Higginsclark University Higgins School of Humanities

fall15 CALENDAR OF EVENTS Clark University Higgins School of Humanities Higgins LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR I’m only human. I say that a lot: when I can’t get through my to-do list, when I make a mistake, when I am overwhelmed by circumstance or emotion. It takes the pressure off, lowers expectations, creates room for forgiveness. It’s a funny expression. Only human. It suggests something small, fallible, powerless — implying that we know fully what being human entails. This semester, we will explore the meanings of our own humanity. Together, we will consider the relationship between humans and the natural world, the built environment, technology, and one another. We will reflect on shifting understandings of race and sex; trace changing attitudes toward faith, science, and mortality; and question evolving meanings of intelligence and emotion. To frame our conversations, we will hear from religious and environmental scholar Mary Evelyn Tucker on the place of humans in the story of the universe; neuroscientist Emile Bruneau on the brain’s role in empathy; wearable computing pioneer and human cyborg Thad Starner on how computers make us more human; writer and transgender rights activist Janet Mock on growing up multiracial, poor, and transgender in America; and artist and curator Joanna www.clarku.edu/higgins Ebenstein on spectacle, death, and the body. Two new team-taught courses will explore our theme in different contexts: Professors Gino DiIorio (Theater), Ora Szekely (Political Science), and Kristen Williams (Political Science) will teach “Art and Empathy: Humanizing the >> Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” and Professors Betsy Huang (English) and Scott Hendricks (Philosophy) will offer “Science Fiction and the Mind of the Other.” Finally, Across the Table, an exhibit by photographer Stephen DiRado, will fill the Higgins Lounge with images reminding us of the intimacy and beauty of everyday human interactions. As always, many members of the Clark community helped frame the scope and content of our public programming. I am grateful to Denise Humphreys Bebbington, Sarah Buie, Michael Butler, Sarah Cushman, Eric DeMeulenaere, Gino DiIorio, Stephen DiRado, John Garton, Toby Sisson, Kristen Williams, and Walter Wright for participating in the early brainstorming. Thanks also to Gino DiIorio, Jay Elliott, and Jennifer Plante for delivering another evening of scary stories. I am grateful to Jennifer Plante for joining me in a community conversation and to Barbara Bigelow, Sarah Buie, Eric DeMeulenaere, Patty Ewick and Walter Wright for helping us celebrate ten years of Difficult Dialogues at Clark. The Higgins School appreciates the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s generous support. All best for a wonderful semester, FALL 2015 EVENTS 2015 FALL AMY RICHTER Director, Higgins School of Humanities NEWS & NOTES FROM HUMANITIES FACULTY news&note Judith Wagner DeCew (Philosophy) SunHee Kim Gertz (English) published Meredith Neuman (English) researched published “The Feminist Critique of “Das Wunder von Obama: A More a new book project on early American Privacy — Past Arguments and New Perfect Union and the German Soccer poetry while on fellowship at the Library Social Understandings,” in Social Championship of 1954” in Obama Company of Philadelphia and the Dimensions of Privacy (Cambridge and Transnational American Studies Historical Society of Pennsylvania. University Press, 2015). (Universitätsverlag Winter Heidelberg, 2015). Robert Tobin (Language, Literature and Wes DeMarco (Philosophy) presented Culture) spoke on “Father-Son Love in “The Neuropragmatics of Freedom: Benjamin Korstvedt (Visual and Freud and Soseki” at the 2015 Congress Comment on Cahoone’s ‘Self- Social- or Performing Arts) lectured on the political of the International Association of Neural Determination?’” at the 2015 afterlives of Anton Bruckner and Gustav German Studies in Shanghai. meeting of the Metaphysical Society of Mahler at the Institute for Aesthetics America at the University of Georgia. of Music at the University of Music and Kristina Wilson (Visual and Performing Performing Arts Graz in Austria. Arts) published “Like a ‘Girl in a Bikini John Garton (Visual and Performing Suit’ and Other Stories: The Herman Arts) spoke at the Boston Museum Thomas Kühne (History/Strassler Center) Miller Company, Gender, and Race at of Fine Arts in conjunction with the convened a panel at the International Mid-Century” in the summer 2015 drawings exhibition Leonardo da Vinci Network of Genocide Scholars conference issue of the Journal of Design History. and the Idea of Beauty. His research in Cape Town, South Africa, exploring She presented a paper on the topic at was supported by the Higgins School how 19th-century European colonialism the Newberry Library American Art and of Humanities and the National and imperialism shaped the Holocaust Visual Culture Seminar in May. Endowment for the Humanities. and other genocides. Getting Real about Climate Change at Clark Getting real about the climate challenge has been the focus of two exceptional conversations hosted by the Higgins School in the last eighteen months. The question of what “getting real” implies for the work of the University also has intensified, given these conversations and the Climate Change Teach-In they inspired. The firstCouncil on the Uncertain Human Future took place over 2014, bringing together twelve leading female scholars, writers, and artists with expertise on and a deep concern about the potentially catastrophic implications of climate change. With support from the Andrew W. Mellon and Kaiser Family Foundations, the original Council met in three two-day retreats to exchange perspectives on the core questions: what is happening and why; what are the implications; and how do we wish to conduct ourselves in the face of these grave challenges? Each session drew from the expertise of a guest speaker — geologist Daniel Schrag, Director of the Center for the Environment at Harvard; artist and architect Maya Lin (via video); and award-winning author Rebecca Solnit. For more information, visit www.clarku.edu/higgins and click on the “Council on the Uncertain Human Future” initiative. A second Council was held in winter 2015. This local UHF Council was co- facilitated by Ellen Foley (Interim Director of IDCE) and Sarah Buie (Senior Associate and Past Director of the Higgins School). The group included Clark faculty members Cynthia Caron, Jody Emel, Anita Fabos, Barbara Goldoftas, Ken MacLean, Amy Richter, Dianne Rocheleau, and Walter Wright. (left to right): President David Angel with Teach-In participants Susanne Moser, Sarah Buie, Ellen Foley, Chris Williams, and Anthony Bebbington. (Photo: Jane Salerno) The Council members, along with a Teach-In steering committee that included Chuck Agosta, Michelle Bata, Mary-Ellen Boyle, Tim Downs, Jude Fernando, Jim Gomes, Jenny Isler, Rob Johnston, Greg Trencher, and Chris Williams, were instrumental in supporting the Climate Change Teach-In on March 26, 2015. Spearheaded by Professors Buie, Foley, and Rocheleau, the event featured sessions by forty-five faculty members, keynote talks by climate scientist Susanne Moser (PhD ’97) and ecologist Christopher Uhl (Penn State), and a Council session. Over six hundred members of the community participated. Learn more at https://climatechangeteachin.wordpress.com/. Discussions about how Clark will engage with this unprecedented issue are moving forward. There are plans to host additional local Councils, create a faculty forum around a series of climate-related public events, and hold a second Teach-In on Wednesday, March 23, 2016. i’m trying to say something about the human condition maybe i should try again — NIKKI GIOVANNI p > 1. DIALOGUE SYMPOSIUMbeing human DIALOGUE SYMPOSIUM FALL 2015 Being Human “What does it mean to be human?” While this question has long undergirded the humanities, today it possesses a sense of urgency that transcends academic disciplines. In popular and mass media, conversations about gender, race, and age lay bare the historic and cultural limits placed on human dignity and rights, challenging us to create more inclusive frameworks. Climate science, genetics, artificial intelligence, and medicine are just a few examples of areas transforming — and destabilizing — traditional boundaries of “the human.” Shifting from one context to the next, we seem simultaneously more and less limited by the natural world of which we are a part. Embracing the possible disembodiment of human consciousness, knowledge, and subjectivity, some even imagine that we are post-human. This semester, our dialogue symposium takes up the timely and timeless question of our own humanity: What does it mean to be human right now? What has it meant in the past? What might it mean in the future? Together we will seek to describe and understand experiences that are both unique and universal. Perhaps it is this effort, less than its result, that ultimately will define what it means to be human. p > 1. www.clarku.edu/higgins p > 3. DIALOGUE SYMPOSIUMbeing human community conversation BEING HUMAN Facilitated by Jennifer Plante (Academic Advising) and Amy Richter (History) What does it mean to be human? This is a question we are all here to explore — in our educations and throughout our lives. We seek answers in evolution, psychology, and faith. Artists, philosophers, poets, and historians grapple to give form to experiences that are simultaneously unique and universal. In this community conversation, we will consider what it means to be

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