The Public Humanities @ Western program is designed to enhance the Faculty of Arts and Humanities’ commitment to the promotion of innovative forms of publicly engaged knowledge creation, experiential learning, and campus-community collaboration. Bringing together faculty, students, staff, and public partners, the program aims to address common problems as well as opportunities that arise between the campus and community. It also seeks to foster a more recognized place for public scholarship as an important mode of academic inquiry, and to encourage young scholars across the disciplines to pursue research projects aimed towards broader publics and forms of engagement. Above all, the program is designed to cultivate a renewed spirit of citizenship and engagement through arts and humanities research and collaboration.
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recent Events:
Organizing Culture
Tuesday, April 10 4 p.m.
Chu International Centre, Student Services Building
Julie Ellison Professor of English, American Culture, and Art and Design, University of Michigan; Founding Director, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life
For publicly engaged scholars, rethinking professional roles and aspirations is not just a reaction to stresses in higher education. It is also a chance to think in an evolutionary way about publicly engaged cultural organizations, and our roles in them. Collectively, we have fostered what amounts to an ad hoc 'curriculum' that allows us to think critically about how community-engaged humanists are working with, learning in, and thinking about cultural organizations; how these experiences are changing us; and the extent to which these altered professional practices are having, or could have, an reciprocal impact on the organizational settings in which we work as engaged scholars. Every party to campus-community partnerships works across differences in organizational types, organizational cultures, and organizational roles. The people who are involved in such relationships—students, faculty, administrators, staff—are actively reflecting on these inter-organizational dynamics. It is not surprising, then, that we are witnessing the emergence of what we might call "cultural organizational studies." This community of inquiry has grown from the direct experience of collaborative projects and programs involving partnerships between university programs and nonacademic organizations and institutions. Such a‘reorganizing’ of the arts, humanities, and cultural disciplines invites us to consider the ways in which the exercise of civic agency--working across lines of difference to address public problems--changes what kind of organizational knowledge we acquire, and how.
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A Visit with James Bartleman
Tuesday, March 27 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Conron Hall, University College Room 224A
James Bartleman 27th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Trudeau Mentor, and Writer
Mr. Bartleman’s lecture, “Canada’s Forgotten Native Children,” will be focused around the recent release of his first novel, As Long as the Rivers Flow (Knopf Canada, 2011). The novel follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is “stolen” from her family at the age of six and flown far away to residential school. In advance of the lecture, Mr. Bartleman will be visiting with Dr. Pauline Wakeham’s First Nations Literatures class, which is currently reading his recent novel as part of the course syllabus. A representative from Knopf Canada will be available to sell copies of As Long as the Rivers Flow, and Mr. Bartleman will be available for a book signing.This event will be of interest to those working on human rights, international relations, law, political science, indigenous health and well being, public history, anthropology, sociology, first nations studies, social justice and peace studies, as well as literature and aesthetics. Everyone welcome!
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Culture, Policy, Urban Space, and the City
Tuesday, March 20 6-9 p.m.
Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North London, ON
Keynote Speaker Dr. Will Straw Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada
Public Humanities @ Western is pleased to support this seminar event, organized by the Faculty of Information & Media Studies and SSHRC postdoc Dr. Martin Lussier and FIMS faculty member Dr. Matt Stahl. At 6 p.m., a roundtable discussion will explore themes of cultural policy, the arts, and the relationship(s) between The University of Western Ontario and the city of London, with the following participants representing these institutions: Robin Armistead (City of London), Tom Carmichael (Dean of FIMS), Patick Mahon (Museum London) and Joshua Lambier (Western grad student). At 7:30 p.m., Dr. Straw will give a public lecture on Music in the Regulatory Matrix, how cultural policy is rarely where one looks to find it.
For more info click here.
Music, Circulation and the City
Wednesday, March 21 University College Room 224A
Graduate Seminar 9:30-12:00 p.m.
Dr. Will Straw will present a graduate seminar as a part of the event "Culture, Policy, Urban Space, and the City". This seminar is for graduate students and faculty. Space is limited and readings will be distributed in advance of the event. If you wish to attend please contact: culturalpolicy@hotmail.ca
Graduate Mini-Conference 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Following the seminar, Drs. Lussier and Straw will host a graduate mini-conference (click here for Call For Papers). UWO graduate students from all disciplines will be invited to submit proposals related to the theme of “Culture, Policy, Urban Space, and the City.” Please submit your abstracts (max. 300 words) by February 6, 2012 to culturalpolicy@hotmail.ca.
In Conversation: Larry Towell speaks
with Sharon Sliwinski
Sunday, February 26 1 p.m.
Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North London, ON
Larry Towell Award-winning Canadian photographer with Magnum agency
The Public Humanities @ Western and the Centre for Social Concern (King’s University College) are pleased to present “Larry Towell and Sharon Sliwinski in conversation.” at Museum London. Professor Sliwinski will engage with Towell’s work for an in depth conversation about Danger and Aftermath, an exhibition of photographs from Afghanistan. They will discuss working in conflict zones, the gap between photographic evidence and photographic meaning, and the difficulties of telling a story in pictures. Danger and Aftermath, a salon-style installation, is the first public exhibition of Towell’s Afghanistan series. The photos capture the turmoil caused by longstanding war, corruption and displacement, as well as the peril of landmines and the mushrooming problem of addiction. Large-scale prints and panoramas create an almost immersive experience, with the content – victims of war, ruins, detainees and insurgents – bringing the current conflict in Afghanistan to life for the viewer. “Larry Towell and Sharon Sliwinski in conversation” will be of interest to those working on human rights, international relations, social justice and peace studies, as well as photography, contemporary art, literature and aesthetics.
Admission is free and everyone is welcome!
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States of Postcoloniality: Steven Loft and Gina Badger discuss FUSE Magazine
Thursday, February 2nd 7-10 p.m.Public Lecture: 7 p.m. Conron Hall, University College Room 224
FUSE Magazine Launch: 8:30 p.m. McIntosh Gallery
In partnership with McIntosh Gallery and the Department of Visual Arts, Public Humanities @ Western is pleased to host a lecture by Steven Loft, curator, theorist, writer and Trudeau Fellow at Ryerson University. Loft’s lecture will be of interest to those working in contemporary art and art history, curatorial studies, First Nations Studies, public history, media and information studies, as well as literature and aesthetics. Immediately following the lecture, we invite all to a public magazine launch and reception at McIntosh Gallery, which will include free copies of the newly published issue of FUSE.
Graduate Seminar: Friday, February 3rd 10-12 a.m
Loft will join FUSE Magazine’s Editorial Director Gina Badger to host an interdisciplinary graduate seminar focusing on the magazine’s three part series on postcoloniality, on the “nuts and bolts” of editorial work for an arts and culture periodical, and on ways that young scholars in the arts and humanities can maintain a rigorous social and political awareness in their research projects. The seminar will also feature a mock-editorial meeting aimed at generating links between current research projects, publishing opportunities, and content for future issues of the magazine.
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Panel Discussion: Approaching Afganistan
Sunday, January 29 1 p.m.Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North London, ON
Public Humanities @ Western and the Centre for Social Concern (King's University College) are pleased to sponsor this panel discussion about the in-depth discussion on the current and impending issues facing Afghanistan, led by individuals whose experience and research give insight into its people and culture. Panel speakers include: Najia Haneefi, Richard Johnson, Sara Matthews, Roger Simon and Jeremy Copeland. For more information on the speakers and the event: click here
From Infamy to Acclaim: An Inside Look at Five Years of Al Jazeera English
Tues. Nov 15, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Conron Hall, Rm 224 University College, The University of Western Ontario
Jeremy Copeland
Television journalist for Al Jazeera English (AJE) and Lecturer in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies atThe University of Western Ontario
Jeremy Copeland shoots, reports and produces stories from across Canada for Al Jazeera English TV and teaches in the Graduate Program in Journalism at Western’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies. He started his career with CBC TV; spent three years at BBC World TV in London, England; opened a news bureau in New Delhi where he covered stories across South Asia for CBC and BBC TV and radio, the Globe and Mail and CBC Online. He helped run Iraq’s first elections after the fall of Saddam Hussein and was part of the team in Washington, D.C. that launched Al Jazeera English.
Presented in partnership with The Arab Students' Association and Students United in Representation of Latin America.
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Mengele's Skull: Human Rights and Forensic Aesthetics
Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011
5:30 pm
Somerville House Rm. 3317, The University of Western Ontario
Thomas KeenanIn 1960 Adolf Eichmann was tried in Jerusalem and the 'era of the witness' commenced. In 1985, the body of Josef Mengele was identified by a group of forensic scientists in Brazil, giving birth to a rather different notion of evidence in human rights discourse. The talk will explore the emergence of the object in human rights, the conditions of its presentation, and the aesthetic operations involved in deciphering the 'speech of things.
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Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation
Through the Lens of Cultural Diversity
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
5:30 - 7:00 pm
Conron Hall, Rm 224 University College, The University of Western Ontario
Reception at McIntosh Gallery, 7-8:30 p.m.
Our goal for the inaugural event of The Public Humanities @ Western is to provide a forum for a public conversation on the question of “reconciliation” in Canada today. To guide us in this discussion, we will be welcoming Jonathan Dewar, Director of Research for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF), and Ashok Mathur, Canada Research Chair in Cultural and Artistic Inquiry from Thompson Rivers University, to introduce the third and final publication in the AHF's series on Truth and Reconciliation, entitled, Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation Through the Lens of Cultural Diversity. The volume brings together disparate voices to address how communities—immigrant, racialized, ‘new’ Canadians, and other minoritized groups—relate to the intricacies of reconciliation as a concept. Many of the contributors included in the volume address questions of land, Aboriginal histories, and different trajectories that have led to the current configuration and conglomeration of peoples in this geographic space. A central organizing principle of this collection of essays is artistic practice, and how embedding creative acts within critical responses helps to create a relevant framework of possibilities as we move inexorably into uncertain futures.
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Speaker Profiles
Julie Ellison
Professor of English, American Culture, and Art and Design, U of Michigan; Founding Director, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life
Tuesday, April 10 4 p.m.
Chu Centre, Student Services Bldg.
Julie Ellison is the founding director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, a national consortium of colleges... READ MORE ...
and universities that fosters the public role of the arts, humanities, and design by working for structural change in higher education. Ellison speaks widely on issues relating to public scholarship in the cultural disciplines. She also works with collaborators in South Africa on the relationship between cultural work and publicly engaged scholarship there. Ellison served for four years as Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Michigan. Ellison has served on the Board of the Michigan Humanities Council and on the Michigan Task Force on Creativity, the Arts, and Cultural Education. Ellison’s current research interests include the new politics of cultural knowledge and organized efforts to link poetry with democratic values. Professor Eillison will be giving a public lecture and seminar, with a special discussion of the process of building and directing the Imagining America program.
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