Whose Global Humanities?
Cogut Center for the Humanities
Brown University
June 14-15, 2010

We are pleased to announce that the 2010 CHCI Annual Meeting will be held at the Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown University, June 14-15, 2010. The title of the meeting,Whose Global Humanities? is designed to spur a collective interrogation of the idea of globalism in the context of academic research, publishing, programmatic activity, networking, and institution/organization-building. Our first confirmed plenary speaker is filmmaker/cultural theorist Mieke Bal, with a second plenary to be announced soon. Workshops are being planned on the topics of designing and implementing programs involving arts organizations and artists, along with a special workshop centered on funding and finance in the currently challenging economic climate.

In the wake of our successful Annual Meetings in St. Louis (2008) and Edinburgh (2009), we are anticipating an excellent turnout on the part of an increasingly diverse group of member organizations.

As in all of our recent Annual Meetings, the registration fee is $75 per member organization, which covers any and all attendees from your organization. A conference dinner including the aforementioned talk by NEH Chair James Leach will be offered for all attendees on the evening of Monday, June 14. Attendance at the dinner requires an additional fee of $35 per person. All fees go toward offsetting the direct cost of the Annual Meeting.

To register, please fill out and submit a registration form, located here. After submitting the registration form you will receive a confirmation email which may be used as an invoice for the registration and dinner fees.

Travel and lodging information can be found below the following meeting program schedule. We look forward to seeing you in Providence, and please check back here as we update this page with further information on the program.

SUNDAY 13 JUNE

Early Afternoon, Time TBA
Optional guided walking tour(s) of Brown University campus and Providence’s East Side neighborhoods
Led by Bruce Donovan, Emeritus Professor in Classics, Brown University

4:00 PM – Affinity Group Meetings
CHCI’s emerging Affinity Groups will be provided with time and space to meet about shared issues and group organization. The first three CHCI affinity groups are: Humanities for the Environment; Associate Directors and Administrators; and Digital Humanities. More information to come.
Alumnae Hall, Brown Campus

5:30 PM – Welcome Reception
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, 224 Benefit Street

MONDAY 14 JUNE

9:00 AM
Welcome by Brown President Ruth Simmons; opening remarks by CHCI President Srinivas Aravamudan and Cogut Humanities Center director and Annual Meeting host Michael Steinberg.
Salomon Hall, Main Green, Brown Campus

9:30 AM – Plenary Lecture
Lecturer TBA
Salomon Hall, Main Green

11:00 AM – Morning Break
Salomon Hall, Main Green, Brown Campus

11:30 AM – Group Discussion
Responses to First Plenary Lecture
Salomon Hall, Main Green, Brown Campus

12:30 PM – Lunch
Buffet Lunch and New Directors Introductions
Alumnae Hall, Brown Campus

2:00 PM – Panel
The Humanities and the New China
Hsiung Ping-chen, Dean of Arts, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Ann Waltner, Director, Institute of Advanced Study, University of Minnesota
Haiping Yan, Professor of Theater Studies, Cornell University
Chengzhou He, Nanjing University
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

3:30 PM – Afternoon break
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

4:00 PM – Workshop
Funding the Humanities
Robert Gibbs, Director, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto
Rosi Braidotti, Director, Center for the Humanities, Utrecht University
Third Participant TBA
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

5:30 PM – Short break
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

5:45 PM – CHCI Membership/Business Meeting
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

6:45 PM – Pre-Dinner Cocktails
Hope Club, Six Benevolent Street

7:30 PM – Annual Meeting Dinner
Address by James A. Leach, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities
Dinner is $35 per person (payable with registration fee)
Hope Club, Six Benevolent Street

9:30 PM – Film Screening
Film by Plenary Lecturer Mieke Bal (approx. 80 minutes, title TBD)
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, 224 Benefit Street

TUESDAY 15 JUNE

9:00 AM – Plenary Lecture
Mieke Bal, Filmmaker and Cultural Theorist
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

10:30 AM – Morning Break
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

11:00 AM – Workshop
Humanities Centers and the Arts
Marjorie Garber, Director, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University
Other Participants TBA
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

12:30 PM - Lunch
Alumnae Hall, Brown Campus

1:30 PM – Panel
Translation and Incommensurability
Elizabeth Weed, Director, Pembroke Center for Research and Teaching on Women
Two Participants TBA
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

3:00 PM – Afternoon Break
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

3:30 PM – Discussion
Elizabeth Costello by J.M Coetzee
Led by James Chandler, Director, Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago
Pembroke Hall 305, Brown Campus

5:30 PM – Closing Reception
Sidney Frank Building, Brown Campus

Brown University is located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. The Providence airport (PVD) is served by several international carriers and has some direct routes to Europe and Asia. Travelers may also choose to fly directly into Boston Logan airport (BOS), approximately 50 miles north of Providence. For information on various ground transportation options from Boston Logan airport, please visit the following website: http://www.goprovidence.com/subSites/AASCU/logan.html

We have arranged for room blocks at the following three hotels. All options are within walking distance of the conference sites, but we are arranging for shuttle buses, which will make a limited number of runs from the hotels to the main meeting site (Pembroke Hall).

Marriott Providence
1 Orms Street
$129/night
To register online, click here. At that page, please confirm that the conference code chcchca appears in the “Group Code” box in the lower right-hand corner. To register by phone call 1-866-807-2171 and mention CHCI or the code chcchca.

Renaissance Providence
5 Avenue of the Arts
$129/night
To register online, click here. At that page, please confirm that the code bchbcha appears in the “Group Code” box in the lower right-hand corner. To register by phone call 1-800-468-3571 and mention CHCI or the code bchbcha.

Saunders Inn at Brown
102 Thayer Street
$110/night
Click here for registration information, or call 1-401-863-7500 and mention CHCI when you are making your booking.

If you have any questions about any detail related to the CHCI 2010 Annual Meeting, please contact us.

Named for Craig and Deborah Cogut in recognition of their generous support, the Cogut Center for the Humanities was originally launched in the fall of 2003 as the Brown Humanities Center to support collaborative research among scholars in the humanities. Long before the center’s founding, scholars in the humanities at Brown began to challenge and redefine the foundational categories of the humanities in the largest sense, asking what it means to be human. Over the years, they have built new concepts at the interstices of the old disciplines and across the boundaries of national cultures. Scholars of the ancient, medieval, and early modern worlds are still recovering ways of thinking that give us new concepts with which to imagine and conduct research. Others working on modern and contemporary cultures – on the language, literature and culture of the post-colony or the complex and often self-contradictory messages with which new media bombard us – continue to change the horizons of the humanities. In this respect, humanities scholars at Brown have long been working toward a common goal.

The Cogut Center closes the gap between the interdisciplinary character of Brown University’s humanities research faculty and the tangible support for collaborative research among scholars in the humanities, moving Brown decisively ahead of its peers. The center takes full advantage of the most successful features of existing humanities centers, focusing on the connections between our cultural and linguistic past and the digital age now emerging. In view of recent geopolitical changes, the Cogut Center stresses the importance of comparative work across cultural and linguistic boundaries.