Annual Report of the Jackman Humanities Institute 2019-2020
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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE JACKMAN HUMANITIES INSTITUTE 2019-2020 FLORENCE VALE, PREGNANT BIRD, 1961. WATERCOLOUR AND COLLAGE, 15.24X12.065 CM. GIFT BY BEQUEST OF DOROTHY MACPHERSON, 1995. THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE COLLECTION TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. The Jackman Humanities Institute in 2019-2020 1.1. Annual Theme: Strange Weather 1 1.2. Art at the Institute: Weather Amnesia, curated by Yuluo Wei 2 2. Message from the Director 3 3. New Activities in 2019-2020 5 4. Humanities at Large 7 4.1. Pillar One -- Writing Workshop 4.2. Pillar Two -- Social Media trainings 30-31 January, David Perry 4.3. Pillar Three -- Community-Engaged Workshops 4.4. Pillar Four -- Talking Books 4.5. Pillar Five -- Outreach to High Schools 4.6. Pillar Six -- Public Radio 4.7. Fellows and Staffing: see reports under Fellows (6.4 and 6.7) 4.8. Communications initiatives: newsletter, social media (report by Sonja) 5. Research Communities 13 5.1. Aesthetic Education: A South-North Dialogue 5.2. Digital Humanities Network 5.2.1. JHI-DHN Postdoctoral Fellow, Andrew S. Brown (report below, 6.7) 5.3. Scholars-in-Residence 5.4. Critical Zones 6. UT-Mississauga and UT-Scarborough 31 6.1. JHI-UTM Annual Seminar, Dealing with Fragmentary Evidence from Greco-Roman Antiquity 6.2. JHI-UTSC Digital Humanities Early Career Faculty Fellowship, Kenzie Burchell 7. Circle of Fellows 35 7.1. Overview 7.2. Distinguished Visiting Indigenous Faculty Fellow, Heidi Stark 7.3. Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Amitav Ghosh 7.4. Public Humanities Faculty Fellow, Daniel McNeil 7.5. Artist in Residence, Public Studio 7.6. Faculty Research Fellows 7.7. Postdoctoral Fellows 7.8. Graduate Fellows 7.9. Undergraduate Fellows 7.10. News from Alumni Fellows 7.11. Research presentations from 6- month Fellows alumni 8. Program for the Arts 70 8.1. Overview of Activities and Chronological List of Events 8.2. Qaggiq: Gathering Place 8.3. Naturecolony 8.4. The Ends of Social Media 8.5. Talking about the Weather 8.6. Weather Soundings 8.7. Cinematic Climates 8.8. Strange Weather Symposium 8.9. Heeding The Messenger: Songbirds and the Scale of Climate Change 8.10. Dirty Laundry 9. Additional Activities 82 9.1. Wiegand Lecture, Andrew Hicks (Music, Cornell University) – “A Listener’s Guide to the Cosmos” 9.2. Marquee event with Ontario Institute for Studies in Education 10. Working Groups 84 10.1. Overview of Activities and List of Public Events 10.2. Bridging Disciplines in Manuscript Studies 10.3. Building Environmental Humanities at the University of Toronto 10.4. Entitlement 10.5. Imagining a Music-Theatre Curriculum at the University of Toronto 10.6. Jesuit History Research Group 10.7. Latin-American Racial Technologies through the 21st Century 10.8. Native Performance Culture in Deep Time 10.9. Planetary Resistance 10.10. Practices of Commentary 10.11. Rethinking Iranian Studies 10.12. Soundscapes at the University of Toronto 10.13. Tamil Studies 11. Looking Ahead 121 11.1. Annual Theme for 2020-2021: Collectives 11.2. Humanities at Large 11.3. Art at the Jackman Humanities Institute 11.4. Research Communities 11.5. JHI-UTM Annual Seminar and JHI-UTSC Digital Humanities Faculty Fellows 11.6. Fellowships in 2020-2021 11.7. Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts 11.8. Additional Activities 11.9. Jackman Humanities Institute Working Groups 12. Governance 149 12.1. Jackman Humanities Institute Governance 12.2. Advisory Board Members 12.3. Council of Humanities Institute Deans 12.4. International Humanities Advisory Board 1. The Jackman Humanities Institute in 2019-2020 Annual Theme: Strange Weather How might the humanities contribute to the critical discourse on energy and climate? The energy crisis is no longer simply about limited supplies but now concerns the very nature and place of energy in human life and society. Strange weather as symptom of changing climate destabilizes our trust in and certainty of our home (i.e. our planet) and provokes fantasies of control and of chaos. How can we help frame questions of environmental degradation, scientific knowledge and its popularization, especially in their relation to social equity, and societal futures? Overview of Activity It is difficult to write about this year without allowing the global COVID-19 pandemic to occupy centre stage. And yet, until mid-March 2020, the Jackman Humanities Institute was overseeing a very full year of discussions, events, art, and growth focused on the annual theme of Strange Weather. This was not the first year when an annual theme came with an immediate advocacy component; while our activities responded to environmental necessities, advocacy was not primarily the focus of the discussions in the Thursday fellows lunch meetings. The conversation circled around the idea of time, and the ways that humans can measure time: the length of a human life measured against the length of geological and climatic periods; the ways that humans have understood, depicted, and adapted to changing climates in previous historical periods; the ways that our ways of understanding time are shaped by our planet and its seasons. The visit of author Amitav Ghosh in October was transformative. His Canadian publisher, Penguin Canada, generously donated hardcover copies of his newest novel, Gun Island, to every fellow, and when his Thursday lunch arrived, a series of fortuitous coincidences led him to invite Dipesh Chakrabarty (History, University of Chicago), who was also visiting, into the fellows lunch, where we enjoyed the rare pleasure of engaging with two towering intellects; old friends who have each thought deeply about time and climate. The activities of the Mellon-funded project Humanities at Large enriched our experience at every turn. Daniel MacNeil (History, Carleton University) was a brilliant interlocutor whose questions always snapped our conversations into focus; and the addition of Khaled Abu Jayyad, our first archaeologist, proved invaluable in our frequent return to prehistory. We also hosted David Perry (staff member, History, University of Minnesota) who taught three sold-out classes in social media uses to a diverse crowd of faculty members, instructors, postdocs, graduate students and staff members in December. As the new year was getting underway, we were planning a new series of summer institutes for high school students. And then came the closure. Global crisis caught up with us before we reached the year’s end, and the University of Toronto was closed as of Monday 16 March 2020. All further in-person activities were cancelled. The remaining fellows’ lunches, which had been reserved late in the year for the undergraduate fellows, were moved to the online chat application, Slack. Most working group meetings were cancelled; some moved online. Some events that involved visiting speakers were postponed to the 2020-2021 year. A few events were presented in online format. Researchers who had been abroad were called home to Canada. All JHI staff members shifted to home offices and continued to work at their usual level of assigned hours. An enormous amount of research momentum was lost. So much that had been planned simply did not happen. This report records these losses in every section. A bright spot was Scholars-in-Residence, which went ahead in online format with great success. Finally, this was year five for each of our Research Communities. Having reached the end of our original funding commitments, each undertook a process of consideration of their future possibilities. The results are outlined in their individual reports; in short, the JHI will continue in a reduced form of partnership with each. As the result of our work with Strange Weather, and of the multiple working groups and funded events that came this year and before it, a new Research Community dedicated to the environment is taking shape under the title Critical Zones. 1 1.2. JHI Exhibition of Art Weather Amnesia 18 September 2019 – 15 March 2020 Curator: Yuluo Wei How often do we take note of the strange weather? With the onset of global climate change, weather patterns historically used by societies to anchor and From left to right: Barbara Fischer, Curator of the Art Museum, frame the concept of seasonality are becoming less Yuluo Wei, Curator of “Weather Amnesia” and Alison Keith, predictable and reliable. Traditional tales guiding Director, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Barry Roden, 2019 ideal preparation, planting and harvesting times lose their value as knowledge, and all life on earth, from insects to plants, from farmers to fishermen, and from insurance companies to industrial giants, are forced to evolve and accommodate to new circumstances. At the same time, the increasingly urban nature of our lives, with climate control and accessibility to global goods and services, effectively insulates us from change. Living within modernity's capacity and mechanics of control, it is easy to forget (and even deny) the abundant evidence of change outside. The artists’ works included in Weather Amnesia offer visual insight into the profound disruptions that are under way. With strangeness becoming the new normal, the exhibition makes us wonder and think about what kind of future awaits us. Artists Lisa Hirmer Tania Kitchell Doris McCarthy Rick McCarthy David Milne Graham Noble Norwell Walter Phillips Florence Vale with Mass Timber Live Bird Migration Map Hygrothermograph Supported by Canada Council Ontario Arts Council Art Museum of the University of Toronto This cross-laminated timber model of the Jackman Humanities Building was produced by the Mass Timber Institute at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. This material will be used to build the 14-storey academic tower planned above the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport. Photo: Barry Roden, 2019 2 2. MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE JACKMAN HUMANITIES INSTITUTE ALISON KEITH PROFESSOR OF CLASSICS 3 2.