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Webb Lecture: The Changing Face of Modern War:

Chemical Weapons and Civilian Bodies in the Aftermath of WWI

Location

Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn : Gallery

Date & Time

October 18, 2017, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Description

Susan R. Grayzel, Professor of History, Utah State University

Lethal chemical warfare entered the modern era in 1915. Denounced as horrific, nonetheless all sides participating in the war utilized chemical arms. Yet in 1939, the British government was testing gas masks on Indian civilian women. In this talk, Susan R. Grayzel will explore the complex legacy of World War I through a focus on the development of civil defense, especially the gas mask, designed to protect every man, woman, and child from the terrible new weapons that this war unleashed.

Bio: Susan R. Grayzel is a Professor of Modern European History and the author of several books, including Women's Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War, which won the British Council Book Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies in 2000. She is working on the forthcoming book, The Age of the Gas Mask: Chemical Weapons and Civilians Bodies in Imperial Britain, 1915-1945. Her current research focuses on the origins of civil defense and its impact on ideas about gender, citizenship, and the wartime state.

Sponsored by the History Department and the Dresher Center for the Humanities
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Ancient Studies Week

Life, Love, and Law in Classical Athens

Location

Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn : Library Gallery

Date & Time

October 9, 2017, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Description

Victoria Wohl, Professor of Athenian Literature and Culture, University of Toronto

Pericles’ Citizenship Law defined an Athenian citizen as the child of an Athenian father and mother, but real life in classical Athens was much messier than this clear-cut definition suggests. Court cases from Classical Athens are full of mistresses and prostitutes, bastard children, and secret love-affairs. Focusing on Demosthenes’ speech against Neaira and Euripides’ Medea, this lecture shows how Athenians negotiated the law in everyday life and the tragedy that ensued when they transgressed it.

Bio: Victoria Wohl is a scholar of the literature and culture of ancient Greece, with a focus on the social relations, political thought, and psychic life of democratic Athens. She is author of Intimate Commerce: Exchange, Gender, and Subjectivity in Greek Tragedy (Texas, 1998), Love Among the Ruins: The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens (2002), Law’s Cosmos: Juridical Discourse in Athenian Forensic Oratory (2010), and Euripides and the Politics of Form (2015).

Sponsored by the Ancient Studies Department, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, and the Gender + Women’s Studies Department.
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MEMS Colloquium Lecture: Harmonious Monk

Martin Luther at 50Martin Luther and His Reformation throug0

Location

Performing Arts & Humanities Building : Linehan Concert Hall

Date & Time

October 4, 2017, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Description

Christopher Boyd Brown,Associate Professor of Church History, Boston University

Dr. Christopher Boyd Brown and UMBC’s Camerata and Collegium Musicum will present an interdisciplinary concert-lecture on Martin Luther’s use of music and the community practice of hymn-singing in the Protestant Reformation. Brown will discuss how Lutheran hymns, sung in the streets and homes as well as in community spaces, were central to the success of the Reformation. UMBC students will provide live musical examples of plainchant, Reformation hymns, and multi-part choral works by Walter and Bach.

Bio:  Christopher Boyd Brown is a recognized scholar of Martin Luther and Reformation music. He has published Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation (Harvard University Press, 2005), and several studies on the role of midwives in early modern Lutheranism. His translations of Luther and early modern Lutheran theological texts can be found at http://www.projectwittenberg.org/etext/luther/.

Sponsored by the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Music Department, and Religious Studies.

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Show Me Your Papers: The Political Cartoons of Lalo Alcaraz

Location

Performing Arts & Humanities Building : Proscenium Theatre

Date & Time

September 26, 2017, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Description

Lalo Alcaraz, visual and media artist/writer 


The political cartoonist and film & TV writer, Lalo Alcaraz, will explore his history as an editorial cartoonist and creator of the first politically oriented and Latino themed syndicated daily comic strip, La Cucaracha. In this strip, Lalo chronicles the history of the modern Latino political movement in the U.S., starting with the rise of anti-immigrant laws like Prop 187 in California through Arizona SB 1070 and today's SB4 in Texas. Not to mention the current occupant of the White House. Laughs abound!

Bio: Lalo Alcaraz is an award winning visual and media artist and writer based in Los Angeles who chronicles the ascendancy of Latinos in the US. Lalo's graphic novel and cartoon books include: A Most Imperfect Union; Latino USA: A Cartoon History, 15th Anniversary Edition; Migra Mouse: Political Cartoons On Immigration; and La Cucaracha. Alcaraz was a writer and producer on the animated FOX TV show “Bordertown” and he is a consultant on the upcoming Day of the Dead-themed animated Pixar movie “COCO.” Alcaraz is the co-host of the satirical talk show, "The Pocho Hour of Power," heard on L.A.’s KPFK 90.7 FM.

Sponsored by the Latino/Hispanic Faculty Association; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication Department;the Visual Arts Department.; and the Media and Communication Studies Department.
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Lipitz Lecture: Anne Sarah Rubin

Confederate Hunger: Food and Famine in the Civil War South

Location

Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn

Date & Time

May 3, 2017, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Description

LIPITZ LECTURE

Anne Sarah Rubin, Professor of History and Associate Director of the Imaging Research Center, UMBC

Historians know that over the course of the American Civil War, the Confederacy essentially starved to death, a result of the Union blockade, the breakdown of slavery on the homefront, and not enough food being grown.  What we don’t know, however, is what that felt like for ordinary people – on the most intimate and individual scale. “Confederate Hunger” explores the ways that the war affected what people ate and how food choices became symbols of nationalism, resistance, and survival. This project looks at food and hunger from the perspectives of white Southern civilians, African Americans, and Confederate soldiers.  It moves from the cabins of yeoman farmers, through plantation kitchens, army messes, and contraband refugee camps, from 1861 through the 1866 harvest. 

Bio: 
Anne Sarah Rubin is a Professor of History and Associate Director of the Imaging Research Center at UMBC. She is the 2016-2017 Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Dr. Rubin received her A.B. from Princeton University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. She is the author of A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy (UNC, 2005), which received the 2006 Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians for the most original book on the Civil War era, and Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March in American Memory (UNC 2014).

Sponsored by the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Social Sciences Forum and the History Department
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Daphne Harrison Lecture: Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress

A Conversation About Digital Access

Location

Performing Arts & Humanities Building : Linehan Concert Hall

Date & Time

April 13, 2017, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Description

DAPHNE HARRISON LECTURE

Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress

Dr. Carla Hayden will discuss the importance of the Library of Congress in the 21st century, especially in the digital age. The Library houses more than 162 million items that include historical documents and artifacts, photographs, books, manuscripts, sheet music, and so much more. Her monumental goal is to share all these items online with the public from coast to coast. 

Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, the Africana Studies Department, and the English Department
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The Post-Andalusian Condition

Islam and the Rise of the West

Location

Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn

Date & Time

March 15, 2017, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Description

Anouar Majid, Director of the Center for Global Humanities, Vice President for Global Affairs and Communications, and Professor of English at the University of New England

In this lecture, Anouar Majid expands Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism and extends it back to Late Middle Ages, when the Andalusian order, characterized by a fragile coexistence among members of different religions, was upended by a crusading Christian spirit and the rise of a Western hegemonic worldview that allowed no room for alternatives. Such a world system forced Muslims and other non-Western traditions into a defensive mode, fighting back by deploying indigenous traditions. Even as European powers pursued their expansionist agenda in the name of freedom, Muslims fought for their independence by rallying their people against Western imperialism. As a result of this uneven struggle, Muslims found strength in orthodoxies that have only made their condition worse and continue to bedevil the world order today. 

Bio:   
Anouar Majid is the Director of the Center for Global Humanities, Vice President for Global Affairs and Communications, and Professor of English at the University of New England, and the Founding Director of the Tangier Global Forum in Morocco. He is the author of five critically acclaimed books on Islam and the West, including Unveiling Traditions (Duke University Press, 2000), Freedom and Orthodoxy (Stanford University Press, 2004), A Call for Heresy (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), We Are All Moors (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), and Islam and America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012; 2015). Majid has given lectures in many countries and has appeared on American, Moroccan, French, and Dutch television programs. He is a novelist, the author of Si Yussef, and is the editor of Tingis, a free online magazine dedicated to a new study of Islam and its history.

Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Global Studies Program; and the Modern Languages, Linguistics and Intercultural Communication Department
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MEMS Colloquium Lecture: ISIS and Cultural Cleansing

Saving the Ancient and Medieval Treasures of Syria and Iraq

Location

Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn

Date & Time

March 7, 2017, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Description

MEMS COLLOQUIUM LECTURE

Michael D. Danti, Assistant Professor of Archaeology, Boston University; Consulting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania Museum; and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London

Syria and Iraq are facing the worst cultural heritage crisis since the Second World War. Michael Danti's talk will address one of the greatest challenges: the cultural cleansing perpetrated by the so-called Islamic State (or ISIS) and the work of the American Schools of Oriental Research to safeguard cultural assets. 

The American Schools of Oriental Research Cultural Heritage Initiatives (ASOR CHI) work with Syrians and Iraqis to safeguard cultural sites and objects from neglect, damage, destruction, and theft as part of a program developed with the U.S. Department of State. Among the many atrocities perpetrated by ISIS is the deliberate destructions of historic mosques, churches, schools, monasteries, and cemeteries, as well as numerous famous monuments at archaeological sites such as Palmyra, Nimrud, Nineveh, Hatra, and the Old City of Mosul. ISIS brazenly commits these war crimes to advance its radical ideology and gain global media exposure. At the same time, the organization funds its terrorist activities through the looting of cultural property from archaeological sites, museums, libraries, and private collections. Irreplaceable ancient and medieval heritage, embedded in the urban fabric and daily life of modern communities, is endangered as extremists erase cultural memory, manipulate cultural identity, and eliminate cultural diversity. 

Bio:   
Michael D. Danti is an archaeologist who specializes in the ancient Near East. His interests center on the emergence of complex societies, agropastoral economies, tribe-state relations and pastoral nomadic societies. He directs archaeological projects in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria, focusing on the Bronze and Iron Ages. From 1991 to 2010, Dr. Danti’s research focused on the Early Bronze Age site of Tell es-Sweyhat near Raqqa and Aleppo on the Euphrates River. He is a principal investigator for the American Schools of Oriental Research's Cultural Heritage Initiatives (ASOR CHI). ASOR is an international, collaborative effort to respond to the destruction of cultural heritage in Syria and northern Iraq. Groups of concerned citizens in Syria and Iraq have been taking action, and ASOR's international team has formed alliances and partnerships with these groups.

Sponsored by the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Ancient Studies Department, the Visual Arts Department, and the Political Science Department
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I Heard It Through the Grapevine

Film Screening and Conversation

Location

Performing Arts & Humanities Building : 132

Date & Time

February 23, 2017, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Description

Maurice Wallace, Associate Professor of English and Associate Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American Studies, University of Virginia
Maleda Belilgne, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and English, UMBC

The spellbinding 1982 documentary, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, chronicles James Baldwin’s return to the American South two decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Directed by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley, this rare film shadows Baldwin as he revisits the people and places of his past. Baldwin begins in Washington D.C., journeying through Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, and the beaches of St. Augustine in his assessment of the movement’s successes and failures. Baldwin reflects on his role as writer and activist, the landscape’s evidentiary quality, and the nation’s moral obligation to its black populace.

Featuring conversations with Sterling Brown, Amiri Baraka, and Chinua Achebe on the meaning of progress, equality, and freedom, the film showcases Baldwin’s uncanny ability to peer into the depths of America’s soul. Maurice Wallace and Maleda Belilgne will lead a conversation on the film’s historical importance and Baldwin’s continuing significance in 2017. 

Bios:   
Maurice Wallace is Associate Professor of English and Associate Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Constructing the Black Masculine: Identity and Ideality in African American Men’s Literature and Culture, 1775-1995, a book on the history of black manhood in African American letters, and co-editor of a collection of scholarly articles on early photography and African American identity. Wallace has served on the editorial boards for American Literature and Yale Journal of Criticism. His present research and writing agendas include a monograph on early photography in the making of African American identity on the heels of the US Civil War, and a critical exploration into the sound (vibrato-speech) of Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice. 

Maleda Belilgne is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and English at UMBC. She is currently at work on a book project that examines spatiality and futurity in black-authored fiction. Belilgne’s research interests include African American literature, Anglophone African literature, critical geography, sound studies, and speculative fiction.


Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Africana Studies Department, and the English Department
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Myanmar: Perspectives on a Society in Transition

Christina Fink, George Washington University

Location

Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn

Date & Time

February 1, 2017, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Description

Christina Fink, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, George Washington University

Christina Fink, a cultural anthropologist and Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at George Washington University, will discuss the profound political, economic, and social changes that the nation of Myanmar has been undergoing. Throughout this process, the military leadership and political parties have both cooperated and competed in their efforts to impose their vision for the future. Meanwhile, citizens have sought to take advantage of greater freedoms and opportunities, while also re-imagining their country's identity and place in the world. Dr. Fink’s talk accompanies the opening of the exhibition Altered State: Painting Myanmar in a Time of Transition, on display from January 30th through March 26th in UMBC’s Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery. The paintings by 36 contemporary artists from Myanmar were created following the transition period of 2011, when a military-backed civilian government replaced the oppressive rule by military junta and the country once famous for its seclusion re-entered the world stage. They illustrate current artistic practice in Myanmar and present a series of creative viewpoints on a rapidly changing society. The lecture and exhibit provide a window into an important Southeast Asian nation going through a remarkable transformation. 

Bio: 

Christina Fink is a cultural anthropologist who has combined teaching, research, and development work throughout her career. Her areas of expertise are Burma/Myanmar in particular and Southeast Asia more broadly, equitable development, gender and development, civil society in ethnically diverse states. She received her B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Social/Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught at the Elliot School for International Affairs at George Washington University since 2011. She served as a visiting lecturer at the Pacific and Asian Studies Department at the University of Victoria in 1995, and from 2001-2010, she was a lecturer and program associate at the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute in Thailand.

Sponsored by the Asian Studies Program, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, the Global Studies Program, the Visual Arts Department, and the Social Science Forum 
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