Join Rebecca Falkoff, Raymond Malewitz & Bradley Lewis as they discuss the cultural history of hoardingJoin the NYU Center for the Humanities and the NYU Medical Humanities Working Group as we celebrate the publication of Possessed: A Cultural History of Hoarding (Cornell University Press), which asks how hoarding, once a paradigm of economic rationality, became a picture of madness. Rebecca Falkoff brings a hoardicritical approach to this question, convening eclectic texts and tools to conduct an archeology of the fraught materiality of the present at cluttered sites of modernity. Image Description: A book, Possessed: A Cultural History of Hoarding by…

Kent Monkman in conversation with Professors Una Chaudhuri and Simón Trujillo, introduced and moderated by Yanoula Athanassakis.Perhaps best known in NYC for his Great Hall Commission at the MET, Kent Monkman is a trailblazing multi-media artist with a wide-ranging and provocative set of interventions into Western European and American art history. Monkman’s oeuvre explores themes of colonization, extinction, sexuality, loss, and resilience, all through a prism of the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experiences. Kent Monkman will be in conversation with Professors Una Chaudhuri and Simón Trujillo, introduced and moderated by Yanoula Athanassakis.Les Castors du Roi (2011) | Acrylic…

Join Dara Rossman Regaignon, Dylan B. Dryer, Perri Klass,Talia Schaffer, & Joseph Mclaughlin as they explore the origins of maternal anxietyWhen did mothers start worrying so much? Why do they keep worrying so? Writing Maternity answers these questions by identifying the nineteenth-century rhetorical origins of maternal anxiety, inviting readers to think about worrying not as something individual mothers do but as an affect that since Victorian times has defined middle-class motherhood itself. In this book, Rossman Regaignon offers the first comprehensive study of child-rearing advice literature from early-nineteenth century Britain and argues that the historical emergence of that genre catalyzed…

Installment three of the spring 2021 Writing Matter's series explores scrutiny through storytelling with Kate Brown and Hazel V. CarbyIn the spring of 2021, Writing Matters will bring into conversation scholars who lead multiple writerly lives, blending voices and genres. How does such experimentation invigorate our scholarship, serve our intellectual and critical designs, and reach different readerships?For the third installement, our panel explores the art of investigative storytelling with: Kate Brown, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, MIT, author of Dispatches From Dystopia: History of Places Not Yet Forgotten (2015) Hazel V. Carby, Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Professor…

Join NYU Professors Marion Kaplan and Robert Chazan as they discuss the flight and plight of Jewish migrants from the middle ages and beyondJoin Marion Kaplan (Author, Hitler’s Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal) and Robert Chazan (Author, Refugues or Migrants: Pre-Modern Jewish Population Movement) as they discuss how Jewish communities faced forced expulsion and fled persecution in medieval and Nazi Europe, respectively. They will describe the causes of these forced migrations as well as how communities, families and individuals dealt with their plight.Pictured: Hitler’s Jewish Refugees:Hope and Anxiety in Portugal by Marion Kaplan (Left) and Refugees or Migrants:Pre-Modern…

Installment two of the spring 2021 Writing Matter's series explores all that is verse and prose with McGuinnes and Renato Rosaldo In the spring of 2021, Writing Matters will bring into conversation scholars who lead multiple writerly lives, blending voices and genres. How does such experimentation invigorate our scholarship, serve our intellectual and critical designs, and reach different readerships? For the second installment, our panel explores all that is verse and prose with: Patrick McGuinness, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, St. Anne’s College, Oxford, author of Other People’s Countries: A Journey Into Memory (2015) Renato Rosaldo, Professor Emeritus of…

Join Kevin Gotkin, David Kirkland, Nikhil Pal Singh & Mara Mills as they discuss the relationship between activism and the humanities.Underpinning the liberal arts is the belief that higher education is preparation for life as a responsible, actively engaged citizen. Does this mean there is a natural connection between the humanities and activism, or is it that higher education points the way to something more focused? What might such activism look like? Join us for a discussion with NYU faculty on Activism and the Humanities.FeaturingKevin Gotkin (Visiting Assistant Professor, Media, Culture, and Communication, Steinhardt)David Kirkland (Vice Dean of Equity, Belonging,…

Harlan Greene, Jennifer Berry Hawes, Dr. Bernard E. Powers & Molly Rogers discuss the enduring legacy of the Zealy daguerreotypesAntebellum South Carolina was the site of scientific innovation, but also a place of deep-seated racism. These interests converged notably in the daguerreotypes of seven enslaved men and women that were made in 1850 by a Columbia photographer. Join us for a discussion on why the daguerreotypes could have been made nowhere else, why their legacy still lingers, and how the themes invoked then are still troubling us today.featuringHarlan Greene is Scholar in Residence at Addlestone Library, College of Charleston, where…

Installment one of the spring 2021 Writing Matter's series explores the art of memoir with Emily Bernard and Charles DewIn the spring of 2021, Writing Matters will bring into conversation scholars who lead multiple writerly lives, blending voices and genres. How does such experimentation invigorate our scholarship, serve our intellectual and critical designs, and reach different readerships?For the first installment, our panel explores of the art of the memoir with:Emily Bernard, Julian Lindsay Green & Gold Professor of English, University of Vermont, author of Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine (2019)Charles Dew,…

Join Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal as they discuss their co-edited anthology, “Fictions of America: The Book of Firsts”Join Ulrich Baer (Director, NYU Center for the Humanities) and Smaran Dayal (Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature, NYU) as they discuss their co-edited anthology, Fictions of America: The Book of Firsts. Fictions of America presents “first” literary works that broke barriers, inaugurated new traditions, and prove that the imagination of diverse authors was one of the most powerful forces in shaping our nation. Moderated by Nicholas Boggs (Clinical Assistant Professor of English, NYU)The Center for the Humanities is committed to making our…

Join us for a conversation with Pamela Sneed and Karen Finley on Funeral Diva—a poetic memoir about coming-of-age in the AIDS era"In this collection of personal essays and poetry, acclaimed poet and performer Pamela Sneed details her coming of age in New York City during the late 1980s. Funeral Diva captures the impact of AIDS on Black Queer life, and highlights the enduring bonds between the living, the dying, and the dead."Featuring Pamela Sneed, Artist and Author of Sweet Dreams, Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery and Funeral DivaKaren Finley, Artist, Author and Professor of Art and Public…

Circling Around Disability in Dance: A Conversation with Alice Sheppard and Jennifer Homans Alice Sheppard (Choreographer/Dancer) and Jennifer Homans (Writer and Director of The Center for Ballet and the Arts) meet to see and discuss Sheppard's work and perspectives on dance and disability, aesthetics, embodiment, and virtuosity.