February Newsletter
UM Humanities Institute
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Welcome to a special Black History Month edition of the Humanities Institute newsletter. Here you will find resources on our home campus at the University of Montana and beyond to celebrate Black History Month.
The Humanities Institute also has a whole host of events for you to enjoy including an Environmental Humanities Conversations Panel and a panel on pedagogy in the Digital Humanities. Look forward to March with as where we will discuss the Public Humanities and Refugee Resettlement with a diverse set of panels.
Join us as we continue to promote and strengthen the humanities at the University of Montana!
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Upcoming HI-Sponsored Events
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Environmental Humanities Conversations Panel: Literature and the Environment
Friday, February 26th, 2021
4:30-6:00 pm MST on Zoom
Register via Eventbrite
Featuring: Dr. Deborah Slicer/Philosophy, Dr. Louise Economides/English, & Rebecca A. Durham/Ph.D. candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies
Part of the HI's Environmental Humanities Initiative.
Exploring the Public Humanities: A Panel Conversation
Please join Humanities Montana, the UM Department of History, and the UM Humanities Institute for a panel on the public humanities.
Thursday, March 25th, 2021
7:30-9:00 pm MST on Zoom
Register via Eventbrite
Featuring:
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Dr. Claire Arcenas, Assistant Professor of History
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Dr. Anya Jabour, Regents Professor of History and Director of UM's Certificate in Public History
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Dr. Ashby Kinch, Professor of English and Associate Dean of the UM Graduate School
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Dr. Christopher Preston, Professor of Philosophy
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Dr. Robert Saldin, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Mansfield Center's Ethics and Public Affairs Program
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Dr. Randi Tanglen, Executive Director of Humanities Montana, will moderate the panel.
Co-sponsored by Humanities Montana, the UM Department of History, and the UM Humanities Institute
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Digital Humanities Pedagogy Panel
Tuesday, March 9th, 2021
2:00-3:00 pm MST on Zoom
Register via Event Brite
Featuring: Dr. Claire Arcenas/History, Dr. Leif Frederickson/History, and Dr. Matthew Semanoff/World Languages and Cultures and Associate Dean/College of Humanities and Sciences
Part of the HI's Digital Humanities Initiative.
Refugee Resettlement, Past, Present, and Future: A Panel Conversation
This panel will explore the past, present, and future of refugee resettlement in the U.S. and beyond.
Wednesday, March 31st, 2021
7:30-9:00 pm MST on Zoom
Register via Event Brite
Featuring:
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Mary Poole, Executive Director of Soft Landing Missoula
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The Director of the International Rescue Committee's Missoula office
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Paul Mwingwa
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Jacek Laszkiewicz, author of 333 Days
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Kenan Trebincevic, author of The Bosnia List
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Gillian Glaes, Director of UM's Humanities Institute, will moderate the panel.
Co-sponsored by Soft Landing Missoula, the International Rescue Committee, and the UM Humanities Institute.
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Upcoming Events of Interest
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2021 Mansfield Lecture: A Conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci
Dr. Fauci will participate in a conversation and public Q&A, addressing questions such as: Where are we with Covid-19? How transformational is a vaccine and what challenges are there for distributing vaccines in the U.S. and around the world?
Wednesday, February 17 at 12 pm MST on Zoom
Register via the Mansfield Center
Belief and Truth in a Time of Healing
The UM Alumni Association’s 23rd annual Community Lecture Series is just around the corner. Featuring six lectures by UM Faculty.
Register here
Regenerating Life: An Evening with Filmmaker John Feldman
The Humanities Center at Texas Tech invites you to register for the next event in their Spring 2021 Forests Speaker Series. The event will be held on February 18 at 7:30pm Central.
Click here to register
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The President's Lecture Series: A Virtual Conversation about Race and Racism with Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
12:00 - 1:15 pm MST on Zoom
RSVP in advance for Zoom meeting information
Song of the Dawn Priests: A History of the Crow People
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2021
7:00-8:30 pm MST on Zoom
Event details and Zoom link
Join Humanities Montana and the Bozeman Public Library for an online presentation about the history of the Crow People with Franco Littlelight.
Faculty Fellows Talk with Dr. Jacob Baum
The Humanities Center at Texas Tech invites you to register for the first faculty fellows talk in their Spring 2021 Virtual Brown Bag series. On Wednesday, February 24 at 12pm CST, Dr. Jacob Baum of History will present "A Visual Archive of Early Modern Disability: The Manuscript of Sebastian Fischer, 1513- ca. 1555.“
Click here to Register
Public Seminar Series: Refugee Histories in the Global South
Presented by the University of Oxford Department of International Development. Seminars take place on Wednesdays from 5.00-6.00pm UK time on Zoom.
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Celebrating Black History Month:
The President's Lecture Series at the University of Montana:
A Virtual Conversation about Race and Racism
with Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
12:00 - 1:15 pm MST on Zoom
RSVP in advance for Zoom meeting information
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History is celebrating the 95th annual black history theme of The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity. Head over to ASALH's youtube channel for live stream events all through the month of February.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has a host of new programs, initiatives and experiences to celebrate Black History Month. Explore NMAAHC's website to learn more.
For the next generation of humanities scholars (those in the 0-5 range): read Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi
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Internal Grant/Research opportunities
The Richard Drake Writing Award honors excellence in writing in the humanities in the College of Humanities and Sciences, and is awarded to one undergraduate and one graduate student per year. Papers focusing on history, literature, philosophy, religion, politics and the classics are considered. Papers are judged on the basis of excellence in writing, imagination in research, and force of argument.
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2021
Faculty Research Grant Application
Grants of up to $1500 will be awarded to support University of Montana faculty in the pursuit of their humanities research and to promote their humanities scholarship.
Submission Deadline: March 15, 2021
Matthew Hansen Endowment for Wilderness Studies
Awards granted to students and independent scholars for projects that explore Montana’s land and people through historical research, wilderness studies, and creative writing, including poetry - whose work promotes the protection, enhancement, & understanding of wilderness values or the wilderness resource in Montana.
Submission Deadline: April 9, 2021
External Grant/Research opportunities
Through this program NEH seeks to increase the number of humanities scholars and practitioners using digital technology in their research and to broadly disseminate knowledge about advanced technology tools and methodologies relevant to the humanities. Estimated Maximum Total Value: $850,000 / Maximum Total Value Per Award: $250,000 / Estimated Number of Awards: 5
Submission Deadline: March 2, 2021
NEH Institutes are professional development programs that convene higher education faculty from across the nation in order to deepen and enrich their understanding of a variety of topics in the humanities and enrich their capacity for effective scholarship and teaching.
Submission Deadline: March 9, 2021
The National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships program offers $25,000 grants in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry to published creative writers that enable recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Through this program, the Arts Endowment seeks to sustain and nurture a diverse range of creative writers at various stages of their careers and to continue to expand the portfolio of American art.
Submission Deadline: March 10, 2021
Call for Papers 53rd Comparative Literature Symposium Texas Tech University
NEH Fellowships are competitive awards granted to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing. Fellowships provide recipients time to conduct research or to produce books, monographs, peer-reviewed articles, e-books, digital materials, translations with annotations or a critical apparatus, or critical editions resulting from previous research.
Submission Deadline: April 14, 2021
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Student Spotlight: Meet Undergraduate Student
and Truman Scholar Nominee Maddie Hagan
Where are you from?
"I am from Portland, OR! I spent ages 1 to 7 in Louisville, KY, but spent most of my formative years in Portland."
What year are you in school?
"I am a junior (third year)!"
What is your major?
"I am a double major in history and philosophy with a minor in African- American Studies!"
Why did you decide to come to UM?
"I visited UM my senior year of high school and was able to meet professors in my prospective departments that I really liked! It was a goal of mine to choose a cheap option for my undergraduate education so that I could avoid as much debt as possible for graduate school, so I knew I wanted to go the public school route. I ultimately chose UM because of the small-feel, quality of the history department, and its relative closeness to my hometown!"
What are your goals after graduation?
"I am planning to get my PhD in American History with concentrations in legal history and African-American history. I am applying to doctoral programs in Fall of 2021. With a doctorate, I want to become a professor so I can continue researching while also teaching important material."
How have the humanities and liberal arts enriched your life?
"I believe that the humanities and liberal arts are necessary for understanding the world around us. History in particular has allowed me to understand our current situations in a deeper, more analytical way. Being able to connect with people over historical figures, a favorite novel, or a philosopher’s treatise is an amazing feeling! I also enjoy debating with people and discussing controversial issues which is an intrinsic part of a humanities education."
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Tune In
With the Montana Museum of Art and Culture
The MMAC will feature “Homage to Africa: The Hoyt and Shepherd Collections,” Feb. 5-April 24, 2021 in the Paxson and Meloy galleries of UM’s Performing Arts and Radio/TV Center. The galleries are open Tuesday through Saturday each week from noon to 6 p.m.
“These two Montana-based private collections reveal the richness and splendor of African art in the post-colonial period and the diverse world views of the distinct societies that created it,” said MMAC Director H. Rafael Chacón.
Not available to visit in person? Experience a virtual docent tour of both the Tony Hoyt Collection and Molly Shepherd exhibit.
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A word with the director
Gillian Glaes
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again." -Nelson Mandela
This month is Black History Month, a time to celebrate, honor, and reflect upon all of the contributions that Black Americans have made in the U.S. and globally. I was thinking about this as I read about the death of Mary Wilson, a founding member of the Supremes. Of the Supremes' influence, Oprah Winfrey once said, "You never saw anything like it in the 1960s — three women of color who were totally empowered, creative, imaginative . . . " African-Americans, including Mary Wilson and Oprah Winfrey, have made such incredible contributions that have shaped the U.S. society and the world in innumerable ways.
I often think about "the world" part of that statement, as I am a historian of other parts of the world beyond the U.S. A favorite book of mine is Cold War Civil Rights, which looks at the global understanding of the U.S. Civil Rights movement during the Cold War. One of my is heroes is Nelson Mandela, who, for challenging the apartheid state in South Africa, spent 27 years in prison and then was elected as the country's first Black president. I've spent a lot of time contemplating the politics and experiences of African diasporic communities throughout the world and specifically in France, as detailed in my first book.
And so, in the summer of 2020, as we were all struggling through a pandemic that seemed to have no end in sight, I was reminded of how far we have left to go to create a society that realizes the dream that Dr. King laid out on that August day in 1963 where his "four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." People of color, though, do not have to be reminded of this. They live the experience everyday.
Being a global historian means having the privilege of learning the histories of countries far away from my own and thus, their approaches to the challenges and problems they face, which are sometimes not that different from our own. In South Africa, for example, following the end of the apartheid regime, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up where all South Africans, regardless of the color of their skin, could share their stories. It was not an easy process, nor was it a perfect one. But it was cathartic and it did provide a public venue where the victims of the regime could be heard and listened to. I think about that process often when I look at the devastation wrought across U.S. society by systematic racism historically and today.
I alone cannot create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the U.S. Some days, I can barely get my preschooler to put her socks on. But I can teach that preschooler about racism through age-appropriate books. I can continue to learn more about how I can be an advocate and an ally. I can listen. I can get in touch with my own privilege as a white person. I can teach classes that help students see the impact and legacy of racism, oppression, and inequality as well as the vast contributions of people of color here in the U.S. and beyond. And, together with our intern, our advisory board, and a whole range of partners, I can create space through the Humanities Institute to listen, reflect, and learn more about the dynamics of race in the U.S. and beyond.
I hope that you will join me this month and in all months in contemplating the important contributions of African-Americans in so many aspects of American and global life, in honoring the work of Dr. King, John Lewis, Rosa Parks, and so many more, and in creating a society in which a Black woman watching T.V. at night in her apartment can live to see the sunrise the next morning.
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