Book of the Month
Ernest J. Gaines died November 5 at the age of 86.
Veronica Makowsky recommends A Lesson Before Dying: "it is a beautiful, moving, devastating novel that, although set decades ago, speaks to current issues of race and incarceration, as well as dignity, responsibility, and love."
Gaines also wrote The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Gathering of Old Men. Born into a sharecropping family, he split his early years between school and working in the fields.
Why Study English?
"Perhaps the most powerful argument for why students (and their parents) might want to think twice about abandoning humanities is the data. The National Center for Education Statistics also keeps track of pay and unemployment rates by major.
There’s no denying that the typical computer science major makes more money shortly after graduation than the typical English major.
Contrary to popular belief, English majors ages 25 to 29 had a lower unemployment rate in 2017 than math and computer science majors."
Read the rest of this article and see more arguments for studying English.
Upcoming Events
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Jan
21
Proposals Due for National Writing Project Northeast Regional Sites Conference12:00am
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Jan
27
Connecticut Student Writers Submission Deadline12:00am
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Jan
27
Michael Robinson: "Tribes of the Imagination: How Scientists Created a Prehistory of Whiteness"4:00pm
Michael Robinson: "Tribes of the Imagination: How Scientists Created a Prehistory of Whiteness"
Monday, January 27th, 2020
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Storrs Campus, Storrs Campus UCHI
This lecture is the second talk of the Humanities and Science Series.
Michael Robinson is a professor of history at Hillyer College, University of Hartford. He is the author of The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (University of Chicago Press), winner of the 2008 Book Award for the History of Science in America and The Lost White Tribe: Explorers, Scientists, and the Theory that Changed a Continent (Oxford University Press), winner of the History of Science Society’s Davis Prize and finalist for the 2017 Connecticut Book Award. He is the host of the history of science and exploration podcast, Time To Eat the Dogs. -
Jan
29
Humanities Fellow Research Talk: Emma Amador4:00pm
Humanities Fellow Research Talk: Emma Amador
Wednesday, January 29th, 2020
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Storrs Campus Humanities Institute Seminar Room, Babbidge Library 4th Floor
Our UCHI Fellow will be presenting their research talk on “Contesting Colonialism: Puerto Ricans and the Politics of Welfare in the 20th Century” followed by a light reception. For more information, please visit https://humanities.uconn.edu/fellowships/current-and-previous-fellows/. If you require accommodation for this event, please contact uchi@uconn.edu at least one week prior to the event. -
Jan
31
Critical Looking: A Gallery Dialogue12:15am
Critical Looking: A Gallery Dialogue
Friday, January 31st, 2020
12:15 AM - 12:45 AM
Storrs Campus, Storrs Campus The William Benton Museum of Art
Learn to look with a critical eye
Friday, January 31,
12:15–12:45pm
Tap your powers of observation and
investigate a single work of art through
close looking and discussion with
Amanda Douberley, Assistant Curator/
Academic Liaison.
The focus of this month's subject is a print in the Democracy of Print exhibition.
Develop your critical thinking skills by learning to look at objects in detail. This skill is useful in navigating everyday life, your job or studies. -
Feb
3
Black Lives Matter and the Politics of Value12:15pm
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Feb
5
Digital Humanities & Media Studies talk - Nancy Baym, "The Relational Affordances of Platforms"4:00pm
Digital Humanities & Media Studies talk - Nancy Baym, "The Relational Affordances of Platforms"
Wednesday, February 5th, 2020
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Storrs Campus UConn Humanities Institute
Nancy Baym
Senior Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research New England; Research Affiliate, Comparative Media Studies/Writing, MIT
The Relational Affordances of Platforms
People have been socializing on the internet for nearly fifty years. In recent years, online social life has become increasingly concentrated in a relatively small number of commercial platforms. How can we make sense of the impacts they are having on our relational lives? How can we theorize platforms when they are constantly changing and used in so many different ways? In this talk, Nancy Baym draws on a range of her recent research on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to articulate a model for understanding platforms as the dynamic, unstable entities they are, and to explore their roles in shaping, constraining and opening up new possibilities for relationships in contexts ranging from close romantic bonds to online communities and the ties that connect musicians to their audiences. The talk further considers how these platforms commodify the relational interactions that take place through them, and how their design choices have fostered environments in which relationships become tools for profit.
Nancy Baym is a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, where she conducts basic research into how people understand and act with new communication technologies in their relationships. A pioneer in the field of internet research, Baym wrote some of the first articles about online community in the early 1990s. With Jean Burgess, she is the author of Twitter: A Biography (forthcoming 2020, NYU). Other books include Playing to the Crowd: Musicians, Audiences, and the Intimate Work of Connection (2018, NYU), Personal Connections in the Digital Age (2010, Second Edition 2014, Polity), Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method (co-edited with Annette Markham, 2010, Sage), and Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom and Online Community (2000, Sage). She was a co-founder of the Association of Internet Researchers and served as its second president. She has been recognized with the Frederick Williams Prize for Contributions to the Study of Communication and Technology awarded by the International Communication Association, the naming of the Nancy Baym Book Award by the Association of Internet Researchers, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Gothenburg. Most of her papers and more information are available at http://nancybaym.com
This event is sponsored by UCHI Digital Humanities & Media Studies, the Department of Communication, and the UCHI Future of Truth Initiative
Professors are People Too
Ali Oshinskie ('17) interviews professors for a podcast series, "Professors are People Too." Read the transcripts to her introduction and interviews, and listen to the podcast on WHUS.
Letters About Literature
The English Department, Connecticut Writing Project, and Neag School of Education are the CT sponsors for this writing competition for grades 4-12. Connecticut Writing Project and Neag School of Education also sponsor the Connecticut Scholastic Writing Awards for grades 7-12.
