In an age in which science is often thought to dominate public discourse and the research agendas of higher education, what is the place and role of the humanities? Humanistic and scientific fields of knowledge are lodged together in universities and colleges and share potential intellectual spaces and concerns. How can humanists define places for themselves inside and outside the modern university? Do our objects or models of research need to be redefined or supplemented in light of the current repositioning of the humanities in higher education and in society at large? To what extent are common or collaborative projects already in the works? What kinds of questions--about ethics, the mind and the body including race and gender, creative processes and the arts, ecology and the environment--are engaging humanists and scientists, and how might opening up the conversation between and among them benefit the production of knowledge in contemporary society?
Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis
The 2008 CHCI Annual Meeting is generously hosted by and organized with the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. The Center for the Humanities is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of humanistic thinking and the pursuit of letters as essential activities in the intellectual, political, and artistic life of Washington University, the community it serves, and the world. Dr. Gerald Early, Merle King Professor of Modern Letters, has been the Director of the Center and its predecessor, the International Writers Center, since 2001.
The meeting will take place at the Charles Knight Center on the Washington University campus, and at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, a dynamic museum of contemporary art housed in a building designed by Tadao Ando.
Program
FRIDAY, MARCH 14
8:30 AM - Introduction and Welcome
Dean Edward S. Macias, Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of Arts & Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis; introduced by Gerald Early, Director, Center for the Humanities and Merle Kling Professor of Modern letters, English, African studies, and African American studies, Washington University in St. Louis
Srinivas Aravamudan, President, Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, Director, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, and Professor of English, Duke University
Steve Meyer, Associate Professor of English, Washington University in St. Louis
9:00 AM - Keynote Lecture
Facts, Fiction, and the Slippery Slope
Mary Poovey, Samuel Rudin University Professor of the Humanities, New York University
Introduced by Caroline Levander, Director, Humanities Research Center and Professor of English, Rice University
10:30 AM - Break
11:00 AM - Panel
Science, Race, and the Humanities
Race, Science, and Culture
Evelynn M. Hammonds, Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Race and Genetics: A Marxist Analysis of Their Role in Capitalist Society, 1900-1940
Garland Allen, Professor of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis
12:30 PM Lunch - CHCI Business Meeting
1:30 PM Workshop
Inreach or Outreach? New Versions of an Old Challenge Facing Humanities Centers and Institutes
Kathleen Woodward, Director, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington (moderator)
Diane Touliatos, Director, Center for the Humanities, University of Missouri, St. Louis
Julia Heydon, Associate Director, Center for the Humanities, University of Oregon
Corrie Goldman, Outreach Officer, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University
Pauline Strong, Associate Director, Center for the Humanities, University of Texas-Austin
3:00 PM - Break: meeting moves to the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
4:00 PM - Panel
Technology and Art Making
Sensing Terrains: Art at the Intersections of Science and Technology
Patricia Olynyk, Director of Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis
Music, Print, and Sound Recording: Composers, Performers, and Listeners in Times of Technological Change
Richard Freedman, Professor of Music, Haverford College
5:30 PM - Reception at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
SATURDAY, MARCH 15
8:30 AM - Members' Breakfast (AB Dining Room)
9:00 AM - Keynote Lecture
The Assassin of Relativity
Peter Galison, Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University
Introduced by James Chandler, Director, Franke Institute for the Humanities and Barbara E. & Richard J. Franke Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago
10:30 AM - Break
11:00 AM - Panel
Culture, Science, and Imagination
The Science of the Soul
Sarah Rivett, Assistant Professor of English, Washington University in St. Louis
Paris by Night in the Transatlantic Imaginary
S. Hollis Clayson, Professor of Art History and History, Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities, and Director, Alice Berline Kaplan Institute for the Humanities,
Northwestern University
12:30 PM - Lunch, New Directors Introductions, CHCI Business Meeting
2:30 PM - Workshop
Models of Collaborative Work in Humanities Centers and Institutes
John McGowan, Director, the Institute for Arts & Humanities, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (moderator)
Anthony J. Cascardi, Director, Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley
Ann Gaylin, Program Officer, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
David Theo Goldberg, Director, University of California Humanities Research Institute
Julie Thompson-Klein, Professor of Humanities, Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Wayne State University
4:00 PM - Break
4:30 PM - Roundtable Discussion
The Role of the Humanities in an Age of Science
Emory Elliott, Distinguished Professor of English and Director, Center for Ideas and Society, University of California, Riverside (Moderator)
Peter Galison, Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University
Mary Poovey, Samuel Rudin University Professor of the Humanities, New York University
Walton O. Schalick, III, Assistant Professor of Medical History, Rehabilitation Medicine, History of Science and Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Carl F. Craver, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis
6:00 PM - Dinner and Closing Reception