Utrecht Center Alum Will Examine Technology, Human Rights, and Democracy

From January to June 2012, Femke Halsema will hold the Treaty of Utrecht (Vrede van Utrecht) Visiting Chair at Utrecht University Centre for the Humanities. In her role as visiting professor, she will conduct research on the meaning of communication technology and social media for human rights and democracy.

Worldwide, the Internet connects people in powerful new ways and provides new opportunities for the dissemination of information and knowledge. The downside of social media however is that citizens can become vulnerable to surveillance from political regimes and intelligence services.

During her guest professorship, Halsema will address such questions as: Can communication technology, the Internet and social media play a key role in protecting human rights and ‘arming’ people against oppression and violence? Does ‘diplomacy 2.0’ have a future? How sustainable are social media and initiatives such as crowd sourcing and crowd funding? Can they play a meaningful role in supporting vulnerable citizens in emerging economies?

These topics fit in perfectly with the research themes of the Centre for the Humanities and the Treaty of Utrecht, which include social sustainability, cultural participation and responsible citizenship.

Lectures, Inaugural Address and Other Activities
Femke Halsema’s activities as Treaty of Utrecht professor will include public lectures, seminars and master classes in Utrecht. On March 8, she will participate with Professor Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht University Professor and director of the Centre for the Humanities) in a special International Women’s Day programme. Later in the spring she will give the Treaty of Utrecht public lecture; on May 25 she will present the spoken column during the annual Treaty Concert and on May 31 she will deliver her inaugural address.

Femke Halsema
Femke Halsema (1966) has an established track record as a politician and opinion maker. She was member of the Lower House for the GroenLinks party from 1998 to 2010 and party chairman from November 2002. Her previous work included her role at Wiardi-Baeckman Stichting (the PvdA research agency). She is alumnus of Utrecht University, having graduated in Law in 1993. She is currently active as an independent publicist, television producer and consultant.

Treaty of Utrecht Chair
The Treaty of Utrecht Chair is an initiative of the Province of Utrecht and is a joint venture between the Province, Treaty of Utrecht and the Utrecht University Centre for the Humanities. The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 and is considered to be the commencement of modern diplomacy. In 2013, the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Utrecht will be celebrated. The aim of the fixed-term professorship is to keep alive today the body of thought of the Treaty of Utrecht from 1713, which is typified by globalisation, world citizenship and cultural diversity. For more information, visit: www.uu.nl/vredevanutrechtleerstoel

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The Goldberg Center at The Ohio State University has launched The Humanities Atlas, a visual aggregator that identifies and maps news and activities in the humanities across the United States. The site uses a Google Blog Search, pulls any content that has an RSS or Atom feed that mentions “humanities,” is updated daily, and maps this using Google Maps.

The Goldberg Center is encouraging feedback and insights from other humanities centers on this project. Please send to: David J. Staley, Director of the Goldberg Center. Complete information on the project can be found on the Goldberg Center’s website.

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RE: Humanities Explores Digital Media in Academia

Organized by students at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges, Re: Humanities was a two-day symposium in Fall 2010 that featured presentations by undergraduate scholars interested in the effects of digital media on academia. The project was covered in the New York Times.

Exploring topics as diverse as digital archivalism, pop media, and the (re)tooling of textual analysis, the event seeks to develop a better understanding of of this emerging field by examining its influence on traditional scholarship as well as its potential for transforming academia. Participants included: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Chair of the Media Studies Department at Pomona, Amanda French, Coordinator for THATCamp at the Center for History and New Media, and recent grads and undergrads at Brown, Bryn Mawr, Hamilton, Haverford, Middlebury, and Swarthmore.

Video excerpts are available on the Haverford website .

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Javier D. Durán has been appointed director of the University of Arizona’s Confluence: A Center for Creative Inquiry, which was founded last year to improve support for and research in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Confluence is one of CHCI’s most recent new members.

Durán, associate professor of Spanish and border studies and a three-time UA alumnus, said the center’s creation and its subsequent work will serve to promote critical thinking, creativity and innovative research.

As the center’s name denotes, Confluence is about uniting individuals across disciplines in research and other creative activities, said Durán, also president of the Association for Borderlands Studies, an international network of scholars working in border studies.

Complete information on Confluence and Professor Duran’s appointment can be found here.

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The Second Annual Conference of the European Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centres (ECHIC)

After last year’s successful founding conference in Dublin, ECHIC is happy to announce the next annual conference. The 2012 conference, provisionally entitled ‘Grand Challenges for the Humani­ties?’, will take place at the CfH in Utrecht from the 28th of February to the 1st of March, 2012. The general theme allows for four strands, around which the conference will evolve:

Environmental humanities
Civic responsibility of the humanities
Globalizing humanities
Cognitive humanities

Moreover, there will be two forums:

Digital forum – on the digitalization of the Humanities
Institutional forum – for international policy makers in the field of the Humanities

Within the conference, a parallel affinity group session entitled Supporting Content: Policy Man­agement, Finances & Communication Strategies for HICs will be organized especially for manag­ers and administrators of centres and institutions.

A call for papers for each theme will be distributed in fall 2011.

To browse all CHCI member news, please click here.

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Biological Futures in a Globalized World will Address Challenges Posed by Explosion of Biological Knowledge

Enormous growth in biological knowledge during the past 100 years or so – and increasing worldwide use of that information to manipulate and build living systems – pose unique opportunities and challenges for the scientific community and humanity at large: Potential risks include engineered biological organisms, proliferations of infectious disease, human manipulation of the biosphere for food and fuel, and of the human genome sequence in reproductive technology.

To help foster better thinking about such issues, the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington is working in partnership with the Center for Biological Futures (CBF) at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to bring together faculty and graduate students in the social sciences and humanities with scientists and to lay the groundwork for a sustained program of interdisciplinary research and training. The joint initiative, Biological Futures in a Globalized World, is hosted and co-organized by the Simpson Center, and is supported for a pilot via primary funding from the Innovation fund of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The founder of the CBF, Roger Brent, a molecular biologist and UW affiliate professor of Genome Sciences, is working with Alison Wylie, UW professor of philosophy and anthropology, the founder of the vigorous cross-campus and inter-institutional Science Studies Network. Biological Futures in a Globalized World activities launched this summer with a multidisciplinary research group bringing together four UW faculty fellows and two CBF postdoctoral fellows. It continues through the 2011-2012 academic year with a public colloquia series.

The first was held at the Simpson Center on October 10, 2011. Moderated by Wylie, the panel included Matthew Sparke, professor of geography and the Jackson School of International Studies, Leah Ceccarelli, professor of communication, and Gaymon Bennett, a CBF fellow at the Hutchinson Center. Their topics ranged from global health and South Lake Union as a hub for biotechnology, to ethics and the practices of synthetic biology, to word use—focusing on the metaphor of “the frontier” in debates about research priorities in the biological sciences.

Upcoming colloquia discussions will take place on Monday, November 7, 2011, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. at the Simpson Center and Monday, December 5, 2011, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. at the Hutchinson Center.

Biological Futures in a Globalized World will also spearhead a research ethics and integrity initiative to develop an integrated education and training program for biological and non-medical scientists that cultivates an appreciation of the human dimensions and impacts of their work. Other planned activities include faculty workshops, graduate seminars, and an integrated science, technology, and society studies web portal.

“Our goals are to establish an interdisciplinary network of scholars and scientists who have the expertise to enhance our understanding of complex issues surrounding biological futures, and to lay the foundations for a sustained program of substantial research and education that puts us in a position to address them effectively,” Wylie said.

To browse all CHCI member news, please click here.

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