Tag Humanities

Indian author Arundhati Roy to visit

March 5, 2013

Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy will visit the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus March 20-21, 2013 to speak to Wisconsin high school students. Roy will offer the keynote presentation for the Great World Texts Student Conference, sponsored by the UW–Madison Center for the Humanities, and will spend the day interacting with students who have read her Booker Prize-winning novel, "The God of Small Things."

UW faculty dissect growing relationship with China

February 1, 2013

In forging connections with China, the University of Wisconsin–Madison has created an international model for the university. An upcoming panel of UW–Madison faculty will examine how this partnership with China is evolving and what it means for the future of the university and the student experience.

Award helps turn first manuscripts into first-rate books

November 30, 2012

A scholar of "medieval media studies" and a historian of modern Europe have each won a 2012-13 First Book Award from the University of Wisconsin–Madison Center for the Humanities.

Go Big Read marries art and science with “Radioactive”

September 11, 2012

Lauren Redniss was first drawn to Marie and Pierre Curie because of their beautiful love story. But the Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator found much more as she researched, wrote and illustrated her book “Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout,” this year’s selection for Go Big Read, UW–Madison's common reading program.

‘Hacking’ to bridge a divide

August 23, 2012

On a wall in a darkened room, a single word flashed: divide.

New book by UW lecturer examines legacy of activist incident

July 30, 2012

Growing up in Catonsville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, UW–Madison lecturer Shawn Peters can't remember the first time he heard about the Catonsville Nine. He was 18 months old in May 1968, when nine people - including two brothers, both well-known activists and Catholic priests, and a former nun - removed hundreds of files from the local draft office and burned them with homemade napalm.

Outstanding undergraduate writing rewarded by humanities alum

July 3, 2012

Sidney Iwanter, an 1971 history alumnus of the College of Letters & Science, likes to say he was too busy dodging tear gas canisters to be much of a student during his tenure at UW–Madison.

Prison reading groups liberate minds, UW grad students find

March 21, 2012

Jose Vergara, a graduate student in the UW–Madison Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, remembers how the Oakhill Correctional Institution inmates in his reading and writing group reacted to a short story called "Blue Notebook #10," by Daniil Kharms.

UW-Madison graduate programs ranked among best by U.S. News and World Report

March 12, 2012

Several UW–Madison graduate programs are ranked among the nation’s best in the 2013 edition of U.S. News and World Report’s “Best Graduate Schools.”

Communicating danger across 10,000 years

March 1, 2012

Giant symbols carved into canyon walls might tell the story of a long-ago hunt, a creation myth, or a genocide - but because the cultures who created rock art have vanished, there is no way of discerning their exact meaning.

UW-Madison hosts 2012 Lorraine Hansberry Symposium

February 27, 2012

As part of the 2012 Lorraine Hansberry Project, honoring the life and pioneering work of a UW–Madison alumna who made lasting contributions to American arts and culture, a free symposium will take place on Saturday, March 3, in Vilas Hall’s Mitchell Theatre. The symposium, “Conversations on African-American Youth and August Wilson’s ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’” is presented in conjunction with the Hansberry Project’s production of Wilson’s play.

From Adam’s housecat to zydeco: After five decades, Dictionary of American Regional English completed

February 23, 2012

What is a Maine-born doctor to do when a patient in Pennsylvania complains, “I’ve been riftin’ and I’ve got jags in my leaders?” Consult the Dictionary of American Regional English to learn that the patient has been belching and experiencing sharp pains in his neck. After nearly five decades of work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the fifth volume of the dictionary, covering Sl to Z, is now available from Harvard University Press.

Exploring interfaces between science, humanities

February 23, 2012

The semester-long, $2,500 Emerging Interfaces Awards were created as a way to explore the different ways thinkers in the humanities and sciences approach discovery.

First Book Award lends crucial support to junior faculty

February 7, 2012

From the time they are hired, humanities faculty members begin working to turn the dissertation that earned them a Ph.D. into a book that will earn them tenure. But it’s not as easy as handing pages over to a publisher.

UW English professor urges environmental writers to “tell stories no one else can tell”

January 31, 2012

In his new book, "Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor," UW–Madison English professor Rob Nixon asks: how can environmental writers craft emotionally involving stories from disasters that are slow-moving and attritional, rather than explosive and spectacular?

Go Big Read accepting book nominations

January 9, 2012

Go Big Read is engaging students, faculty, staff and the community in a shared academic experience as they read and discuss "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario. Now planning is under way for next year's common-reading program, which will focus on a theme suggested by Interim Chancellor David Ward: innovation.

Public panel explores why Occupy movement matters

December 13, 2011

Beyond a slogan - "We are the 99 percent!" - and a seemingly organic urge to come together, what's the Occupy Wall Street movement all about? Does it have goals? Leaders? A single, unifying demand for change? How has it spread, and how does it connect to events such as The Arab Spring and the Wisconsin protests?

Public humanities project proves literacy isn’t limited to the page

December 12, 2011

The American teenager, once shy, bubbles over with questions for a young Senegalese classmate. Why did his mother leave him? Did he ever see her again? As the young man responds, the two begin using each other's first names.

Wisconsin Book Festival author is world traveler, UW–Madison dad

October 19, 2011

Acclaimed author André Aciman, who will present a Wisconsin Book Festival talk on Thursday, is eagerly awaiting his visit to UW–Madison, where he has strong family ties.

UW humanities faculty, library share insights, ancient manuscripts with high school teachers

September 29, 2011

Rare 16th century editions of works by Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus will be on hand to show teachers participating in the first workshop of the Great World Texts Program on Monday, Oct. 3, in Room 126 of the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Memorial Library.