Annual Report 2014-2015
1 Introduction
PAL seeks to make a strong interdisci- plinary contribution to the humanities at Duke. In 2014-15 we worked particu- larly hard to support the writing lives of Toril Moi our graduate students. With the help of Director for PAL, 2009-present James B. Duke Professor of Literature Heather Gates (History) we co-ordinated and Romance Studies and sponsored writing groups for over 50 graduate students. We ran a monthly series of workshops on writing. In spring, our writing events culminated in PAL’s third “Writing Is Thinking” Workshop, headlined by Verlyn Klinkenborg. PAL 2014-15 PAL organized a reading group on Han- in numbers nah Arendt. A panel of graduate stu- Writing Groups dents responded to Mark Greif’s presen- 10 tation of his book The Age of the Crisis of Man. We sponsored talks by our young international visitors, Salla Peltonen and 6 Years of PAL Corina Stan, with responses by Duke at Duke graduate students. PAL’s Graduate Cer- tificate continues to attract students 23 Speakers from across the humanities. PAL also launched a new series on in- tellectual women. In the fall we had a 2 Graduate symposium on on Mme du Châtelet and student parties Mary Wollstonecraft; in spring one on Hannah Arendt.
2 As usual, we sponsored lectures in In 2014-15 we welcomed the first philosophy and the arts: The distin- two PAL/FHI Seminars on “Concepts, guished art historian Keith Moxey Figures, Art Forms,” sponsored by the shared his thoughts on time and art, Mellon Foundation: Bruce Matthews (one of Duke’s Hu- • Whose Kafka? led by Saskia Zi- manities Writ Large olkowski and Kata Gellen. fellows) presented “PAL seeks to make a • The Novel, led by Nancy Schelling’s vision of strong interdisciplinary Armstrong and Erdag the University, and contribution to the hu- Goknar. the renowned literary manities at Duke” In 2015-16 we will con- critic Derek Attridge tinue the “Intellectual discussed literature Women” series, sponsor in history. We ended the year with more writing-focused events, and, a symposium on the philosopher J. not least, host PAL’s fourth Young L. Austin with Sandra Laugier (Sor- Scholars Workshop on literature, eth- bonne), Estelle Ferrarèse (Stras- ics, and philosophy, with Niklas Fors- bourg), and Sarah Beckwith (Duke). berg (Uppsala) and Nora Hämäläinen On the invitation of then Dean Laurie (Helsinki). Patton, PAL set up a working group I hope to see many of you at our on Humanities education for under- events this year! graduates, and sponsored a sympo- sium on teaching in the humanities October 2015 today, with Paula Findlen (Stanford), Sean Kelly (Harvard), and James Toril Moi Director of PAL Simpson (Harvard).
3 PAL 2014-2015
4 Index Introduction 1 Intellectual Women Series 6 PAL Lectures 7 PAL Symposia 8 PAL for Graduate Students 10 Writing is Thinking 14 PAL Forums 16 Co-sponsored events 18 PAL and FHI seminars 20 Graduate Student Staff 21
5 Intellectual Women Series
October 2 The Making and Unmaking of Women’s Intellectual Reputations Mme du Châtelet and Mary Wollstonecraft
Karen Detlefsen Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania Andrew Janiak Philosophy, Duke Angela Maione Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities Bard College
April 9 Hannah Arendt
Lori Marso Political Science, Gender Studies Union College Ella Myers Political Science, Gender Studies University of Utah
6 PAL Lectures
October 23 Imagining the Time of Art’s Histories A lecture by Keith Moxey
Moxey is Barbara Novak Professor of Art History at Barnard College and Columbia University. He is the author of Visual Time: The Image in History (2013).
November 13 Envisioning the Modern University: Schelling’s Jena Lectures A lecture by Bruce Matthews Matthews was a 2014-2015 Humanities Writ Large Visiting Fellow at Duke. He discussed the fragmen- tation and specialization of the disciplines within the university.
January 15 The Work of Literature: Event, Invention, History A Lecture by Derek Attridge Attridge presented a section of his forthcoming book, “The Work of Literature.” Attridge teaches at the University of York and is a Fellow of the British Academy.
7 PAL Symposia
January 30
Undergraduate Education and the Humanities A Symposium for humanities faculty
Paula Findlen History, Stanford Sean Kelly Philosophy, Harvard James Simpson English, Harvard
PAL was invited by Dean Laurie Patton to be the home for a conversation with Duke Humanities Faculty on undergraduate cur- riculum and the humanities. PAL hosted a symposium and faculty discussion with experts from other institu- tions that run special liberal arts programs. A committee of faculty members are work- ing on a proposal for an intensive liberal arts program for Duke undergraduates.
8 April 21
J.L. Austin now A Symposium
Sandra Laugier Philosophy, Paris Sorbonne Estelle Ferrarese Political Science, Strasburg Sarah Beckwith English, Duke
9 PAL for Graduate Students
September 3 Happy Hour kick-off party At PAL’s first party of the year, we introduced the PAL Writing Groups and the PAL Certificate to the graduate student commu- nity. We served signature cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at this fun bash.
Running from Fall 2014 to Spring 2015 Writing Groups PAL hosted 10 graduate student writing groups with more than 50 participants. Groups crossed disciplinary boundaries and across the stages of graduate coursework and writing.
Running Spring 2015 Reading Group on Hannah Arendt A community of graduate students and faculty read and dis- cussed from The Portable Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, and other Arendt texts
Responses to invited speakers Six graduate students from various departments presented or re- sponded at PAL’s events in 2014-2015: Salla Peltonen (Women’s Studies, PAL Visiting Scholar), Justin Mitchell (English), Myles Oldershaw (English), Jacob Soule (Literature), Brian Valentyn (English, Thompson Writing Program) and Heather Wallace (Phi- losophy)
10 PAL strives to provide a relaxed yet intellectually exciting at- mosphere, in which graduate students are invited to come to- gether across disciplinary boundaries to explore questions of common interest. You don’t have to be committed to any of PAL’s core fields to find PAL a welcoming space. PAL encour- ages graduate students to come together to read and write, and to discuss works of intellectual interest in many disciplines.
11 PAL Graduate Certificate
The PAL Graduate Certificate seeks to connect the study of specific works of art and specific art forms (e.g., literature, music, theater, painting, film) to ques- tions concerning creativity, the nature of specific art forms, the relationship be- tween knowledge and art, and between ethics and aesthetics.
The Certificate aims to make students conversant with philosophical reflections on literature and the arts. The Certificate seeks to foster an understanding of the historical nature of different art forms, and of aesthetics and philosophy, and to encourage exploration of philosophy, art and literature from different historical periods.
The Certificate is designed to provide students with a firm grounding in the research skills required to enable them to intervene in contemporary debates within the field and to encourage them to consider their own field of study from an inter- or cross-disciplinary approach.
For more information www.dukepal.org/certificate 12 PAL Graduate Certificate Steering Committee
Sarah Beckwith Owen Flanagan Neil McWilliam Professor of English and James B. Duke Professor Walter H. Annenberg Pro- Theater Studies; Chair of of Philosophy; Professor of fessor of Art History Theater Studies Neurobiology
Toril Moi Thomas Pfau Jacqueline Waeber James B. Duke Professor Alice Mary Baldwin Associate Professor of of Literature and Romance Professor and Eads Family Music Studies; Professor of Philos- Professor of English and ophy, English and Theater German; DGS-German studies Studies
13 Writing is Thinking
PAL Writing is Thinking 2015
PAL’s 3rd Biennial Writing is Thinking included our usual two-day workshop for the Duke community. This year we also introduced Graduate Student Writing Groups and monthly workshops on the writing process. We had a record number of partici- pants with more than 50 applications to join writing groups!
Graduate Students writing groups
PAL supported over 50 graduate students in forming in writing groups. We hosted in-person feedback groups and online accountability groups. Participants came from a variety of departments including History, Music, English, Literature, Cultural Anthropology, and Philosophy.
Workshop series on writing Workshop leaders:
• How to Start a Writing Group • Kristen Neuschel • The Writing Process • Jennifer Ahern-Dodson • How to move from Research to Drafting • Sarah Beckwith • Several Short Sentences on Writing •Toril Moi
14 Workshop with Verlyn Klinkenborg
Verlyn Klinkenborg was Writing is Think- ing’s 2015 keynote speaker. Klinkenborg is the author of Several Short Sentences About Writing (2012), and More Scenes From the Rural Life (2013). He is the re- cipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow- ship and was a member of the New York Times editorial board from 1997 to 2013. He teaches at Yale University. Mr. Klinkenborg lives in rural New York state.
During his visit to PAL, Klinkenborg met individually with participants in PAL Writing Groups and made two presenta- tions: March 19 The Writer at Work March 20 The Language of Place
Supported by Graduate students read Klinkenborg’s book “Several Short Sentences on Writing” (graciously provided by the Thompson Writing Program) in the semester prior to his visit. 15 PAL Forums
February 19 Reflections on the Posthuman A PAL forum with Salla Peltonen
Peltonan, PAL Visiting Scholar, presented a Witt- gensteinian view on discussions of the posthuman in feminist theory.
February 10 How to Live with Others A talk by PAL Visiting Scholar Corina Stan
Stan presented a paper on the concept of interper- sonal distance in Barthes, Murdoch, and Orwell.
16 April 21 The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933-1973 Presentation by Mark Grief
A book presentation by the author with graduate student respondents Co-sponsored by PAL and FHI
November 5 Screening of Blade Runner (1982 dir. Ridley Scott)
The 1982 American neo-noir science fiction cult movie directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer
17 Co-sponsored Events
February 20 Faculty Bookwatch: Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel A panel discussion on Srinivas Aravamudan’s Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel (University of Chicago Press, 2011).
Presented by the Franklin Humanities Institute and Duke University Libraries. Co-Sponsored by English, Romance Studies, the Program in Literature, and The Center for Art, Philosophy and Literature (PAL) at Duke University.
February 20 Presentation by Dr. Philip J. Ivanhoe: The Contemporary Significance of Confucian Views about the Ethical Values of Music Co-sponsored by PAL and the Center for Comparative Philosophy
Ivanhoe presented a chapter of his forthcoming book. He described some of the ways that Confusians thought music was critical for personal and social wellbe- ing.
18 19 PAL and FHI Seminars
Concepts, Figures, Art, Forms
The “Concepts, Figures, Art Forms” collabora- tion between PAL and FHI is a central element of a new series of FHI Seminars in Historical, Global, and Emerging Humanities, a 3-year initiative generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation concerned with the state and direction of the humanities in the light of the interdisciplinary developments of recent decades.
Whose Kafka? Multiplicity, Reception, and Interpretation Saskia Ziolkowski Kata Gellen
The Novel Nancy Armstrong Erdag Goknar
Supported by
20 PAL Graduate Student Staff
Heather Wallace Filippo Screpanti David Berka Assistant Director Graphic Design Assistant
Jack Bell Heather Gates Assistant Writing group coordinator
21 In Memoriam
Kaila Brown Assistant Director for PAL, 2010-2013 PAL’s sixth year began in tragedy. We still mourn the loss of PAL’s longtime assistant, Kaila Brown, who died in September 2014. This annual report is dedicated to her memory.
Kaila was luminous. She shone with passion for literature, and for ideas. She was everyone’s favorite student. I was privileged to be allowed to work with her for five years. Our hearts go out to Kaila’s friends and fam- ily. — Toril Moi
Kaila Brown was a beautiful soul, illuminated by her capacious loves–for books, for thinking, for dance and theatre–and above all, for others. She was funny, quick-minded, full of wit, spunk and spark. She was a catalyst for others. I am so sad to lose her. — Sarah Beckwith
Kaila carried the banner for PAL while Toril was on leave. She was a model for me in how to host a rich intellectual community through attention to detail, grace, good spirits, and passionate inquiry. She shaped us in indel- ible ways. — Heather Wallace
22 23 PAL Center for Philosophy, Arts and Literature Duke University
B184 Smith Warehouse, Bay 5, 1st Floor Box 90403 114 S. Buchanan Blvd. Durham, NC 27708 [email protected] www.dukepal.org
24