Now in its 53rd year, the Institute for Research in the Humanities (IRH) will host some 41 scholars in 2012-2013: 23 fellows from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and 19 from other state, national, and international locations. We are delighted to announce that a generous donation by former Institute Director and Senior Fellow Robert F. Kingdon will allow us to initiate a new fellowship program for external scholars working on Judeo-Christian religious traditions and their role in society from the ancient to contemporary periods. The first competition will be held this year.
We begin the year of weekly seminars on Monday, September 10, 3:00-5:00pm (Banquet Room, University Club Building), with a panel of distinguished humanities faculty charged with answering the question, What’s Your Archive? We aim for stimulating discussion across the humanities disciplines on the nature of evidence in our different fields—from tangible to intangible, from documents to the arts, from facts to feelings and fantasy. How are these different archives collected and by whom, with what agencies and politics? How do they relate to the politics of memory and the future of the past around the world?
The Institute’s “collaboratory” fosters the development of a shared conversation that develops among scholars from widely divergent fields in the interdisciplinary humanities over the course of the year. Monday, September 17th, begins the Institute’s weekly program of seminar presentations by IRH fellows. IRH seminars start with a reception at 3:00 p.m. in Room 211 of the University Club Building and move to Room 212 from 3:30-5:00 p.m. for the fellow’s presentation and following discussion. A weekly informal brown-bag lunch takes place every Tuesday in Room 212 for more discussion of Monday’s seminar presentation. All the Institute’s seminars are open to interested faculty, staff, students, and members of the community. Please check the website or join us on Facebook for more information.
The Institute also sponsors a wide array of lectures, symposia, and workshops throughout the year, many in conjunction with the Center for the Humanities. In the fall semester, Senior Fellow Julia K. Murray has organized the Burdick-Vary Lecture Series, "New Constructions of the Past in the Art History of China," featuring the distinguished art historians Maggie Bickford, Jerome Silbergeld, and Kathleen Ryor, who will deliver public lectures on Chinese painting in the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties. Senior Fellow Rachel Brenner will deliver a Focus on the Humanities Distinguished Lecture in October in conjunction with the Center for the Humanities.
In the spring semester, the Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Senior Fellow Craig Werner has organized the two-day Burdick-Vary Symposium entitled "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize: Black Christianity and the Unfinished Quest for Emancipation," which will open with Eddie Glaude of Princeton University giving the fourth Nellie Y. McKay Lecture on March 7, 2013. Other confirmed participants in the Symposium include Paul Harvey, Matt Harper, Barbara Savage, Ed Pavlic, and Michelle Alexander. This Symposium is part of a larger series organized by Steve Kantowitz for the Center for the Humanities on the meanings of emancipation 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Institute holds a number of fellowship competitions throughout the year for fellowships in the following year. In addition to the Kingdon Fellowship (external), other IRH fellowships to be awarded for 2013-2014 include the Solmsen Fellowships (external); Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships (external); UW-Madison Senior Fellowships (internal); UW-Madison Resident Fellowships (internal); Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeniety Fellowships (internal); Dana-Allen and Coleman Dissertation Fellowships (internal); UW-System Fellowships (external); the Woodward Cartography Fellowship (external); and Honorary Fellowships (external). Please consult the website for application information, forms, and deadlines.
We look forward to another great year of stimulating cross-talk and mutual learning at the Institute. Please join us!
Best wishes,
Susan Stanford Friedman, Director
Virginia Woolf Professor of English and Women's Studies
Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English