Author: Imagineering and the Technosphere

November 13,  2018 in Pugh Hall 302 from 11:00am-12:00pm.     

Simon Richter is the Class of 1942 Endowed Term Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania. Richter is a Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and member of the Graduate Groups in Comparative Literature and Religious Studies, fellow of the Institute of Urban Research, and affiliated with the Programs in Cinema Studies, Environmental Humanities, Women’s Studies, and the Penn Water Center. Courses he has recently taught include: “Water Worlds: Cultural Responses to Sea Level Rise and Catastrophic Flooding”; “Writing in Dark Times“; “The German Connection: Hollywood and Berlin”; “Erinnerungsorte/Places of Memory”; and “Weimar Classicism.”

Coastal cities around the world are already contending with the effects of sea level rise. For many, the problems are exacerbated by subsidence. Cities are sinking and seas are rising. Hundreds of millions of people will be affected. Enter the Netherlands. Building on proud traditions of coastal defense, land reclamation, and water management, the Dutch avidly pursue what they call their “international water ambition.” In New York, Miami, Houston, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Dhaka, and many more, you will find the Dutch government and Dutch engineering and design companies promoting the Dutch approach. Dutch design slogans capture the range of their ambition: Rebuild by Design, Building with Nature, the Blue Revolution, the Floating City, Room for the River. The Dutch are intent on turning problems into opportunities. In this workshop, we will explore the intercultural aspects of the Dutch international water ambition in several case studies.

Watch recording of livestream.

Including discussion with Terry Harpold (English), Angela Lindner (Environmental Engineering Sciences), Chris Silver (College of Design, Construction & Planning), and Les Thiele (Political Science).

Introduction by Barbara Mennel (English and German/LLC; Director, Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere). Moderated by Will Hasty (German/LLC; Codirector, Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies).

The Global-Cultural Sustainability Symposia are supported by the Waldo W. Neikirk Fund, the University of Florida International Center, the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and Imagining Climate Change.

Tuesday, October 9^th, 12-1pmLibrary West 212: Nygren Scholar’s Studio

Join our Intersections group for a conversation about how we can combine historical manuscripts and artistic renderings with ground-penetrating radar, laser scanning, 3D modeling and other digital technologies to understand and interpret material culture. Dr. Caroline Bruzelius will discuss her recent digital humanities projects Visualizing Venice and the Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database. Feel free to bring a brown-bag lunch. This event is co-sponsored by UF’s Digital Humanities Working Group. 

Caroline Bruzelius is a digital humanist with scholarly expertise in medieval architecture, urbanism, and sculpture.  She has written extensively on religious architecture of the Middle Ages in France and Italy, publishing books and articles on French Gothic architecture (St.-Denis and Notre-Dame in Paris, for example) and on medieval South Italy.  Her most recent book (2014), Preaching, Building and Burying.  Friars in the Medieval City (Yale University Press), focuses on how the religious practices introduced by the Franciscans and Dominicans (outdoor preaching, visiting laymen in homes, and burying townspeople in convents) transformed cities.  Bruzelius is presently working on two new book projects: “The Cathedral and the City,” a study of the urban and financial implications of cathedral building, and another volume on the role of architecture in the creation of state identity in the medieval Kingdom of Sicily.  Bruzelius is a leader in Digital Art History, exploring how digital technologies communicate narratives about art and the built environment in teaching, museums, and in research.  She is a founding member of the “Wired!” group at Duke University, a group that integrates visualization technologies with teaching, engaging undergraduate and graduate students in multi-year research initiatives. She is also a founder of the two international and interdisciplinary collaborations, Visualizing Venice and the Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database.  From 1994 to 1998 Bruzelius was Director of the American Academy in Rome.  She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Medieval Academy of America, the Society of Antiquaries (London), and has received numerous other awards in the United States and abroad.  

The University of Florida (UF) announces its inaugural Intersections Research-Into-Teaching Grants, organized by the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere and made possible with $400,000 in funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Awards of $30,000 to four Intersections Groups will support UF faculty and staff working together across disciplines on research addressing major challenges, such as ethical decision-making, global Blackness and Latinx identity, mass incarceration, and technologies of space and time. Together, these collaborative, interdisciplinary groups unite 24 faculty and staff members and seven affiliate faculty, from 20 disciplines and six colleges across UF.

“Intersections Groups demonstrate the urgency for scholars to mobilize interdisciplinary collaboration with the humanities in order to respond to grand challenges,” says Prof. Barbara Mennel, Interim Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. “Importantly, the Intersections Groups will translate scholarship into teaching to expose first-year students to the significance of the humanities in multiple thematic contexts.”

The groups will connect cultural, historical, and ethical inquiry based in the humanities to fields and professions including law, journalism and telecommunications, computer science and engineering, leadership and service, and education. Each awarded group has developed plans for research activities, such as studying common readings, hosting speaker series, partnering with community members for activities, and creating digital apps and other resources for UF students. The resulting research will inform the creation of innovative interdisciplinary undergraduate courses for the new UF Quest general education curriculum. Groups also will identify clusters of existing UF courses related to their research topics for undergraduate study and organize creative activities for students across these courses that engage them beyond the classroom.

More information can be found here.