Events

IHGC & PEN America - Calling in, Calling Out, and What Difference Does It Make?: "Free" Expression in the Academy

September 30, 2020

IHGC & PEN America - Screening of the Vice-Presidential Debate (with Jamelle Bouie, Sally Hudson, Andra Gillespie, & Deborah McDowell)

October 7, 2020

Deborah Baker Fall 2020 Seminar: “Narrative in the Age of Political Extremism” (Part I)

October 26, 2020

IHGC Fall Seminar with Deborah Baker

“Narrative in the Age of Political Extremism”

Mondays, 3.00-5.00pm

Dates

October 26

November 2

November 9

November 16

We are living in a time of rising extremism and increasing polarization around the world.  This trend has been accompanied by acts of millenarian terror, generally committed by men who believe themselves and their identities and beliefs to be facing an existential threat.  What narrative strategies can be used to dramatize the conflict between those who want to destroy civil society, replacing civic norms with ones in which they are the unquestioned arbiters, and those who seek to protect the status quo? In this seminar we will look at works of fiction and narrative non-fiction that have captured this struggle in all its moral, political, and historical dimensions.

Reading list:

The Convert by Deborah Baker (narrative non-fiction)

One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway by Asne Sierstad  (narrative non-fiction)

American War by Omar el Akkad (futurist fiction)

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (speculative fiction)

Defying Hitler by Sebastien Haffner (posthumous memoir)

Mellon Fellows Seminar - Allison Bigelow, “Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World”

October 30, 2020

Indigenous and mixed-race miners represent the overwhelming majority of the workforce in colonial Latin America, but the structures of colonial power, violence, and racism eradicated evidence of their intellectual contributions to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century mining and metallurgical sciences. This talk, drawn from Professor Bigelow's new book (April 2020), outlines some of the language-centered methods that historians of science and technology can use to document Indigenous knowledge production, even--and especially--when we do not have the Native-language documents to do so.

Deborah Baker Fall 2020 Seminar: “Narrative in the Age of Political Extremism” (Part II)

November 2, 2020

IHGC Fall Seminar with Deborah Baker

“Narrative in the Age of Political Extremism”

Mondays, 3.00-5.00pm

Dates

October 26

November 2

November 9

November 16

We are living in a time of rising extremism and increasing polarization around the world.  This trend has been accompanied by acts of millenarian terror, generally committed by men who believe themselves and their identities and beliefs to be facing an existential threat.  What narrative strategies can be used to dramatize the conflict between those who want to destroy civil society, replacing civic norms with ones in which they are the unquestioned arbiters, and those who seek to protect the status quo? In this seminar we will look at works of fiction and narrative non-fiction that have captured this struggle in all its moral, political, and historical dimensions.

Reading list:

The Convert by Deborah Baker (narrative non-fiction)

One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway by Asne Sierstad  (narrative non-fiction)

American War by Omar el Akkad (futurist fiction)

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (speculative fiction)

Defying Hitler by Sebastien Haffner (posthumous memoir)

Mellon Fellows Seminar - Ari Blatt, “State of Place, State of Mind: Vernacular Landscapes in Contemporary French Photography”

November 6, 2020

Mellon Fellows Seminar - Kasey Jernigan, “Mapping Indigenous/UVA Relations”

November 13, 2020

Deborah Baker Fall 2020 Seminar: “Narrative in the Age of Political Extremism” (Part IV)

November 16, 2020

IHGC Fall Seminar with Deborah Baker

“Narrative in the Age of Political Extremism”

Mondays, 3.00-5.00pm

Dates

October 26

November 2

November 9

November 16

We are living in a time of rising extremism and increasing polarization around the world.  This trend has been accompanied by acts of millenarian terror, generally committed by men who believe themselves and their identities and beliefs to be facing an existential threat.  What narrative strategies can be used to dramatize the conflict between those who want to destroy civil society, replacing civic norms with ones in which they are the unquestioned arbiters, and those who seek to protect the status quo? In this seminar we will look at works of fiction and narrative non-fiction that have captured this struggle in all its moral, political, and historical dimensions.

Reading list:

The Convert by Deborah Baker (narrative non-fiction)

One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway by Asne Sierstad  (narrative non-fiction)

American War by Omar el Akkad (futurist fiction)

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (speculative fiction)

Defying Hitler by Sebastien Haffner (posthumous memoir)

Amitav Ghosh Fall 2020 Seminar: “Environmental Crisis and Security in the Indian Ocean” (with Sunil Amrith)

November 20, 2020

As the impact of climate change intensifies, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Indian Ocean region, with its fast-accelerating economies, its innumerable oil and gas producers, its collapsing ecosystems, its vulnerable yet rapidly-increasing populations, and its swiftly-expanding carbon footprint, will be the theatre in which the future of the world will be decided. How will the ongoing changes affect the material and cultural lives of the region’s peoples, who are simultaneously drivers and victims of climate change? Many of the world’s major zones of conflict are already clustered around the Indian Ocean, and the region is also the theater of many accelerating arms races. How will these developments affect the global balance of power? What lessons might past climatic shifts offer for the future? These are some of the issues that will be discussed over the four two-hour sessions of this workshop. 

November 20: Environmental Crisis and Security in the Indian Ocean

With guest speaker: Sunil Amrith (Harvard)

• Sunil Amrith, “When the Waters Rise,” from Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants, Harvard UP, 2013
• Sunil Amrith, excerpts from Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts and Seas Have Shaped Asia’s History, Basic Books, 2018.
• Simon Dalby, Chapter 5 & 6 from Security and Environmental Change, Polity Press 2009.
• Sanjay Chaturvedi and Timothy Doyle, “Geopolitics of Fear and the Emergence of Climate Refugees: Imaginative Geographies of Climate Change and Displacements in Bangladesh,” Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 6:2, 2010, pp. 206-222
• Brahma Chellaney, “Indian Ocean Maritime Security: Energy, Environmental and Climate Challenges,” Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 6:2, 2010, pp 155-168.
• Michelle Voyer et.al, “Maritime Security and the Blue Economy: Intersections and Interdependencies in the Indian Ocean,” Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 14:1, 2018, pp 28-48

Mellon Fellows Seminar - Neeti Nair, “India’s Partition: Literature, Culture, Politics”

January 22, 2021

Mellon Fellows Seminar - Joshua White, “An Epic Tale of Sorrow and Joy: Slavery, Migration, and the Mediterranean Journeys of an Ottoman Manuscript”

March 19, 2021