Special Events Archive (2021-2022)

Monday, May 9th, 2022,  9 am- 3 pm, CDT

INVITATION

Artifact Earth

The Inaugural Workshop + Lecture of the Anthropocene Lab at UIC

Inauguration Event for the Anthropocene Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Monday, May 9th, 2022,  9 am- 3 pm, CDT

Hybrid Event (In-Person and Live on Zoom)

RSVP Link

https://forms.gle/8DDiwgMF6vtizaeL8

Please come and join us for the first event of the Anthropocene Lab at UIC, a newly founded initiative to provide a platform for collaboration among the arts, the humanities, and the sciences.

Co-sponsored by the Institute for the Humanities, the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, and the School of Art and Art History, UIC.

Lunch will be provided (by artist cook Erin Nixon from easy eats)

PROGRAM

Workshop (9 am-12 pm)

Planetary Practices & Knowledge Cultures – Experimentation – Interdisciplinarity – (see description below)

Great Space, UIC Art building, 400 S. Peoria Street, 5th floor

Featuring presentations by:

• Carlina Rossée Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
• John Kim Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
• Thomas Turnbull Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

Response by:

• Rachel Havrelock, Professor of English, and The Freshwater Lab, UIC

Moderators:

• Beate Geissler, Professor of Art, UIC
• Ömür Harmanşah, Associate Professor of Art History, UIC

11 am – 12 pm: Break-out Rooms and Discussion about what the Anthropocene Lab at UIC should look like, based on prompts provided by speakers.

Keynote Lecture (1-3 pm)

Gallery 400, 1 floor, UIC art building, 400 S. Peoria Street

Prof. Braden Allenby, President’s Professor and Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

“Welcome to the Anthropocene: You Want the Truth?  You Can’t Handle the Truth!”

In today’s world, we are seeing unprecedented social, environmental, economic, and technological change.  We are experiencing rapid – and accelerating – evolution in at least five foundational technologies: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technology, robotics, and applied cognitive science.  The result is a future that is unpredictable and radically contingent, as both our planet and the human itself, become design spaces subject to human intervention and deliberate change in ways never before possible.

Response by:

• Teresa Córdova, Professor of Urban Planning and Policy and Director of Great Cities Institute at UIC
• Celeste Hammond, Professor of Law, Director, Center for Real Estate Law, UIC School of Law

Heritage Garden Tour (starting at 3 pm), Latino Cultural Center (Lecture Center B2)

Join the Heritage Garden interns for a tour of some of the garden satellites to learn diverse foodways stories and efforts to conserve the Monarch butterfly. We will meet in front of the Latino Cultural Center  (Lecture Center B2) at 3 pm.

What is the Anthropocene Lab at UIC?

The Anthropocene Lab (AL) is (proposed as) a creative/innovative, explorative laboratory that will serve as a research platform at UIC for cross-disciplinary and collaborative projects across the arts, the humanities, and the sciences about the precarious state of the planet: climate change, the global ecological crisis, and the proposed new geological epoch of the Anthropocene.

Planetary Practices / Knowledge Cultures

In the Anthropocene, the Earth has become an artifact of human culture. In such a condition, this transformed reality requires new knowledge cultures to collectively interpret and engage with the complex planetary entanglements, interweaving practices across the arts, sciences, humanities, and activism. The UIC AL will provide a germinal home for such new, collaborative modes of expression, critique, and commentary. The hope is that the lab can tie together the diverse ways in which a plurality of people are responding to this new condition, reframing its imperatives, and creating new knowledge cultures that allow reflecting and acting upon it.

In the first panel presentation, curator Carlina Rossée will recount her experience of over 10 years of engagement with the Berlin-based Anthropocene Curriculum project and will set out a horizon for how this project can be taken forward, adapted, and transformed by others

Experimentation

A laboratory is a place for experiments. The experiments that are to take place at the UIC Anthropocene Lab (AL) have a distinct object of inquiry: a transformed Earth. The Anthropocene, at its simplest, is a controversial geoscientific term that describes a distinct shift in the Earth’s geological agency: for the first time in history, humankind, in all its differential complexity, has – some argue – become the primary determinant of terrestrial conditions. In effect, the Earth has become subject to unplanned human experimentation.

At the same time, the practices that will take place at the UIC AL are also experiments, in so far as they will invite collaborations between groups and individuals of different disciplinary backgrounds, ontological perspectives, and positionalities. In other words, as an experimental laboratory, the AL will not only foreground new research approaches but also open up the doors to the laboratory to invite in new educational practices that challenge the university’s insularity.

In the second presentation, John Kim will set out his perspectives on experimentation in educational and research practices in the context of his work with the Mississippi. An Anthropocene River project and in ongoing collaborative projects connected to it.

Interdisciplinarity

Disciplines discipline disciples, or at least they used to. Academic disciplines are a relic of an age in which, in theory at least, the human and non-human (natural) agency could be clearly distinguished from one another. This distinction was always illusory. Humans and their environment have always been involved in resonating processes of co-substantiation, one allowing and constraining the other in an iterative process of co-construction. The Anthropocene condition draws our attention to the need for new interdisciplinary approaches that can acknowledge this transforming complex of interrelations and that can offer new ways to study, interact with, and more justly subsist on a transformed Earth.

In pursuit of inter- or even anti disciplines, the UIC AL will act as a site for experimental forms of research that conventional structures and institutions could not support.

In the third panel presentation, historian of science Thomas Turnbull will outline how the interdisciplinarity necessary at our current juncture is qualitatively different to that which has come before.

Monday, April 4, 2022 from 3 – 4:30 PM, Central Time (US and Canada)

CRITICAL RACE THEORY NOW

Come join a timely discussion of Critical Race Theory and its role in public school systems, universities, and national politics.  What’s the conversation about, and how is the UIC campus community taking part in it?  The program, moderated by Joseph Jewell (Black Studies), will feature Russell Contreras (Axios Latino), Professor Anna Guevarra (Global Asian Studies), Teri A. McMurty-Chubb (UIC Law), and David Stovall (Black Studies & Criminology, Law, and Justice).

Cosponsors: UIC Black Studies, Global Asian Studies

Join us on Zoom!

Join Zoom Meeting: https://uic.zoom.us/j/89225204155?pwd=MU4vZVJqaWVYeGxSOC96U0dpUlZYdz09
Meeting ID: 892 2520 4155
Passcode: h05kFeQk

Fall Publishing Symposium 2021

You can find recordings of the panels and additional resources here:
https://www.press.uillinois.edu/symposium/fall21symposium

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

4:00-4:50 PM CST

Beyond the Monograph
Registration: https://bit.ly/BeyondtheMonograph
Scholars frequently note the dwindling audiences for scholarly monographs in their fields. How are academic writers responding to this condition by writing in other genres and other media outlets? How do other forms of communication amplify academic work, connecting it to new audiences? How are these forms of communication changing the substance of academic work itself?

Zizi Papacharissi is Professor and Head of the Communication Department, Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois-Chicago, and University Scholar at the University of Illinois System. Her work focuses on the social and political consequences of online media. She has published ten books, over 70 journal articles and book chapters, and serves on the editorial board of fifteen journals. Zizi is the founding and current Editor of the open access journal Social Media & Society. She has collaborated with Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Oculus and has participated in closed consultations with the Obama 2012 election campaign. She sits on the Committee on the Health and Well-Being of Young Adults, funded by the National Academies of Science, the National Research Council, and the Institute of Medicine in the US, and has been invited to lecture about her work on social media in several Universities and Research Institutes in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Her work has been translated in Greek, German, Korean, Chinese, Hungarian, Italian, Turkish, and Persian. Her latest book, titled After Democracy: Imagining our Political Future, is out now, from Yale University Press.

Nadine Naber is a Professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program and the Global Asian Studies Program and holds an affiliation with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois- Chicago. At UIC, she is the co-principal investigator of the Diaspora Cluster. Dr. Naber’s research interests lie at the intersections of transnational feminisms; women of color and queer of color theory; de-colonizing feminisms; empire studies; critical race studies; and Middle East Studies; and Arab American Studies. She is author of Arab America: Gender, Cultural Politics, and Activism (New York University Press, 2012) and co-editor of the books Race and Arab Americans (Syracuse University Press, 2008); Arab and Arab American Feminisms, winner of the Arab American Book Award 2012 (Syracuse University Press, 2010); and The Color of Violence (South End Press, 2006).

Robert Johnston is Professor of History, and Director of the Teaching of History program, at the University of Illinois-Chicago.  His work focuses on class, democracy, and populism in American history.  His current book project is Pox, Politics, and Populism: Three Centuries of American Controversies over Vaccination (Oxford University Press).
Registration: https://bit.ly/BeyondtheMonograph

5:00-5:50pm CST

New Directions in Marketing Academic Work
Registration: https://bit.ly/NewDirectionsMarketing

The market conditions for scholarly publishing are constantly evolving and the pandemic has only accelerated these changes. How are marketers responding to this condition by promoting and selling academic writing to new platforms and audiences? How can authors work with their publisher’s marketing department in this changing environment? How has the pandemic shaped academic libraries’ needs for digital resources? This panel of experienced marketers will share what they’ve heard, what they’ve tried, and what they know.

Moderator: Michelle Sybert, Sales and Development Director, Notre Dame Press

Martyn Beeny is Marketing and Sales Director at Cornell University Press after holding the same role at University of Nebraska Press. He has served on, and chaired, the AUP Marketing Committee and presented on a variety of marketing topics at that meeting and elsewhere. He holds a PhD in history.

Jocelyn Dawson is the journals and collections marketing manager at Duke University Press. She has served on committees of AUPresses and the Society for Scholarly Publishing and is a previous member of the SSP’s Board of Directors. She serves on SSP’s DEI committee, plays an active role in E&I efforts at Duke UP, and has authored pieces on inclusion topics for The Scholarly Kitchen. She co-leads the Toolkits for Equity project to develop antiracism guides for scholarly publishing (c4disc.org).

Lanell White is Founder and Market Strategist at Nautilus Advisory, an information and publishing consultancy for higher education. She has an MSI with specializations in Archives and Information Policy. Prior to consulting, she worked in academic publishing, edtech companies, and enterprise software solutions. Lanell has worked in product development, marketing and sales, and started her career within interlibrary loans, data curation and social science research and policy. She is currently an advisory board member for ACLS Humanities E-Book and former member of the AUPresses’s Equity, Justice, and Inclusion committee.
Registration: https://bit.ly/NewDirectionsMarketing

Sponsors: University of Illinois Press, UIC Institute for the Humanities, UIC Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research

Humanities Podcasting: Multiethnic Digital Storytelling

Hands-on Workshop!

*Register, here.

Thursday, November 11, 2021

10 am – 5:15 PM

Richard J. Daley Library, IDEA Commons Classroom

801 S Morgan St, Chicago, IL 60607

*Scroll Down on this page for Registration

This workshop will be led by podcasting experts and UIC alumni Deepthi Murali and Manamee Guha. We invite faculty and graduate students to join us in learning how to start a podcast of one’s own. The event will feature an introductory presentation followed by a hands-on tutorial.

Attendees should download Audacity before the workshop. Alternatively, Mac users can use Garage Band but should make sure updates are installed.

Masks are required for this event. The workshop will also be livestreamed via Zoom. Registration is required for both live and virtual attendees. Zoom registration will open the beginning of November.

Schedule:

10:00-10:15 — Welcome & Introduction

10:15-Noon– Workshop leaders will present and discuss their podcasts and give an overview of the day, groups will be assigned for breakout sessions

Noon-1:00 – Lunch

1:00-2:45 — Breakout Sessions 1: technical/ idea generation

3:00-4:45 — Breakout Sessions 2: technical/ idea generation

*all participants will take part in both breakout sessions in turn

4:45-5:15 — Q&A, Closing Remarks

Speaker Bios:

• Dr. Deepthi Murali is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History & New Media at George Mason University. She works on a number of digital history projects including the history podcasts Consolation Prize and Masala History, and PhD Futures Now! a podcast on Humanities PhDs and career diversity.
• Dr. Manamee Guha is Assistant Professor of History at Fort Hays State University. She works on the podcast Masala History, which explores different historical topics related to South Asia.

Sponsored by the Multiethnic Digital Humanities Project,  (conducted by the Digital Humanities Initiative, a partnership between UIC University Library and the Institute for the Humanities).  Learn more: dhi.uic.edu

October 26, 2021 at 4 PM

1. KAIAMA L. GLOVER FALL 2021 MELLON LECTURE IN THE ENGAGED HUMANITIES

“Caribbean Digital Community: Toward Archives of the Future”

Dr. Kaiama L. Glover is a Professor of French & Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University, and author of A Regarded Self: Caribbean Womanhood and the Ethics of Disorderly Being (Duke University Press, 2021) and Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon (Liverpool University Press, 2010). Dr. Glover is an awardee of the PEN/Heim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Mellon Foundation. Dr. Glover was recently an inaugural Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas & Imagination in Paris, France, and is currently a Fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center, where she is continuing work on an intellectual biography of Haitian author René Depestre titled “For the Love of Revolution: René Depestre and the Poetics of a Radical Life.”

This Mellon Lecture will lay out the material, social, and ethical implications of creating and/or nurturing communities and archives of the Caribbean and its diasporas. In a geo-cultural space often marginalized by mainstream institutions and lacking resources for robust technological development, how might scholars – especially those sited in the so-called Global North – establish and sustain connections with regional collaborators? In what ways might digital engagements with past and future archives acknowledge and facilitate such transnational connections? And what are both the affordances and the pitfalls of such digital engagements?

IN-PERSON: STUDENT CENTER EAST RM. ILLINOIS B 750 S. HALSTED CHICAGO, IL.

Virtual: Register at: https://uic.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9JyBazTkQnazynyqWqO6DQ

After registering, you will receive an email confirmation with a zoom link for the lecture.

Tuesday, September 14, 2021 CDT, via Zoom

Register to receive Zoom link: https://uic.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvduGrpz8rG9PjTe_A7_jK2zi8d2-niv97

10-11:30 AM
Students Speak: Students present Research Projects from the Engaged Humanities Initiative

Moderator, Laura Hostetler (UIC)

12-1:30 PM
“The Humanities in Chicago: Health, Police, Environment, and Culture”

All presenter details to be announced.