Being Human: Recent Episodes
University of Pittsburgh Humanities Center
Being Human aims to create conversations between the humanities and other disciplines -- conversations that let humanists and scholars in other fields learn from each other and create new forms of understanding as the 21st century unfolds.
In the series finale, 2020/2021 Humanities Media Fellow Jacqui Sieber interviews Being Human's host Dan Kubis about the show's 7-year run. To link to Jacqui's podcast Backbone, click here: www.spreaker.com/show/backbone. And stay tuned for more information about how to access archived episodes of Being Human.
An interview with Min Song, professor of English at Boston College University. The interview focuses on Professor Song's most recent book, Climate Lyricism.
An interview with Kelly Wisecup, professor of English at Northwestern University. The interview focuses on Professor Wisecup's most recent book *Assembled for Use: Indigenous Compilation and the Archives of Early Native American Literatures*.
An interview with Marlon Ross, professor of English at the University of Virginia. The interview focuses on Professor Ross's most recent book Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness.
An interview with Gayle Rogers, professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Rogers's most recent book Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI.
An interview with Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, professor of English at Bryn Mawr College. The interview focuses on Professor Sullivan's most recent book The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora.
Information on the essay collection Teaching Black, from the University of Pittsburgh Press, can be found here: upittpress.org/books/9780822946953/.
The webpage for Professor Sullivan's upcoming novel can be found here: www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/712169…781324091417.
An interview with Heather Love, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. The interview focuses on Professor Love's most recent book *Underdogs: Social Deviance and Queer Theor*y.
An interview with Michael Clune, Samuel B. and Virginia C. Knight Professor of Humanities at Case Western University. The interview focuses on Professor Clune's most recent book A Defense of Judgment. Professor Clune's essays at the Chronicle of Higher Education, including one that reproduces the core argument of A Defense of Judgment, are available here: www.chronicle.com/author/michael-clune.
An interview with Charles Exley, professor of Japanese literature and film and Associate Director of film and media studies at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Exley's work with Screenshot:Asia, a project to promote Asian film and culture in Pittsburgh. The website for Screenshot:Asia is here: www.screenshot.pitt.edu/. The essay we discuss on Takagi Tokuko and Japanese popular opera can be found here: www.jstor.org/stable/44508506?se…_info_tab_contents.
An interview with Paul Bové, professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Bové's new book Love’s Shadow, which was published in January by Harvard University Press. The interview was recorded on Friday, May 21, 2021.
Information on boundary2, the journal Professor Bové edits, can be found here: read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2.
The book launch for Love's Shadow hosted by boundary2 is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSWaaRRI-s.
Click here for a conversation on Love's Shadow hosted by Dartmouth: www.youtube.com/watch?v=opVQOsKRamw.
More information on the book, including Professor Bové's review of it, can be found here: paulbove.wordpress.com/2021/04/03/th…arch-30-2021/.
The clip of Harold Bloom talking about "The Auroras of Autumn" that we discuss in the interview is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLBXe3z9zx8.
Click here to listen to Backbone, a podcast about essential workers, hosted and recorded by Being Human producer Jacqui Sieber: www.spreaker.com/show/backbone.
An interview with Shelome Gooden, professor of linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Gooden's research, teaching, and the way both have been affected by various crises in 2020. It was recorded on Friday, May 7, 2021. Professor Gooden's LSA plenary talk is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlVotlTf6QM&t=565s. A citation and abstract for her essay "In the Fisherman's Net" can be found here: www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/…shelome-gooden. Citation and abstract for "African American Language in Pittsburgh and the Lower Susquehanna Valley" here: www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/…99795390-e-35. Information on the linguist.
Click here to listen to Backbone, a podcast about essential workers, hosted and recorded by Being Human producer Jacqui Sieber: www.spreaker.com/show/backbone.
An interview with Adriana Helbig, professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Helbig's research, teaching, and the way both have been affected by various crises in 2020. It was recorded on Friday, March 12, 2021. The Music at Pitt podcast, which is recorded and produced by Phil Thompson, can be found here: www.music.pitt.edu/podcast.
An interview with Shaundra Myers, professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Myers' research, teaching, and the way both have been affected by various crises in 2020. It was recorded on Friday, February 19, 2021. Professor Myers' essay on black anaesthetics can be found here: academic.oup.com/alh/article-abst…/31/1/47/5273610.
[Note: Professor Myers reached out to say she misspoke when discussing the Combahee River Collective at 23:30. She meant to refer to Barbara Smith rather than Barbara Johnson.]
Click here to listen to Backbone, a podcast about essential workers, hosted and recorded by Being Human producer Jacqui Sieber: www.spreaker.com/show/backbone.
An interview with Christopher Nygren, professor of art history at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Nygren's research, teaching, and the way both have been affected by the pandemic. It was recorded on Friday, February 5, 2021. The Beatrice Institute podcast we discuss can be found here: beatriceinstitute.libsyn.com/nygren-interview.
Click here to listen to Backbone, a podcast about essential workers, hosted and recorded by Being Human producer Jacqui Sieber: www.spreaker.com/show/backbone.
An interview with Mohammed Bamyeh, professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Bamyeh's research and writing, in particular, including his books *Lifeworlds of Islam: the Pragmatics of a Religion*, and *Anarchy as Order: the History and Future of Civic Humanity*. The essay we discuss (which is in Arabic) on civil war in the US is here: www.al-adab.com/article/%D9%83%D9…D9%8A%D8%A9%D8%9F. The interview we discuss is here: countervortex.org/anarchism-and-th…-arab-uprisings/. The issue of Mizna focusing on literature and revolutions can be found here: mizna.org/journal-slider/mizna…ature-in-revolution/.
An interview with Alaina Roberts, professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Roberts' research and writing, in particular her forthcoming book I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land. More information on the book can be found here: bit.ly/3garKyE. Professor Roberts' website can be found here: alainaeroberts.com/. The interview we discuss during this podcast (with WVON Chicago) can be found by scrolling down on this page: alainaeroberts.com/in-the-media/.
An interview with RA Judy, professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on RA Judy's research and writing, in particular his recently published book *Sentient Flesh: Thinking in Disorder, Poiesis in Black*. The interview with Fred Moten we discuss can be found here: www.boundary2.org/2020/05/of-human…y-by-fred-moten/. A citation and abstract for the *boundary2* essay "Restless Flying" can be found here: read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2/arti…/47/2/91/164269. Professor Judy's interview for the Minneapolis Interview Project can be found here: turtleroad.org/2020/08/02/ronald-judy/.
An interview with Mari Webel, professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Webel's teaching and research, and the perspectives they provide on the crises of 2020. Dr. Webel's National Humanities Webinar can be found here: nationalhumanitiescenter.org/putting-co…epidemics/. The article on reporting responsibly on Covid-19 can be found here: blogs.scientificamerican.com/observatio…sponsibly/.
An interview with Robin Brooks, professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Professor Brooks' teaching and research, and the perspectives they provide on the crises of 2020. Dr. Brooks' essay on RIP Shirts in the journal Biography can be found here: muse.jhu.edu/issue/40025. A Washington Post article that draws on that research is here: www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019…peace-shirts/. Links to other research can be found on Dr. Brooks' website, here: drrobinbrooks.com/.
An interview with Rudolph Ware, professor of history at the University of Michigan. The interview focuses on Professor Ware's life and career, particularly his recent book The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. The novel we discuss during the conversation is Ambiguous Adventure, by Cheikh Hamidou Kane.
An interview with Mabel Wilson, architect, designer, and professor of architecture at Columbia University. The interview focuses on Professor Wilson's life and career, including her 2012 book "Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums." The website for Who Builds Your Architecture?, which we discuss in the interview, can be found here: whobuilds.org/.
An interview with Tommie Shelby, Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University. The interview focuses on Dr. Shelby's life and career, particularly his work on race and justice.
An interview with Fred Moten, professor in the Department of Performance Studies at NYU. The interview focuses on Professor Moten's life and career, particularly his recent volume of criticism called "consent not to be a single being." The Nathaniel Mackey poem "Destination Out," which Moten references at the end of the conversation, is available here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi…tination-out.
An interview with Allen MacDuffie, professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin. The interview focuses on Professor MacDuffie's work as a scholar of Victorian literature and the environment. The essay we discuss, "Charles Darwin and the Victorian Pre-History of Climate Denial," is currently available on Jstor, here: www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/vic…_info_tab_contents. Professor MacDuffie also mentions Rob Nixon's work during the conversation. A Being Human interview with Professor Nixon is available here: Humanities-pitt – Slow-violence-and-a-repertoire-of-selves-an-interview-with-rob-nixon.
An interview with Merry Wiesner-Hanks, distinguished professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The interview focuses on Professor Wiesner-Hanks' career as a world historian and a historian of women and gender. The Masha Gessen essay that she references can be found here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-queer-opposition-to-pete-buttigieg-explained. For even more insight into the experiences of the earliest wave of feminist scholars in the American academy, listen to the Being Human interview with Margaret Homans: https://soundcloud.com/humanities-pitt/margaret-homans-interview.
An interview with Clay Risen, deputy op-ed editor at the New York Times and author of The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century. The interview focuses on Risen's book on Roosevelt, as well as his general approach to writing popular American history.
An interview with Rebecca Jordan-Young, professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College. The interview focuses on Professor Jordan-Young's research into the science of gender and sexuality, particularly her most recent book Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography, which she co-authored with Katrina Karkazis.
An interview with Simon Gikandi, professor of English at Princeton University and President of the Modern Language Association (MLA). The interview focuses on Professor Gikandi's life and career, and the role that literature and art played for him growing up in a postcolonial setting. We also discuss the upcoming MLA conference, the theme of which is...Being Human!
An interview with Angie Cruz, Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and author of the novel Dominicana (2019). The interview focuses on Professor Cruz's recent novel and her work editing the literary journal Aster(ix). Link to Aster(ix) here: asterixjournal.com/. The interview "Editing with Love and Openness is Activism" is available here: www.thereviewreview.net/interviews/ed…hat-angie-cru. The essay "What We Deserve" from the Paris Review is available here: www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/08/…t-we-deserve/.
An interview with David Crandall and Elizabeth Dowd of Theatre Nohgaku, an international performance ensemble whose members share a passion for noh theater and a conviction that it has profound power for audiences today. The interview took place on September 11, 2019, ahead of their upcoming performance of Gettysburg: An American Noh in Pittsburgh. For more information on the company, the performance, or noh theater in general, visit their website here: www.theatrenohgaku.org/.
An interview with Caspar Pearson, Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophy and Art History at the University of Essex. The interview focuses on Professor Pearson's life and career, particularly his work on Alberti and contemporary European architecture.
An interview with Maria Loh, Professor of Art History at CUNY Hunter College. The interview focuses on Professor Loh's life and career, particularly her work on Titian and early modern painting. Her newest book is titled Titian's Touch: Art, Magic, and Philosophy.
A reading and interview with Andrea Brady, professor of poetry at Queen Mary University of London and fellow at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. The interview was taped live at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh on February 27, 2019. It focuses on Professor Brady's recently completed poem The Blue Split Compartments as well as her writing on Drone Poetics. A sample of the poem she reads can be found here: www.manifold.group.shef.ac.uk/issue20/An…yBM20.html. The essay "Drone Poetics" was published in volume 89-90 (2017) of the journal "new formations."
An interview with Ed Ayers, Tucker-Boatright Professor of the Humanities and president emeritus at the University of Richmond. The interview focuses on Professor Ayers' life and career, particularly his work with digital humanities and southern history. The "Everyone Their Own Historian" address that Professor Ayers references can be viewed here: www.edwardayers.com/presidential-address. Many of the other digital projects discussed in the interview can be found through Professor Ayers' website, here: www.edwardayers.com/.
An interview with Steve Lyons, director of research for the Natural History Museum. The interview focuses on NHM's work within the museum sector, particularly their attempts to change the politics of museum practice. More information on all of the exhibits and projects we discuss can be found on NHM's website, here: thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/. More information on the artist collective Not an Alternative is available here: notanalternative.org/.
An interview with Nuruddin Farah, novelist and winner of the 1998 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Farah was in Pittsburgh for an editorial meeting of the journal boundary 2. Special thanks for Professor Paul Bové for helping arrange the interview.
An interview with Kazuo Hara, Japanese documentary filmmaker and winner of the first biennial University of Pittsburgh Japan Documentary Film Award. The interview focuses on Hara's nearly 50 years of documentary filmmaking and the social impact his films have had in Japan and worldwide.
Special thanks to Charles Exley, professor of modern Japanese literature and film at Pitt, for translating and recording Hara's responses. And thanks as usual to Noah Livingston, humanities media fellow at Pitt, for his production work.
An interview with Noël Carroll, distinguished professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. The interview focuses mostly on Professor Carroll's work on horror, particularly his 1990 book The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. It was part of the 50th anniversary celebration of George Romero's film Night of the Living Dead, which was filmed in Pittsburgh in 1968.
Highlights from a panel conversation on September 26, 2018 titled "Environmental Institutions: Representing Nature in the Anthropocene." The panel featured Reid Frazier (Energy Reporter, The Allegheny Front and StateImpact Pennsylvania), Nicole Heller (Curator of the Anthropocene, Carnegie Museum of Natural History), and Heather Houser (Associate Professor of English, University ofTexas-Austin). It was hosted by Dan Kubis (Associate Director, University of Pittsburgh Humanities Center).
Reid, Heather, and Nicole were representing three different kinds of institutions: universities, museums, and the media. These institutions help us understand our relationship with the environment and define possibilities moving forward. But do they see these realities and possibilities in the same way? How might they work together to better formulate our current environmental realities or motivate future action? What can other institutions or perspectives add to the conversation? Our guests worked towards answering these questions as they shared their experiences working with environmental issues and the communities they affect.
An interview with Lee Gutkind, writer and founder of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction. The interview was conducted live at the University of Pittsburgh on July 20, 2018. It was part of the concluding event for Pitt's 2018 Summer Science Writing Workshop, organized by Lillian Chong. The event began with students from the workshop reading some of the science writing they had developed over the summer. You can read those works here: medium.com/lab-musings-summer-2018.
An interview with Robin Bernstein, Dillon Professor of American History at Harvard University. We were honored to have Professor Bernstein at Pitt to give the Humanities Center's 2018 Faculty Seminar. The interview focuses on Professor Bernstein's life and career, particularly her work on childhood and performance studies.
An interview with Rob Nixon, professor of English at Princeton University. The interview focuses on Professor Nixon's life and career, particularly his work in environmental criticism and public humanities. You can find his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor here: www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072343. The essay we discuss, How to Read a Bridge, can be found here: www.environmentandsociety.org/perspectiv…ead-bridge.
An interview with Judith Peraino, professor in the Department of Music at Cornell University. The interview focuses on Professor Peraino's life and career, particularly her work on connections between music and queer sexuality.
An interview with Rhodessa Jones, co-artistic director of the performance company Cultural Odyssey and creator of the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women. Rhodessa Jones was at Pitt for a month-long residency in February, 2018. During her residency, she worked with students to create a theatrical performance, offered performances of her own work, and gave lectures. The interview focuses on Rhodessa's life and career, particularly the social impact of her work.
An interview with Fred Moten, professor in the Department of Performance Studies at NYU. The interview focuses on Professor Moten's life and career, particularly his recent volume of criticism called "consent not to be a single being." The Nathaniel Mackey poem "Destination Out," which Moten references at the end of the conversation, is available here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/70124/destination-out.
An interview with Anne Knowles, McBride Professor of History at the University of Maine. The interview focuses on Professor Knowles's life and career, particularly her work with geographical information systems. Stay tuned for a link to the map we discuss at 31:15.
An interview with Christopher Fynsk, professor and dean of the Division of Philosophy, Art, and Critical Thought at the European Graduate School. The interview focuses on Professor Fynsk's life and career, particularly his 2004 book "The Claim of Language: A Case for the Humanities."
An interview with author John Edgar Wideman. The interview focuses on Wideman's life and career, particularly connections between his writing and the various communities of which he has been a part. The conversation also features Leon Ford, a social activist in Pittsburgh. Ford was shot by police in 2012 and is paralyzed as a result. He currently works for social justice in Pittsburgh, and has developed a relationship with Wideman based on their mutual investment in writing. For more on Leon's story see here: http://www.leonfordspeaks.com/.
An interview with Tommie Shelby, Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University. The interview focuses on Dr. Shelby's life and career, particularly his work on race and justice.
An interview with Janet Marstine, Academic Director of the Art Museum and Gallery Studies program at the University of Leicester. The interview focuses on Dr. Marstine's life and career, particularly her work on museums and ethical practice. For information on Theaster Gates' piece "To Speculate Darkly," see here: www.chipstone.org/exhibitionframe.…peculate-Darkly/. Robert Fontenot's "Recycle LACMA": www.robertfontenot.com/new-page-1/. Ansuman Biswas's "Manchester Hermit": www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/…ticle/?id=4711.
An interview with Eric Dorfman, director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. The interview focuses on Dr. Dorfman's life and career, particularly the his thoughts on the roles that natural history museums can play in communities. The website for the conference we discuss at the end of the interview is here: 2017.icom-nathist.org/.
An interview with Jay Aronson, professor of science, technology, and society at Carnegie Mellon University. The interview focuses on Professor Aronson's life and career, particularly his recent book Who Owns the Dead? The Science and Politics of Death at Ground Zero.
In the final episode of Imprints, media fellow Matt Moret interviews Julie Beaulieu, a lecturer in Pitt's Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies program. The conversation focuses on the program's new major and ways that educational institutions can become more diverse, inclusive spaces.
An interview with Rudolph Ware, professor of history at the University of Michigan. The interview focuses on Professor Ware's life and career, particularly his recent book The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. The novel we discuss during the conversation is Ambiguous Adventure, by Cheikh Hamidou Kane.
Rafael Campo is an award-winning poet and professor of medicine at Harvard University. This interview focuses on Professor Campo's life and career, particularly his belief that poetry has an important role to play in providing effective medical care.
In the second episode of Imprints, Humanities Media Fellow Matt Moret features a panel discussion titled "More Just Communities--From Stories to Action." The panel was part of the 2017 Pittsburgh Humanities Festival, and featured Lindsay Houpt-Varner, director of Greater Carlisle Heart and Soul, Chris Ivey, documentary filmmaker and director of the East of Liberty series, and Jason Schupbach, who oversees placemaking partnerships with the NEA.
An interview with Mabel Wilson, architect, designer, and professor of architecture at Columbia University. The interview focuses on Professor Wilson's life and career, including her 2012 book "Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums." The website for Who Builds Your Architecture?, which we discuss in the interview, can be found here: whobuilds.org
In the first episode of Imprints, Humanities Media Fellow Matt Moret profiles the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and how it is working to revitalize some of Pennsylvania's most vulnerable communities.
Jane Ward is a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California, Riverside. The interview focuses on Professor Ward's life and career, particularly her newest book, "Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men" and the controversy it's caused since it's publication in 2015.
An interview with Lawrence Liang, legal scholar and activist based on Bangalore, India. The interview focuses on Liang's work as a lawyer and activist, particularly the way he brings his background as a scholar of literature and film to bear on his work. The speech that Dr. Liang gave at the JNU Alternative Classroom, and which we discuss at 21:51, can be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRwXJmtE2SM&t=392s.
An interview with George Gopen, professor emeritus of the practice of rhetoric at Duke University and creator of the Reader Expectation Approach to writing. The interview focuses on Professor Gopen's life and career, and the innovations he brought to teaching writing by focusing on the reader rather than the writer.
Michael Chabon published his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, in 1988. Since then he has published an incredible array of fiction and non-fiction, including novels, young adult fiction, detective stories, screenplays, short stories, and essays. He is rightly viewed as one of our country's most versatile writers, and has also been recognized with some of our most prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay in 2001. His new novel is titled Moonglow. This interview was conducted publicly, in front of more than a thousand fans of his work, at the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh.
Laura Snyder is a professor of philosophy at St. John’s University. Her work focuses on the history and philosophy of science, and frequently seeks to bring new, broader perspectives to debates in that field. Her first book, Reforming Philosophy, focuses on John Stuart Mill and William Whewell’s philosophies of science, but argues that this philosophy can only properly be understood in the context of Mill and Whewell’s entire body of work. Her second book, the Philosophical Breakfast Club, focuses on four British scientists in the 19th century and the revolution they brought to science at the time. The book was praised for its combination of scholarly rigor and public accessibility, and led to Professor Snyder giving a talk at the TED Global conference in 2012.Professor Snyder’s newest book is titled The Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing. The book tells the story of Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek at a remarkable time of scientific and artistic innovation in the Dutch Republic. It also continues Professor Snyder’s commitment to bridging popular and academic audiences, it was reviewed widely in publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and several outlets abroad.
An interview with Petra Kuppers, professor of English at the University of Michigan, as well as a poet, filmmaker, artist, and disability activist. The interview focuses on the politics of Professor Kuppers' scholarship and art. We pay particular attention to her latest book of poetry, Pearl Stitch.
Ursula Heise is the Marcia H. Howard Chair in Literary Studies at UCLA. She is best known for her work in environmental criticism and environmental humanities, fields she began exploring in the late 90’s. Her 2008 book Sense of Place and Sense of Planet has been described as a landmark book for inaugurating attention to globalism in environmental thinking. This book was at the heart of a recent retrospective in the journal Resilience, which noted that her work has created a network of influence that spans oceans as well as disciplines. Professor Heise’s newest book is entitled Imagining Extinction: the Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species, published in 2016 with the University of Chicago Press.
Jeff Williams is a professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.
Professor Williams’ work focuses on the politics of literature and criticism, particularly institutions that produce culture like universities and academic journals. In his writing, he frequently takes a step back from arguments about the political or social value of intellectual work and examines them from a practical standpoint. In many of his essays since the early 90’s, he has called attention to the danger of student debt, and contrasted this danger with the freedom and possibility promised by an education in the liberal arts. Likewise, many of his essays about literary theory have shown how theory has been shaped by academic settings and the inevitable politics that come with tenure and promotion.
Professor Williams has also been deeply committed to reaching a broad general public with his scholarly work. Along with publishing in academic journals, he also publishes frequently in places like the Chronicle of Higher Education and Salon. His most recent book, How to be an Intellectual, features a number of essays that seek to blur the lines between criticism and journalism, a technique that he calls “criticism without footnotes.” He was also the editor of The Minnesota Review from 1992-2010, and earned praise during that time for editing one of the most lively, politically serious print journals in the profession.
I began by asking him about his longtime commitment to engaged scholarship, and what he feels academics can bring to public discourse.
Our guest today is Theresa Brown, oncology nurse, columnist, and author of The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives. Theresa began her career as a writer in 2008 when she published an essay in the New York Times about a dramatic and emotional experience she had with a dying patient. The piece received national attention, and was anthologized in the Best American Science Writing and The Best American Medical Writing in 2009. Since then, she has written dozens of pieces about nursing, and has become a leading voice for nurses and nurse advocacy across the country. Her first book, Critical Care was published in 2010, and is widely used as a textbook in nursing schools. Theresa’s writing frequently pulls back the curtain on the experiences and challenges that nurses face in their daily work. Sometimes this reveals frustrating working conditions, or difficulties dealing with hospital administration; but just as frequently, it shows the strength, skill, and commitment that nurses need to provide their patients with the best care they can. So it’s no surprise that President Obama quoted from Theresa’s blog when he was advocating for the Affordable Care Act in 2009. In what she calls her “past life,” Theresa received a PhD in English from the University of Chicago and was an English professor at Tufts University. I began by asking her about this past, and about the somewhat non-traditional path she took to becoming a nurse.
Lydia Goehr is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University. Her work focuses on aesthetic theory, particularly the history and philosophy of music. Her first book, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, was widely influential for its exploration of what she calls the “work-concept,” or the set of beliefs and assumptions that have governed the West's performance and appreciation of music for the last 200 years. In her book, Professor Goehr shows various implications of the work-concept, such as musicians’ believing that they should carefully follow a score rather than improvising around its central theme, or spectators feeling that they should sit quiet and still throughout a performance.
An interview with Mark Jarzombek, professor of the history and theory of architecture at MIT. Professor Jarzombek visited Pitt during the Year of the Humanities to give a lecture titled "The Global Imaginary in an anti-Global World." This interview focuses on his life and work, and the relationship of his work on architectural history to the broader public.
George Lewis is a groundbreaking trombonist and composer as well as the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. Lewis’ career as a musician has been closely tied to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a group founded in Chicago in 1965 to nurture creative and experimental music. Since 1971, Lewis has performed and recorded with a number of the group’s members, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, and Roscoe Mitchell. Lewis is also well-known for his work with computers and electronic music, including his software Voyager, which listens to and improvises with human performers. Since the 1990’s, he has also achieved success as a scholar, notably with his 2008 book A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music, which won the American Book Award in 2009.
Marcia Chatelain is an associate professor of history at Georgetown University. Dr. Chatelain’s research focuses on a wide range of issues in African American history, including African American migration, women and girls history, and race and food. Her first book, South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration, focuses on the experience of the great migration for young African American women—a group of people that scholars frequently fail to recognize or fully explore. In 2014, she gained national attention for creating the hashtag “FergusonSyllabus” on Twitter, and urging educators at all levels, and in all fields, to focus classroom discussion on the events surrounding Michael Brown’s shooting. The inspiration, she says, came from thinking of all the students in Ferguson who wouldn’t be able to go back to school as planned, and all of the empty desks and classrooms that would sit waiting.
This episode features an interview with Peter Holland, the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Professor Holland is one of the leading critics of Shakespeare-in-performance, and has published on Shakespeare in a wide variety of formats, including scholarly journals, books, dictionary entries, and theater programs. For all of his scholarly acumen, listeners will quickly learn that Professor Holland is deeply committed to the idea that Shakespeare (and the humanities in general) should be fun, and shouldn’t shy away from the fact that they provide pleasure to readers and viewers alike.
In this episode, we interview Anthony Bogues is the Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory, Professor of Africana Studies, and Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. Professor Bogues began his academic career at the University of the West Indies in his native Jamaica and moved to Brown in the year 2000. In this interview, we focus on the broad range of topics that he has written on throughout his career, including intellectual and political history, literature and literary criticism, and most recently the visual arts.
This episode features an interview with Margaret Homans, professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale. In the early 70’s, Professor Homans was an undergraduate at Yale in the earliest years of co-education at that university. Since then, she has established herself as an important feminist critic as well as a mentor to young women looking to follow in her footsteps. Our interview focuses on her career as a literary scholar and the impact her work has had on her profession and the world more broadly.
Abdellah Taïa is a Moroccan writer and filmmaker based in Paris. In 2006, the French magazine TelQuel published an interview with Taïa in which he openly discussed his homosexuality for the first time. At this point, he says, he went from being “the new hip Moroccan writer” to “the new hip gay Moroccan writer.” In this interview, we focus on Taïa’s life, writing, and directorial debut in the film Salvation Army (2013).
This inaugural episode of The University of Pittsburgh Year of the Humanities podcast features an interview with Leonard Cassuto, professor of English at Fordham University. As a scholar, Dr. Cassuto has written several books on American literature and culture; as a columnist, Cassuto writes a regular column for the Chronicle called “the graduate advisor,” in which he focuses on the current state of graduate education in American colleges and universities. The interview focuses on Professor Cassuto’s work within and beyond the University, and his thoughts on how to bridge the two.