Humanities in Circulation: Celebrating 25 Years of Research Across the University of California

LOS ANGELES - April 9, 2013 - PRLog -- (IRVINE, CA) How do ideas circulate between the humanities and the arts, the sciences and beyond to help us make meaning in the complex global culture of the 21st century?  

Humanities in Circulation, a two-day program at the UCLA campus on April 18 and 19, brings together scholars, novelists and artists from across the University of California to engage these questions through public conversations and a showcase of new research in the humanities.

Humanities in Circulation marks the 25th anniversary of the UC Humanities Initiative. Created in 1986 by then-President David Gardner, the initiative created the systemwide UC Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), based at UC Irvine, and provided funding for residential research groups and fellowships to support faculty research. A quarter century later, this endeavor has expanded to include humanities centers at each UC campus and scores of individual and collaborative research programs around a dizzying array of interdisciplinary issues and approaches.

"These events showcase and celebrate humanities research across the University of California - its creativity, penetrating analysis, and complexity," said David Theo Goldberg, director of the UC Humanities Research Institute. "As we convene this impressive group of scholars, artists, and activists, we reflect upon the reach and impact of the past 25+ years of collaborative humanities research as well as the relevance of the humanities for the next 25 years and beyond."

Research by thirty of the UC's most innovative humanities scholars - the 2012-13 UC President's Faculty and Graduate Fellows in the Humanities - will be showcased at the third annual Society of Fellows meeting. These prestigious and very competitive fellowships support a full year of intensive work on a book or dissertation project.

The Fellows will present their new research through roundtable conversations and digital "lightning talks," on a wide range of topics, including "The Worlding of Marco Polo," "The Art of Parties," "The Smell of Petroleum" and "Mondo Nano." The research showcase will be held on Friday, April 19 from 12:00-6:00 pm in the newly redesigned Conference Center in the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA.

Bookending the research showcase, the 25th Anniversary celebration also features two major public events at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Each event begins with a reception at 6:30 pm on the Terrace; the programs begin at 7:30 pm at the Lenart Auditorium.

Both 25th Anniversary events bring eminent UC-based scholars and writers into conversation around the relationship between the humanities and the arts, and their power to shape and illuminate the world we live in.

On Thursday, April 18, activist and UC Santa Cruz professor emerita Angela Davis and UC Berkeley political theorist Wendy Brown join Harvard anthropologist Jean Comaroff and visual artist Ken Gonzales-Day for the panel Race, Representation, Repression and Resistance: Thinking Through Ernest Cole.

Cole's photographs of apartheid in South Africa during the 1960s document a brutal reality of the country's storied history. Issues of race, repression, representation and resistance intrinsic to these arresting images will be the focus of an esteemed panel.

Held at the Fowler Museum in conjunction with the museum's current exhibition Ernest Cole, Photographer, this co-sponsored event is part of the Fowler OutSpoken Conversation Series.

On Friday, April 19, Writers, Reading + Riffing brings together celebrated novelists and UC professors Bharati Mukherjee (UC Berkeley), Ngugi wa Thiong'o (UC Irvine), and Karen Tei Yamashita (UC Santa Cruz). The panel also includes novelist-journalist Hector Tobar, who received his BA from UC Santa Cruz and his MFA in Creative Writing from UC Irvine.

Writer-critic David Kipen, former NEA literature director and founder of Libros Schmibros bookstore in Boyle Heights, will moderate this evening of readings and conversation exploring the creative process, making meaning through the arts and the humanities, and the ways in which ideas circulate through and across texts and times, genres and geographies.

Friday night's closing event, Vocal Strings, features a dynamic performance by two musicians at the leading edge of China's avant garde, experimental creatrix Liu Sola and avant musician Liu Yijun, former lead guitarist for the metal-rock band Tang Dynasty.

All events are free and open to the public. More information is available at http://uchri.org/events/.

News media contact:
Jennifer Langdon, UCHRI Associate Director
jelangdon@hri.uci.edu

About the UC Humanities Research Institute:
Based at UC Irvine, the UC Humanities Research Institute was founded in 1986 as the core component of a UC-wide Humanities Initiative by then-President David Gardner. Today, UCHRI continues to serve all ten campuses in the University of California system, promoting collaborative, interdisciplinary humanities research. Recognized nationally and internationally for its intellectual leadership, UCHRI also directs its own robust program of collaborations and public events focused on crucial issues • for the future of higher education and the humanities.