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.
READ MORE about public humanities...
Follow Us on Facebook and Twitter!
upcoming Events:
Dr. Ruth B. Phillips
Thursday, March 14 2013
Location TBD
Dr. Ruth B. Phillips is the Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture at Carlton University. She researches visual and material culture as aspects of larger processes of culture contact and colonization in order to contribute to the development of new approaches to museological and academic representations of First Nations art.
Dr. Phillips has created the Visual Studies Laboratory in Carleton’s Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture (ICSLAC), funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Fund, and Carleton University. The Laboratory hosts the work of the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC), which Phillips founded in 2005.
GRASAC is an international collaboration of over fifty researchers based in universities, museums, and indigenous communities. Its members are developing new understandings of Great Lakes systems of expressive culture that incorporate both Western and indigenous knowledge and perspectives. In 2008, GRASAC launched its innovative multi-disciplinary database, using software developed with its industry partner, Ideeclic, of Gatineau, Quebec. The database supports the work of GRASAC researchers and ICSLAC students and facilitates digital repatriation to indigenous communities.
Public Matters: Lecture by Banff Centre President Jeff Melanson
Thursday, March 28 2013
Museum London
Free admission, everyone welcome!
This lecture marks the first collaboration in a new partnership with the School for Advanced Studies in Arts and Humanities and Public Humanities @ Western.
As rapid changes in our social, cultural and economic fabric have created uncertain times, Jeff Melanson will discuss opportunities for transformative change, and how individuals and organizations can engage the public, reframe audience development and create greater public good.
Melanson was appointed president of The Banff Centre in 2012. He holds a BA in music from the University of Manitoba and a MBA degree from Wilfrid Laurier University. A member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and a trustee with the National Guild for Community Arts Education, in the United States, Melanson was the first arts leader to be appointed one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40™ for 2009.
Between 2000 and 2006, Melanson held various posts at the Community School at the Royal Conservatory of Music and was promoted to dean in 2001. In this role, he was essential in building the program into the largest community arts school in North America. In 2006, Melanson was appointed executive director and co-chief executive officer of Canada’s National Ballet School. During his tenure, he was instrumental in eliminating a significant annual operating deficit, increasing annual revenues by over 50 per cent, overseeing the completion of residence renovations, and creating new strategic partnerships with many non-profit and for-profit arts and entertainment corporations.
Dr. Robert Enright
Date/Location TBD
Dr. Robert Enright is University Research Professor in Art Criticism, is one of Canada's most prominent cultural journalists. He was the founder and is currently the Senior Contributing Editor to Border Crossings magazine.
Dr. Enright has received 14 nominations at the National and Western Magazine Awards for his writing in Border Crossings, winning four gold and two silver medals. He was an art critic for CBC radio and television for 25 years and continues to contribute to a number of network programs. He also contributes regularly to the Globe & Mail, and to a number of international art magazines, including ArtReview, Modern Painters, ARTnews and Contemporary. Prof. Enright collaborated with Arthur Danto on the book, Eric Fischl: 19702000, and published a collection of 32 interviews under the title Peregrinations: Conversations with Contemporary Artists. He has also contributed essays, introductions and interviews to 20 catalogues in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. In addition to writing about the visual arts, he has conducted interviews and reviewed works in theatre, dance, film and performance art. In 2005 Professor Enright was made a Member of the Order of Canada by Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson.
recent events:
The The Rogers Chair for Studies in Journalism and New Media Technologies at FIMS and The Public Humanities at Western present:
“Interrogating Scholarly Responsibility in an Era of Market Fundamentalism”
Thursday, November 22
Conron Hall, UC 224
Join us as we consider the limits and possibilities of research, teaching and faculty self-governance within the neoliberal, corporatized university.
SPEAKERS: Moderator: Alison Hearn (Rogers Chair, FIMS) Matthew Rowlinson (English) Nick Dyer-Witheford (FIMS) Alexandra Torres (FIMS) Bryce Traister (English)
In 1992, Jacques Derrida insisted that the “strongest responsibility for someone attached to a research or teaching institution is…to make…its system and its aporias as clear and as thematic as possible” (Derrida 1992: 22–23). In 1996, Bill Readings urged those of us working within the university to adopt a form of “institutional pragmatism”, which would involve “ceasing to justify our practices in the name of an idea from ‘elsewhere,’ an idea that would release us from responsibility for our immediate actions” (The University in Ruins,1996: 153). Given the intensifying transformations of the university system that are currently taking place around the globe, what does “scholarly responsibility” mean today? And, what are the intellectual and political implications of adopting a form of “institutional pragmatism” in the face of these changes?
The Public Scholarship Education Series presents:
“Mobilizing Knowledge and Imagining Campus-Community Collaboration”
Saturday, November 10 9:00am – 4:00pm
Chu International Student Centre, Student Services Building
Entering its second year of activities, The Public Humanities at Western is pleased to launch a new Public Scholarship Education Series, which is designed to bring together the research programs and community engagements of graduate students. Our inaugural one-day workshop, “Mobilizing Knowledge and Imagining Campus-Community Collaboration,” will begin the process of incubating new campus-community initiatives in the broad area of the arts and humanities, and will ask participants to make connections between their current research and the communities they feel connected to beyond their immediate departments. The workshop’s primary objective is to give graduate and post-graduate researchers the opportunity to think about the process of translating knowledge generated from their research projects to related areas of inquiry within and beyond academia, with a particular emphasis on critical research that engages with issues of public concern and the public good.
Public Intellectuals and the Crisis of Higher Education as a Public Good
Thursday, October 4, 2012 3M Centre Room 3250
Henry A. Giroux writes and teaches on the topics of public education, cultural studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory at McMaster University, where he holds the Global Television Network Chair in the Department of English and Cultural Studies.
He is also one of the groundbreaking theorists of the critical pedagogy movement, and his essays have appeared in numerous academic publications and public forums. His most recent books include: Politics After Hope: Obama and the Crisis of Youth, Race, and Democracy (2010); Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror (2010); The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence (co-authored with Grace Pollock, 2010); Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism (2011); Henry Giroux on Critical Pedagogy (2011); Education and the Crisis of Public Values (2012); and Twilight of the Social: Resurgent Publics in the Age of Disposability(2012). His website is www.henryagiroux.com.
TO VIEW PREVIOUS EVENTS VISIT OUR ARCHIVE
Speaker Profiles
ruth b. phillips
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Dr. Ruth B. Phillips researches visual and material culture as aspects of larger processes of culture contact and colonization in order to contribute to the development of new approaches to museological and academic representations of First Nations art.
Phillips began her career at Carleton in 1979, pioneering the teaching of indigenous North American art history in Canada. She has curated exhibitions for and consulted to major museums in Canada and the United States. From 1997-2003 she served as director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, where she was also Professor of Anthropology and Art History. READ MORE ...
In 2003 she returned to Carleton as the Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture. Teaching graduate courses in the M.A. in art history offered by the School for Studies in Art and Culture and in the doctoral program in Cultural Mediations offered by the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture. Between 2004-8 she served as president of CIHA, the international association of art historians. As the Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture, Dr. Phillips has created the Visual Studies Laboratory in Carleton’s Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture (ICSLAC), funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Fund, and Carleton University. The Laboratory hosts the work of the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC), which Phillips founded in 2005. GRASAC is an international collaboration of over fifty researchers based in universities, museums, and indigenous communities. Its members are developing new understandings of Great Lakes systems of expressive culture that incorporate both Western and indigenous knowledge and perspectives. In 2008, GRASAC launched its innovative multi-disciplinary database, using software developed with its industry partner, Ideeclic, of Gatineau, Quebec. The database supports the work of GRASAC researchers and ICSLAC students and facilitates digital repatriation to indigenous communities.
Jeff Melanson
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Jeff Melanson was appointed president of The Banff Centre in 2012. He holds a BA in music from the University of Manitoba and a MBA degree from Wilfrid Laurier University. A member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and a trustee with the National Guild for Community Arts Education, in the United States, Melanson was the first arts leader to be appointed one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40™ for 2009.
Between 2000 and 2006, Melanson held various posts at the Community School at the Royal Conservatory of Music and was promoted to dean in 2001. In this role, he was essential in building the program into the largest community arts school in North America. READ MORE ...
In 2006, Melanson was appointed executive director and co-chief executive officer of Canada’s National Ballet School. During his tenure, he was instrumental in eliminating a significant annual operating deficit, increasing annual revenues by over 50 per cent, overseeing the completion of residence renovations, and creating new strategic partnerships with many non-profit and for-profit arts and entertainment corporations..
Quick Links
- Classical Studies
- English
- Film Studies
- French Studies
- Modern Languages and Literatures
- Philosophy
- Visual Arts
- Women's Studies and Feminist Research
- Linguistics Program
- Writing, Rhetoric, and Professional Communication