 | With the Fall semester in full swing, we are looking forward to a month of exciting activities at the Humanities Institute. Our October 2019 Newsletter includes details on this month's events, including the Controversy & Conversation screening of The River and the Wall on October 3, a guest talk by Dr. Kirsten Ostherr on "AI and the Medical Humanities" at the October Health Humanities Research Seminar, and the next lecture in the Distinguished Visiting Lecture Series on "Narrative and Social Justice" by Dr. Jason De León on October 23. You will also find details on the Fall 2019 Difficult Dialogues Public Forum co-sponsored with Texas Performing Arts featuring three prominent artists including UT's Anne Lewis (RTF). We also share news on recent books published and awards received by our Faculty Fellows and Health and Humanities faculty affiliates. Finally, we are pleased to share a call for applications for the Nonprofit Accelerators Program launched by UT's Human Dimensions of Organizations. We hope to seeing you at our October events! | Free and open to the public.
Thursday, October 3, 2019
6:30 - 9:00 PM
Terrazas Branch, Austin Public Library
1105 E. Cesar Chavez Street
Austin, TX 78702 The River and the Wall (2019) follows five friends on an immersive adventure through the unknown wilds of the Texas borderlands as they travel 1200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico on horses, mountain bikes, and canoes. Conservation filmmaker Ben Masters realizes the urgency of documenting the last remaining wilderness in Texas as the threat of new border wall looms ahead. Masters recruits NatGeo Explorer Filipe DeAndrade, ornithologist Heather Mackey, river guide Austin Alvarado, and conservationist Jay Kleberg to join him on the two-and-a-half-month journey. As the wilderness gives way to the more populated and heavily trafficked Lower Rio Grande Valley, they come face-to-face with the human side of the immigration debate. | Controversy & Conversation is a collaboration between the Humanities Institute's Difficult Dialogues Program and the Austin Public Library. Documentary screenings take place the first Thursday of the month at the Terrazas Branch of the Austin Public Library. Screenings begin at 6:30 PM and are followed by a 30-50 minute community conversation. Light refreshments are provided. | Wednesday, October 23, 2019
7:00 - 8:30 PM
Avaya Auditorium
POB 2.302
201 E 24th Street
Austin, TX 78712 | Free and open to the public. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. The Humanities Institute is pleased to continue the 2019 Distinguished Visiting Lecture Series on “Narrative and Social Justice" with a talk by Jason De León, Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He will speak on “Soldiers and Kings: A Photoethnography of Human Smuggling Across Mexico.” The talk and discussion will be held on Wednesday, October 23 at 7 PM in the UT Avaya Auditorium (POB 2.302). De León directs the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a long-term anthropological study of clandestine migration between Mexico and the United States that uses a combination of ethnographic, visual, archaeological, and forensic approaches to understand this violent social process. He is the author of the award-winning book The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" Award. The lecture is free and open to the public. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. The event is sponsored by the Viola S. Hoffman and George W. Hoffman Lectureship in Liberal Arts and Fine Arts, and the Sterling Clark Holloway Centennial Lectureship. | Looking Ahead: the Final Lecture in the 2019 Distinguished Visiting Lecture Series: Wednesday, December 11 (Avaya Auditorium) – Tiya Miles, PhD, Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor, Harvard University. Dr. Miles' lecture is titled "The Materiality of Slavery: Narrating Enslaved Women's Lives Through Things." About the Distinguished Visiting Lecture Series
Each year the Humanities Institute sponsors a series of free public lectures delivered by distinguished visitors to the University. The lectures are centered on a biennially selected theme of broad intellectual and social importance — the same theme considered in the Institute's Faculty Fellows Seminar. | Monday, October 14, 2019
4:00 - 5:30 PM
The University of Texas Club Registration is required. On October 14 at 4:00 pm, guest speaker Kirsten Ostherr, PhD, MPH, will speak on "AI and the Medical Humanities: An Emerging Field of Critical Intervention." Dr. Ostherr is the Gladys Louise Fox Professor of English and Director of the Medical Futures Lab at Rice University, and Adjunct Professor at The UT-Houston School of Public Health. Dr. Ostherr is a media scholar, health researcher, and technology analyst. Her research on trust and privacy in digital health ecosystems has been featured in Slate, The Washington Post, Big Data & Society, and Catalyst. Dr. Ostherr is the author of Medical Visions: Producing the Patient through Film, Television and Imaging Technologies (Oxford, 2013) and Cinematic Prophylaxis: Globalization and Contagion in the Discourse of World Health (Duke, 2005). She is currently writing a book called Quantified Health: Learning from Patient Stories in the Age of Big Data. Seating for the seminar is limited and requires advance reservation. Questions may be emailed to the HI Program Coordinator, Kathryn North (knnorth@austin.utexas.edu). The seminar series allows researchers to share cutting-edge work at the intersection of Health and the Humanities. It is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts through the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, the Humanities Institute, and Dell Medical School. | Wednesday, November 13, 2019
7:00 - 9:00 PM
Santa Rita Suite, The Texas Union
2308 Whitis Avenue
Austin, TX 78712 Free and open to the public. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. This Fall the UT Humanities Institute is partnering with Texas Performing Arts and Native American and Indigenous Studies to host a special dialogue on “Indigeneity, the Land, and Artistic Expression" featuring musician and storyteller Martha Redbone with filmmakers Angelo Baca and Anne Lewis. Martha Redbone is a multi award-winning musician and storyteller celebrated for her roots music embodying the folk, indigenous, and mountain blues sounds of her childhood in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky. Angelo Baca is a Hopi/Diné documentary filmmaker and a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at New York University. Anne Lewis is Associate Professor of Practice at UT Austin's Department of Radio-Television-Film and an independent documentary-maker associated with Appalshop Films, a media arts and cultural center located in the heart of the Central Appalachian Coalfields. The discussion will be moderated by Pauline Strong, Director of the Humanities Institute. The Public Forum is sponsored by Texas Performing Arts and the Humanities Institute through the Difficult Dialogues Program, and supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. | We are pleased to share news of current and recent Faculty Fellows' book talks and book awards. | Hosted by the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies Tuesday, October 15, 2019
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Benson Latin American Collection
2nd floor conference room Gabriela Polit Dueñas (UT Spanish & Portuguese), a Spring 2019 Faculty Fellow, analyzes the work of five narrative journalists in Central and South America. Combining ethnographic observation, textual analysis, and a theoretical reflection on the ethical dilemmas journalists confront on a daily basis, Unwanted Witnesses offers an insightful analysis of the emotional challenges, the stress, and the traumatic conditions journalists face when reporting on the region’s most pressing problems. The book was published by the University of Pittsburg Press in September. Dr. Polit workshopped chapters from the book during the Spring 2019 Faculty Fellows Seminar on Narrative Across the Disciplines. | Hosted by the Institute for Historical Studies Thursday, October 31, 2019
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Garrison Hall (GAR 4.100) Abena Dove Osseo-Asare (UT History), a Fall 2017 Faculty Fellow, gathers together stories of conflict and compromise on an African nuclear frontier. Traveling along Ghana's Haatso-Atomic Road, Atomic Junction explores the impact of scientific pursuit on areas surrounding the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, home to Africa's first nuclear programme after independence. With a focus on how residents came to interpret activities on these 'Atomic Lands,' this combination of historical research, personal and ethnographic observation shows how Ghanaians now stand at a crossroad, where some push to install more reactors while others merely seek pipe-borne water. Atomic Junction is being published by Cambridge University Press later this month. Dr. Osseo-Asare workshopped material in this book during the Spring 2017 Faculty Fellows Seminar on Health, Well Being and Healing. | Megan Raby wins History of Science Society’s Philip J. Pauly Prize for American Tropics: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science Megan Raby (UT History), a Fall 2019 Faculty Fellow, has been awarded the History of Science Society’s Philip J. Pauly Prize for best first book on the history of science in the Americas. Her book, American Tropics: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), explores the relationship between the history of field ecology, the expansion of U.S. hegemony in the circum-Caribbean during the 20th century, and the emergence of the modern concept of biodiversity. The prize ceremony was held on July 25 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Dr. Raby is a Fall 2019 (Narrative Across the Disciplines) Faculty Fellow and will be workshopping a new environmental history project at the Faculty Fellows Seminar. | Dr. Carrie Barron Awarded Grand Prize in the 7th Annual Grand Prix Essay Competition Carrie Barron, M.D. was recently named the Grand Prize Winner in the 7th Annual Grand Prix Essay Competition presented by the Hektoen International Journal of Medical Humanities. Dr. Barron’s award-winning article, “Character, genius, and a missing person in medicine,” follows the life and achievements of Mr. Vivien Thomas, an African American man who overcame the struggles of racial adversity to pursue his dreams in medicine. Following his rejection from medical school, Vivien Thomas began working under the tutelage of Dr. Alfred Blalock as a lab technician in the early 1940s. Although Thomas’s skills far surpassed those of his mentor, the recognition for his life’s work was for the most part postponed until the mid 1970’s due to the persistence of racial oppression -- and therefore a resistance to recognition of the achievements of people of color -- in the medical field. Vivien Thomas accumulated many achievements over the scope of his career, including discovering the cause of traumatic shock, designing the first operation to treat tetralogy of Fallot, conducting the first atrial septectomy, and helping develop the electrical defibrillator. Dr. Barron’s article on this remarkable man outlines historical racial disparities in medicine, providing context for how they continue even to this day. She argues that properly recognizing medical innovators who identify with marginalized groups is the key to teaching and facilitating the implementation of “character, caring, ethics, integrity, and humanism” in future medical professionals. Dr. Barron, Director of Dell’s Creativity for Resilience Program, participated in the Humanities Institute’s 2018 Health and Humanities Pop Up Institute (PUI) and is a frequent collaborator on Health Humanities initiatives. She is also a Spring 2019 Humanities Institute Faculty Fellow. | Dell Med Academy of Distinguished Educators Awards The Dell Med Academy of Distinguished Educators held its annual Educational Innovation, Research, and Award Symposium on September 23, 2019. The primary goal of the Dell Med Academy of Distinguished Educators is to recognize outstanding educators and educational leaders as a means of cultivating excellence at the forefront of medical education. Three members of the Health and Humanities Research Seminar, two of whom also participated in the 2018 Health and Humanities PUI, were recognized for their success in educating future medical professionals. | During the Symposium, LuAnn Wilkerson, Ed.D., was inducted as a new member of the Academy. Dr. Wilkerson, Associate Dean for Evaluation and Faculty Development at Dell Medical School, was an active participant in the 2018 Health and Humanities PUI and has remained engaged with our Health Humanities initiatives. | Also at the Symposium, Steve Steffensen, M.D., was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award, which is given to faculty who “have demonstrated an outstanding commitment in medical education in teaching, scholarship, student access, or leadership.” Dr. Steffensen, Chief of Health Learning Systems at Dell Medical School, is the medical school’s humanities liaison and works closely with HI Director Pauline Strong and Associate Director Phillip Barrish on the Institute’s Health Humanities projects. He was an organizer of the Health and Humanities PUI. | In addition, Aliza Norwood, M.D., who has recently become a member of the Health and Humanities Research Seminar, received the Teaching Health Equity Award from the Academy. Dr. Norwood is Assistant Professor in the Departments of Population Health and Internal Medicine at Dell Medical School. She also serves as the Co-Director of Dell Med’s primary care, family and community medicine clerkship and as the Internal Medicine Regional Director for CommUnityCare Clinics. | The work of Wilkerson, Steffensen, and Norwood speaks to the importance each places on innovative education and contributing to the future of the medical field. | HDO is pleased to announce the launch of the Nonprofit Accelerators Program. HDO recognizes the vital work that nonprofits contribute to society, and wants to celebrate the individuals that make that work happen. Each semester, four people working in the nonprofit sector will be selected to attend one of their four-day certificate programs free-of-charge. These “Nonprofit Accelerators” will be full participants in their selected program and will receive a certificate upon completion of their final course. The deadline for the Spring 2020 program is November 29, 2019. To find out more about the requirements and to apply, please visit: https://hdo.utexas.edu/hdo-nonprofit-accelerators-program/. | The Humanities Institute's Newsletter is edited by Kathryn North, Administrative Program Coordinator. For more information on the University of Texas Humanities Institute, please visit our website. To contact us, please write to Kathryn at knnorth@austin.utexas.edu or call (512) 471-9056. | | |
