Spring 2023 Research Seminar Schedule


Spring 2023 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 program coordinator Erika Adair 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, March 6, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Lynn Ramey, Department of French & Italian Studies – Vanderbilt
"Virtual Reality, Medievalism, and the Colonialist Gaze."

Monday, April 3, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Ousmane Lecoq Diop, Department of French, Francophone & Italian Studies – University of Kansas
"Deconstruction of Trauma and Reconstruction in the Plural of Individuals in Nafissatou Dia Diouf La Maison des épices (2014)"

Monday, May 1, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Brian Moreno, History – University of Kansas
"To Please the Dogs Who Barked So Much: Centralizing Visions of Evangelization and Empire, 1535-1550”

Digital Humanities Seminar

The Digital Humanities Seminar, co-sponsored by the Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities (IDRH), provides a forum for sharing and discussion of new digitally-enabled humanities research efforts, with a specific focus on what digital humanities tools and practices can do for a range of humanistic research.

For more information, contact James Yeku (African and African-American Studies, 864-0698, jyeku@ku.edu) or Brian Rosenblum (Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities, 864-8883, brianlee@ku.edu).

Monday, January 23, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Maryemma Graham, Jade Harrison, Brendan Williams-Childs & Ashley Simmons, English – University of Kansas
“Building a Reuseable HBW Workset at HathiTrust”

Monday, February 20, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Yidong (Steven) Wang, PhD, Postdoctoral researcher – University of Kansas
“Erotizing Digital Infrastructures of Affect: Bareback Culture, Pornified Storytelling, and Queer Healing”

Monday, March 20, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla, Modern Languages and Literatures – University of Texas at San Antonio
“Documenting the anti-feminicides in the Paso del Norte region”

Thursday, April 17, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Ama Bemma Adwetewa-Badu, English – Washington University in St. Louis
"The Big World of the African Little Magazine: Network Models for African Poetry."

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 26, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Ray Mizumura-Pence, Sherrie Tucker, American Studies – University of Kansas & Henry Lowengard, independent
“AUMI Together”

Thursday, February 9, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Margarita A. Nunez Arroyo, American Studies – University of Kansas  
"The Monster isn’t Real: Examining the Social Fear of Disability and the Dangerous Rhetoric of who is Worthy."

Thursday, March 23, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Christie Scanlon, Special Education – University of Kansas
"Outside/In: Stories from Young Adults Involved in the Juvenile Justice System"

Thursday, April 20, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Jonathan Sterne, Art History and Communication Studies – McGill University
"Impairment Practice: On Sound Art, Music, Disability and Technique"

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).

Co-Sponsored with Trans* Studies Seminar
Thursday, February 2, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Jeanne Vaccaro, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Museum Studies – University of Kansas
"I wanted the world to see us: On what a photograph does"

Co-Sponsored with Trans* Studies Seminar
Thursday, March 2, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Myrl Beam, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies – Macalester College
"Trans Politics After the Tipping Point: Lessons from Trans Activist Oral Histories"

Thursday, April 6, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Ayah Wakkad, English – University of Kansas
"Arabic Prison Literature: a Manual of Resilience and Resistance"

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).

Monday, Feburary 27, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Antônio R.M. Simões, Department of Spanish and Portuguese – University of Kansas
“The analysis of speech prosody and emotions in musical notation: A work in progress”

Monday, March 27, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Ketty Wong, Department of Music – University of Kansas
“In Search of a Cosmopolitan Identity: Salsa Dancing in Reform-Era China."

Monday, April 24, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Akiko Takeyama, Ayako Mizumura and Yi-Yang Chen, Center for East Asian Studies, Center for East Asian Studies and Department of Music – University of Kansas
“Asian Experience in the Midwest: Music and Oral History."

Monday, May 8, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Conversations with Kelfel Ramírez (Son Venezuela) and TBA
“¡Qué fue en Lawrence, Kansas!: Performing Latin American sounds in the Midwest”

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).

Friday, February 10, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Paul Schwennesen, History – University of Kansas
"Beasts of Conquest: Animals in the De Soto and Coronado Expeditions—1539-1542"

Friday, March 10, 2022 (via Zoom)
Ángel M. Rañales, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Culture – University of South Carolina Aiken
"Infusing Poetics: Book, Fiction, and Propaganda in the Isabelline Iberian Image"

Friday, April 14, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Virginia Blanton, Curators’ Distinguished Professor, Department of English – University of Missouri, Kansas City
"“Margaret Holand, Stephen Dodesham, and Syon Abbey: Integrating John of Tynemouth’s Sanctilogium of Native Saints into the Universal Calendar”

Co-Sponsored with Trans* Studies Seminar
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 (at the Hall Center) @ 2:00 pm
Megan Moore, French – University of Missouri
"The Court as a Fiction: Trans*Spatial Practices, Ecofeminist Epistemologies & Medieval Texts"

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)

Friday, February 3, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Andrew Kustodowicz, History – University of Kansas
"Translating Japanese Angling: Cultural Diplomacy, Sport-fishing, and the Modern Japanese Aquascape, 1930-1950"

Friday, March 3, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Joonmo Kang, School of Social Welfare – University of Kansas
"Everyday is a disaster: How do jjokbang-chon residents make meaning of extreme weather disasters?”

Friday, April 7, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Shannon O'Lear, Geography/Environmental Studies – University of Kansas
"The Slow Violence of Climate Security"

CANCELED
Ali Brox, Environmental Studies – University of Kansas
"Narratives of Climate Disaster"

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).

Co-Sponsored with Gender Seminar
Thursday, February 2, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Jeanne Vaccaro, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Museum Studies – University of Kansas
"I wanted the world to see us: On what a photograph does"

Co-Sponsored with Gender Seminar
Thursday, March 2, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Myrl Beam, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies – Macalester College
"Trans Politics After the Tipping Point: Lessons from Trans Activist Oral Histories"

Co-Sponsored with Medieval & Early Modern Seminar
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 (at the Hall Center) @ 2:00 pm
Megan Moore, Chair of the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures – University of Missouri
"The Court as a Fiction: Trans*Spatial Practices, Ecofeminist Epistemologies & Medieval Texts"

Urban Experience Seminar

The Urban Experience seminar focuses on urban social and cultural space and attendant relationships, both as a result of ideas and imagination, and as a function of historical, social, economic, and political forces.

For more information, contact Marie-Alice L’Heureux (Architecture, 864-1144, Malheur@ku.edu), Bradley Lane (Public Affairs & Administration, 864-2423, bwlane@ku.edu) or Hye-Sung-Han (Public Affairs and Administration, 864-0854, hshan@ku.edu).

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Marie-Alice L'Heureux, Architecture – University of Kansas
"Protecting Borders, Defending Identity in the Cultural Landscape of Estonia"

Wednesday, March 1, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Booker Jr, Roger L, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies – University of Kansas
"San Antonio, TX Structural Racism & Its Impact on The Black (young male) Community"

Wednesday, April 5, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Areli Marina, Art History – University of Kansas
"Venice from Mire to Metropolis"

Wednesday, May 3, 2023 (at the Hall Center)
Jacob Wagner, Urban Planning and Design – University of Missouri, Kansas City
"Community and the City"