Public Humanities at Yale | E-Newsletter | December 2024
Dear Public Humanities community,
As the end of 2024 approaches, we wish everyone a restful and restorative winter recess. We are pleased to share some upcoming events for Spring 2025, including a film screening of a 2025 Oscars-shortlisted documentary on quilting in prisons, a lecture and walking tour on New Haven's urban history, and a symposium on the poetry of John Ashbery. Below you will also find some reflections on the various Public Humanities events and projects that took place this semester.
As always, if you have ideas, feedback, or questions, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at publichumanities@yale.edu. If you are a graduate student and would like to be involved with the Public Humanities Working Group, please also feel free to reach out.
"Corner of Dixwell Avenue, Broadway and Goffe, New Haven, Connecticut," New Haven Free Public Library Digital Collections.
Upcoming Events
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED
January 31, 2025 | 6:00pm | HQ (320 York Street), Room L02
Screening and Q&A: The Quilters
The Quilters (2024), directed by Jennifer McShane, follows the daily lives of several quilters inside the sewing room at South Central Correctional Center, a Level 5 maximum security prison in a small town in Missouri. In tracking several quilts from design to completion, audiences come to know these men, witnessing their struggles, triumphs, and sense of pride as they create something beautiful in this windowless sacred space, deep within the prison walls. The film was recently shortlisted for the Documentary Short Film category for the 97th Academy Awards.
Join us for this 32-minute screening at the Humanities Quadrangle, 320 York Street, Room L02, followed by a Q&A with the director and members of the production team. Generously sponsored by Yale Public Humanities and the Yale University Art Gallery’s Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund. Click here for more event details.
April 4, 2025 | 10:00am–5:00pm | HQ (320 York Street), Room L02
Symposium: Self-Portrait @ 50
Join us for a symposium on the 50th anniversary of John Ashbery’s volume, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) with poets Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Natalie Diaz, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Ann Lauterbach, Catherine Barnett, Geoffrey G. O’Brien, and more. Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the English Department, the Whitney Humanities Center, The Yale Review, and Public Humanities at Yale. Click here for more event details.
Date/Time/Location TBD
Anthony Liddie Lecture & Architectural Walking Tour
Anthony Liddie, a Ph.D. student in Yale's Program in History of Science and Medicine, will give a lecture on some historical and political aspects of New Haven's built environment, followed by a walking tour. This program is being organized by the Public Humanities Working Group, a body of graduate students that produce public programming. Stay tuned for more information about this event.
Fall 2024 Event Reflections
November 6: Workshop & Book Talk with Manan Ahmed Asif
On November 6, 2024, we were lucky enough to welcome Manan Ahmed Asif, Associate Professor of History at Columbia and author of Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (The New Press, 2024). Professor Ahmed brought a full capacity crowd of roughly 30 attendees for a lunchtime writing workshop on the city and the archive, examining how power shapes cities, and the role of archives and their afterlives. Later that day, Professor Ahmed joined Supriya Gandhi, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Yale, for a talk and dinner celebrating Ahmed's new book, Disrupted City, a stunning history of Pakistan’s cultural and intellectual capital from one of the preeminent scholars of South Asia. With catering from House of Naan and books available for sale on-site through Possible Futures Bookstore, the event was a lively close to a busy campus visit from Professor Ahmed. Read more about the writing workshop here and the talk and dinner here.
December 5: Day With(out) Art Film Screening: Red Reminds Me…
In recognition of the 2024 Day With(out) Art, the Yale LGBTQ Center, the Yale University Art Gallery, and Public Humanities at Yale partnered with arts nonprofit Visual AIDS to present a screening of Red Reminds Me…, a program of seven videos reflecting the emotional spectrum of living with HIV today. The videos ranged widely, from a video letter to the late artist Tseng Kwong Chi reflecting on Asian narratives in AIDS histories, to a telenovela exploring the aesthetics of AIDS in Central America. Cierra Michele Peters (MFA in Graphic Design, 2026) gave a moving introduction to the program, reflecting on how artistic production can push the bounds of what we consider politically possible. Read more about the event here.
News
Some highlights of Public Humanities-affiliated faculty,
graduate students in the certificate program, and alumni:
Ryan Brasseaux (Interim Associate Director of Public Humanities and Lecturer in American Studies) and Sylvia Ryerson (PhD Candidate in American Studies) will co-teach a Spring 2025 course titled AMST 290: Documenting Sound. The course is an interdisciplinary and experiential seminar that examines aurality as primary source, art form, and democratizing communication mode. It delves into academic studies focusing on sound generated in American studies, sound and media studies, social science, folklore, among other disciplines. Sessions will meet on Tuesdays, 1:30-3:20.
David Bromwich (Sterling Professor of English) has published a review of Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams's Kubrick: An Odyssey for the London Review of Books. Read the piece here.
Daphne A. Brooks (William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Music) has received widespread press coverage for her Spring 2025 course, AFAM 117: Beyonce Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music. Read more at The Guardian, Billboard, and elsewhere.
David Charles (Professor Emeritus), Verity Harte (George A. Saden Professor of Philosophy and Classics), Brad Inwood (William Lampson Professor of Philosophy and Classics), Thomas Pogge (Leitner Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Political Science), and Jason Stanley (Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy) submitted an amici curiae brief in the Supreme Court case of United States v. Skrmetti, which addresses a Tennessee state law about medical care for transgender youth. Read more at Daily Nous.
Benjamin Doolittle (Professor of Medicine [General Medicine], Pediatrics and Divinity; Director, Int Med-Pediatrics Residency Program) and his residents in the Yale Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Program were recently profiled about a collaborative art project with the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, which explored the relationship between healing and the creation of art. Read more at Yale School of Medicine.
Robert Dubrow (Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist in Epidemiology [Environmental Health]) was among the 122 authors of The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: facing record-breaking threats from delayed action, which records the ongoing health impacts of global climate change. Read more at The Lancet.
Beverly Gage (John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History) has published an essay in Foreign Affairs titled "The Autocratic Allure: Why the Far Right Embraces Foreign Tyrants. Read more at Foreign Affairs.
Langdon Hammer (Niel Gray, Jr. Professor of English) has published a piece on poet and critic Thom Gunn for The Yale Review, titled "The Poet as a Young Critic." Read more at The Yale Review.
Daniel Martinez HoSang (Professor of American Studies; Director of Graduate Studies in American Studies) and Colena Sesanker have published an article in The American Prospect titled "Locating Ourselves in the Wreckage of Neoliberalism." Read more at The American Prospect.
Kathryn James (Rare Book Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library) has curated "'One Sound, Tested Method': Yale Law School at 200," on view through January 13, 2025, at the Lillian Goldman Law Library's Rare Book exhibition gallery. Read more at Yale Law School's website.
Ayesha Ramachandran (Professor of Comparative Literature) has published an essay on printmaking for The Brooklyn Rail titled "History, Making, Repetition." Read more at The Brooklyn Rail.
Elihu Rubin has been named the Henry Hart Rice Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies at Yale School of Architecture. Read the full press release here.
Caleb Smith (Professor of English and of American Studies) has published a tribute to Fredric Jameson in The Yale Review titled "Fredric Jameson: The Marxist Critic Who Remained Open to Mystery. Read more at The Yale Review.
Timothy Snyder (Richard C. Levin Professor of History) has published a piece in The Lancet titled "Health and Freedom" addressing the relationship between health care, slavery, and freedom in the US. Read the full piece in The Lancet.
Puzzling The Humanities
Click the "START THE PUZZLE" button below to play this month's crossword puzzle. This puzzle was created by Matthew Stock, Yale College '18.
From The Archive
Watch ▶ | 1 hour
From the Archive
In March 2022, Matthew Jacobson spoke with Joshua Glick, Visiting Associate Professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College, about the impact of deepfakes and disinformation on contemporary politics.
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