Past Humanities Forum events
2022-23
An Immoral Pleasure? Schadenfreude in the Iliad and Odyssey (Ancient Studies Week)- Silvia Montiglio, Johns Hopkins University
Poetic Operations, Trans Ecologies, and Queer Oceans (Hispanic Heritage Month) – micha cárdenas University of California, Santa Cruz
The Decade of Returns: Museum Curation after the “Universal Museum” (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Dan Hicks, University of Oxford
Harmonies of Liberty: Artist Talk with Sonya Clark (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Sonya Clark, Amherst College
Cultural Memory and Mythology: Africana Agency in the Face of Exile (44th W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Christel N. Tempel, University of Pittsburgh
Africana Studies: Creating a Program Space and Place at UMBC and the Greater Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Communities (44th W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Donald G. Murray, Jr.
Becoming Igbo in Nigeria and the Diaspora: A History of Ethnic Identity Formation and Negotiation (Lipitz Lecture) – Gloria Chuku, UMBC
504 and Beyond: Disability Politics and the Black Panther Party – Sami Schalk, University of Wisconsin-Madision
Trans4Trans Care: Reflections on the Undocumented Trans*Imagination (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Alan Pelaez Lopez, Artist and Theorist
What’s the Point of Blaming and Forgiving? (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Miranda Fricker, New York University
Canceling Noise: Dreams and Dangers – Mark Hagood, Miami University, Ohio
“The Punch”: NBA Basketball and Constructions of Black Criminality – Theresa Runstedtler, American University
Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives – Mejdulene B. Shomali, UMBC
2021-22
Puerto Ricans at the Fault Lines: A Conversation with Yarimar Bonilla (Hispanic Heritage Month)- Yarimar Bonilla, Hunter College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Cleopatra: The Most Famous Woman of Classical Antiquity (Ancient Studies Week) – Duane Roller, Ohio State University
MATATU: A History of Popular Transportation in Kenya (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Kenda Mutongi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Life After the Gunshot: Structural Violence, Interpersonal Violence and Trauma Among Young Black Men in Washington DC (43rd W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Joseph B. Richardson, Jr., University of Maryland
A Lord, a Pauper, and an Artist: Putting People Back into Samurai History – Constantine N. Vaporis, UMBC
Indigenous Reading in the Archives of Empire: Birchbark Object Lessons at the 1893’s World Fair – Kelly Wisecup, Northwestern University
Graphic Medicine: Comics in the Age of COVID – Hillary Chute, Northeastern University
Climate Change and Institutions for Future Generations: Calling for a Global Constitution Convention (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Stephen B. Gardiner, University of Washington
An Asian American Reckoning: A Conversation with Cathy Park Hong – Cathy Park Hong, poet, essayist, and New York Times best-selling author
Theory Underwater: Diving into Wild Blue Media – Melody Jue, University of California, Santa Barbara
American Higher Education at the Crossroads: Reflections on Access and Student Success in the Past 60 Years (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, UMBC
2020-21
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 (Robert K. 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 W.E.B. 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
2019-20
The Fractal Caribbean: The New Literatures of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic (Hispanic Heritage Month) – 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 (Robert K.Webb Lecture) – Amy Stanley, Northwestern University
The Future of Du Bois: Consciousness, Citizenship, and Epistemology in Africa (41st W.E.B. 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
2018-19
Radio Ambulante: Breaking the Language Barrier One Story at a Time (Hispanic Heritage Month)– 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 (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Simon P. Newman, University of Glasgow
Race, Racism, and the New Racial Science (40th W.E.B. 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(Panel discussion) – Samiya Bashir, poet; Susan Muaddi Duraj, fiction writer; Alia Malek, journliast and writer. Moderated by Mejdulene B. Shomali, UMBC
Zombies Speak Swahili: Why Language Matters for Global Citizenship (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Jamie A. Thomas, Swarthmore College
The Case for Substantial Gun Control (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – David DeGrazia, George Washington University
Building a World that Includes Disability – Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University
Seeing the Unseen Landscape (Lipitz Lecture) – Dan Bailey, UMBC
2017-18
Show Me Your Papers: The Political Cartoons of Lalo Alcaraz (Hispanic Heritage Month) – 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 (Robert K. 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 (Daphne 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 (Media and Communication Studies 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 Gentrification) – 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
2016-17
Guillermo Gómez-Peña Unplugged: A brand new spoken-word monologue by el Mad Mex(Hispanic Heritage Month) – 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’ (Robert K. 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
2015-16
Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America(Hispanic Heritage Month) – 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 (Robert K. 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
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
2014-15
Mark Tribe: Art Is a Three-Letter Word (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 (Robert K. 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
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
W.E.B. Du Bois and the Challenge to Scientific Racism (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Evelyn M. Hammond, Harvard University
Mapping Memory: Digitizing Sherman’s March to the Sea (Digital Humanities Initiative Event) – Anne Sarah Rubin, UMBC, and Kelley Bell, UMBC
Slavery By Another Name (Panel discussion) – Spencer Crew, George Mason University
Your Powerful Online Voice: Social Media for Social Change (Critical Social Justice Keynote) – 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 – 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
2013-14
Hispanic Americans: The Cosmic Race – Marie Arana, writer
What Remains? Baltimore Neighborhoods in Transition (Panel discussion) – 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, UMBC
The Worlds of Joseph Conrad: British Imperial Decline and the Dawn of Globalization (Robert K. 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
HOT: Living through the Next 50 Years on Earth – Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation
Roman Gladiatorial Spectacle (Ancient Studies Week) – Garrett G. Fagan, Penn State University
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 (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – E. Patrick Johnson, Northwestern University
Exhibiting Erotic Art (shunga) and the Problem of Obscenity in 20th Century Japan – Amaury Garcia, El Colegio de México, A.C.
Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle (The Loving Story Film Viewing)
Created Equal (Panel Discussion) – Moderated by Claudrena N. Harold, University of Virginia
Constructing Heritage (Panel Discussion) – James Counts Early, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; Mario Santo Domingo, UMBC; Ashley Minner, Community Artist and Activist, Baltimore American Indian Center. Moderated by Michelle Stefano, UMBC
The Living Edge: Delights and Dilemmas of the Chesapeake Bay – Tom Horton and Dave Harp, environmental journalists
On Hip Hop, Race, and Politics: The Way We Talk About Things (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Jay Smooth, hip hop culture critic
Curious Behavior: A Celebration of Undergraduate Research at UMBC – Robert R. Provine, UMBC
The Fraught Crossroads Where Class, Race, Sex and Violence Keep Converging across American History – Lawrence Weschler, author
The Aesthetics of Astronomy: A Subjective Look at Cosmigraphical Depictions through Time – Michael Benson, writer, photographer and artist
Dignity and Disability – Samuel Kerstein, University of Maryland
Examining the Book of Lies – Corazon del Sol, artist and curator
Interiors: Identity in Music (Lipitz Lecture) – Linda Dusman, UMBC
2012-13
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
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(Panel discussion)– 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 (Panel discussion) – 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
Blackface Imagery and Its Answers: Stereotyping from the Early Civil Rights Era to the Obama Era – Thulani Davis, journalist, playwright and author
Race and Shakesperean Performance (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Ayanna Thompson, Arizona State University
A Life in History: Reflections on Studying Politics and Policy in 20th Century America (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – John Jeffries, UMBC
Charisma in Age of Digital Reproduction (Lipitz Lecture) – Raphael Falco, UMBC
2011-12
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 (Robert K. 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 – Marci 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 (Joan S. 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 Memorial Lecture) – Margaret Little, Georgetown University
Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer’s Civil War (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Peter H. Wood, Duke University
2010-11
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
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
After Hours in the Cerebral Kitchen: Experimental Filmmaking in the 21st Century – Fred Worden, UMBC
Cultic Revelries in the Egyptian New Kingdom (Ancient Studies Week) – Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins University
The Very Long Eighteenth Century: An Experiment in the History of Religion? (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Robert K. Webb, UMBC
Politics and Policy in the 21st Century: Does Race Still Matter? (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Mary Frances Berry, University of Pennsylvania
Social Movements and Participatory Cultural Democracy in Latin America and the U.S. in a Time of Crises – James Counts Early, Smithsonian Institution
The “Viractual” – Joseph Nechvatal, The School of Visual Arts (NYC) and Galerie Richard, Paris
The Obama Effect (Panel discussion) – 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”
Sita Sings the Blues: The Ramayana and “Free Culture” – Nina Paley, Independent Filmmaker and Artist-In-Residence at QuestionCopyright.org
Maryland Traditions (Panel discussion) – 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
Harlem Renaissance Personages and Haiti (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Richard A. Long, Emory University
The Historian: Citizen of the World, and an Archive Mouse (Lipitz Lecture) – James S. Grubb, UMBC
Poetry Reading – Joelle Biele, Poet and Literary Critic
2009-10
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
Lincoln and Darwin (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Sandra Herbert, UMBC
The Parthenon Sculptures and Periklean Policies (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
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
Virgin Territory: On Writing a History of Virginity – Hanne Blank, writer and independent scholar
Travels around the Globe and the Mind in A Trance After Breakfast – Alan Cheuse, George Mason University
The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood – Helene Cooper, New York Times White House correspondent and former diplomatic correspondent
If That Language May Be Dying, Why Are You Studying It? (Lipitz Lecture) – Thomas T. Field, UMBC
2008-09
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 (Robert K. 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
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? (Women’s History Month Lecture) – Claudia Koonz, Duke University
Gaining Information, Knowledge, and Power in the 21st Century (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Carla Hayden, Enoch Pratt Free Library
Last One In – Elize Levine, award-winning author
Poetic Narrative: Non-linear Strategies for Digital Cinema (2nd Annual Lipitz Lecture) – John Sturgeon, UMBC
2007-08
Living Myths: Joseph Beuys and Collective Memory – Lasse Antonsen, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Ideologies of Empires: The British Case and its American Echoes (Robert K. 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
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 (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Bruce Levine, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
2006-07
Verbs that move mountains: Poetry in a Time of Change – Ingrid De Kok, University of Cape Town
Princess Elizabeth Travels Across Her Kingdom in Life, in Text, and on Stage (Robert K. 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 (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Laura F. Edwards, Duke University
2005-06
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 (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – James Marten, Marquette University
2004-05
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 – Kate 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
The W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture – Sheryll Cashin, Professor of Law, Georgetown University
Undergraduate Experiences in Humanities Research Students from the departments of History, English, and Ancient Studies
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
2003-04
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 (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Freeman Hrabowski, President, UMBC
2002-03
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
2001-02
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
2000-01
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
The Economic of Global Culture – Tyler Cowen, George Mason University
What Makes a German? Race, Blood, and National Identity in 20th Century Germany – Fatima El-Tayeb, German historian and screenwriter
Death in the Life of Biblical Israel – Barry Gittlen, Baltimore Hebrew University
How Syntax Made Us Human – Derek Bickerton, University of Hawaii in Honolulu
Moral Challenges of a Democratic Society for the 21st Century (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Vincent Harding, ILIFF of Theology
Student Research in the Humanities – Beth Pennington, Moderator
A Caribbean Writer: The Journey Home – Maryse Condé, Columbia University
Diversity and its Discontents: A Re-Examination – Arturo Madrid, Trinity University
Privacy: A Communitarian Perspective – Amitai Etzioni, George Washington University
Balancing Mythology with Mathematics: A Reading from The Death of Vishnus – Manil Suri, UMBC
Renee Stout, painter, sculptor, and multi-media artist (Daphne Harrison Lecture)
2001 A Space Odyssey: A Century of Vision and Reality – Joe Tatarewicz, 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 (Ancient Studies Week)– 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 (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Abena Busia, Rutgers University
Poetry Symposium – 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 – Allan Wallach, College of William and Mary; Steven Newsome, Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture; Preminda Jacob, UMBC. Moderated by Leslie Prosterman, UMBC
1998-1999
Excursions in Time: Faculty Panel I – Sandra Herbert, History; Willie Lamouse-Smith, Africana Studies; Andy Miller, Geography and Environmental Systems. Moderated by Stuart Smith, UMBC
The Future Looks at the Past: Modern Technology and Ancient Sculpture – Carol Mattusch, George Mason University
Shirley A. Jackson, International Regulators Association (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture)
Excursions in Time: Faculty II – Moderated by Scott Bass, UMBC
Doreen Bolger, Baltimore Museum of Art
Unlikely Prospects: On Time and Classical Film – George Wilson, Johns Hopkins University
Eye of the Storm: Photographs of Mildred Grossman – Paul Becker, former active member of the New York City Teachers Union; Steven I. Jackson, Cornell University; Naomi Rosenblum, art historian; Walter Rosenblum, photographer; Nick Salvatore, Cornell University
Fred Wilson, artist
Discursive Time – Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth, University of Edinburgh
Questioning the Millennium – Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard University
Nancy Morejon, poet
Spring 1998
Faculty Panel: Arts and Sciences – Angela Moorjani, Modern Languages and Linguistics; Ray Starr, Psychology; Joel Sinsky, Physics; Stuart Smith, Music. Moderated by G. Rickey Welch, UMBC
Word+Image: Swiss Poster Design, 1955-1997 (Panel Discussion) – Thomas Strong, Strong-Cohen; Design and Christopher Pullman, WGBH
Faculty Panel II – Scholomo Carmi, Dean of Engineering and Computer Science; Patricia Scully, Education; Dorothy Beckett, Chemistry; Thomas Seidman, Mathematics. Moderated by Jo Ann Argersinger, UMBC
The Creative Act in the Arts (Symposium) – Stanley Cowell, composer; Petah Coyne, artist; Miriam De Costa-Willis, UMBC; Jewelle Gomez, poet and novelist; Rebecca Hoffberger, American Visionary Museum; Kathy O’Dell, UMBC; Wendy Salkind, UMBC; Renee Stout, artist; Jennifer Tipton, lighting designer; Liz Walton, UMBC
Reflections on Justice, Virtue, and Liberal Learning – Adam Yarmolinsky, UMBC
Spring 1997
Form, Function in Architecture: Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery – R. Thomas Hille, architect
Poetry, Family, and Clinical Psychology: Common Ground – Robert Deluty, UMBC
My Journey as an Artist and Other Things – Kate Millett, author and artist
Gertrude and Sylvia: Kate Millett and Feminism – Arlene Raven, art historian and critic
Race and Gender: Imprisonment Practices in the United States – Angela Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz
“Will the World Run Out of Food? Malthusian and Cornucopian Perspectives – Warren Belasco, UMBC
Collecting for What Objectives: Smithsonian Dilemmas – I. Michael Heyman, Smithsonian Institution
Who Lost the Arts or Why America Has No National Arts Policy as We Approach the 21st Century – Roger Copeland, Oberlin College
Reconciliation of Science and Literature – Carl Djerassi, chemist and recipient of the Priestly Medal, the National Medal of Science, and the National Medal of Technology
Epistemic Trauma: Mixing Art and Science – Tom Vargish, UMBC; and Delo Mook, Dartmouth College
Taylor Branch, author and Pulitzer Prize winner (Augustus Low Lecture)
Previous Speakers
Derrick Bell
Maurice Berger
Homi Bhabha
Daniel Botkin
Svetlana Boym
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Patricia Cruz
Mary Beth Cryor
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Gary Vikan
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Cornel West
William E. Williams
Deborah Willis