Spring 2024 Research Seminar Schedule
Seminars are open to all graduate students, faculty and staff of the University of Kansas and their guests. All seminars will be held from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm, unless noted otherwise. No prior registration is required. Please sign up below to receive e-mailed information about each seminar.
Papers for sessions are available as password protected PDF files via their individual entries below.
If you would like seminar paper password information, e-mail Hall Center Administrative Associate April Walton at hchseminars@ku.edu.
You can sign-up to receive e-mail updates for individual seminars by filling out this online form.
Colonialism Seminar
This seminar examines the history and legacy of colonialism in Latin America. Meetings provide an opportunity for a dynamic examination of hemispherical and transatlantic connections across four major themes: identity, territory, religion, and cultural production.
For more information, contact Robert Schwaller (History, 864-9435, schwallr@ku.edu) or Christine Bourgeois (French, 864-9074, cbourgeois@ku.edu)
Monday, February 05, 2024
Haoran Ni - History, University of Kansas
"Between Accommodation and Seduction: Coca-Cola’s Franchise System and Its Localized Advertising in Republican Shanghai (1927-1949)"
Monday, April 01, 2024
Elizabeth MacGonagle - History and AAAS, University of Kansas
“Reckoning with Slavery in the Caribbean: Vignettes from Guadeloupe and Cuba”
Disability Studies Seminar
The Disability Studies Seminar will provide a much-needed forum for scholars to explore and share research on topics relevant to disability within and across the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Scholars within Disability Studies tend to recognize disability in terms of social construction and minority culture.
For more information, contact Ray Mizumura-Pence (American Studies, 864-2302, rpence@ku.edu) or Sherrie Tucker (American Studies, 864-2305, sjtucker@ku.edu).
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Julie Unruh - Poet, Author, Activist, Lawrence, KS
"Vegetable Garden: A Memoir. From Book to Screen"
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Zach McCall - Special Education, University of Kansas
"The origins of inequity: A field analysis of special education"
Thursday, March 28, 2024 ***UPDATED***
Ray Mizumura-Pence - American Studies, University of Kansas
“Mudbone’s Multiple Scars: Disability, Oral History, and Remembering Richard Pryor”
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Dennis Tyler - English, Fordham University
"The Problem of the Color Line in the Age of COVID-19."
Gender Seminar
The Gender Seminar studies gender as a basic concept in humanistic scholarship and/or as a fundamental organizing principle in social life.
For more information, contact Marie Grace Brown (History, 864-9462, mgbrown@ku.edu) or Katie Batza (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, 864-2310, batza@ku.edu).
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Marian Phillips - WGSS, University of Kansas
"MONSTER THEORY: LOCATING THE THEORETICAL DISCOURSE OF QUEER MONSTROSITY"
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Marie Brown - History, University of Kansas
"Intimate Timekeeping: Romance and Family Planning among British Imperialists in Sudan"
Thursday, April 04, 2024
Silvia Sanchez Diaz - Anthropology, University of Kansas
"The Atypical Maya Dress: Clothing, Gender, and Indigenous Identities in Eastern Guatemala"
Humanities Out Loud: Music, Theater, Literature & Culture Seminar
The Humanities Out Loud seminar seeks to link forms of cultural production that employ the medium of sound in the making, dissemination and/or interpretation of cultural expression. Music and other performing arts are a particularly dynamic area of culture because they emerge in public spaces and speak to identity, cultural difference, and power dynamics in inescapable ways.
For more information, contact Araceli Masterson-Algar (American Studies, 864-3851, aracelimasterson@ku.edu) or Jonathan Mayhew (Department of Spanish & Portuguese, 864-0287, jmayhew@ku.edu).
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Martin Nedbal - School of Music, University of Kansas
"Jan Löwenbach's Smetana. Composer and Leader: A Mid-Twentieth-Century "American" Biography of a Nineteenth-Century Czech Composer"
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Cesia Espinal - Spanish and Portuguese, University of Kansas
"When cultural tourism leads to cultural preservation: A case study on the Garifuna traditional music in Punta Gorda, Honduras."
Tuesday, April 2, 2024 ***CANCELED***
Anthony Bolden - African and African American Studies, University of Kansas
"Langston Hughes: An Elder Statesman of Soul."
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Cecilia Cozzi - Classics, University of Kansas
“From Words to Sounds: tracing ancient drama in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.”
Medieval & Early Modern Seminar
The Medieval & Early Modern Seminar meets each semester to discuss original work relating to any aspect of the history, culture, literature, art, or society of any part of the world between c. 400 and c.1800.
For more information, contact Jonathan Lamb (English, 864-2525, jonathanplamb@ku.edu) or Caroline Jewers (French & Italian, 864-9028, cjewers@ku.edu).
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Charles-Louis Morand-Métivier - French, University of Vermont
“Thinking France beyond War and Horror: Emotions and Kingship in Medieval and Renaissance French Literature”
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Carissa Harris - English, Temple University
“Reproducing Wenches: Labor, Race, Consent”
Thursday, April 18, 2024 ***CANCELED***
TBD - Multiple Departments, University of Kansas
Roundtable on Editing and Curation
Nature & Culture Seminar
Nature is our oldest home and our newest challenge. This seminar brings the perspective of the humanities to bear on past and present environmental issues. It includes research on the changing perception, representation, and valuation of nature in human life, on the reciprocal impact of environmental change on social change, and on the variety of ways we use, consume, manage, and revere the earth. Co-sponsored by Environmental Studies.
For more information, contact Phillip Drake (English, pdrake@ku.edu, 864-4520) or Alex Boynton (Environmental Studies, ajboynton@ku.edu, 864-9648)
The Nature & Culture Seminar will resume in Fall 2024
Trans* Studies Seminar
The core focus of trans* studies, as defined by Susan Stryker and Paisley Currah, is the study of “transsexuality and cross-dressing, some aspects of intersexuality and homosexuality, cross-cultural and historical investigations of human gender diversity, myriad specific subcultural expressions of ‘gender atypicality,’ theories of sexed embodiment and subjective gender identity development, law and public policy related to the regulation of gender expression.” The Trans* Studies Seminar will study the modes of cultural, social, political, and linguistic production of knowledge that have assembled predominant hierarchical and binary divisions between male/female, straight/queer, human/non-human across history and cultures. In keeping with the evolving place of this field in various disciplines, we find that it is important to speak of trans* studies instead of “transgender” studies because of the exciting implications for broader humanistic inquiry that such an approach promises.
For more information, contact Marta Vicente (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, 864-2235, mvicente@ku.edu) or Abraham Weil (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, 864-2310, abraham.weil@ku.edu).
Wednesday, February 21, 2024 (Co-Sponsor with Gender Seminar)
Marian Phillips - WGSS, University of Kansas
"MONSTER THEORY: LOCATING THE THEORETICAL DISCOURSE OF QUEER MONSTROSITY"
***CANCELED*** Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Dr. Harlan Weaver - Social Transformation Studies, Kansas State University
“The Anti-Ciscnormativity Manifesto”
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Dr. Emmett Harsin Drager - Women's and Gender Studies, University of Missouri
"Getting the Story Right: Trans Life-Writing and the Clinic”