Promoted as both social and intellectual, the Scholars@Hallwalls lecture series begins this week, once again offering audiences a chance to engage with experts on a wide variety of subjects.
Offered by UB's Humanities Institute, the spirit of the series is very much at the core of what higher education is all about, so says the Institute's Executive Director Dr. Elizabeth Otto.
"I think all of us who are faculty at UB, we're scholars, we're hired for the books we write and the articles that we write, but on the day-to-day level we're teachers," Otto said.
"We really care about talking about ideas, and talking about ideas with a wide variety of people, not just with each other. The Humanities are really about engaging with things like the meaning of life or why history is important."
"Our scholars do that in a really interesting and specific and engaging way."
The series begins this Friday at 4 and will run on select Fridays through May at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center on Delaware Avenue. Here's the lineup:
Sept. 20: Andreas Daum (History), "Do Biographies Matter? Exploring Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)"
Oct. 18: Marion Werner (Geography), "Latin American Development in a Neoliberal Age"
Nov. 15: Walter Hakala (English/Asian Studies), "Two Dictionaries, One Poet, and a Mughal Prince's Struggle Against British Colonialism"
Dec. 6: Joseph Conte (English), "Transnational Politics and the Post-9/11 Novel"
Feb. 7: Gwynn Thomas (Global Gender Studies/Transnational Studies), "Las Presidentas: Challenging Masculine Norms in Latin American Politics"
March 7: Deborah Reed-Danahay (Anthropology), "Pierre Bourdieu, Social Space, and the Vietnamese Diaspora"
April 11: Joan Linder (Visual Studies), "Love Canal: A Drawing Project"
May 2: **8 p.m.** Jonathan Golove (Music), "World Premiere Performance: Mental Radio for Theremin Cello, Voices, and Ensemble"
All the speakers at Scholars at Hallwalls are UB faculty members. They compete for fellowships, a chance to spend a semester away from teaching to allow for more in-depth study and research. Part of that is providing a Friday lecture at Hallwalls over the coming months.
