Grinnell College’s first Festival of Humanities, March 6–9, is a celebration of the humanities and an exploration of the role they have in a liberal arts education. Two key speakers begin the festival, which concludes with a symposium on Thursday and Friday in which a wide range of student presenters share their research and present their works. All events are open to the public.
On Tuesday, Richard Handler, director of the Program in Global Development Studies at the University of Virginia, will discuss the role the humanities have played in enriching and informing academic understanding in “Global Development Studies in a Liberal Arts Curriculum: Humanistic Approaches to Global Modernities.”
On Wednesday, Harrell Fletcher, associate professor of art and social practice at Portland State University, will give a gallery talk on making public art. Fletcher will also lead a social practice workshop the next day.
Among the many students presenting research and works of literature, art and music on Thursday and Friday are:
- A history/music double major who examines Italian culture and social politics through the lens of opera
- An art/classics double major who uses language and physical clues to describe a previously unidentified 15th-century Latin manuscript in the College's collection, adding a new codex to the body of primary sources available to researchers
- A music major with a concentration in neuroscience whose original choral work, “Snowflakes,” is based on a Longfellow poem of the same name
- A Spanish major whose work of fiction reflects interest in writing and the environment and draws on Hopi traditions learned through a summer archeological internship
- A global cinema studies major examining how Asian filmmakers adapt and reinterpret the American Western film genre
- A sociology major with a global development studies concentration who analyzes postcolonial literature to explore the negotiations of migration
- A studio art/mathematics double major who uses embroideries on plastic to record “moments that notice what our world is made of and what we ourselves choose to make”
Schedule of Activities
Richard Handler
Tuesday, March 6, 4:15 p.m., Rosenfield Center, Room 101
Global Development Studies in a Liberal Arts Curriculum: Humanistic Approaches to Global Modernities
Richard Handler, University of Virginia, is a cultural anthropologist who has published on the Québécois nationalist movement. His enduring interest in nationalism, ethnicity, and the politics of culture led to his work on history museums, particularly an ethnographic study of Colonial Williamsburg, which is both an outdoor museum and a mid-sized nonprofit corporation. He has written about Jane Austen's novels, about the literary bent of such noted anthropologists as Ruth Benedict and Edward Sapir. He also has an ongoing interest in the history of American anthropology — in particular, in anthropologists as critics of modernity and the relationship of the discipline's critical discourse to other intellectual trends.
Harrell Fletcher
Wednesday, March 7, 4:15 p.m., Faulconer Gallery
Gallery Talk
Thursday, March 8, 4:15 p.m., Bucksbaum Center for the Arts Rotunda
Social Practice Workshop
Harrell Fletcher, associate professor of art and social practice at Portland State University, has produced a variety of socially engaged, collaborative, and interdisciplinary projects since the early 1990s, including work shown at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the San Francisco Bay area; SculptureCenter, the Wrong Gallery, Apex Art, and Smack Mellon in New York; and the Seattle Art Museum. His lecture is co-sponsored by the art department, Center for Humanities, and Faulconer Gallery.
Student Symposium
Deciphering the Source
Thursday, March 8, 11 a.m., Rosenfield Center, Room 101
- Tad Boehmer ’12: An Analysis of an Unidentified Medieval Manuscript in the Grinnell College Libraries Department of Special Collections and Archives
- Kate Ferraro ’12: William Shakespeare: Poet, Playwright, and Translator? A Comparison of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Holinshed’s Chronicles
- Briel Waxman ’12: The Italian Encounter with Wagner: Intercity Rivalry in Post-Risorgimento Italy
Culture and Hybridity
Thursday, March 8, noon, Rosenfield Center, Room 101
- Sunanda Vaidheesh ’12: Bridging Postcolonial Worlds: Leaving and the Liminal in Rushdie’s East, West
- Erica Hauswald ’12: “Inducing Something Like Sexual Despair”: Gender Performance and the Abject in Infinite Jest
- Olivia Horan ’12: Visual Culture and the Destruction of Gaņēśa Caturthī
Telling Stories, Making Music
Thursday, March 8, 7:30 p.m., Bucksbaum Center, Room 152
- Clare Boerigter ’14: Gusanos
- Michael Maiorana ’12: Snowflakes
- Vincent Newton ’12: Day of Sunshine
Drawing Now: Three Propositions
Friday, March 9, noon, Rosenfield Center, Room 101
- Lauren Flynn ’12: New Embroideries
- Allison Jamieson-Lucy ’12: Gravitas
- Kyle Espinosa ’12: Take Care
Crossing Borders, Queering Film
Friday, March 9, 4:15 p.m., ARH, Room 102
- Paul Dampier ’12: The “Eastern Western”: Cross-cultural Hybridity and Violent Coexistence
- Zoe Schein ’12: Puccini and the Pussy Wagon: Queer Parody in Thriller and Telephone
Grinnell welcomes the participation of people with disabilities. Information on parking and accessibility is available on the Campus Accessibility Map. Requests for accommodations may be made to Conference Operations at 641-269-3235 or calendar@grinnell.edu.
