Past Humanities Forums
2020-2021
Racecraft in the Odyssey and Argonautica (Ancient Studies Week) – Jackie Murray, University of Kentucky
A French Village, Its Legacy of Rescue, and Lessons for Troubled Times (Webb Lecture) – Maggie Paxson, writer, anthropologist, and performer
Black COVID Stories, Black Lives Matter, and Protest: A Conversation about the Ongoing Struggle for Justice and Change (42nd Du Bois Lecture) – Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Loyola University Maryland
Public Discourse and Representations of Work in the Home – Elizabeth Patton, UMBC
Embodying Empire Through Captivity: Geographies of Caged Animals, Human Domination, and Struggle in New York’s Central Park – Dawn Biehler, UMBC
The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine and Resistance – Karma R. Chávez, University of Texas at Austin
Critical Access Studies: Methods and Approaches from the Humanities – Aimi Hamraie, Vanderbilt University
A Bound Woman? – DaMaris B. Hill, University of Kentucky
Making Abolition Geographies: Social Justice Organizing for Vulnerable Households, Workers, and Communities (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Graduate Center, CUNY
2019-2020
The Fractal Caribbean: The New Literatures of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic – Mayra Santos-Febres, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
The Visual Workings of Roman Slaves (Ancient Studies Week) – Jennifer Trimble, Stanford University
Global History as Urban History: A View from Edo, the Greatest City in the World (Webb Lecture) – Amy Stanley, Northwestern University
The Future of Du Bois: Consciousness, Citizenship, and Epistemology in Africa (41st Du Bois Lecture) – Nimi Wariboko, Boston University
Can the Children of Iberian Cinemas Speak? A Video Essay – Erin K. Hogan, UMBC
Thinking Like a Caravan: The Current Migration Crisis – Rachel Ida Buff, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Images and the Fight for Women’s Voting Rights in the United States – Allison K. Lange, Wentworth Institute of Technology
2018-2019
Radio Ambulante: Breaking the Language Barrier One Story at a Time – Carolina Guerrero, CEO and co-founder of Radio Ambulante
An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (Ancient Studies Week) – Daniel Mendelsohn, Bard College
Visualizing Deafness: Language Manuals and Manual Languages in Premodern Archives (MEMS Colloquium) – Jonathan Hsy, George Washington University
‘Thinks Himself Free’: Escaped Slaves in 18th Century Britain (Webb Lecture) – Simon P. Newman, University of Glasgow
Race, Racism, and the New Racial Science (40th Du Bois Lecture) – Dorothy E. Roberts, University of Pennsylvania
High-Tech Housewives and H-4 “Dreamers”: South Asian Immigration in a Changing Landscape – Amy Bhatt, UMBC
Complaint as Diversity Work (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Sara Ahmed, independent feminist scholar and writer
Race and Religion in the U.S.: Women Writers in Conversation – Samiya Bashir, poet; Susan Muaddi Duraj, fiction writer; Alia Malek, journliast and writer. Moderated by Mejdulene B. Shomali, UMBC
Building a World that Includes Disability – Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University
The Case for Substantial Gun Control (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – David DeGrazia, George Washington University
Zombies Speak Swahili: Why Language Matters for Global Citizenship (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Jamie A. Thomas, Swarthmore College
Seeing the Unseen Landscape (Lipitz Lecture) – Dan Bailey, UMBC
2017-2018
Show Me Your Papers: The Political Cartoons of Lalo Alcaraz – Lalo Alcaraz, visual and media artist/writer
Harmonious Monk: Martin Luther and His Reformation through Music (MEMS Colloquium Concert Lecture) – Christopher Boyd Brown, Boston University
Life, Love, and Law in Classical Athens (Ancient Studies Week) – Victoria Wohl, University of Toronto
The Changing Face of Modern War: Chemical Weapons and Civilian Bodies in the Aftermath of the First World War (Webb Lecture) – Susan R. Grayzel, Utah State University
The Contemporary African Immigrant Communities in the United States (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Toyin Falola, University of Texas, Austin
Nuclear Pain and Humanitarian Photography: Morizumi Takashi, the Gulf Wars, and Fukushima – Julia Adeney Thomas, University of Notre Dame
The Mark Rice Collection and the Homo-Erotics of Photography after Stonewall (Harrison Lecture)- James Smalls, UMBC
Attunement: How We Become Enthralled by Art – Rita Felski, University of Virginia
Listening to Racism in the United States – or Why Sound Matters (MCS 10th Anniversary Event) – Jennifer Lynn Stoever, State University of New York at Binghamton
Becoming Bridge-Builders and Disrupters: Navigating Racial and Gender Realities in America Today (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Deepa Iyer, South Asian American activist, writer, and lawyer
Flickering Treasures: Rediscovering Baltimore’s Forgotten Movie Theaters – Amy Davis, author and Baltimore Sun photojournalist
Redevelopment and Justice in Baltimore (Panel on Gentirfication) – Lawrence Brown, Morgan State University; Felipe Filomeno, UMBC; Seema D. Iyer, Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, The Jacob France Institute; Nicole King, UMBC
Planned Parenthood in Maryland: A Vital Community Resource (Lipitz Lecture) – Carole McCann, UMBC
2016-2017
Guillermo Gómez-Peña Unplugged: A brand new spoken-word monologue by el Mad Mex – Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator
Demopolis: Democracy, Legitimacy, and Civic Education – Josiah Ober, Stanford University
The Black Presidency – Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University and radio host
From Black Lives Matter to the 2016 Elections: The Future of Black Politics (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Cathy J. Cohen, The University of Chicago
Wretched Girls, Wretched Boys, and the Medieval Origins of the “European Marriage Pattern” (Webb Lecture) – Judith Bennett, University of Southern California –
“Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Points Steel Mill”: Film screening and conversation – Michelle Stefano, Maryland Traditions; and Bill Shewbridge, UMBC
Figuring the Population Bomb: Malthusian Masculinities and Demographic Transitions (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Carole McCann, UMBC
Myanmar: Perspectives on a Society in Transition – Christina Fink, George Washington University
“I Heard It Through the Grapevine”: Film screening and conversation – Maurice Wallace, Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and Africana Studies at the University of Virginia; and Maleda Belilgne, UMBC
Isis and Cultural Cleansing: Saving the Ancient and Medieval Treasures of Syria and Iraq – Michael D. Danti, Boston University
The Post-Andalusian Condition: Islam and the Rise of the West – Anouar Majid, University of New England
A Conversation about Digital Access (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress
Confederate Hunger: Food and Famine in the Civil War South (Lipitz Lecture) – Anne Sarah Rubin, UMBC
2015-2016
Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America – Eduardo López, television producer, journalist, and documentarian
Dear White People: film screening and conversation – Kimberly Moffitt, UMBC; and Damon Turner, UMBC
In Comis Veritas: The Principles of Ancient Roman Hairdressing (Ancient Studies Week) – Janet Stephens, Independent scholar and hairstylist
The Republic of the Unlettered: Intellectual History, the Enlightenment, and the Law in the Spanish Empire (Webb Lecture) – Bianca Premo, Florida International University
Linked Fates and Great Expectations: Revisiting Post-Colonial Africa and African-American Life through Diasporic Literature (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Dinaw Mengestu, Brooklyn College and MacArthur Fellow
China’s Forgotten Gated Communities – Tong Lam, University of Toronto
Freedom Marooned: An Atlantic Slave Rebellion in the Dutch Caribbean – Marjoleine Kars, UMBC
Sounding Botany Bay: An Exhibition on How Humans Have Changed a Unique Australian Environment – Tim Nohe, UMBC
Why Have Intersex Rights Been So Hard to Secure in America? (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Alice Dreger, historian of science and medicine
Poetry Reading: It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful – Lia Purpura, UMBC
Implicit Biases, Moral Agency, and Moral Responsibility (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Angela Smith, Washington and Lee University
‘Some Wine, Ho!’ Shakespeare, Women, and the Story of English Wine (MEMS Colloquium Lecture and Shakespeare Anniversary) – Frances Dolan, University of California, Davis
Heroes and Villains: Art, Imagination and the Road to Improved Race Relations in Baltimore (Daphne Harrison Lecture and Performance) – Breai Mason-Campbell, Baltimore dancer, teacher, and community activist
Can a Comic Book Superhero and Rape Survivor Change Attitudes Toward Sexual Violence? – Ram Devineni, filmmaker, publisher, and founder of Rattapallax publishing and film production company
Socioeconomic Status and Brain Health: Biological, Psychological, and Behavioral Pathways (Lipitz Lecture) – Shari Waldstein, UMBC
2014-2015
Mark Tribe: Landscape Photography through the Virtual Lens of Computer Simulation (Digital Humanities Initiatives Event) – Mark Tribe, artist
An Evening with Sonia Nazario, author of Enrique’s Journey – Sonia Nazario, author
Children of Rus’: Ukraine and the Invention of a Russian Nation (Webb Lecture) – Faith Hilis, The University of Chicago
America’s Gilded Capital – Mark Leibovich, New York Times reporter and author
Translating the Indian Past: The Poets’ Experience – Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Indian poet, translator, and critic
The Honor Code (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist
Revel Without a Cause? Dance, Performance, and Greek Vase Painting (Ancient Studies Week) – Tyler Jo Smith, University of Virginia
Mapping Memory: Digitizing Sherman’s March to the Sea (Digital Humanities Initiative Event) – Anne Sarah Rubin, UMBC, and Kelley Bell, UMBC
Civil Rights, Asian Americans and Marriage Equality: 50 Years After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – Helen Zia, author and former executive editor of Ms. Magazine
Panel Discussion on Slavery By Another Name – Spencer Crew, George Mason University
Your Powerful Online Voice: Social Media for Social Change (Critical Social Justice: Creating Brave Spaces) – Franchesca Ramsey, vlogger
A Stirring Song Sung Heroic – William Earle Williams, Haverford College
There is a crack in everything: That’s How the Light Gets In (from Anthem by Leonard Cohen) – Michael Rakowtiz, Northwestern University
“The Paths We Make As We Go:” The Narrative of an Undocumented Woman in the U.S. (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Maria Gabriela “Gaby” Pacheco, immigrant rights activist
Four Types of Feminist Empiricism (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Miriam Solomon, Temple University
Microscopic War: Fragmenting Vision in Contemporary American Militarism – Rebecca Adelman, UMBC
An Artist’s Life at the Border: Critical Partnerships with Science, History, and the Community – Liz Lerman, choreographer, performer, writer, and educator
India, Pakistan, and Nuclear Weapons: Deterrence Stability in South Asia (Lipitz Lecture) – Devin Hagerty, UMBC
2013-2014
Hispanic Americans: The Cosmic Race – Marie Arana, writer
The Worlds of Joseph Conrad: British Imperial Decline and the Dawn of Globalization (Webb Lecture) – Maya Jasanoff, Harvard University
Electric Orisha: Race, Media, and Travel in Transnational Santeria (Africana Studies Research Colloquium) – Aisha M. Beliso-DeJesus, Harvard Divinity School
Roman Gladiatorial Spectacle (Ancient Studies Week) – Garrett G. Fagan, Penn State University
HOT: Living through the Next 50 Years on Earth – Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation
W.E.B. Du Bois Fifty Years After the March on Washington (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – David Levering Lewis, New York University
Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales (Korenman Lecture) – E. Patrick Johnson, Northwestern University
What Remains? Baltimore Neighborhoods in Transition – Nicole King, UMBC; Steve Bradley, UMBC; Bill Shewbridge, UMBC; Michelle Stefano, Maryland Traditions; Deborah Rudacille, UMBC; Eddie Bartee, Jr., former Sparrows Point steelworker; Troy Pritt, former Sparrows Point steelworker; and Jason Reed, community gardener, Curtis Bay. Moderated by Denise Meringolo
Exhibiting Erotic Art (shunga) and the Problem of Obscenity in 20th Century Japan – Amaury Garcia, El Colegio de México, A.C.
2012-2013
The Humanities, Without Apology – Pauline Yu, President of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
Schleppers and Shoppers: Jews, Street Markets, and the Selling of Ready-to-Ware Fashion in London in the 1920s and 1930s (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Judith Walkowitz, Johns Hopkins University
Not Always Roman, Not Always Statues: The Recent Lives of Ancient Roman Statues at the Walters Art Museum (Ancient Studies Week) – Marden Nichols, Walters Art Museum
Disability, Justice, and the Future of the Humanities – Michael Bérubé, Penn State University
Short Story Reading and Discussion of This is How You Lose Her – Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer, MacArthur Fellow, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
American Challenges for World Peace in the 21st Century (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Horace G. Campbell, Syracuse University
Collecting, Preserving, and Interpreting African American History and Culture – Jacquelyn Serwer, National Museum of African American History and Culture; Michelle Joan Wilkinson, Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland; and Moira Hinderer, Afro American Newspaper Archive. Moderated by Denise Meringolo, UMBC
The Civil Rights Movement from the Ground Up – Freeman Hrabowski, President, UMBC; Julian Bond, civil rights activist and former chairman, NAACP; and Andrew B. Lewis, author of The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation. Moderated by Taylor Branch
2011-2012
Lecture and Booksigning: Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust: A Jewish Family’s Untold Story – Rebecca Boehling, UMBC
Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language (Hispanic Heritage Month) – Ilan Stavans, Amherst College
The Reception of the Medea in the United States (Ancient Studies Week) – Helene Foley, Columbia University
The Music of Today: Facts and Ideas (Livewire Festival 2: “On Fire” Keynote Lecture) – Carlo Landini, Conservatorio G. Nicolini in Piacenza
Mosquito Empires and Revolutionary Fevers in the Greater Caribbean, 1600-1900 (Webb Lecture) – John R. McNeill, Georgetown University
W.E.B. Du Bois’s Intellectual Ancestors: Reassessing the Works of Alexander Crummell and James McCune Smith (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Carla L. Peterson, University of Maryland
Giving the Past Presence: Public History Experiments in New York City – Marcy Reaven, New York Historical Society
Pacific Encounter: The Japanese Iwakura Embassy in America in 1872 (Asian Studies Week) – Martin Collcutt, Princeton University
Feminism as Traveling Theory: The Case of Our Bodies, Ourselves (Korenman Lecture) – Kathy E. Davis, Institute of History and Culture, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Passage on the Underground Railroad and the Black Experience within American History (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Stephen Marc, Arizona State University
The Regression of Listening to the “Middle Eastern” Other – Lucian Stone, University of North Dakota
Approaching Authenticity: Locating Living Cultural Memories, Identities, and Traditions in the 21st Century – Neil Silberman, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Theodore Gonzalves, UMBC; Clifford Murphy, Maryland Traditions; Rachel Delgado-Simmons, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Moderated by Michelle Stefano, Maryland Traditions and UMBC
Morality beyond Demands (Evelyn Barker Lecture) – Margaret Little, Georgetown University
Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer’s Civil War (Low Lecture) – Peter H. Wood, Duke University
2010-2011
The Very Long Eighteenth Century: An Experiment in the History of Religion? (Webb Lecture) – Robert K. Webb, UMBC
The Historian: Citizen of the World, and an Archive Mouse (Lipitz Lecture) – James S. Grubb, UMBC
Harlem Renaissance Personages and Haiti (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Richard A. Long, Emory University
Maryland Traditions: A Panel Presentation – Elaine Eff and Cliff Murphy, Co-directors, Maryland Traditions; Kara Rogers Thomas, Folklorist, Frostburg State University; Cynthia Byrd, Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury; Mark Puryear, Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; and Lafayette Gilchrist, Maryland Traditions Apprentice
Sita Sings the Blues: The Ramayana and “Free Culture” – Nina Paley, Independent Filmmaker and Artist-In-Residence at QuestionCopyright.org
The Obama Effect – Heather E. Harris, Stevenson University; Kimberly R. Moffitt, UMBC; and Catherine R. Squires, University of Minnesota. Moderated by Dan Rodricks of WYPR’s “Midday With Dan Rodricks”
The “Viractual” – Joseph Nechvatal, The School of Visual Arts (NYC) and Galerie Richard, Paris
Social Movements and Participatory Cultural Democracy in Latin America and the U.S. in a Time of Crises – James Counts Early, Director, Cultural Heritage Policy, Smithsonian Institution
Politics and Policy in the 21st Century: Does Race Still Matter? (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Mary Frances Berry, University of Pennsylvania
Cultic Revelries in the Egyptian New Kingdom (Ancient Studies Week) – Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins University
After Hours in the Cerebral Kitchen: Experimental Filmmaking in the 21st Century – Fred Worden, UMBC
Higher Education? Some Pertinent and Impertinent Questions about the Value Students and Families Receive for their College Investment – Claudia Dreifus, New York Times columnist and Columbia University; and Andrew Hacker, Contributor to the New York Review of Books and Queens College (CUNY)
Lost in the Unknown: Family Secrets and Their Consequences – Steve Luxenberg, Author of Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret and Associate Editor of The Washington Post
2009-2010
C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures”: A Fifty Year Perspective – G. Rickey Welch, UMBC, and Joseph N. Tatarewicz, UMBC
Politics, Expertise and the Two Cultures – Harry Collins, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff, UK
Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece (Ancient Studies Week) – Jenifer Neils, Case Western Reserve University
Snow, Two Cultures, and the Science Wars – Steve Fuller, University of Warwick, UK
Global Climate Change: Science, Polity, and Authority – Naomi Oreskes, University of California, San Diego
The Two Cultures Today: An Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion on the Connections between the Sciences and the Humanities – Susan Dwyer, University of Maryland; Christoph Irmscher, Indiana University; Manil Suri, UMBC; and Tim Topoleski, UMBC
Reading and Booksigning: Three Cups of Tea – David Relin, Best-selling author, journalist and editor
Immigration and African Diaspora Women (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Nkiru Nzegwu, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Francophone Voices of the ‘New’ Morocco in Film and Print: (Re) presenting a Society in Transition – Valerie K. Orlando, University of Maryland
Street Scenes and Blues Lives: Bessie Smith’s Chattanooga (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Michelle Scott, UMBC
Missives on Music in the Seventeenth Century: A View of Education and Values – Skip Morin, UMBC
Reading and Booksigning: The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood – Helene Cooper, New York Times White House correspondent and former diplomatic correspondent
Reading and Booksigning: Travels around the Globe and the Mind in A Trance After Breakfast – Alan Cheuse, George Mason University
If That Language May Be Dying, Why Are You Studying It? (Lipitz Lecture) – Thomas T. Field, UMBC
2008-2009
Gender and Human Rights in Contemporary Africa – Norma Kriger, Independent Scholar and Human Rights Watch
Social Justice, Health and Human Rights – Ruth Faden, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
Indigenous and Human Rights in Latin America – James D. Cockcroft, SUNY and Human Rights activist
Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Exhibiting Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (Ancient Studies Week) – Carol Mattush, George Mason University
Mrs. Henry Hobhouse Goes to War: Conscience and Christian Radicalism in WWI Britain (Webb Lecture) – Seth Koven, Rutgers University
DuBois and Africa: The Convergence of Consciousness (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University
What is Language for? – Robert Bringhurst, poet, typographer, and linguist
Reading Fiction, Reading Politics: Transnational Modernism and Political Commitment in the Mid-Twentieth Century – Jessica Berman, UMBC
Fiction Reading, The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls, best-selling author
Panel Discussion on Transmodernism – James Mahoney, UMBC; Catherine Pancake, Independent Filmmaker and Musician; Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall, School of Art and Design. Moderated by Preminda Jacob, UMBC
The Muslim Headscarf in Europe: Veiled Threat or Religious Freedom? (Korenman Lecture) – Claudia Koonz, Duke University
Gaining Information, Knowledge, and Power in the 21st Century (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Carla Hayden, Enoch Pratt Free Library
Fiction Reading: Last One In – Elize Levine, award-winning author
Poetic Narrative: Non-linear Strategies for Digital Cinema (Lipitz Lecture) – John Sturgeon, UMBC
2007-2008
Living Myths: Joseph Beuys and Collective Memory – Lasse Antonsen, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Ideologies of Empires: The British Case and its American Echoes (Webb Lecture)- Dane Kennedy, George Washington University
Women Writing Letters in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Phi Beta Kappa Lecture) – Roger Bagnall, New York University
Exploring the Origins of the Temple of the Goddess Mut at South Karnak (Ancient Studies Week) – Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins University
Media Convergence, Media Democracy – Jason Loviglio, UMBC
Black Leadership in America and the African Diaspora: Its Promises and Problems (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Ronald Walters, University of Maryland
Fiction Reading: The Age of Shiva – Manil Suri, UMBC
Drawing Serious Laughter: The Art of Political Satire – KAL, Kevin Kal Kallaugher, political cartoonist
What Does the Bible Say about Women? (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Adele Berlin, University of Maryland
Confederate Emancipation (Low Lecture) – Bruce Levine, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
2006-2007
Verbs that move mountains: Poetry in a Time of Change: A Reading of New and Selected Poems – Ingrid De Kok, University of Cape Town
Princess Elizabeth Travels Across Her Kingdom in Life, in Text, and on Stage (Webb Lecture) – Carole Levin, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Decoding the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum (Ancient Studies Week) – Carol Mattusch, George Mason University
Who Wrote this Document? – Charles Nicholas, UMBC
Relevance of Du Bois for 21st Century Black America (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Manning Marable, Columbia University
The Changemakers: Ethical Leadership & Real Power – Naomi Wolf, journalist and political advisor
A Corpus Approach to Literacy and Language Variation in the Past – Thomas T. Field, UMBC
The Parthenon East Metopes: Technologies of the 21st Century and New Discoveries – Katherine A. Schwab, historian and archaeologist
Spirituality in African American Music (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Daphne Harrison, UMBC; Janice Jackson, UMBC; and Emmett G. Price, III, Northeastern University
Status Without Rights: African Americans and the Tangled History of Law and Governance in the Nineteenth-Century South (Low Lecture) – Laura F. Edwards, Duke University
2005-2006
Studying Television in the Post-Network Era: Responses to a Changing Media Industry – Horace Newcomb, University of Georgia
Don Quixote de la Mancha: Adventures in Reading – Harry Sieber, Johns Hopkins University
The Supernatural in the Ancient World: an Overview – Chris Hoffman, UMBC
‘To Receive the Oath and Brand of Slave’: Loyalty Oaths and Confederate Identity, 1861-1868 – Anne Rubin, UMBC
Black Academic Achievement in Science and Information Technology (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Carl Mack, National Society of Black Engineers
Marseille/Baltimore: Technology and the Image of Self – Lynn Cazabon, UMBC
A Writer’s Thoughts on Logic, Nature, People, and Science – John M. Barry, prize-winning author and journalist
A Reading of Published and Unpublished Works (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author
Coming of Age in the Civil War South (Low Lecture) – James Marten, Marquette University
2004-2005
On a Mission from God? The Story of American Peoplehood Today – Rogers Smith, University of Pennsylvania
A Biography of No Place: Ukraine and the Making of Nation-Space – Kathryn Brown, UMBC
Fantasy and Fungi: Science and Imagination in the Life of Beatrix Potter- Linda Lear, Environmental Historian
Returning the Stones: Recreating Excavated Ekron (Ancient Studies Week) – Barry Gittlen, Baltimore Hebrew University
The Silk Road: Pathways to the Imagination – David Kalivas, University of Masachusetts Lowell
Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi, Johns Hopkins University
Undergraduate Experiences in Humanities Research Students from the departments of History, English, and Ancient Studies
The W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture – Sheryll Cashin, Professor of Law, Georgetown University
Darwin, Romantic Geologist? – Sandra Herbert, UMBC
Straddling Borders: literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus’ – Elaine Rusinko, UMBC
Sons of Homer: The Genealogy of the Epic Poem – Jonathan Tuck, St. John’s College
What’s Next? (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Walter Mosley, novelist and social commentator
America: the New Rome – Mortimer Sellers, University of Baltimore School of Law
2003-2004
Teaching New Dogs Old Tricks: New Technology, Design and Activism in Times of War – Natalie Jeremijenko, New York University
Archaeological Ethics and Pots: What’s the Connection? – Karen D. Vitelli, Indiana University
Intermedia: The Dick Higgins Collection (Symposium) – Hannah Higgins, University of Illinois at Chicago; Chris Thompson, Maine College of Art; Owen Smith, University of Maine; moderated by Kathy O’Dell and Lisa Moren, UMBC
The Innocent Eye: Children and Photography – Wendy Ewald, Duke University
Breaking Loose Together – Marjoleine Kars, UMBC
Talking About Race, Learning About Racism: A Conversation for the 21st Century (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Beverly Daniel Tatum, President of Spelman College
Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express – Christopher Corbett, journalist and lecturer in English, UMBC
Film, Advertising, and the Avant-garde – Sabine Hake, University of Pittsburgh
Cultural Representation, Traffic, and Urban Modernity in Jazz Age America – Jeremiah B. Axelrod, University of California Humanities Research Institute
Eureka? The Archimedes Palimpsest – William Noel, The Walters Art Museum
From the African Loom to the American Quilt (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Gladys-Marie Fry, University of Maryland
Reflections on America’s Academic Achievement Gap: A 50-Year Perspective (Low Lecture) – Freeman Hrabowski, President, UMBC
2002-2003
Black Visual Theorists: a Spiritual Rendering – David Driskell, artist and scholar
The Battle for God – Karen Armstrong, writer
What the Future Holds: Jihad, McWorld, or Global Democracy? – Benjamin Barber, University of Maryland
Chinese Footbinding, Fashion, and Modernity – Dorothy Ko, Barnard College of Columbia University
Islam and Modernity: Radical versus Reformist Islam – Barbara Stowasser, Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University
2001-2002
Prophylaxis Against the Software Way of Knowledge – Paulina Borsook, journalist and writer
Reading the Paper: Newsprint and Modern Memory – Nicholson Baker, writer
An Evening with John Waters – John Waters, writer and filmmaker
The Healing Properties of the Blues – Bernice Johnson Reagon, composer, scholar, and activist
2000-2001
2001 A Space Odyssey: A Century of Vision and Reality – Joe Tatarewicz, UMBC
Renee Stout, painter, sculptor, and multi-media artist (Daphne Harrison Lecture)
Balancing Mythology with Mathematics: A Reading from The Death of Vishnus – Manil Suri, UMBC
Privacy: A Communitarian Perspective – Amitai Etzioni, George Washington University
Diversity and its Discontents: A Re-Examination – Arturo Madrid, Trinity University
A Caribbean Writer: The Journey Home – Maryse Condé, Columbia University
Student Research in the Humanities – Beth Pennington, Moderator
Moral Challenges of a Democratic Society for the 21st Century (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Vincent Harding, ILIFF of Theology
How Syntax Made Us Human – Derek Bickerton, University of Hawaii in Honolulu
Death in the Life of Biblical Israel – Barry Gittlen, Baltimore Hebrew University
What Makes a German? Race, Blood, and National Identity in 20th Century Germany – Fatima El-Tayeb, German historian and screenwriter
The Economic of Global Culture – Tyler Cowen, George Mason University
Directions in Research in the Humanities: New UMBC Faculty – Jessica Pfeifer, Philosophy; Jason Loviglio, American Studies; Christel Temple, Africana Studies; Barbara Mennel, Modern Languages and Linguistics, UMBC
1999-2000
Context, Interpretation, and Pleasure: Faculty Panel I – moderated by Kelley Bell, UMBC
The Much Vaunted Flotilla of Commodore Barney: Archaeological Revisions of Maryland’s Cultural Landscape – Susan Langley, Maryland Historical Trust
Context Interpretation and Pleasure: Next Works and Words – Johanna Drucker, The University of Virginia
The State of the National Endowment for the Humanities – William Ferris, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities
The Legacy of Thurgood Marshall (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – James Freedman, University of Iowa
Context, Interpretation, and Pleasure: Faculty Panel II – moderated by Elizabeth Walton, UMBC
Resistance, Rebellions, Revelations: Black Women’s Poetry as Redemptive History – Abena Busia, Rutgers University
Poetry Symposium featuring Lucille Clifton, Leo Connellan , Michael Fallon , Forrest Gander, Derrick Gilbert, Ray Gonzalez, Michael S. Harper, Anthony McGurrin, Linda Pastan, and Terence Winchs – moderated by Michael Fallon, UMBC
Resistance, Rebellions, Revelations: Black Women’s Poetry as Redemptive History – Symposium: Framing the Exhibition, Multiple Constructions – moderated by Leslie Prosterman, Associate Professor of American Studies, UMBC. Featuring Allan Wallach, College of William and Mary; Steven Newsome, Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture; Preminda Jacob, UMBC