2020 Grinnell Lecture Booklet
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GRINNELL LECTURE: A CELEBRATION OF FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP 2020 Honored Grinnell Lecturer VANCE L. BYRD Associate Professor of German Studies Frank and Roberta Furbush Scholar in German Studies The Grinnell Lecture recognizes a distinguished body of scholarly work, including artistic production and/or performance, that makes a significant contribution to one’s field or has a broad impact on the scholarly community. The Sixth Annual GRINNELL LECTURE Presented by the Office of the Dean of the College FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020 Harris Center, Grinnell College 4:30 p.m. Reception Harris Center Lobby 5:15 p.m. Grinnell Lecture VANCE L. BYRD Associate Professor of German Studies Frank and Roberta Furbush Scholar in German Studies Harris Center Cinema Dinner to Follow Harris Center Concert Hall PERFORMANCE BY THE GRINNELL COLLEGE MARIMBA ENSEMBLE Aidan Danbury ’21, Victoria Harrison ’23, David Jin ’21, Robbie Shore ’22, Declan O’Reilly ’21, John Zbaracki ’20 Stacey Ramirez, Director HONORED LECTURER Vance L. Byrd Associate Professor of German Studies Frank and Roberta Furbush Scholar in German Studies Vance Byrd is an accomplished scholar and teacher He received a prestigious New Directions Fellowship who has provided outstanding service to his field, his from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for 2019–21. students, and Grinnell College since 2007. This grant gives highly accomplished faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences Byrd began his postsecondary education at the resources to conduct interdisciplinary research on the University of Georgia, earning a bachelor of arts problems that interest them most. He has enrolled in degree magna cum laude in history and German in the graduate program in art history at Northwestern 1999. He received a Jewell Miles Burson Scholarship University, which has strengths in theoretical for study abroad at the University of Erlangen- approaches to global black art, performance studies, Nuremberg and was recognized as the Wilcox Scholar and object-based art historical methods. He will use for the Outstanding Undergraduate Major in the this specialized training to write a second book on German Department. During his final semester at the origins of global commemorative culture and its Georgia, he studied at the University of Rostock in relationship to the contested histories of nationalism Germany. His academic excellence was acknowledged and racism since the 19th century. by his induction to the honor societies Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Delta Phi Alpha. He won In his first monograph, A Pedagogy of Observation: a Fulbright teaching assistantship for Germany and Nineteenth-Century Panoramas, German Literature, studied German literature and linguistics at the and Reading Culture, Byrd investigates how print University of Bonn before entering graduate school culture captures how Germans took cues from their at the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn he held observations and interpretation of space at panorama William Fontaine and Flora Haney Fellowships and shows to develop new ways to organize and produce received generous support from the PEW Charitable knowledge. He demonstrates how Germans entered Trusts, the Linguistic Society of America, the an experiential realm through the immersive act Jusserand Traveling Fund, the Classics Foundation of reading about panoramas in broadsides, fashion Weimar, and the Max Kade Foundation. He received a journals, newspapers, travel guidebooks, and in novels teaching fellowship in the programs of contemporary and short stories. Reading about panoramas fostered and critical writing, coordinated first- and second- critical engagement with modern life in the early year German language courses, and taught German nineteenth century well before modernity could be at the Free University in Berlin, The Wharton experienced in full force in Central Europe. School, Drexel University, and the German Society In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, of Pennsylvania. He received the Dean’s Award for Byrd has co-edited a book titled Market Strategies and Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students in German Literature in the Long Nineteenth Century with the School of Arts and Sciences. Before coming to Ervin Malakaj (University of British Columbia) and Grinnell College, he worked in Berlin as an editorial a special journal issue with Sean Franzel (University assistant at Internationale Politik – Transatlantic of Missouri-Columbia) that addresses what it Edition, the quarterly English-language journal of the means to encounter canonical German literature German Council on Foreign Relations. Byrd earned his in their original publication venues in newspapers doctorate in Germanic languages and literatures from and magazines rather than in book form. Byrd is the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. also co-editor of a journal issue with Matthew H. Byrd is a scholar of nineteenth-century German Birkhold (Ohio State University) that examines how literature who investigates how literary and print knowledge about the environment was generated, culture intersect with the history of visual media. He transmitted, and represented in nineteenth-century has published on topics related to the history of books German literature. He is currently preparing a co- and periodicals, critical race theory, museum studies, edited volume titled Before Photography: German Visual environmental humanities, commemoration, and Culture in the Nineteenth Century with Kirsten Belgum graphic novels. (University of Texas at Austin) and John Benjamin (West Point). Byrd has been an active participant in book and print of German. Most recently, he was appointed to history workshops in the United States, Germany, the Executive Committee of the Association of and the United Kingdom. His further professional Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL), a part of development has been supported by grants from the the Modern Language Association that advocates for Classics Foundation Weimar and the Quadrangle language, literature, and cultural studies communities Historical Research Foundation, and he participated in the United States and Canada. He was elected to in a Fulbright Commission Seminar for American the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Faculty in German Studies. He is very grateful for the American Friends of the German Literature Archive generous support the Frank and Roberta Furbush in Marbach, one of the most important institutions Scholar funds have offered, as well as the continued for conducting source criticism on German literary support provided by the Grinnell Dean’s Office and and intellectual history from 1750 until today. the Committee on Support of Faculty Scholarship. He has also been elected director-at-large of the Goethe Society of North America and to the Modern He has been invited to lecture at Adalbert-Stifter- Language Association’s Executive Committee on Haus in Linz (Austria), Amherst College, University of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, as well as to that Bremen, University of Chicago, Columbia University, organization’s delegate assembly. Byrd was appointed Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Gettysburg to the German Studies Association Conference College, University of Kentucky-Lexington, University program committee and served on the selection of Marburg (Germany), University of Minnesota, committee of the German Academic Exchange Service Northwestern University, Notre Dame, Ohio State (DAAD) and German Studies Association Book Prize, University, the Punahou School, Reed College, as well as the Goethe Society of North America Essay University of Texas at Austin, Wabash College, Award. He was a member of the National Endowment Washington University in St. Louis, and University of for the Humanities Global Book Histories Initiative Wisconsin-Madison. fellowship selection committee, which helped As a teacher, Byrd has served his students and the support non-Western and immigrant book history and College with great distinction. In addition to being a bibliography as well as people from underrepresented passionate teacher of German language, literatures, groups who want to attend Rare Book School. and cultures, he has directed and co-directed Byrd was nominated and selected by his peers to be Mentored Advanced Projects on topics such as honored on Feb. 21, 2020, at the sixth annual Grinnell Orientalism in German Literature, Translation and Belonging, Digital Amanas, and Euro-Africana Studies. Lecture. Some of his advisees have gone on to pursue graduate studies at the University of Chicago, University of Cambridge, Northwestern University, and Georgetown University. Byrd has taken students to conduct archival research in Germany. Most recently, he taught an interdisciplinary course with Jeremy Chen (Studio Art) on print history and printmaking. At Grinnell College, Byrd has served on Executive Council, as chair of the Humanities Division, as interim director of the Center for the Humanities, as co-chair of the Faculty and Staff of Color Caucus, and as a representative to the ACM Minority Concerns Committee. Byrd also provides distinguished service to the profession. He has been president of the Iowa chapter of the American Association of Teachers 3 IN MEMORIAM Jonathan M. “Jackie” Brown Professor of Biology, Grinnell College, 1995–2019 Jackie Brown’s research explored the evolution of ecological interactions in arthopods. He was particularly interested in how changes in these interactions are associated with the formation of new