursday, September 29 at 4 p.m.

University of Central Arkansas

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

Monday, October 24 at 5:30 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

This presentation will expose critical reflections on what has been called the “poetics of the Anthropocene” in contemporary Peruvian poetry of the

In this lecture, Vaughn Scribner, associate professor of history at the

Amazons. Through a language that hints of denunciation, the poetic work

University of Central Arkansas and author of the critically acclaimed book,

of Carlos Reyes Ramírez, Perchi Vílchez Perez Vela and Ana Valera Tafur

Merpeople: A Human History, will survey humankind’s perennial fascination

expresses their concern for the environmental destruction produced by

with mermaids and mermen. Exploring their presence in art, film, myth,

the extractivist economy of Peru. With this objective, some of the ideas

history and more, Scribner reflects on the ubiquity of merpeople and in so

developed are borrowed from David Farrier in Anthropocene Poetics: Deep

doing aids our understanding of “one of the most mysterious, capricious

Time, Sacrifice Zones and Extinction, as well as from the essay, “Amazonian

and dangerous creatures on Earth: humans.” Copies of the beautifully

Thought and Ecological Discourse in Amazonian Poetry,” by Jeremy

illustrated Merpeople: A Human History will be available for purchase by

Larochelle. Ana Valera Tafur is an original member of the Cultural Group

Warwick’s bookstore of La Jolla.

Urcututu from Iquitos, who recover Amazonian mythology in their artistic work. Valera Tafur is internationally recognized for her poetry, including

ILLUME SPE AKER SERIES SPECI AL GUEST

as a recipient of the Premio Copé in poetry, and is the author of several

In Conversation with Celeste Ng

collections. This event will be held in Spanish.

Friday, October 21 at 7 p.m.

Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Theatre USD’s College of Arts and Sciences and Humanities Center, along with Warwick’s bookstore, invite you to spend an evening with best-selling author Celeste Ng and her new book, Our Missing Hearts, a suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear. Ng (pictured, at right) is the author of Everything I Never Told You (2014) and Little Fires Everywhere (2017); her fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times and The Guardian, and she is a recipient of several awards, including a Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. This is a ticketed event that includes a copy of Our Missing Hearts. Masks are required for all attendees at this event per the author’s request. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to warwicks.com/event/ng-2022.

ILLUME MINERVA LECTURE SERIES

Between the Ancient and the Contemporary Florence Gillman, PhD, STD, Professor Emerita, Theology and Religious Studies Monday, November 14 at 5:30 p.m.

Teaching biblical studies is like taking a daily walk down the streets of the ancient world, and during that walk a dialogue takes place between those fascinating centuries and our own, especially on the level of theological and social developments. In this lecture, Florence Gillman will reflect on a career in biblical studies that has interestingly paralleled and been much affected by the feminist movement’s resurgence from the latter decades of the 20th century.

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.

HUMANI T IES CENTER E VENTS | FALL 202 2 | sandiego.edu/humanities-center

Special Programs and

Exhibitions

Some Bodies: Oceanic Imaginations in Contemporary Art On View: September 6 to October 21, 2022 Humanities Center Gallery, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall Artists and their publics have been fascinated with depictions of large bodies of water for centuries. Contemporary artists have shown their own distinct interest in these ocean environments, from purely formal explorations, to romantic suggestions, to impatiently expressed concerns for the natural environment. This small survey of watery imagery draws upon the growing collections of prints and photographs stewarded by University Galleries and features memorable examples of recent practices by Sandra Cinto, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Christiane Baumgartner, Emma Stibbon and Bas Jan Ader. Their immersive representations will be presented during the first half of the fall semester in conjunction with the Humanities Center’s thematic investigation of oceans and the human landscape.

(Left) Closeup of Other Bodies: Sandra Cinto, Open Sea, 2016, cyanotype. University Print Collection, Purchased through the John A. Petersen Print Acquisition Fund. PC2016.22.01

DISCUSSION SERIES

Natural Landscapes and Human Meaning Tuesdays at 4 p.m.

September 20 to November 8 Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 In the fall of 2022, the Humanities Center will commence an ambitious three-year exploration of the connection between the human imagination and the diverse array of landscapes in our world: oceans, deserts, ice, mountains, forests and cities. Inspired in part by the groundbreaking work of Yi-Fu Tuan, during the course of six semesters, the Humanities Center will present a range of lectures, panel discussions and exhibitions that will allow for a multifarious and multidisciplinary investigation of each of these striking terrains. The boundless and sublime quality of our planet’s oceans will constitute the first object of this exploration.

Fall 2022 — The Ocean Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 In this wide-ranging series of discussions and presentations, scholars from multiple disciplines (such as art history, literature, environmental and ocean sciences and philosophy) reflect upon the life and the power of the ocean (and of other bodies of water). A composite picture of the extraordinary and boundless nature of the ocean, and of its effect on the human imagination, will emerge from these expansive and open conversations.

Natural Landscapes and Human Meaning: The Ocean

The Law of the Ocean: Maritime Disputes and Conflicts

September 20

October 18

The Allure of the Ocean (I): Perspectives from the Sciences

The Lore of the Ocean: Sea Monsters, Mermaids, and the Superstitions of Sailors

September 27

October 25

The Allure of the Ocean (II): Perspectives from Art and Literature

The Levels of the Ocean: Climate Change and the Future of the Oceans

October 4

November 1

The Lure of the Ocean: Explorers and Venturers

A Watery Miscellany: Seas, Rivers, and their Place in the Human Imagination

October 11

November 8

Screenings 9: LaToya Ruby Frazier On View: October 31 to December 16 Humanities Center Gallery, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall Screenings 9 celebrates the practice of Chicago-based multimedia artist, LaToya Ruby Frazier (b. 1940). Frazier’s still photography and video projects bring scrutiny and empathy to a cluster of urgent issues centered on race, social justice and family. Her commitment to representing the public health crisis that exists in Flint, Michigan, has so far taken the form of exhibitions, a book and video. Flint Is Family (2016) is one product of the artist’s five-month residency in the central Michigan city, documenting residents’ experiences as they battled bravely for the right to safe drinking water in their homes. Flint Is Family combines Frazier’s compelling black-and-white imagery, spoken poetry and lush cinematic sensibility, to achieve what Frazier refers to as “a platform to advocate for others, the oppressed, the disenfranchised . . . [seeking to] create visibility through images and [to use] storytelling to expose the violation of their rights.” This ninth iteration of Screenings, thus, underscores the politics of water in contemporary America.

(Right) LaToya Ruby Frazier, Awaiting the Arrival of President Barack Obama, May 4, 2016, Flint, Michigan, 2016-2017. Gelatin silver print. © LaToya Ruby Frazier. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.

Special

Series IN MEMORI AM

Michael F. Wagner, PhD, Professor of Philosophy Monday, November 7 at 6 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 The USD Department of Philosophy invites you to join us in honoring the life and work of our late and distinguished colleague Professor Michael F. Wagner. Dr. Wagner taught at USD from 1980 to 2020, serving as departmental chair for 10 of these years. He specialized in classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophy and published many works, including The Enigmatic Reality of Time: Aristotle, Plotinus, and Today. Speakers at the memoriam will include Professors Kevin Corrigan from Emory University and Lloyd Gerson from the University of Toronto, as well as USD’s own Professor Jack Crumley, among others.

DISCUSSION SERIES

AI and the Humanities at USD: Can Algorithms Be Decent?

Darby Vickers, PhD, Department of Philosophy Thursday, October 13 at 4 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall,

DISCUSSION SERIES

DISCUSSION SERIES

Frontiers in Frontiers: Global Cultural Diplomacy

1922: One Hundred Years Later

Thursdays at 4 p.m.

The Humanities Center continues its commemoration of the literary

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

ethics to critique quantitative methods for

“miracle year” of 1922 by focusing on three great texts produced in that

creating fairness. In her project supported by

Yoshua Okón, Artist Lecture

year: Eliot’s The Waste Land, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,

an AI and the Humanities grant, Dr. Vickers

and the abridged edition of Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In these two

argues that fairness alone cannot provide

events, the extraordinary influence of these works will be considered, as

results that align with social justice and

will their historical context, namely the end of the First World War.

other social values. She will discuss how a

September 15

The Frontera Project by Tijuana Hace Teatro October 6

Farrah Karapetian in Conversation with Andrea Torreblanca, Director of Curatorial Projects, INSITE November 17

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Frazer’s The Golden Bough: Intersections Brian R. Clack, PhD, Department of Philosophy and A. Vassiliadis Director of the Humanities Center and Tyler Hower, Department of Philosophy

The Public Humanities Spring 2022 season welcomed a diversity of

Monday, October 17 at 5 p.m.

disciplinary approaches used in analyzing migration and its governing

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

policies in Imperial Valley. The Fall 2022 program will broaden this question: How do creative networks transgress national boundaries, fostering opportunity for diffusion and diplomacy? We begin with artist Yoshua Okón, whose work, like a series of near-sociological experiments executed for the camera, blends staged situations, documentation and improvisation, and questions habitual perceptions of reality and truth, selfhood and morality. The Frontera Project uses theatre to grapple with personal and political borders. Nonprofit arts organizations such as INSITE organize relationships between artists and places that contribute as much to global diplomacy as do governmental organizations like the Fulbright. With these arts and culture workers, we look beyond California’s immediate border with Tijuana to the role of the arts in surpassing borderlines philosophically, practically and politically. In looking at this question historically, as well as in today’s world, how can we imagine together a transnational network of thinkers who transcend borders in their influence and influence borders in their transcendence? Coordinated by Farrah Karapetian, MFA, assistant professor of visual arts in the Department of Art, Architecture + Art History and the public humanities element chair for the Humanities Center.

Room 200 Dr. Vickers draws on work in the history of

virtue ethics framework can provide a better framework for aligning algorithmic outcomes with our values than attempts to create quantitative notions of fairness.

DISCUSSION SERIES

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus stands as the

Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence

most significant philosophical production, casting its shadow over the

Thursdays at 4 p.m.

subsequent hundred years of philosophical work. In this session, Brian R.

October 20, 27 and November 3

Clack and Tyler Hower (faculty members in USD’s Department of Philosophy

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall,

and co-authors of Philosophy and the Human Condition) will discuss

Room 200

Wittgenstein’s groundbreaking work and his response to a book that, in its

This series investigates the nature of

Among the astonishing publications of the annus mirabilis of 1922,

popular abridged form, constituted another notable publishing feat of 1922: Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough.

The Burial of the Dead: WWI, The Spanish Flu, and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land Malachi Black, PhD, Department of English and Kathryn Statler, PhD, Department of History Wednesday, November 30 at 5 p.m.

Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200

consciousness with a view toward implications in the development of artificial intelligence.

“Consciousness” factors into debates about ethics, the mind-body problem, and the question of the role of artificial intelligence in human society. Will computers be capable of cognition, self-awareness and sentience (“Strong AI”)? Or is consciousness so unique to organic life that it can never be manufactured?

The eruptive 1922 publication of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land signaled a major

Coordinated by Susie Paulik Babka, PhD,

turn in Anglophone letters, serving as an indelibly disorienting dirge in

associate professor in the Department of

a newly disillusioned era. In this session, Kathryn Statler will trace the

Theology and Religious Studies and element

historical arc behind The Waste Land, describing the forces that collided

chair of the Humanities Center’s technology and

in WWI to produce catastrophic consequences, and discussing the

humanities program.

intimate link between the war and the 1918-19 flu pandemic. Malachi Black will explore The Waste Land’s responsive radicalness, its harrowing critique of modernity, and its unshakable relevance to our moment.

(Above) J.M.W. Turner, The Golden Bough, 1834, oil paint on canvas, Collection of Tate Britain, image released through Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), https://www.tate.org. uk/art/artworks/turner-the-golden-bough-n00371

LIVE STORY TELLING

There’s More Live Second Wednesdays at 4 p.m.

September 14, October 12 and November 9 Humanities Center, Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Room 200 There’s More Live is a storytelling event where guests share meaningful experiences or challenges they’ve overcome, providing insight into the human condition. The series highlights USD’s liberal arts tradition by exploring the human condition through the practice of changemaking. Listen to previous recordings of live events at theresmore.sandiego.edu.