New for 2011--Hall Center Competitions Portal 

Beginning in Fall 2011, the Hall Center will implement a new online system for receiving, processing, and reviewing applications for Hall Center awards and fellowships. It will include several important features:

• Convenient online interface
• Automatic solicitation of reference letters
• Easy upload of supplemental material

The Competitions Portal will go live on or before September 1, 2011. It will be accessible via the Hall Center's website. All 2011-2012 competitions will be included in the launch, with two exceptions.

• The NEH Summer Stipend Institutional Nomination. Due to the early September deadline, this application will continue via paper submission for Fall 2011 only. The application form and information are available here. In future years, this competition will also be included in the online system application process.
• Simons Public Humanities Fellowship. Because of the unique nature of this fellowship and its rolling deadline, we will continue to receive application letters and resumes via email. Information on this fellowship opportunity are is available here.  

Fore more information about the system, click here. Please direct any questions to Associate Director Kristine Latta at klatta@ku.edu. 

Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Workshop 

All graduate students are invited to attend these workshops, directed by the four students who received Hall Center Graduate Summer Research Awards. The talks will incline more to method, problem, or theory than to subject content, to increase their appeal to a wider audience. All workshops will be held in the Hall Center Seminar Room. Lunch is provided, but RSVP is required at least one week in advance to hallcenter@ku.edu or 864-4798. 

Co-directors:

Hilary Hungerford, Geography

Kendra Fullwood, English

Nicole Perry, Sociology

John Schneiderwind, History 

Hilary Hungerford, Geography  

"Doing Fieldwork 'Over There': Politics and Practice of Research in Developing Countries"

Fri, August 26, 12:30-2:00 p.m.

 RSVPs for this workshop will be accepted until noon on Tuesday, August 23 

Emily Kennedy, Sociology   

"That's What She Said: Interviews and Internet Research"

Fri, September 23, 12:30-2:00 p.m.  

Nicole Perry, Sociology 
"Intimate Interviews: Using Technology to Understand the Sexual Histories of Female Prisoners in 1920s and 30s Kansas"
Fri, October 14, 12:30-2:00 p.m. 

Jeremy Prichard, History 
"Implementing Research Methods in the Research Paper: One Instructor's Observations"
Fri, December 2, 12:30-2:00 p.m. 

New Faculty Workshop Series 

The goal of the New Faculty Workshop series is to help new faculty members in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts negotiate the first three years at KU. Participants will meet other new faculty from different departments and have the opportunity to question a number of our senior faculty and staff about any concerns they may have regarding teaching, research and service. The workshops are an interactive forum in which speakers will provide a short talk before taking questions. Lunch will be provided, but RSVP is required at least one week in advance to hallcenter@ku.edu or 864-4798.  

Isidro Rivera, Spanish and Portuguese, & John Pierce, Public Administration, Friends Council 

"The Role of the Humanities Center" 

Tue, September 13, 12:00-1:30 p.m. 

Joshua Rosenbloom, Research and Graduate Studies, & Jeff Moran, History    

"Research Engagement" 

Thu, October 13, 12:00-1:30 p.m.   

Kathy Porsch, Hall Center Grant Development Office, & Sherrie Tucker, American Studies 
"External Grant Funding: Why Should I Bother?"
Wed, November 16, 12:00-1:30 p.m.   

Fall Faculty Colloquium

Consciousness in Interdisciplinary Perspective 

Directors: Anna Neill, Associate Professor, English and Leslie Tuttle, Associate Professor, History   

The Hall Center's 2011 Fall Faculty Colloquium, "Consciousness in Interdisciplinary Perspective," will encourage interdisciplinary dialogue about consciousness, which sits simultaneously at the forefront of the cognitive sciences and at the root of humanistic inquiry. Participants will consider how new insights about how our evolutionarily shaped minds might enrich understanding of the classic subjects of humanistic scholarship, such as reading, storytelling, reasoning, and believing. The format of the colloquium will be unique, exploratory and interrogative, with the principal aim being to generate novel ideas for further investigation.  

Seven faculty members and one graduate student will meet under the leadership of co-directors Anna Neill and Leslie Tuttle: Sherrie Tucker (Associate Professor, American Studies); Iris Smith Fischer (Associate Professor, English); Mark Landau (Assistant Professor, Social Psychology); Glenn Adams (Associate Professor, Social Psychology); Ann Rowland (Associate Professor, English); Ben Sax (Associate Professor, History); Brian Daldorph (Assistant Professor, English); and Nicholas Simmons (doctoral candidate, Philosophy).  

All KU faculty and graduate students are welcome to to attend Colloquium sessions. Meetings will take place from 9:00-10:30 a.m. in the Hall Center Seminar Room on the following dates: September 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, October 6, November 3, and December 1 and 8.     

Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities 

Digital Humanities Forum 

Thu, September 22 - Sat, September 24

Registration required. For information and specific session schedules, visit www.idrh.ku.edu. 

In September, the Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities, co-directed by Arienne Dwyer (Associate Professor, Anthropology) and Brian Rosenblum (Associate Librarian, KU Libraries), will host a three day Digital Humanities Forum. The even will allow KU and non-KU faculty, technologists, librarians, and graduate students to explore the theory and practice of knowledge representation, broadly conceived, and to showcase their digital humanities projects and methodologies. For more information, please contact Arienne or Brian at  idrh@ku.edu.

African Literature in Global Perspective 

Thu, October 27 - Sat, October 29 

What stories do African writers tell, and how do they tell them? How do the vision, focus, and style of transnational African writers differ from earlier generations of anti-colonial and post-independent (colonial) writers? In what ways has globalization shaped contemporary African literatures, if any? How are contemporary African literatures situated in a newly emerging reconceptualization of World Literatures? Finally, has globalization, with all its complexities and implications, created new African literary aesthetics and critical impulses? This symposium, featuring speakers Niyi Osundare, Okay Ndibe, Ghirmagi Negash, Nozipo Maraire, Catherine McKinley, Niyi Coker, Femi Euba, and Biodum Jefiyo, will seek to explore these questions.  

A full symposium schedule will be posted to the Hall Center calendar by early September. For more information, please contact Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka (Theatre & Film/Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies) at 864-2691 or  omofola@ku.edu. 

Upcoming Seminars    

Aug 29 Gender Seminar, Dorice Elliott

Sep 2 Peace, War and Global Change Seminar, Paul Kelton