http://www.publichumanities.com/ en-US Copyright 2008 Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:20:26 -0700 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Narrative 13.3 (Oct 2005) 261-270. Aull, Felice. “Telling and Listening: Constraints and Opportunities.” Narrative 13.3 (Oct 2005): 281-293. ]]> http://www.publichumanities.com/2008/03/medical_narrative_critical_per.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2008/03/medical_narrative_critical_per.html Upcoming Events Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:20:26 -0700 Lamentation over the inward turn of academic communication is itself a well-established literary genre, and a genre that sets the standard for futility. At the turn of the last century, the remarkably undiplomatic sociologist Thorstein Veblen joyfully burned every bridge in sight, between him and his academic colleagues, characterizing them as pompous "priestly" figures, wielding their knowledge to hold others at a distance. Professors were "great sticklers for form, gradations of rank, ritual, ceremonial vestments, and learned paraphernalia generally," Veblen wrote in 1899, in a sentence that needs little updating for 2007. Six decades later, John Kenneth Galbraith, a man who seemed to have been inoculated against humility and modesty early in his career, used academics as a prime case study of the enshrining of the "conventional wisdom," a phrase he coined. In 1993, in the New York Times Book Review, I presumed to take up the baton of this failed cause, writing a much-photocopied-and-handed-around essay called, "Dancing with Professors: The Trouble with Academic Prose." Neither Veblen, nor Galbraith, nor Limerick, nor any other campaigner in this cause seems to have made any measurable impact at all. My own fortune took a better turn when I gave up pleading with my fellow professors to change their practices and shifted, instead, to the much more manageable cause of simply changing my own customs and habits. In the last twenty years, hundreds of experiences in exchanging ideas with members of the "general public" (a term that could profit from-and will-receive clarification and definition!) have taught me a great deal, deepened my sense of mission, and given me a sense of professional and personal satisfaction that, if it could be made available as a prescription or over-the-counter medication, would exceed the sales of every other pharmaceutical. The influences and inspirations that led me to these new practices are varied and multiple, but surely one fork in the road came from an several occasion, thirty years ago, when my students and I read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People in an American Studies junior seminar. In this talk, we will briefly review the well-tested ineffectuality of condemning and lamenting conventional scholarly practice, and move rapidly into a celebration of the very fun and gratifying activities available to public scholars today, with just a little defiance of the powerful force of academic conformity and insularity. ]]> http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/11/patty_limerick.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/11/patty_limerick.html Events Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:30:17 -0700 Religious Literacy: What Americans Need to Know. He has been a guest of such programs as Oprah and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Professor Prothero is scheduled to talk on Thursday, Oct. 4, at noon at the Tivoli Turnhalle, and at 6:30pm at the Laboratory of Art and Ideas. The noon lecture in the Tivoli Turnhalle, which is sponsored by the UCDHSC Department of Student Life, is entitled "Religious Studies and the Public Intellectual." The evening lecture at The Lab is entitled "Religious Literacy and The American Scholar." ]]> http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/10/steven_prothero.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/10/steven_prothero.html Events Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:56:01 -0700 Copper Nickel, a journal of art and literature published by the students and faculty of the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, will mark the release of its eighth issue on Friday, September 28th, from 7-11pm at Matter Studio in downtown Denver. The eighth issue of Copper Nickel—featuring a photographic portfolio of post-Katrina New Orleans by Theo Mullen and Clinton Sander and writing by Christopher Chambers, Kate Daniels, and many others—will be offered for sale at this event for the first time. Also at this event, Copper Nickel will introduce the first of a new series of photographic books. The event is free and open to the public. Please support literary publishing in your community.]]> http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/09/copper_nickel_issue_8_release.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/09/copper_nickel_issue_8_release.html Events Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:54:50 -0700 http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/09/11/berube.]]> http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/09/michael_berube_on_academic_fre.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/09/michael_berube_on_academic_fre.html Overheard Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:36:20 -0700 Auraria Higher Education Campus. The event was co-sponsored by the Office of Student Life. Later that evening, at the Laboratory of Art and Ideas, Berube presented a second lecture entitled "Whatever Happened to Cultural Studies?" These lectures officially opened the Center for Public Humanities' inaugural lecture series "New Visions of the American Scholar." Michael Berube, Paterno Family Chair in Literature at Penn State University, is the author, most recently, of the books What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and 'Bias' in Higher Education and Rhetorical Occasions: Essays on Humans and the Humanities. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Harper's, American Quarterly, and many other academic and mainstream journals. ]]> http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/09/michael_berube.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/09/michael_berube.html Lectures Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:53:30 -0700 Shortly after our first lectures, we will be offering podcasts of the lectures and discussions for download and for review here. Please check back. http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/07/podcast_placeholder.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/07/podcast_placeholder.html Broadcasts Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:59:33 -0700 We're launching the center with a distinguished lecture series called "New Visions of the American Scholar." "New Visions of the American Scholar" brings together four public intellectuals who have succeeded in descending from the ivory tower and engaging audiences beyond the walls of the university. We have asked these scholars, each one from a different discipline in the humanities, to reflect on the roles that scholars can play and the contributions they can make to contemporary American democracy. The series takes up the challenge that Ralph Waldo Emerson posed in his "American Scholar" address. Speaking to Phi Beta Kappa members at Harvard in 1837, Emerson invited his audience to inquire "what light new days and events have thrown on the [scholar's] character and hopes." We have asked our four invited speakers to update Emerson's inquiry, applying it to the "days and events" of our own times. Emerson envisioned an indpendently minded scholar, celebrating the common man and providing ethical direction to the life of an early democratic society. What might be an appropriate vision of the scholar for our own late democratic society? What needs to change in order for this vision to be realized? The series asks speakers and audiences to reflect together on the opportunities, responsibilities and pitfalls facing the contemporary American scholar. http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/07/new_visions_of_the_american_sc.html http://www.publichumanities.com/2007/07/new_visions_of_the_american_sc.html Conversations Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:57:24 -0700