{"id":24952,"date":"2026-07-16T16:32:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T20:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/?page_id=24952"},"modified":"2026-08-31T12:57:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T16:57:59","slug":"distinguished-lecture-series","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/public-events\/distinguished-lecture-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Distinguished Lecture Series"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignfull utkwds-hero-split has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/DLS_16-9_LJ-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24953 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/DLS_16-9_LJ-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/DLS_16-9_LJ-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/DLS_16-9_LJ-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/DLS_16-9_LJ-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/DLS_16-9_LJ-2048x1152.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-577681ce wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"utkwds-superhead wp-block-paragraph\">The Denbo Center<\/p>\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-post-title\">Distinguished Lecture Series<\/h1><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Denbo Center\u2019s Distinguished Lecture Series brings acclaimed humanities scholars and renowned artists to the Knoxville campus and connects UT faculty and graduate students to the best researchers in their fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-utkwds-cta-link wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/liveutk.sharepoint.com\/sites\/UTHumanitiesCenter\/SitePages\/Info-for-faculty-hosts.aspx\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/liveutk.sharepoint.com\/sites\/UTHumanitiesCenter\/SitePages\/Info-for-faculty-hosts.aspx\">UT Faculty: Propose a Speaker<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speakers are nominated and hosted by faculty from our affiliated arts and humanities departments. Because only speakers with exceptional records of publication and research activity are eligible to receive a nomination as a visiting scholar, the program brings to campus some of the most cutting-edge and prolific intellectuals in the arts and humanities today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lectures are free and open to the public. For information about visiting our Cherokee Mills location, please visit the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/artsci.utk.edu\/denbocenter\/about\/find-us\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"53\"><strong>Find Us<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;page on our website.&nbsp;Everyone is welcome!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Follow our&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/uthumanitiesctr.bsky.social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bluesky<\/a><\/strong>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UTHumanitiesCtr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>X<\/strong><\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/UTHumanitiesCtr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Facebook<\/strong><\/a>, and&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/uthumanitiesctr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Instagram<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;accounts for updates on our events. Details about our Distinguished Lectures are also available on the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/calendar.utk.edu\/department\/humanities_center\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>UT Calendar<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We would like to thank the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/research.utk.edu\/\">Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development<\/a>&nbsp;for their generous support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Upcoming Distinguished Lecture Events<\/h2>\n\n\n<div id='localist-widget-3068309' class='utkwds-localist-widget wp-block-group localist-widget'><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Past Distinguished Lecture Events<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion\"><div data-accordion=\"true\" class=\"utk-wds-accordion-wrapper\" data-color-scheme=\"light\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>February 02, 2026 <\/strong>\u2013 Edward Ayers <em>Digital History and Democratic History<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Digital History and Democratic History<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thirty years ago, digital history shared in the hopeful vision of the early internet. Today, that vision is clouded as the possibilities of history broaden but curricula narrow, as artificial intelligence offers new tools that hold out new insights but also threaten to engulf scholarship and teaching. In this talk, Prof. Edward Ayers will grapple with these challenges and suggest that digital history still holds promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Edward Ayers (BA, 1974) received the National Humanities Medal at the White House for making our nation\u2019s history available in new ways. He has won major prizes for his books, been named National Professor of the Year, and served as the president of the Organization of American Historians. Ayers currently heads two digital projects at the University of Richmond, where he is president emeritus: New American History and Bunk. He graduated from UT summa cum laude and in 2021 received the Distinguished Alumni Award from UT\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Ayers was invited to campus by Prof. Amy Elias (English; Executive Director, Denbo Center for Humanities &amp; the Arts).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>February 16, 2026 <\/strong>\u2013 Benjamin Brose <em>From History to Myth and Back Again: Xuanzang and the Journey to the West<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em><em>From History to Myth and Back Again: Xuanzang and the Journey to the West<\/em><\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the seventh century, the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang embarked on a seventeen-year pilgrimage from China through Central Asia to India and back again. That epic journey, which altered the course of East Asian Buddhism, later became the basis for one of China\u2019s most famous novels: The Journey to the West. The characters and narratives portrayed in the novel went on to play pivotal roles in religious rituals and rebellions of modern China. This talk considers the transformation of Xuanzang\u2019s biography from historical account to mythic fantasy and the subsequent reification of those same mythic narratives into historical realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Benjamin Brose is Professor of Buddhist and Chinese Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Brose was invited to campus by Prof. Megan Bryson (Religious Studies).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>March 02, 2026 <\/strong>\u2013 Susan Brown <em>Cyborg Identities in the Cultural Data Ecosystem<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Cyborg Identities in the Cultural Data Ecosystem<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Human culture increasingly takes machine-readable forms. Identifying and categorizing people and cultural works is endemic to digital representation and yet both individual identities and cultural understandings of those identities change over time and with different contexts. Cyborg identities produced by humans and machines arise from connecting data across multiple online sites. Such identities can interlink meaningfully the large cultural heritage collections of galleries, libraries, archives and museums with scholarship needed to make sense of those materials. They can enable trustworthy alternatives to the capitalist-driven systems that dominate our information landscape. Such identities can also be weaponized. In this talk, Susan Brown highlights how we categorize and represent people and cultural materials online has profound implications in an increasingly politicized knowledge environment that requires unambiguous identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Susan Brown is Canada Research Chair in Collaborative Digital Scholarship and Professor of English at the University of Guelph. Her research focuses on semantic technologies, intersectional feminism, and literary history. She is a founder of the ongoing Orlando Project on women&#8217;s writing in the British Isles, two online infrastructures for creating and linking digital scholarship, and The Humanities Interdisciplinary Collaboration (THINC) Lab. She was awarded the Roberto Busa Prize for digital humanities in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Brown was invited to campus by Prof. Mariam Thalos (Philosophy).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>April 06, 2026 <\/strong>\u2013 Justene Hill Edwards <em>The Freedman\u2019s Bank and the (Un)Making of Reconstruction<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>The Freedman\u2019s Bank and the (Un)Making of Reconstruction<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On July 2, 1874, a bank closed its doors. The 61,144 depositors, many of whom poured their life\u2019s savings into this financial institution, collectively lost almost $3 million. In the nineteenth century, a single bank failure did not typically garner national attention. However, this bank was no ordinary financial institution. It served a particularly vulnerable population of people: African Americans recently freed from slavery. The bank that closed was the Freedman\u2019s Savings and Trust Company, also known as the Freedman\u2019s Bank. It was a private financial institution founded by white bankers and philanthropists at the end of the Civil War to introduce formerly enslaved people to the basic tenets of American banking. When it failed in 1874, its Black depositors lost access to the hard-earned savings that would have helped them climb out of slavery. They also lost faith in the promise of banking to build wealth and economic security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Justene Hill Edwards is an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia. She is a specialist in African American history and her research examines Black economic life in America. She is the author of <em>Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman\u2019s Bank<\/em> and <em>Unfree Markets: The Slaves\u2019 Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina<\/em>. She has won numerous fellowships and awards, most recently the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship and the Mellon New Directions Fellowship. She received her BA from Swarthmore College, MA from Florida International University, and PhD from Princeton University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Edwards was invited to campus by Prof. Brandon Winford (History).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>April 13, 2026 <\/strong>\u2013 Aaron Landsman <em>Perfect City Primer: Theater as Civic Action<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Perfect City Primer: Theater as Civic Action<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How is a government meeting a performance of power? What can we learn and achieve by performing it differently? How do the maps we carry in our body lead us toward new approaches to policy? What happens if we make maps together and then share our different experiences of navigating the same space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aaron Landsman shares examples from a body of work called Perfect City, that includes the participatory theatrical work City Council Meeting, the curriculum and toolkit for civic action that arises from that work, and the book The City We Make Together, co-authored with Mallory Catlett, and published by the University of Iowa Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aaron Landsman is a multidisciplinary artist. His new and recent work includes Night Keeper, an immersive performance and vinyl LP about insomnia as urban communion, All the Time in the World, a cooperative card game that turns social media into an ensemble performance, and the ongoing body of work Perfect City, at the intersection of art, civic engagement, and urban planning. Landsman is a Lecturer at Princeton&#8217;s Lewis Center for the Arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Landsman was invited to campus by Prof. Amy Elias (English; Executive Director, Denbo Center for Humanities &amp; the Arts).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>April 20, 2026 <\/strong>\u2013 Avinoam Patt <em>The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Calendar of Holocaust Memory<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Calendar of Holocaust Memory<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19, 1943\u2013May 16, 1943), the largest mass revolt in a major city in Nazi-occupied Europe, is the defining symbol of Jewish resistance to Nazi oppression during World War II. In the days and weeks after the uprising broke out, the news of the revolt captivated the Jewish world, and was seized upon by Jews from diverse ideological backgrounds and movements in locations around the world as the news they had been waiting and wanting to hear for almost four years. Even at the time of the Uprising, the ghetto fighters who organized the revolt were aware of the historic significance of their actions. Described by historian Israel Gutman, who himself was a participant in the revolt, as \u201cliterally a revolution in Jewish history (whose) importance was understood all too well by those who fought,\u201d the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising quickly became the focal point of commemorative activities both during and immediately after the war, appropriated by Holocaust survivors in Europe as the basis for commemoration activities in the DP camps, by leaders in the Yishuv as confirmation of the Zionist worldview, and in the American context, as the \u201cprism through which American Jews performed the memory of the six million\u201d in commemorative activities in the first two decades after World War II. By 1953, Israel\u2019s parliament, the Knesset, would designate the 27th of Nisan as the date for Yom HaShoah ve-haGevruah (The Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism) to correspond with the timing of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this talk, Avinoam Patt will reflect on how and why April 19 became the focal point of Jewish memory of the Holocaust, and how the calendar of Holocaust memory has evolved since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Avinoam Patt is the Maurice Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies at New York University where he also serves as Director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism. He is the author of multiple books on Jewish responses to the Holocaust, including <em>Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust<\/em> (2009) and <em>The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt<\/em> (2021). He is also co-editor of <em>Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust <\/em>(2020) and <em>Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust<\/em> (2020). His newest books include <em>Israel and the Holocaust<\/em> (2024) and the document collection, <em>The Surviving Remnant: Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany<\/em> (2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Patt was invited to campus by Prof. Daniel Magilow (World Languages and Culture [German]; Jewish Studies).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div>September 29, 2025 \u2013 Riley Snorton <em>Plant Pedagogy and Peripheral Movements<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Plant Pedagogy and Peripheral Movements<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this talk, C. Riley Snorton explores trans ecological practices of becoming in territories defined as hostile environments for human life. In close engagement with the films, <em>Uyra: The Rising Forest<\/em> (Dir. Curi, 2022), an experimental documentary set in the Amazon forest and the northern Brazilian municipality of Manaus, and Neptune Frost (Dirs. Uzeyman and Williams, 2022), an Afrofuturist musical set in a coltan mining site and an e-waste dump in the hilltops of Burundi, Snorton traces a mycorrhizal network among \u201cpioneer species\u201d plant life and people across the racial capitalocene. Moving through questions of form and aesthetics, social and ecological constructions of difference, and matters of praxis in both films, this talk dwells with the pedagogical life of plants and the motility of peripheries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">C. Riley Snorton is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and jointly appointed with the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University. He is the author of <em>Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity<\/em> (2017) and <em>Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low<\/em> (2014). Snorton is also the co-editor of <em>Saturation: Race, Art, and the Circulation of Value<\/em> (2020) and <em>The Flesh of the Matter: A Critical Forum on Hortense Spillers <\/em>(2024). <em>A Black Queer History of the United States<\/em>, which Snorton co-authored with Darius Bost, is scheduled for release in January 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Snorton was invited to campus by Prof. Danielle Procope Bell (Africana Studies).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>October 20, 2025 <\/strong>\u2013 Andrew Laird<em> Rhetoric and Symbolic Power in the Early Atlantic World<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Rhetoric and Symbolic Power in the Early Atlantic World<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rhetoric, the art of effective speaking and writing, had a vital practical role in debates about the humanity of the peoples of the New World. But did rhetoric have a more fundamental connection with the idea of humanity? What part did it play in the wake of encounters with populations of whom Europeans had had no previous knowledge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this talk, Dr. Andrew Laird will show how rhetoric acquired a new symbolic value in the Americas, as an element in some foundational accounts and representations of newly encountered societies \u2013 including texts by native authors \u2013 from Brazil, Peru, and Mexico. Missionaries maintained that peoples of the Indies possessed their own innate forms of eloquence, while some indigenous scholars made use of European classical rhetoric to compose texts in Amerindian languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andrew Laird is John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and Humanities at Brown University, Rhode Island, having previously held positions at Oxford University and Warwick University in the UK. His publications include <em>Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power<\/em> (1999), <em>Ancient Literary Criticism<\/em> (2006), <em>The Epic of America<\/em> (2006), <em>Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language, Thought and Poetry 1300-1600<\/em> (2009), <em>Antiquities and Classical Traditions in Latin America<\/em> (2018), and <em>Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico<\/em> (2024), a historical study of sixteenth-century New Spain focusing on the accomplishments of indigenous scholars in the first decades after the Spanish conquest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Laird was invited to campus by Prof. Anne-Helene Miller (World Languages &amp; Culture; Marco) and Prof. Gina Di Salvo (Theatre; Marco). His visit is co-sponsored by the Marco Institute for Medieval &amp; Renaissance Studies.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>October 27, 2025 <\/strong>\u2013 Lauren Craig Tilton <em>Viewing Images Through AI<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Viewing Images Through AI<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do computers see images? How can we analyze images through AI? And how can the humanities help us use, interpret, and create AI?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This talk by Dr. Lauren Craig Tilton explores these three questions through the study of 20th century media such as US photography and television. We&#8217;ll explore how machine vision isn&#8217;t neutral\u2014it reflects the human decisions and assumptions we&#8217;ve built into these systems. The ways computers &#8220;see&#8221; are our choices, and can be interpreted in expected and unexpected ways. We will then turn to how humanistic thinking and questions can impact how we can think creatively about these systems\u2014questioning their purposes, reimagining their applications, and using humanities perspectives to harness AI\u2019s possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lauren Tilton is the E. Claiborne Robins Professor of Liberal Arts and Digital Humanities at the University of Richmond, where she directs the Center for Liberal Arts and AI (CLAAI). Her recent books include Distant Viewing (MIT Press) and Computational Humanities (Minnesota). Her digital projects such as <a href=\"http:\/\/Photogrammar.org\">Photogrammar.org<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/DigitalDocumerica.org\">DigitalDocumerica.org<\/a> have received funding from ACLS, Mellon, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is President of the Association for Computers and the Humanities and the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Tilton was invited to campus by Prof. Hilary Havens (English; Digital Humanities).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>September 16, 2024<\/strong> &#8211; Althea Murphy-Price, Karen Revis, and Tanekeya Word<br><em>Panel Discussion: Black Women of Print<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title:<\/strong> &#8220;<em>Panel Discussion: Black Women of Print<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">UT&#8217;s Downtown Gallery will be hosting an exhibition of new triptychs by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackwomenofprint.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Black Women of Print<\/a>&nbsp;featuring work by Deborah Grayson, Karen J. Revis, Stephanie Santana, LaToya Hobbs, Althea Murphy-Price, and Tanekeya Word. Join us for a special panel discussion with Black Women of Print members&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.altheamurphyprice.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Althea Murphy-Price<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.karenjrevis.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Karen J. Revis<\/a>, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tanekeyaword.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tanekeya Word<\/a> as they discuss the personal, familial, and spiritual creative legacies behind their work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This panel discussion is held in conjunction with the UT Downtown Galleries&#8217; exhibition, <em>Lore: What We Were Told | What We Saw | What We Tell Ourselves<\/em>, on display from <strong>August 30 \u2013 October 17, 2024<\/strong>. <a href=\"https:\/\/downtown.utk.edu\/black-women-of-print\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Details here<\/a>. The exhibition is supported by a Haines-Morris Grant&nbsp;from UT&#8217;s College of Arts &amp; Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About Black Women of Print:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Black Women of Print&nbsp;was founded in October 2018 by Tanekeya Word, a Black woman, visual artist, art educator, scholar and fine art printmaker who resides in Milwaukee, WI. Word was interested in creating an equitable, safe place for Black women printmakers who were underrepresented in the discipline of printmaking, a space that is eulogized as democratic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Black Women of Print&nbsp;offers a counternarrative that decolonizes our highest proficiency level title from the traditional Eurocentric usage of the term master, rooted in trade\/union print labor, to the term Established. Established Black women printmakers have brought into being an expansive body of work\u2014personal or through artistic collaboration. We understand that our praxis is not superior to our peers. We are representations of one way to expand knowledge in the discipline of printmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Learn more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackwomenofprint.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Black Women of Print<\/a> here.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>September 30, 2024<\/strong> &#8211; Cecelia Condit<em> Cecelia Condit: Video Works from 1981 to the Present<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title:<\/strong> &#8220;<em>Cecelia Condit: Video Works from 1981 to the Prese<\/em>nt&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ground-breaking filmmaker, Cecelia Condit, will give an artist talk punctuated by screenings of her video works from 1981-present. Condit\u2019s videos have created heroines whose lives swing between beauty and the grotesque, innocence and cruelty, youth and fragility. Her work puts a subversive spin on the traditional mythology of women in film and the psychology of sexuality and violence. Exploring the dark side of female subjectivity, her \u201cfeminist fairy tales\u201d focus on friendships, age, and the natural world. Condit will focus on ways her creative practice has shaped her life and conversely how her biography has shaped these intimate works\u2014making a cohesive thread out of a fractured, disjointed world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>This talk is hosted in partnership with the UT School of Art and UT Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture. <\/strong>The Ewing Gallery will be <a href=\"https:\/\/ewing-gallery.utk.edu\/cecelia-condit\/\">exhibiting a rotating selection of Condit\u2019s short films<\/a> as well as a monumental installation of her latest film,&nbsp;<\/em>&#8220;There are No Words&#8221;<em><em> \u2014&nbsp;<\/em>a triptych that represents Condit\u2019s reaction to the environmental crisis and our uncertain futures.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cecelia Condit is a filmmaker and storyteller who has created heroines whose lives swing between beauty and the grotesque, innocence and cruelty, youth and age. Her work puts a subversive spin on the mythology of women in film and the psychology of sexuality and violence. She has shown internationally in festivals, museums and alternative spaces, and has received numerous awards and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Film Institute, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mary L. Nohl Foundation. She\u2019s a professor emerita in the Department of Film, Video, Animation &amp; New Genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Condit was invited to campus by Janelle VanderKelen (School of Art\/Cinema Studies).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>October 14, 2024 \u2013 <\/strong>Katherine L. Jansen <em>The Veil of Veronica in Premodern Rome<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title:<\/strong> &#8220;<em>The Veil of Veronica in Premodern Rome<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This talk examines the history of the most important relic in the Christian world: the holy sudarium.&nbsp;Known colloquially as \u201cthe Veronica,\u201d the relic is the cloth that is believed to have been imbued with the likeness of Christ&#8217;s face when Saint Veronica wiped the sweat from his brow as he made his way, carrying the cross, to the crucifixion.&nbsp;Surveying first how the relic arrived in Rome at the basilica of St. Peter, Katherine L. Jansen will demonstrate that attention to one holy object over a long period can reveal patterns of religious practice, papal ceremony and politics, and change over time in the eternal city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Katherine L. Jansen is a historian of the later Middle Ages.&nbsp; She is the author of the award-winning book, <em>The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages <\/em>(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) and <em>Peace and Penance in late Medieval Italy <\/em>(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).&nbsp; She has also published three co-edited volumes:&nbsp; <em>Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation <\/em>(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009); <em>Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Preaching, 1200\u20131500<\/em> (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010); and <em>Center and Periphery: Essays on Power in the Middle Ages in Honor of William Chester Jordan <\/em>(Leiden: Brill, 2013). Professor Jansen has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, Villa I Tatti (The Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, among others. She has taught at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC since 1995 and has been Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University.&nbsp; She was elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2020. She is currently editor of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. &nbsp;Her current book project is entitled, The Relics of Rome to which this lecture, \u201cThe Veil of Veronica in Premodern Rome,\u201d contributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Katherine Jansen was invited to campus by Gina Di Salvo (Theatre; Marco Institute). Her visit is co-sponsored by the Marco Institute for Medieval &amp; Renaissance Studies.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong><strong>October 28, 2024 \u2013 <\/strong><\/strong>Elisa Beshero-Bondar <em>Visualizing the Frankenstein Variorum<br><\/em>Part of our <em>Dialogues<\/em> mini-series in Digital Humanities<\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title:<\/strong> &#8220;<em>Visualizing the Frankenstein Variorum<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;<em>Frankenstein Variorum<\/em>&nbsp;team has completed work on a digital scholarly edition that compares five distinct versions of the novel&nbsp;<em>Frankenstein<\/em>. Working with the&nbsp;<em>Frankenstein Variorum<\/em>&#8216;s edition files, we can study precisely where and how much the novel changed over five distinct instantiations from 1816 to 1831. Our encoded data invites us to visualize the edition&#8217;s moments of alignment, divergence, and gaps where material was missing or removed. This presentation shares a &#8220;big picture&#8221; view of&nbsp;<em>Frankenstein<\/em>\u2019s changes over time using two variations of eXtensible Markup Language (XML): images drawn in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) from our data encoded in TEI, the language of the Text Encoding Initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An active member of the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tei-c.org\/index.xml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)<\/a>, Elisa Beshero-Bondar serves as an elected member and now chair of the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tei-c.org\/Activities\/Council\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TEI Technical Council<\/a>, an eleven-member international committee that supervises amendments to the TEI Guidelines. She has been teaching humanities in web-savvy ways since the 1990s, and she began teaching markup languages and XML stack processing almost as soon as she began learning them in the 2010s. Before moving to direct the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/digit-psb.github.io\/DIGIT\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">DIGIT program<\/a>&nbsp;at Penn State Erie, she directed Pitt-Greensburg&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.greensburg.pitt.edu\/digital-humanities\/center-digital-text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Center for the Digital Text<\/a>.&nbsp; She has led TEI data modeling of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/frankensteinvariorum.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Frankenstein Variorum<\/a>&nbsp;project, the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/digitalmitford.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Digital Mitford Project<\/a>&nbsp;and other digital research projects involving TEI XML to build editions and prepare structured analyses of variants and collocations in texts. Find her on GitHub at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ebeshero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/github.com\/ebeshero<\/a>&nbsp;and on her development site named for her pet firebelly newts at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/newtfire.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/newtfire.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Elisa Beshero-Bondar was invited to campus by Hilary Havens (English).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>February 03, 2025 \u2013 <\/strong>Dan Sinykin <em>How We Got Our Books: The Conglomerate Era in Publishing<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title:<\/strong> &#8220;<em>How We Got Our Books: The Conglomerate Era in Publishing<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk:<\/strong><br>Why do we have this world of books and not any other? Why are&nbsp;these&nbsp;the books topping Amazon\u2019s lists or sitting prominently on the shelves at Barnes &amp; Noble and our local independent bookstores? In this talk, Dan Sinykin will discuss how the conglomeration of the publishing industry led to the dominance of romantasy, how publishers and prizes shape the kinds of stories that nonwhite writers get to tell, and how independent and nonprofit publishing offers alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan Sinykin was invited to campus by Amy Elias (Denbo Center, English).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>March 03, 2025 <\/strong>\u2013 Shatema Threadcraft <em>Black Femicide and Morrisonian Democracy<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Black Femicide and Morrisonian Democracy<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Black women are 10% of the U.S. female population yet represent 59% of women murdered. Most of those deaths were instances of intimate partner violence, and thus, a form of Black femicide. More pregnant women are murdered than those who die of the top three pregnancy-related complications, yet Black women account for 44.6 percent of all pregnancy-related fatal intimate partner violence in the United States. Additionally, maternal and abortion related deaths are considered a form of \u201cpassive\u201d femicide. Today 57% Black women of reproductive age in the United States live under abortion bans and\/or severe abortion restrictions and Black women are three times more likely to die of pregnancy related complications than white women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite the above, more people are mobilized in response to the deaths of Black men than those of Black women. But those who call on Black women to share their stories of private violence must reflect, not only on the complications of sharing publicly these stories of violent intimacy but on how Black political leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois have written spectacular violence, and specifically lynching, into the story of who Blacks are and why they are here. This talk considers the people-making stories of Du Bois alongside Toni Morrison\u2019s stories, the deaths she centers in her work, the ephemeral collectives she sought to build through these stories of intimate violence and death and how she would have the stories shared to argue for an effective method of storytelling to increase mobilization in response to Black women\u2019s deaths.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shatema Threadcraft was invited to campus by Danielle Procope Bell (Africana Studies).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>March 10, 2025 <\/strong>\u2013 Olivia C. Harrison <em>Going Native: Jean Raspail and the Fictions of Indigeneity<\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Going Native: Jean Raspail and the Fictions of Indigeneity<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1973, Jean Raspail published a novel that was hailed as prophetic by the far right in France: <em>The Camp of the Saints<\/em>, a dystopian and openly racist account of the invasion of France by a flotilla of migrants from India. Immediately translated into English, Raspail\u2019s novel has continued to circulate globally as a clarion call for \u201cnative\u201d resistance to the counter-colonization of the Global North by migrants from the Global South. Central to the dystopian fantasy that plays out in the novel is the substitution of the roles of colonizer and colonized, settler and native. According to Raspail and his followers, yesterday\u2019s indig\u00e8nes (natives) are now colonizing France. Fifty years after the end of French empire, the settlers of old have \u201cgone native\u201d in the postcolonial metropole, refashioning indigeneity into an exclusivist claim of native belonging. This talk investigates the settler colonial genealogies of nativism by attending to an often-overlooked aspect of Raspail\u2019s literary career: his longstanding fascination with indigenous Americans, from Patagonia to Turtle Island. Reading Raspail\u2019s Indianist writings against the grain of <em>The Camp of the Saints<\/em>, Harrison will speculate on the enduring legacies of fictions of indigeneity in nativist discourses in France and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Olivia C. Harrison is professor of French and comparative literature at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on postcolonial North African, Middle Eastern, and French literature and film, with a particular emphasis on transcolonial affiliations between writers and intellectuals from the Global South. Her publications include <em>Natives against Nativism: Antiracism and Indigenous Critique in Postcolonial France <\/em>(University of Minnesota Press, 2023), <em>Transcolonial Maghreb: Imagining Palestine in the Era of Decolonization<\/em> (Stanford University Press, 2016), and essays on Maghrebi literature, Beur and banlieue cultural production, and postcolonial theory. With Teresa Villa-Ignacio, she is the editor of <em>Souffles-Anfas: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics<\/em> (Stanford University Press, 2016) and translator of Hocine Tandjaoui\u2019s proem, <em>Clamor\/Clameur<\/em> (Litmus Press, 2021). She is currently working on a book project titled <em>The White Minority<\/em>, which tracks the settler colonial genealogies of nativism and anti-immigrant discourse in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Olivia Harrison was invited to campus by Matt Brauer (WLC-French).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>March 27, 2025 <\/strong>\u2013 Fred Moten &amp; Brandon Lopez &#8220;<em>On the run from ownership<\/em>&#8220;<em>: Mackey, Music, Centrifugitivity<\/em> <em><strong>In partnership with Big Ears Festival<\/strong><\/em><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title:<\/strong> &#8220;<em>On the Run from Ownership: Mackey, Music, Centrifugitivity<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Poet Fred Moten and bassist Brandon Lopez will explore <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poets\/nathaniel-mackey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nathaniel Mackey<\/a>&#8216;s poetry and music, and will talk about how listening, with big ears, is always a variation on that kind of spooky, distant practicing.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-utk-wds-accordion-panel\"><h2 class=\"utk-wds-accordion__heading\" data-accordion-heading=\"true\"><div><strong>April 07, 2025 <\/strong>\u2013 <strong>Menno Schilthuizen<\/strong> <strong><em>Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution<\/em><\/strong><\/div><\/h2><section data-accordion-section=\"true\"><div class=\"utk-wds-accordion__panel-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Talk Title<\/strong>: &#8220;<em>Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Talk: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are marching towards a future in which three-quarters of humans live in cities, and a large portion of the planet&#8217;s landmass is urbanized. With much of the rest covered by human-shaped farms, pasture, and plantations, where can nature still go? One possibility: to the cities. And with more and more wildlife carving out new niches among humans, evolution takes a surprising turn. Urban animals evolve to become more tolerant, curious and resourceful, city pigeons develop \u201cdetox\u201d-plumage, and weeds growing from cracks in the pavement adjust their seeds. Some city animals are even on their way of becoming an entirely new species. Thanks to evolutionary adaptation taking place at unprecedented speeds, plants and animals are coming up with new ways of living in the seemingly hostile environments of asphalt and steel that we humans have created. We may be on the verge of a new chapter in the history of life\u2014 a chapter in which much old biodiversity is, sadly, disappearing, but also one in which a new and exciting set of life forms is being born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About the Speaker:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Menno Schilthuizen (1965) is a professor of evolution and biodiversity at Leiden University and a senior researcher at the National Natural History Museum &#8216;Naturalis&#8217; in Leiden, the Netherlands. He studies the processes by which urbanization promotes rapid evolution in wild organisms. He also runs the Taxon Foundation, a nonprofit for urban biodiversity studies. In his recent books, <em>Darwin Comes to Town<\/em> (Picador, 2018) and <em>The Urban Naturalist<\/em> (MIT Press, 2025), he offers a new and optimistic view of cities as places where exciting ecosystems are arising, with community science as a way for city dwellers to be explorers of their own urban neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Denbo Center The Denbo Center\u2019s Distinguished Lecture Series brings acclaimed humanities scholars and renowned artists to the Knoxville campus and connects UT faculty and graduate students to the best researchers in their fields. UT Faculty: Propose a Speaker Speakers are nominated and hosted by faculty from our affiliated arts and humanities departments. 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