January 11, 2008
TO:
Members of the University Community
FROM:
Helmut Smith, Director
Mona Frederick, Executive Director
RE:
Spring Semester 2008 Warren Center Programs
The Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities promotes interdisciplinary research
and study in the humanities and social sciences and, when appropriate, the natural sciences.
Members of the Vanderbilt community representing a wide variety of specializations take part in
the Center’s programs, which are designed to intensify and increase interdisciplinary discussion
of academic, social, and cultural issues.
Spring Semester Warren Center Programs
Fellows Programs
2007-2008 Fellows Program, “Black Europe, or Diasporic Research in/on Europe” codirected by Tracy Sharpley-Whiting (African American and Diaspora Studies/French) and
Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr. (African American and Diaspora Studies/philosophy). Participants in the
program are Devin Fergus (history), Kathryn Gines (African American and Diaspora
Studies/philosophy), Catherine Molineux (history), Ifeoma Nwankwo (English), Tiffany
Patterson (African American and Diaspora Studies), and Hortense Spillers (English). The 20072008 William S. Vaughn Visiting Fellow is Tina M. Campt (Women’s Studies/German, Duke
University).
2007-2008 Robert Penn Warren Graduate Student Fellows. Seven graduate students are
participating in the Warren Center’s second dissertation completion fellowship program. They
are Michael Callaghan (anthropology), Josh Epstein (English), Megan Moran (history), George
Sanders (sociology), Nicole Seymour (English), David Solodkow (Spanish and Portuguese), and
Heather Talley (sociology). Josh Epstein holds the George J. Graham, Jr. Fellowship, and
George Sanders is the American Studies Fellow. This spring, they will each present a public
lecture about their research. Each talk is listed below in Special Events.
2008-2009 Fellows Program, “New Directions in Trauma Studies” co-directed by Monica J.
Casper (Women’s and Gender Studies/sociology) and Vivien Green Fryd (history of art).
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Special Events
A Place for the Humanities
The spring of 2008 will mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Robert Penn
Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. To celebrate this achievement,
the Center has planned a series of diverse activities throughout 2008. The series, entitled “A
Place for the Humanities” features five events that highlight the centrality of the humanities on
our campus. Detailed information about all these events will be posted on our website. Please
visit www.vanderbilt.edu/rpw_center to check for updates.
On Thursday, February 7th, the Warren Center will co-sponsor a lecture by the activist
Rigoberta Menchú. Menchú, the recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, is widely known as a
leading advocate of human rights and ethno-cultural reconciliation, not only in her native
Guatemala but around the world. Her talk will be held at 7:00 p.m. in the Benton Chapel
Auditorium. Menchú comes to Vanderbilt thanks to the efforts of the Center for Latin American
and Iberian Studies, with whom the Warren Center is co-sponsoring the event.
On March 13th and 14th, several influential scholars from Europe and the United States will
convene for the Warren Center’s symposium “Thinking with Franz Rosenzweig.” This
international gathering will focus on Franz Rosenzweig, one of the most trenchant intellectuals,
religious or secular, Jewish or non-Jewish, of the twentieth century. The symposium is presented
in association with the Vanderbilt University Library, the Program in Jewish Studies, the Max
Kade Center for European Studies, and the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture.
Friday, April 4th, 2008 will mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., and the Warren Center will commemorate this occasion with a conference April 3rd –
5th, tentatively entitled We Speak for Ourselves: A Poet, a Prophet, and Voices for Change
in the 21st Century. The conference, co-sponsored by Fisk University, takes as its starting point
Robert Penn Warren’s 1965 volume Who Speaks for the Negro?, in which Warren records
interviews he conducted with dozens of major civil rights leaders, including King. At the
conference, the Warren Center will bring together many of the figures whom Warren
interviewed, as well as other activists, scholars, and community leaders working on human rights
issues today. Many of the events will be open to the public; please check our website for details.
On Saturday, April 12th at 8:00 p.m., the Warren Center will host a rousing concert at the
Blair School of Music. Dale Cockrell, Professor of Musicology, has worked for many years to
produce faithful recordings of the music documented in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on
the Prairie books. The concert will bring together talented musicians and special guests to give a
public performance of these historic Appalachian songs. The event is free and open to the public,
but guests should reserve tickets in advance.
Finally, in the fall semester of 2008, the Warren Center, in conjunction with the Chancellor’s
Office, will present a public lecture by Bruce Cole, eighth chairman of the National Endowment
for the Humanities. Further information about this event will be forthcoming.
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Black Atlantic History Lecture
On Wednesday, February 13th, at 4:10 p.m., David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of
History at Emory University, will give a talk for the Warren Center’s annual Black Atlantic
History Lecture, presented by the Center’s Circum-Atlantic Studies Working Group and the
Department of History, in honor of Black History Month. Professor Eltis, a leading scholar of the
early modern Atlantic World, slavery, and migration, is the author of Economic Growth and the
Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. He is
also co-creator of The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM, and is at work on a
census of the Atlantic slave trade. The talk will take place in the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black
Cultural Center, followed by a reception.
Graduate Student Research Day
On Monday, March 31, the Graduate School and the Graduate Student Council will present
Graduate Student Research Day, co-sponsored by the Warren Center. This annual
interdisciplinary conference – featuring public lectures and poster presentations by Vanderbilt’s
diverse graduate student body – ends with a keynote address by James Lang, Associate
Professor of English at Assumption College, and author of Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons
from the First Year. Check the Warren Center and Graduate Student Council websites for details.
Warren Center Graduate Student Fellows Lecture Series
Each of the Warren Center’s seven graduate students will present a public lecture this spring,
followed by a reception. All lectures in the series take place in the conference room of the
Warren Center at 4:10 p.m. and are open to the public. The presenters and dates are:
Tuesday, March 11 – Michael Callaghan, Department of Anthropology
Thursday, March 20 – Nicole Seymour, Department of English
Thursday, March 27 – Josh Epstein, George J. Graham, Jr. Fellow, Department of English
Tuesday, April 8 – George Sanders, American Studies Fellow, Department of Sociology
Thursday, April 17 – Megan Moran, Department of History
Tuesday, April 22 – Heather Talley, Department of Sociology
Tuesday, April 29 – David Solodkow, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Visiting Speakers
Christopher Freeburg (English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), will present a
paper on Thursday, January 24, at 4:10 p.m. His presentation, “Melville’s Americas and the
Iconography of the End,” is part of the American Studies Working Paper Series, and will take
place in the Warren Center conference room.
Madhavi Menon (literature, American University), will give a public lecture on sexuality in
Renaissance literature on Thursday, February 21st at 4:10 p.m. (location TBA), and a
discussion of her work on Friday, February 22 at 12:30 p.m. in the conference room of the
Warren Center. Her visit has been organized by the Center’s Queer Theory Reading Group.
Merle Langdon (classics, University of Tennessee Knoxville) will give a lunchtime presentation
to the Ancient and Medieval Studies seminar on Wednesday, March 19, at 12:00 p.m. His talk,
co-sponsored by the Department of Classical Studies and the Nashville Parthenon, will take
place in the Warren Center conference room.
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Christopher Leslie Brown (history, Columbia University) will give a public lecture from his
recent book Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism, which won the 2007 Frederick
Douglass Prize for the best book on slavery or abolition. Professor Brown’s talk will take place
on Friday, March 21st at 4:10 p.m. in the auditorium of the Black Cultural Center. The
lecture is sponsored by the Warren Center’s Circum-Atlantic Studies Working Group.
Warren Center Seminars
All seminars meet in the Warren Center conference room unless otherwise noted.
American Studies Working Paper Series. This group welcomes all faculty and graduate
students interested in American Studies to meet to discuss participants’ work-in-progress. All
topics that touch on American Studies issues are welcome. The goal of the group is to create
interdisciplinary dialogue and to provide an opportunity for the American Studies community to
learn about the research of its members. For the first meeting of the semester, Christopher
Freeburg (English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) will discuss his paper
“Melville’s Americas and the Iconography of the End,” on Thursday, January 24, at 4:10 p.m.
On Tuesday, April 8 at 4:10 p.m., the seminar will co-sponsor a public lecture by George
Sanders, graduate student in the Department of Sociology and American Studies Fellow of the
Warren Center. If you have a paper you would like the group to consider, are interested in being
one of our reviewers, or have any questions, please contact the seminar coordinator, Teresa
Goddu (American Studies), teresa.a.goddu@vanderbilt.edu.
Ancient and Medieval Studies Seminar. The purpose of the group is to foster interdisciplinary
study of the time periods embraced in its title, which means not only history but language and
literature, chiefly, though not exclusively, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. The main focus will be on
faculty and graduate student research. On Friday, January 18, at 12:00 p.m. Barbara
Tsakirgis (classical studies) will give a talk on windows in Greek houses; and on Wednesday,
February 20, at 2:30 p.m. John Plummer (English) will present “‘They held hem paied of the
fructes þat þey ete’: Moral and Political Choices as Memory in Chaucer's ‘Former Age.’”
The group will host visiting speaker Merle Langdon (classics, University of Tennessee
Knoxville) for a lunchtime presentation, co-sponsored by the Department of Classical Studies
and the Nashville Parthenon, on Wednesday, March 19, at 12:00 p.m. If you would like to be
added to the seminar mailing list, e-mail Sarah Nobles at sarah.h.nobles@vanderbilt.edu.
Seminar coordinator: Tracy Miller (history of art), tracy.g.miller@vanderbilt.edu.
Circum-Atlantic Studies Group. Now in its fifth year, this group meets monthly and will read
and treat works-in-progress authored by participants or other significant work in the field. Our
focus is on scholarship that is interdisciplinary in nature, and focuses on at least two of the
following regions – Africa, Europe, Latin and Central America, the Caribbean, and North
America – and treats some aspect of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, and/or postcolonialism. On Wednesday, February 13th, at 4:10 p.m., David Eltis (history, Emory
University) will give a presentation for the Warren Center’s annual Black Atlantic History
Lecture (see listing above under Special Events). Christopher Leslie Brown (history,
Columbia University) will give a public lecture on Friday, March 21st at 4:10 p.m. Others
interested in presenting a paper should contact the seminar coordinator. If you would like to be
added to the mailing list, e-mail Sarah Nobles at sarah.nobles@vanderbilt.edu. Seminar
coordinator: Jane Landers (history), jane.landers@vanderbilt.edu.
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Culture Workshop. This interdisciplinary workshop is designed to explore the dimensions of
our expressive lives – including art, entertainment, media, and heritage. Investigating the
dynamics of both new and old cultural forms and artistic movements, participants will
pay particular attention to the processes by which culture is produced and consumed both within
and across different contexts. Participants will attempt to take a fresh look at the artistic, creative
and expressive impulses of our country with an eye to pulling out larger trends and issues to
which both scholars and citizens should pay attention. Seminar coordinator: Richard Lloyd
(sociology), r.d.lloyd@vanderbilt.edu.
Disability Studies Reading Group. This reading group is designed to explore the emerging,
interdisciplinary field of disability studies. Disability studies focuses on the ways socio-medicolegal discourses and practices construct bodies as disabled. The field is simultaneously a political
project emphasizing social justice and collective action and an intellectual endeavor addressing
questions about subject formation, power, bodies, subjugated knowledges, and normalization.
The group will meet at 12:00 p.m. on the following Wednesdays: January 16, February 6,
March 12, April 2, and May 7. To join the mailing list, contact the seminar coordinators:
Heather L. Talley (sociology), heather.l.talley@vanderbilt.edu; Stacy Clifford (political
science), stacy.a.clifford@vanderbilt.edu.
Food Politics Reading and Working Group. This group aims to begin an interdisciplinary
conversation about the political (as well as spiritual, ecological, cultural, and nutritional)
dimensions of global/local foodways, agricultural practices, and consumption habits. The
seminar addresses a broad range of topics: the history of organic agriculture, the ethics of food
consumption, urban farming and agricultural literacy, and the politics of health and nutrition. The
seminar will meet at 5:00 p.m. on the following Mondays: January 28, February 18, March
10, April 7. Seminar coordinators: Darcy Freedman (Community Research and Action)
darcy.a.freedman@vanderbilt.edu; John Morrell (English), john.j.morrell@vanderbilt.edu.
Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. The Warren Center and the
American Studies Program are co-sponsoring a monthly seminar to provide opportunities for
exchange among faculty members who are interested in or who are currently involved in projects
that engage public scholarship. The national organization “Imagining America” is a consortium
of colleges and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts, humanities and design,
that may be of interest to Vanderbilt faculty. For further information, please contact Teresa
Goddu (American Studies), teresa.a.goddu@vanderbilt.edu or Mona Frederick,
mona.c.frederick@vanderbilt.edu.
Intellectual Life of the Commons. A series of dinner conversations, including fine food and
drink at the Warren Center, for faculty members interested in the development of intellectual
possibilities for faculty and undergraduates in The Commons. The series is being organized by
Frank Wcislo and the newly appointed Faculty Heads of House of The Commons. If you are
interested in joining, e-mail christina.m.bailey@vanderbilt.edu or frank.wcislo@vanderbilt.edu.
Medicine, Health, and Society Seminar. This interdisciplinary seminar meets monthly to
discuss common concerns and hear talks by members and visiting speakers. For more
information, contact Lynn Lentz at lynn.lentz@vanderbilt.edu. Seminar coordinator: Arleen
Tuchman (history), arleen.m.tuchman@vanderbilt.edu.
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Nineteenth Century Seminar. This group focuses upon the history, art, literature, and culture of
the long nineteenth century (ca. 1760-1914). While the focus has been traditionally on Britain,
the group’s perspective is widening to encompass the transatlantic nineteenth century. Each
meeting consists of a presentation of a work by a visiting scholar, Vanderbilt faculty member, or
graduate student, followed by a discussion of that work with the author. Meetings will be held at
12:00 p.m. on the following dates: Thursday, January 31; Friday, February 29; and Friday,
April 4 (alternate location TBA). Seminar coordinators: Yeo Ju Choi (English),
yeoju.choi@vanderbilt.edu; Elizabeth Meadows (English), elizabeth.s.meadows@vanderbilt.edu.
Queer Theory Graduate Student Reading Group. This seminar meets to discuss emergent
issues in queer theory and its intersections with theories of gender, race, class, sexuality, and
history. Meetings alternate between reading-based discussions and workshop formats. During
workshops, seminar participants volunteer their work for feedback from the larger group;
discussions work to explore the ways in which current issues within the scope of queer theory are
developing across disciplinary boundaries. The group will meet at 12:30 p.m. on the following
Fridays: January 25, February 22, March 28, April 18. The group will host visiting speaker
Madhavi Menon (literature, American University) on February 21-22. Seminar coordinators:
Sarah Kersh (English), sarah.e.kersh@vanderbilt.edu; Nicole Seymour (English),
nicole.e.seymour@vanderbilt.edu.
Reclaiming Citizenship. This interdisciplinary group is designed to explore theories of
citizenship that will be translated into a useable pedagogical framework. The group will ask, as
scholars and teachers, what it means to be an active citizen both locally and globally.
Discussions of these theoretical concerns will be used to construct syllabi for use by group
members. Meetings are at 11:00 a.m. on these Thursdays: January 17, February 28, March 20,
April 10. Seminar coordinator: Derrick Spires (English), derrick.r.spires@vanderbilt.edu.
Vanderbilt Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies. This is a forum for those with an
interest in literature, history, music, art, and culture from 1400-1800. The group meets monthly
to discuss ongoing research by a faculty member, recent publications in the field, or the work of
a visiting scholar. Graduate students are particularly encouraged to attend and contribute. This
semester the group will host presentations by Olivia Grenvicz (French and Italian), Holly
Tucker (French and Italian), Paul Lim (Divinity), and Dolora Chapelle-Wojciehowski
(English, University of Texas). Dates to be announced. To be added to the mailing list, e-mail
Sarah Nobles sarah.h.nobles@vanderbilt.edu. Seminar coordinator: Leah Marcus (English),
leah.s.marcus@vanderbilt.edu.
Women’s and Gender Studies Seminar. This seminar is designed to highlight work being done
on campus in the area of women’s and gender studies. For more information, please contact the
seminar coordinator, Shubhra Sharma (Women’s and Gender Studies),
shubhra.sharma@vanderbilt.edu.
Women in Academe Series. This series includes workshops and discussion sessions on topics
related to gender and the academy. On Tuesday, January 22 at 12:10 p.m. Dayle Savage
(Leadership and Organizations, Peabody Career Center) will lead a session on Networking. The
group will meet again on Friday, February 15 at 11:30 a.m. Series coordinators: Stacy
Nunnally (Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center), stacy.nunnally@vanderbilt.edu; Kim Petrie
(Biomedical Research Education & Training), kim.petrie@vanderbilt.edu.
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