Calendar at a Glance

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2023

Upcoming events

• March 23 - Tressie Macmillan Cottom (Professor with the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill, New York Times columnist, & 2020 MacArthur Fellow). Co-sponsored with African-American Studies.
• March 24 - Promoting Women in the Arts in the Digital Era: Mini-symposium and Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. 1pm-5pm, Richland Libary Main Branch. Co-sponsored with the Center for Asian Studies and the School of Visual Art and Design.
• April 4 - Darrel Moellendory - "Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty."  6:30pm , Karen J Williams Courtroom at the USC School of Law.
• April 12-14 - Randall Kennedy (Michael R. Klein Professor, Harvard Law School) and Thavolia Glymph (Professor of History and African-American Studies, Duke University) in conversation. Co-sponsored with History Center.
• April 19  – Marion Turner, Oxford
• April 21-23 -- "Wood Basket of the World"  Conference. Lumbering, Manufacturing, and Conserving South Carolina’s Forests (Lumbering Research Group)

Previous events

• February 17 - 7:00 pm - Michael Ridge Moral philosopher Michael Ridge (Philosophy, University of Edinburgh): “Why So Serious? Work, Play, and the Meaning of Life.” Co-sponsored with Philosophy.
• February 23-25 - Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference. Hollings Library. Co-sponsored with Comparative Literature.
• March 6-10 - Archaeology Field School Experience Recruitment event for HCBUs (Diversifying Archaeological Education Research Group)
• March 15 - John Gennari (English and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, University of Vermont): "The Original Dixie Jazz Band, the Black/Italian Racial Nexus, and Transatlantic Jazz History." 6:30pm, Robert Mills Carriage House. Co-sponsored with History Center.
• March 18 - Asian American Community Music Making with Eric Hing-Tao Hung (The Music of Asian America Research Center, University of Maryland). 10:00am-12:00pm; Boyd Plaza (in front of the Columbia Museum of Art). Twentieth-century Transpacific Intercultural Collaboration Research Group. Co-sponsored with the School of Music.
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Expand all

2022

Previous events

• December 8 - Swimming Back to Trout River: A Conversation with Novelist Linda Rui Feng. Richland Library Main Brance Auditorium, 6pm. Sponsored by The Center of Asian Studies in the Walker Institute at USC, The Humanities Collaborative, and The Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

• December 1 - Matt Simmons and Mark Smith, sponsored by the DH Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, Hollings Library, SCPC Seminar Room, 3:00 p.m. Southern History Archives Research and Education (SHARE). 

• November 10 - Southern Guage Series presents: Jason Livingston An evening of 16mm film projection, videos, and in process slide projections.  214 McMaster, 7:30pm. More information on Instagram: @Southerngauge
• November 10 - Adam Schor, sponsored by the DH Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, Hollings Library, SCPC Seminar Room, 11:40 p.m.
• November 7 - Jason Mott (co-sponsored with Southern Studies)

• November 3 - Tessa Davis, Kate Boyd, Vandana Srivastava, sponsored by the DH Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, Hollings Library, SCPC Seminar Room, 1:15 p.m.
• November 1 -  Woody Holton, in conversation with Bakari Sellers (co-sponsored with the History Center), Allen University, Chapelle Auditorium, 6-8 p.m. Discussion of Liberty is Sweet.
• October 28 - Amie Freeman, Karen Gavigan, Kelly Goldberg, and Hayden Smith, sponsored by the DH Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, Hollings Library, SCPC Seminar Room, 11:00 a.m. Projects with UofSC Libraries' Create Digital”: Faculty Experiences Panel. 
• October 25 - Boubacar Ndiaye (co-sponsored with the Francophone Studies program and LLC), CMA Theatre, 7 p.m.
• October 20 - Stacy Winchester and David Reddy, sponsored by the DH Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, Hollings Library, SCPC Seminar Room, 11:40 a.m. “Research Computing: Resources at the U of SC”
• October 19 - in)Visibility: Aesthetic Dimensions of Perception. Poster/artmaking session, sponsored by the (In)visibility Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, Russell House Ballroom (section B), 12-4 p.m (drop in at any time).
• October 5-7 - Mia Bay (co-sponsored with the History Center)—public lecture October 6, Karen J. Williams Courtroom, 6-8 p.m.
• October 6 - Kristin Harrell (virtual), sponsored by the DH Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, 2:45 p.m. “DH and the world of Margery Kempe.” See DH Research page for further details and for link.
• October 7 - Mia Bay—roundtable discussion, Gambrell 245B, 11:30a.m.
• October 11 - Prasenjit Duara, sponsored by the Twentieth-Century Transpacific Intercultural Collaboration Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, 4-5:30 p.m. “Oceans, Gardens, and Jungles: Worldviews and the Planet” 
• September 21 - Digital Humanities Meet and Greet (in person), sponsored by the Digital Humanities Research Group, Humanities Collaborative, Hollings Library, SCPC Seminar Room, 12p.m.
• May 2- "Conversations on the American South" The Inaugural Conversation: Race, Cender and the Civil War Era- with Thavolia Glymph
• April 22 - Book talk by Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan on The Teaching Archive :A New History for Literary Study
• April 22 - DH talk by Heather Heckman on "Shoot Today, Screen Tomorrow: A Quantitative Analysis of Elapsed Time from Production to Release by Color System in the United States, 1935-1975"
• April 19 - Discussion between Judge Richard Gergel and Patricia Sullivan on Sullivan's book Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy's America in Black and White
• April 11 - Talk by Daniel Everett "Language and Conflict in Amazonia"
• April 6 - Book talk by Katina Rogers on Putting the Humanities PhD to Work
• April 5- Systemic Inequality in South Carolina Schools - Buffet Dinner and Panel Discussion
• April 5- Conversation with actor and director Clark Johnson (The Wire)
• April 4 - Talk from Nitasha Kaul entitled "Kashmir: The Personal is Political" 
• April 4- "On These Grounds" Film Screening followed by Q&A with activist Vivian Anderson
• April 1- DH presentation by Christian Cicimurri - Historic Southern Naturalists: Six Years of Digitizing Natural History (online only- click here for more info and link)
• April 1- Presentation on NEH and NEA grants for the Humanities
• March 25- DH talk on Research Computing storage
• March 23- Lecture by Gregg Hecimovich from Furman University on the historic Zealy daguerrotypes
• March 21 - Talk by anthropologist Jessica Smith: "Extracting Accountability: Engineers and Corporate Social Responsibility"
• March 21- “Diversifying Archaeological Education” Research Group's archaeology workshop
• March 18 - DH talk by Amanda Wangwright
• March 3 & 4- Carolina's Conflict Consortium
• March 4- DH talk by Jason Porter and Evan Meaney (for UofSC faculty, staff, and grad students)
• March 2- Roger Beebe film performance at If Art Gallery (Columbia, SC)
• Feb 25- DH talk by Herrick Brown (for UofSC faculty, staff. and grad students)
• Feb. 22- Imani Perry Book Talk
• Feb. 16- Discussion of Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court
• Feb. 12- Briallen Hopper Reading and Discussion
• Feb 7- Phil Klay lecture

 

Expanding the list above will highlight our future schedule of events and provide a downloadable flyer or additional information as available. Detailed descriptions of lectures, book talks, and visitors are also listed in the Event Details below. For our DH talks, more info is available on our Digital Humanities page.

 

Event Details

26th Annual Robert Smalls Lecture "Troubling the Public During Troubling Times" by Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom

Thursday, March 23rd

7pm-9pm

Judge Karen J Williams Courtoom at USC School of Law

The Department of African American Studies is pleased to announce award-winning writer, sociologist, cultural critic, professor with the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill and MacArthur Fellow, Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom as our keynote speaker for the annual Robert Smalls Lecture on Thursday, March 23, 2023.

In addition to holding the prestigious MacArthur Fellow, Dr. McMillan Cottom is a New York Times Opinion Columnist, and author of the award-winning book, Thick: And Other Essays. McMillan Cottom is celebrated for her profound yet personal ideas and the dynamic accessibility of her analyses. Dr. McMillan Cottom’s first book, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, led to appearances on The Daily Show, NPR’s Marketplace and Fresh Air, and has been name-checked by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and activists like The Debt Strike Collective. Since the release of her second book, Thick: And Other Essays, Dr. McMillan Cottom’s career has skyrocketed. Thick became a Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award, and the following year Tressie received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship – known as the “genius grant.” Her work is prolific – beyond her books and celebrated New York Times opinion column, she has written a Substack newsletter, “Essaying,” co-hosted the Black feminist podcast Hear to Slay with Roxane Gay, and has sat in as a guest host for The Ezra Klein Show. Her books have become modern classics, and her commentary is in demand on a wide range of topics like inclusive marketing, creating policy narratives, technology, the future of democracy, and the cultural zeitgeist.

Co-sponsored by: the Humanities Collaborative; the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; the Center for Civil Rights History and Research, Department of Women's and Gender Studies; Department of Sociology

"Promoting Women in the Arts in the Digital Era: Mini-symposium and Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-athon

Friday, March 24th

1:00pm-5:00pm

Richland Library, Main Branch

In celebration of Women’s History Month, USC’s School of Visual Art and Design is once again joining forces with Art+Feminism, a global movement committed to building communities and closing information gaps related to gender, feminism, and the arts. This year’s event kicks off with a series of short talks about ongoing efforts to increase women artists’ visibility on the internet and in digital humanities projects. Guest speaker, Dr. Colleen Laird, assistant professor of Japanese Popular Culture at the University of British Columbia, will discuss her Japanese Women Directors Project, a digital dialogue series and website. Then SVAD professors will present efforts of their own and others that amplify women artists and their artworks: Dr. Amanda Wangwright will discuss her digital research project on women artists in modern China, Dr. Susan Felleman will survey other online resources related to women in arts and media, Dr. Anna Swartwood House will share her recent Wikipedia research and revisions, and Prof. Meena Khalili will share a few publications adding to the design canon specific to Motherhood, and the Black, Brown, and Latinx experience in design.

For the second half of the event, SVAD professor Evan Meaney will give a technical demo on the basics of creating and editing Wikipedia pages. Then we’ll jump into actively researching, writing, and editing! While no prior Wikipedia experience is necessary, please create a Wikipedia account before the event. From there, we will offer tutorials for beginners, art history reference materials, and extra support. While some computers will be available, you are encouraged to bring your own laptop, power cord, and extension cord if possible. Anyone and everyone regardless of experience, gender, or background, is welcome to attend and participate. We encourage all Edit-a-thon participants who would like to close information gaps in the arts and bring attention to traditionally underrepresented artists, especially those who may have been overlooked due to race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, language, abilities/disabilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, or geographic region.

Sponsored by the Center for Asian Studies in the Walker Institute for International, Area Studies and the School of Visual Art and Design, and the Humanities Collaborative.

 "Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty" with Darrel Moellendorf

Tuesday, April 4th

6:30pm

Karen J Williams Courtroom at the USC School of Law

A climate crisis and other pressures on planetary ecology are cause for profound anxiety. Climate change threatens to trap hundreds of millions of people in poverty and to separate further an already deeply divided world. However, a new generation of activists is offering inspiration, serving as a hope-maker. Darrel Moellendorf’s talk offers an accessible and empirically informed philosophical discussion of climate change, global poverty, and the importance of a political response that offers hope.

Moellendorf is Professor of International Political Theory and Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy at University of Johannesburg in South Africa. His talk will be on his new book, Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty (Oxford University Press, 2022). He is the author of Cosmopolitan Justice, Global Inequality Matters, and The Moral Challenge of Dangerous Climate Change: Values, Poverty, and Policy. 

"The Wife of Bath: A Biography" with Marion Turner

Wednesday, April 19th

6:00pm

Turner is J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at Oxford University. She is the author of the award-winning Chaucer: A European Life (Princeton University Press, 2019). Her talk will be based on her new book, The Wife of Bath: A Biography (Princeton, 2023), a one-of-a-kind history of the literary and feminist icon from the Canterbury Tales who continues to capture the imagination of readers. 

 

Past Lectures, Events, and Book Talks

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  Asian American Community Music Making with Eric Hing-Tao Hung  

  Saturday, March 18th 10:00am-12:00pm Boyd Plaza (in front of the Columbia Museum of Art). Hung is the founding director of the Music of Asian America Research Center and is engaged in a large-scale research project interviewing and collecting information about how Asian American communities have used music for various purposes. At this event, Hung will share his findings as well as showcase the works of local groups who will be performing. 

• Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference  

  Friday, March 24th - Saturday, March 25th Hollings Library Friday 2/24 10:15-11:30     Keynote: Katie Chenoweth, Princeton University  “Erasable Books (Montaigne, Shakespeare, Derrida)” [virtual] Friday 2/24 2:15-3:30       Keynote: Bonnie Mak, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign “Reading and Writing Material” [in-person] Saturday 2/25  1:15-2:30        Keynote: Julie Park, Pennsylvania State University “Folds of Intermediality: Print as Word and Image in the 18th-Century Extra-Illustrated Book” [in-person]

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  "Playfulness as a Moral Virtue" with Michael Ridge (University of Edinburgh)  

  Thursday, February 16th 7:30pm Lumpkin Auditorium (Close-Hipp, 8th Floor) In this presentation, Professor Ridge argues that playfulness is a moral virtue. This might seem surprising, since playfulness is seen as frivolous, while morality is seen as serious, even profound. What is worse, some paradigmatic forms of playfulness can even seem morally vicious—think of the playfulness of a trickster like Loki, for example. Nonetheless, the idea has a lot more going for it than it might at first seem. Professor Ridge will start by drawing on some of his previous work on what play is to explain what playfulness as a character trait is. He will then defend a plausible sufficient condition for a character trait's being a moral virtue. With all these pieces in place, he will then offer several considerations in favour of the idea that playfulness is indeed a moral virtue—or, more cautiously, that for most people with a very basic level of moral integrity and moral competence, playfulness is a moral virtue.

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  Swimming Back to Trout River: A Conversation with Novelist Linda Rui Feng  

  Tuesday, December 8 6:00pm Richland Library Main Branch Auditorium  Please join us for a conversation with Linda Rui Feng about her highly acclaimed novel, Swimming Back to Trout River, which Garth Greenwell calls “one of the most beautiful debuts I have read in years.” “With the lightest of touches, Feng vividly portrays the experience of living in China during Mao’s rule as well as the pressures of being a new immigrant. Looking deeply into the ‘invisible mesh’ that links her characters’ lives, Feng weaves a plot both surprising and inevitable, with not a word to spare.” —Booklist (Starred Review) Linda Rui Feng is a cultural historian at the University of Toronto, where her research takes her to books from the ninth century, maps of the early modern era, and more recently, the history of scent and aromatics. She is the author of the novel Swimming Back to Trout River, which was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was longlisted for the Giller Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize.  Sponsored by The Center for Asian Studies in the Walker Institute at USC, The Humanities Collaborative, and The Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.

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  Southern Gauge presents: Landfill Backfill Rom-compost, or, There's no "I" in (s)T(r)EAM, but there is a "We" in Post-Consumer Waste with Jason Livingston

  November 10th, 2022 7:30pm 214 McMaster, University of South Carolina An evening of 16mm films, videos, and in-process slide projections. More information on Instagram: @Southerngauge

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  Neuffer Lecture in Southern Literature with Jason Mott

  November 7th, 2022 7:00pm Lunpkin Auditorium - Close Hipp 8th Floor The Neuffer Lecture series begins with award-winning author Jason Mott.  Mott is the author of two poetry collections and four novels. His debut novel was the basis for ABC's show Resurrection. His most recent novel, Hell of a Book, won the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction.  A book signing & reception will follow the lecture.  Sponsored by:The Institute for Southern Studies  Co-Sponsored by:Department of EnglishDepartment of African American Studies Humanities Collaborative 

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  Life is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revoltion  

  Tuesday, November 1, 6:00pm  Allen University, Chappelle Auditorium. Woody Holton and Bakari Sellers, CNN will discuss Prof. Holton’s recently published book, Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution. Described as “a bracing retelling” and a “must read for understanding on the founding of our nation,” the book shows how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans – women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters.  Woody Holton, McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, is a leading scholar of the American Revolution and early American history. His publications include Abigail Adams, which won the Bancroft Prize in American history, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, and Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Bakari Sellers is an attorney, a CNN political analyst, former South Carolina representative, and an author. His books include My Vanishing Country: A Memoir and Who Are Your People?   Books will be for sale; a signing will follow the program.  

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  Student Workshop with Boubacar Ndiaye  

  Students have the opportunity to learn hands-on with visiting storyteller and musician Boubacar Ndiaye in a workshop on West African music and spoken word on Tuesday, October 25, 2-4pm, in Russell House 322. In French. Space is limited; please register to participate.

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  Performance of "Voyage sans visa" with Boubacar Ndiaye, Baye Cheikh Mbaye, and Pape Ndiaye Paamath   

  Senegalese griot Boubacar Ndiaye and musicians Baye Cheikh Mbaye and Pape Ndiaye Paamath are coming to the CMA Theater on Tuesday, October 25, 7-8:30pm. Their musical performance, “Voyage sans visa,” explores stories of migration through song and spoken word. Show followed by discussion with the artists. Watch a preview to get a taste of the artists’ remarkable work. In French and Wolof with English translation. Free and open to the public.

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  In)Visibility: The Aesthetic Dimensions of Perception - A UofSC Humanities Collaborative Workshop  

  Hands-on projects allow participants to investigate ideas about perception and (in)visibility by creating cyanotypes, drawings in two and three dimensions, and clay sculptures.

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  Prasenjit Duara  

  "Oceans, Gardens, and Jungles: Worldviews and the Planet"  

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  Mia Bay

  "Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance"

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  Judge Richard Gergel and Patricia Sullivan   

  "Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy's America in Black and White" A conversation with author Patricia Sullivan & U.S. District Court judge Richard Gergel

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  Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan  

  A conversation with Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan, who will be discussing their recent book The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study.

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  Thavolia Glymph

  "The Inaugural Conversation: Race, Gender and the Civil War Era"    

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  Phil Klay

  "Literature in a Time of Crisis"  

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  Imani Perry

  South to America  

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  Briallen Hopper

  Book Talk: Hard to Love: Essays and Confessions   

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  2022 Carolinas Conflict Consortium

   

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  Justice Deferred Book Discussion

  Barbara Phillips interviews Armand Derfner and Dr. Vernon Burton 

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  Roger Beebe film performance

   

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  A Talk by Jessica Smith

   

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  Gregg Hecimovich on the Zealy daguerreotypes