HRG, Issue 24, September 2017.   

  A Message from the Director, Kim Nelson 

 

In high school my vision of university owed more to Socratic lectures and café society of the seventeenth century, with a dash of Paris in the 1920s, than to reality. I daydreamed about university as a place for heady and intellectual debates of substance and import regarding the human condition and the meaning of life. At my west coast university, I did not quite manage to ferret out this culture, one that I thought would pour forth from the doors of the student union building, but I did stumble across it, years later, at the University of Windsor, under name of the Humanities Research Group. Since I started at the University of Windsor in 2007, I have been aware of the HRG, led by charismatic and larger than life figures: Stephen Pender, Antonio Rossini and Erica Stevens Abbitt, each of whom brought her/his own inimitable style and panache to the

HRG project. I am grateful to Erica for her immense generosity of time and spirit in tutoring me in the ways of the HRG. I am honoured to be charged with the directorship of the HRG, with its rich history and lofty, important mission, that has been pursued since it formed in 1989, and especially for the calibre and dedication of those who have filled its ranks and guided it throughout, exemplified by people like Lois Smedick, Kate McCrone and others, who continue to nurture and support the group and its goals. I look forward to being a part of the HRG’s commitment to engage the community on campus, in the city and region, with ideas and perspectives of complexity and weight that are central to understanding ourselves and our place in the world. The HRG’s 2016-2017 season “Provocative Bodies: Interrupting, Disturbing & Challenging the Mainstream” was successful and well attended, featuring stimulating lectures and workshops and a focus on student perspectives and achievements, from myriad Humanities Week activities, to another great series of Martin Wesley lectures, to thought provoking talks by speakers of national and international renown. Read on in the newsletter for a detailed recap of the guests, events and ideas that shaped our vibrant past year. Our theme for 2017-2018 is “Icons and Iconography.” Our programming will feature lectures that touch upon issues ranging from our history, to pressing considerations of our time and place, focusing on the local, national and global, with speakers and events that include: the WSO’s Conduct Us, writer and historian, Marty Gervais, filmmaker and advocate, Mike Downey, political scientist Cheryl Collier, doctor and humanitarian Samantha Nutt, more University of Windsor student researchers, librarian and digital historian Heidi Jacobs and advertising scholar

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

Kyle Asquith. We will launch this year again with Humanities Week (September 18-22, mark your calendars), a collaboration between the President’s Office, PAC, FAHSS and our HRG Student ambassadors. This year’s launch party will be at the Welcome Centre on September 18th. Please join us to jumpstart the HRG conversation for this academic year with Vincent Georgie, Alan Wildeman and music by UWindsor alum Mark Calcott. Thanks to the continued and generous support of the office of the President, we are reprising the fabulous “WHY Humanities?” contest with the prize of a semester of free tuition on the line. Entries may be in essay or video form, exploring why the humanities matter. Details are available online at the HRG website. And while you are there, please check out our expanded social media presence aimed at engaging and inviting grads and undergrads into the dialogue in analog. I am grateful for the incredible support of Marcello Guarini, Alan Wildeman, Yvonne Zimmerman and FAHSS, and excited about continuing the rich HRG tradition of bringing in great minds, working with the brilliant, dedicated and creative community members, scholars and students who make up the HRG Advisory Board. Please read on to find out more about our line up of guests and events for this year. Icons and iconography, coffee and pastries, to be provided by us, all we need now is you.  About the Director 

 

Kim Nelson is the incoming Director of the Humanities Research Group and an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Windsor. She is a filmmaker with an interest in historiography and the philosophy of history, as well as spectatorship, expanded/live cinema and immersive, participatory and performance modes of exhibition as they relate to documentary film. Her work has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Ontario Arts Council and she has received awards from The Windsor Endowment for the Arts and the Emerging Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity at the University of Windsor. Her feature length documentaries have screened at international film festivals and on university campuses in Canada, the US and Europe, as well as online with KCET in the US. She has held fellowships with the DAAD at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, in Potsdam, Germany, The Humanities Research Group at the University of Windsor, and the Cinema Research Institute at NYU. She has been a board member and programmer at the Windsor International Film Festival since 2010. Her published work includes short fiction that appeared in The Windsor Review.

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

HRG Acknowledgements 

The Humanities Research Group wishes to acknowledge all those who have contributed to the 2017-18 season, including speakers, volunteers, event partners, the HRG Academic Advisory Board, the HRG Student Ambassadors, President Alan Wildeman and the President’s Office. Thank you for your ongoing support.

“Increasingly, the Humanities Research Group is engaging students in conversation about how the humanities shape us and how they inform us about the full range of human experiences. Now in its third year, Humanities Week in September is dedicated to this conversation, and HRG Director Kim Nelson is continuing to position the HRG as Humanities Week’s catalyst. We must continue to encourage students to think about why the humanities matter, since it is they who will be the future creative thinkers, artists, and thought-challengers the world needs."

President Wildeman wrote his own Why Humanities? manifesto defending liberal arts in the Globe and Mail.

Read it here.  

 

HRG ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARD Kim Nelson, Director, HRG Jaclyn Meloche, Art Gallery of Windsor

Marcello Guarini, Dean, FAHSS Heidi Jacobs, Leddy Library Kyle Asquith, Communication, Media and Film

Lydia Miljan, Political Science Jennifer Willet, School of Creative Arts Christopher Tindale, Philosophy

Ronjon Paul Datta, Sociology Lesleigh Cameron, Student Representative

Guillaume Teasdale, History Kenn Stanton, Essex County Black Historical Research Society

Debra Henderson, Arts Administrator, Educator, Community Rep Ronnie Haidar, Student Representative

HRG STUDENT AMBASSADORS

Lesleigh Cameron, Political Science Andrew Deane, Liberal Arts and Professional Studies

Svjetlana Oppen, School of Creative Arts Crystal Bryan, Aeronautics

Logan Carmichael, Political Science, Alumna Abrial Cooke, Biology and Psychology

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

Humanities Week [September 18-22, 2017] 

 

What constitutes the humanities? Are they confined to the study of the classics, languages, English, History and Philosophy? What about the social sciences – don’t psychology, sociology and political science, communications and gender studies involve the study of humans as a group? What about the arts – isn’t the study and practice of human-generated expression concerning human lives and the human condition part of the humanities? Are the humanities still relevant to an undergraduate education in the 21st century? Have they kept pace with an era of technological and social change? What use is a humanities degree in a world where getting a job after leaving university is harder and harder? What do they actually DO for any of us? WHY Humanities?!? These questions are the starting point for Humanities Week, a series of talks, events and a student competition co-sponsored with the President’s Office. The first prize is a semester of free tuition! The benefits, as they say, are priceless.

For more info, check out: uwindsor.ca/hrg

  

More details and entry at https://uwindsor.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6X6r9leq1s8MgHH  

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

 As part of Humanities Week, students at the University 

of Windsor are invited to answer: What Do The Humanities Mean to You? 

Our Why Humanities? competition receives many great submissions. The 2016-2017 winner of a semester’s free tuition from the Office of the President was undergraduate

Physics student Layale Bazzi for her manifesto, Why Humanities?  

Hi, I am a 2nd year Physics undergraduate student, and I believe the humanities are a vital component to my degree. You may be amused that a student majoring in a technical science is preaching about the importance of the humanities, but hear me out. I work with complex mathematical equations that deal with the reality we live in. Day in and day out, I am differentiating, integrating, rearranging and solving equations that describe the physical world around us and enable me to predict the outcome of a phenomenon with astonishing accuracy. I study the relative motion between objects in motion and at rest, and I can tell you how much you’ll age if you go off on a two-way ten-year journey in space at sixty percent the speed of light. It’s eight years, if you were curious. What I can’t tell you, are the ethical implications of going on such a flight. There is no mathematical equation to describe the psychological and sociological ramifications of leaving home behind for ten years and returning as a completely different person. I can’t derive a formula that can explain the politics of conducting such a flight and relate it to what morals it corresponds to; that’s not in the job description of a physicist. All I can provide are facts about nature, and not human nature. That’s why humanities are important to me. Humanities give me a frame to work in.

Philosophers provide moral guidance to my equations and can evaluate my experiments to ensure that I am keeping humanity’s best interests at heart without harm. Literature allows me to relay my information using metaphors and alluding to classical works in order to explain to the general public exactly what I am doing – much thanks to Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – without resorting to fancy buzzwords. The study of humanities provides a bridge between the infamous crazy scientist and the general public. Take for example National Geographic – the majority of the content has been made accessible for amateur science enthusiasts while still retaining the correct information. Without humanities, there would be a severe gap between my field of study and the rest of the world. And so, while the answer to “Life, the Universe and Everything” is not forty-two, it is somewhere between the Standard Model and Plato’s dialogues. On behalf of scientists everywhere, thank you.

Congratulations to the 2016-2017 “Why Humanities?” competition finalists:

Marisa Bordonaro, English Literature and Creative writing; Honorable Mention for poem, “Humanities: Hidden Bonds” Victoria Pedri, Psychology and Sociology

Alexa diCecco, Arts and Science Andrew Deane, Liberal Arts and Professional Studies Abrial Cooke, Biology and Psychology 

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

 

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

HRG 2017-2018 SEASON Icons and Iconography 

 

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

    

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

  

A message from outgoing HRG Director, Dr. Erica Stevens Abbitt 

Dr. Stevens Abbitt (HRG Director 2015-17) used her tenure to revitalize HRG engagement with students and generate programming which explored the relevance of the humanities in everyday life. “I’m very grateful to have served with an extraordinary team of advisory board members, student ambassadors, supporters, members of FAHSS and the President’s Office, Dean Guarini, President Wildeman and Co-ordinator Yvonne Zimmerman. They made this job a pleasure over the past two and half years.” She notes that “HRG is heading into an exciting period of growth, particularly with the vibrant new Director, Kim Nelson, at the helm. I wish her – and all my colleagues at HRG – the very best as they go forward!”

         

  

 

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

The Year in Review: 2016-2017 Recap Our flagship programmes, the Distinguished Speakers Series and the Martin Wesley Lectures series, are rich series of talks and colloquia with innovative, original, and illustrious scholars across the humanities, arts, and social sciences. All events are free and open to the public.

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

HRG, Issue 24, September 2017. 

Introducing our “ATHENA WANTS YOU FOR THE HRG” poster.

This artwork is inspired by our outreach goals, and reclaims jingoistic imagery for peaceful purposes. Aunt Athena was created by multimedia artist and University of Windsor graduate (Honours Degree

in Visual Arts and Art History, 2007), Jolie Inthavong. Jolie is the President of the Board of Arts Council Windsor & Region, the co-producer of a web series/tv show called the Comic Book Syndicate,

the Event Coordinator of an annual comic book convention called the Comic Book Syndicon and a wonderful example of the talent we have amongst our alumni and within our community.