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
Carole McCann: Figuring the Population Bomb
Malthusian Masculinities and Demographic Transitions
Location
Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn
Date & Time
December 7, 2016, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Description
10TH ANNUAL KORENMAN LECTURE
Carole McCann, Chair and Professor of Gender + Women’s Studies, UMBC
On November 11, 1959, the television broadcast CBS Reports: The Population Explosion presented nine million viewers with the facts of the world population crisis, saying “its volatile ingredients are statistical.” Rebroadcast a year later to an even larger audience, the report investigated an issue that fueled public anxiety about potential war, famine, and related doomsday scenarios. Drawing from her new book, Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century, Carole McCann traces the genealogy of the statistics that underwrote the midcentury panic about population growth. She illuminates the gendered geopolitical grounds and affective commitments of the specialized mathematical culture that composed the figures of the population explosion. The talk traces the inferential logics by which demographers’ quantification practices configured women’s bodies, especially women of color, as excessively fertile by nature; defined that fertility as the singular cause of growth; and installed the demographic transition to low fertility as necessary for modern citizens and nations. Those population figures, she argues, circled the globe, moved nations to intervene in women’s reproductive lives, and continue to haunt struggles to secure reproductive justice.
Bio: Carole McCann is Professor and Chair of the Department of Gender + Women’s Studies; Affiliate Professor of the Language, Literacy and Culture Program; and Special Assistant to the Provost for Interdisciplinary Activities at UMBC. Her research focuses on transnational feminist theory and science studies. Her publications include four editions of the highly regarded anthology, Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, co-edited with Dr. Seung-Kyung Kim (Routledge Press, 2003, 2010, 2013, 2016), and Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916-1945 (Cornell University Press, 1994, 1999). Her newest book, Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century, is part of the newFeminist Technosciences series from the University of Washington Press, co-edited by Banu Subramaniam and Rebecca Herzig. It will be available in December 2016.
Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities and the Gender + Women’s Studies Department
Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Point Steel Mill
Film screening and conversation
Location
Performing Arts & Humanities Building : 132
Date & Time
November 15, 2016, 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Description
Michelle Stefano, Visiting Assistant Professor, American Studies, UMBC, and Co-Director, Maryland Traditions
Bill Shewbridge, Professor of the Practice, Media & Communication Studies, and Executive Producer, New Media Studio, UMBC
For 125 years, tens of thousands of steelworkers and associated personnel knew Sparrows Point Steel Mill in Baltimore, Maryland not only as a place of employment, but as the center of community life, with special importance, in the company towns of Dundalk and Sparrows Point. Created by the Pennsylvania Steel Company in 1887, and taken over by Bethlehem Steel in 1916, the mill became the world’s largest center for producing steel and for shipbuilding. As a key production site during both World Wars, Sparrows Point peaked during the 1960s, and saw a gradual decline in the decades that followed. Nonetheless, this is a story that lives on and, most importantly, needs to be told by those who know it best.
In 2012, Sparrows Point Steel Mill closed forever. Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Point Steel Mill presents a collection of personal stories based on over 30 ethnographic interviews collected at the time of the mill's closing. The film seeks to amplify the voices of former workers as a means of helping to safeguard and promote the living heritage of the recently closed mill and its surrounding areas.
Bio:
William Shewbridge is Professor of the Practice in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at UMBC. He is Founding Director and Executive Producer of UMBC’s New Media Studio, and holds a Doctor of Communication Design (D.C.D. from the University of Baltimore.
Michelle L. Stefano, Ph.D., is Co-Director of Maryland Traditions, the folklife program of the Maryland State Arts Council, as well as a Visiting Assistant Professor in American Studies at UMBC.
Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the American Studies Department, and the Media and Communication Studies Department
Webb Lecture: Wretched Girls and Wretched Boys
The Medieval Origins of the "European Marriage Pattern"
Location
Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn
Date & Time
November 10, 2016, 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Description
Judith Bennett, John R. Hubbard Professor Emerita, University of Southern California
Championed by Nike, the United Nations, and many NGOs, the "Girl Effect," a new buzzword in development theory, argues that that economies grow when girls marry later and get more schooling. This lecture skeptically explores its historical equivalent, namely, the notion that because after 1500 European girls began to marry later than their peers elsewhere, "Girlpower" drove the extraordinary economic development of modern Europe. Professor Bennett will show, first, that women began to marry later (or not at all) in Europe long before 1500, and, second, that the impetus for this distinctive "European Marriage Pattern" was abject poverty, not prudential investment in the human potential of girls.
Bio: Judith Bennett taught women's history and medieval history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Southern California. Her publications include the best-selling textbook Medieval Europe: A Short History; History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism; and Single women in the European Past, a pathbreaking collection of essays co-edited with UMBC historian Amy Froide. During her university career, Bennett has received numerous teaching awards, research fellowships, and publication prizes. She now divides her time between Portland, Oregon and London, England.
Sponsored by the History Department and the Dresher Center for the Humanities
W. E. B. Du Bois Lecture
From Black Lives Matter to the 2016 Elections
Location
University Center : Ballroom
Date & Time
November 9, 2016, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Description
From Black Lives Matter to the 2016 Elections: The Future of Black Politics
Cathy J. Cohen, David and Mary Winton Green Professor and Chair, Political Science, the University of Chicago
With the end of the Obama presidency in sight and the continuation of the Black Lives Matter movement, many wonder what black politics will look like after President Obama leaves office. Cathy Cohen will discuss the future of black politics in light of electoral vs. protest tensions, generational differences, and an increasing class bifurcation in black communities. Is a radical black politics rooted outside the electoral system possible or will the incorporation and the election of black politicians overwhelm the future of black politics?
Bio: Cathy J. Cohen is the David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science, and is chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Cohen has served as the Deputy Provost for Graduate Education and is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. Cohen is a sought-after speaker on topics related to women and politics, lesbian and gay politics, and social movements. She is the author of numerous academic journal articles and the books Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics (Oxford University Press 2010), and The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (University of Chicago Press 1999). She is co-editor with Kathleen Jones and Joan Toronto of Women Transforming Politics: An Alternative Reader (NYU, 1997).
Sponsored by the Africana Studies Department; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; the Political Science Department; the Social Sciences Forum; the American Studies Department; the Gender and Women's Studies Department; and the Student Life's Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity and Interfaith Center.
Michael Eric Dyson: The Black Presidency
Obama Effect 2.0 Conference keynote
Location
Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn : 7th Floor
Date & Time
October 27, 2016, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Description
Michael Eric Dyson, University Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University, and radio host
In “The Black Presidency,” Michael Eric Dyson will explore the role of race in shaping Barack Obama’s identity and groundbreaking presidency. With the overwhelming number of tragic deaths of young, Black males at the hands of police officers, President Obama has had to deal publicly with race in ways previous presidents have not. What can we learn from Obama's remarks, major speeches, and responses to recent incidents about his approach to racial conflict? Dyson explores issues of identity, race, and culture by listening to President Obama's own voice, as well as those closely surrounding him.
Bio: Michael Eric Dyson is University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. He is a best-selling author of several books, including April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King's Death and How it Changed America (2008), and Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (2006). Considered one of the nation's most renowned public intellectuals, Dyson is a political analyst on MSNBC and writes an op-ed column for The New York Times.
This public lecture is part of the Obama Effect 2.0 Conference at UMBC. Sponsored by the American Studies Department; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Language, Literacy, and Culture Program; the Africana Studies Department; the Sociology, Anthropology, and Health Administration and Policy Department; the History Department; the Global Studies Department; the English Department; the Media and Communication Studies Department; and the Student Life's Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity.
Location
Performing Arts & Humanities Building : Dresher Center conference room
Date & Time
October 20, 2016, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Description
Please join us for the
HUMANITIES SCHOLARS PROGRAM RECEPTION
October 20, Thursday, from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Dresher Center for the Humanities Conference Room
(2nd floor of the Performing Arts & Humanities Building)
The reception is a great opportunity to get to know many of our Humanities Scholars.
In keeping with tradition, we will have the Big Buddies (veteran Humanities Scholars) introduce
and tell us a little bit about their Little Buddies, the new Humanities Scholars cohort.
Ancient Studies Week
Demopolis: Democracy, Legitimacy, and Civic Education
Location
Library and Gallery, Albin O. Kuhn : 7th Floor
Date & Time
October 12, 2016, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Description
Josiah Ober, Constantine Mitsotakis Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Political Science, and Professor of Classics, Stanford University
The ancient Greek definition of democracy was “collective self-government by citizens.” Is that still valid today? To answer that question, imagine a socially diverse population, inhabiting a defined territory; call it Demopolis. Demopolis contains rich and poor, liberals, and religious believers of various faiths. Its residents disagree on many things. But they agree that they want a state that is secure, prosperous, and not ruled by an autocrat. The founders of Demopolis can create democratic rules for their state, but they must persuade future generations that it is worth paying the costs of maintaining the rules. The rules must enable the founder-citizens and their descendants to enforce and, when necessary, to change, those self-same rules. The citizens must, therefore, be willing and able to act as a collective agent. Once the rules are in place, citizens must have good reason to obey them. And because each citizen must participate as a civically- engaged member of the community, costs in time and effort are high. Demopolis’s legitimacy demands that its citizens actively support the constitutional order. The goal of democracy, ancient or modern, is achieved only through civic education – a persuasive and rationally defensible argument for the value of self-government.
Bio: Josiah Ober is the author of Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens, Democracy and Knowledge, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, and other books. His work focuses on the history and practice of self-governing organizations (ancient and modern), on the circulation of knowledge in democratic societies, and on the interplay between political philosophy and culture. Ober holds the Constantine Mitsotakis Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, where he divides his time between the Departments of Classics and Political Science. He previously taught at Princeton and at Montana State University.
Sponsored by the Ancient Studies Department, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Philosophy Department, and the Political Science Department.
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