Lectures

Wednesday, October 30, 5:30 - 7:00pm

Coral Gables Campus, Richter Library, Third Floor Conference Room

Dr. Ng’ang’a Wahu-Mũchiri will be giving a talk titled “This Future Lies in the Past: African Languages and Ecosystems.” Dr Wahu-Mũchiri is an associate professor in the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his book Writing on the Soil: Land and Landscape in Literature from Eastern and Southern Africa was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2023. His ground-breaking work includes a project to digitize colonial-era land treaties in East African archives, and translate them into Afrophone languages.

Wednesday, November 8, 2023 @ 6:30pm

"Tequesta in Context: From Deep History to Downtown Redevelopment," HistoryMiami Museum, 101 West Flagler Street Miami, FL 33130

You are invited to attend a lecture on the Tequesta by Traci Ardren, Professor of Anthropology, University of Miami.

­Co-sponsored by: HistoryMiami Museum; Kislak Center at the Museum of Art and Design, Miami Dade College; and the University of Miami’s Center for the Humanities, Lowe Art Museum, NAGIS (Native American and Global Indigenous Studies), and LISG (Libraries Indigenous Studies Group).

Rapid redevelopment of downtown Miami continued to reveal further evidence of the original peoples who lived at the mouth of the Miami River. Known since Spanish contact as the Tequesta, these expert fisher-hunter-gatherers lived for thousands of years in hardwood hummocks along both banks of the river at the edge of Biscayne Bay. Archaeological and documentary evidence of Tequesta life abounds but remains little known to the public. Traci Ardren, a leading scholar of the pre-Hispanic world, explains what we know about Tequesta lifeways, how we know it, and the important lessons Tequesta culture can provide Miamians struggling to manage rising sea levels and an imperiled ecosystem. Introduced by Dr. Carol Damian, Curator of MDC’s Kislak Center, Dr. Ardren places the recent excavations near the Miami Circle, and other components of the ancient capital of the Tequesta, such as the Met Square development, into the context of the deep history of Indigenous cultural accomplishments in South Florida.

Traci Ardren is an anthropological archaeologist interested in New World prehistoric cultures. Her research focuses on issues of identity and other forms of symbolic representation in the archaeological record, especially the ways in which differences are explained through gender. Current preoccupations include the role of cuisine in identity formation in the later periods of Classic Maya culture and prehistoric southern Florida, as well as the many ways plants manipulated human activities. Traci co-directs the Matecumbe Chiefdom Project looking at the political organization and environmental adaptation of the pre-Hispanic occupants of the Florida Keys and adjacent areas of southern Florida. She grew up in and around the Ringling Museum of Art, and the many ways in which objects are allowed to convey our wants and needs is a lifelong fascination.

 to view the recording of this lecture, "Tequesta in Context" by Traci Ardren, courtesy of Miami Dade College.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024 @ 3:30pm

"Inventing Hemispheric Solidarity: The Pan-American University, the United States, and Miami," Richter Library, 3rd Floor Conference Room

You are invited to attend a lecture by Steven P. Rodríguez, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History at Vanderbilt University and Scholarly Acquisitions Editor, Vanderbilt University Press.

This lecture examines the early history of the University of Miami to understand higher education’s role in shaping U.S.-Latin American cultural and economic relations during the first half twentieth century. Specifically, it traces the history of the “Pan-American University”—a decades-long quest to build an educational institution embodying the principles of hemispheric understanding—to explore Miami’s attempt at becoming a “gateway to the Americas,” a hub for hemispheric trade and culture.

Steven P. Rodríguez is a PhD candidate in history at Vanderbilt University and scholarly acquisitions editor at Vanderbilt University Press. He holds a BA in history and philosophy from The College of New Jersey, an MA in history from Brandeis University, and an MA from Vanderbilt University. His work has been supported by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Goizueta Foundation, and the Tinker Foundation. His article, “Education is the Precursor to Commerce”: Pan-Americanism and Inter-American Education, “was recently published in Diplomatic History. In addition to his work as a scholar-editor, Steven serves as a host for the New Books Network, an author-interview podcast.

­Co-sponsored by: Center for the Humanities, Institute for the Advanced Study of the Americas (UMIA), Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC), Department of History, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

Thursday, February 16, 2023 @ 4:00 pm / Richter Library 3rd Floor Conference Room

 to register.

A consideration of the early modern history of the southern Spanish tuna fisheries (almadrabas) reveals that early modern Spanish ideas about itinerancy were forming across the species boundary, shaped by perceptions of maritime migrations. The behavior of migrating maritime creatures—perhaps particularly the largest and most valuable among them, such as Atlantic bluefin tuna—and peoples’ approaches to catching, consuming, coexisting, or killing them, resonated deeply at a moment in which the significance of the ocean itself, as an impediment to or facilitator of movement (in addition to being a source of sustenance) was rapidly evolving.

Molly A. Warsh is Associate Professor of History and Associate Director of the World History Center at the University of Pittsburgh, where she directs the Alliance for Learning in World History, a collaboration of educators and history scholars organized to advance the teaching and learning of world history in classrooms in the U.S. and globally. She is also (since 2021) the Editor of the Journal of Early Modern History. Among other publications, she is the author of American Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire 1492-1700, which was published by the Omohundro Institute with the University of North Carolina Press in 2018.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022 @ 7:00pm / Jay I. Kislak Center, Richter Library, UM Gables Campus

Co-organized by the Center for the Humanities and the Office of Civic and Community Engagement. Sponsored by the Florida Humanities, with in-kind support from University of Miami Libraries.

Register here.

Award Presentation

The Reitmeister-Abess Center Environmental Stewardship Award is given annually to the individual(s) who has made a singularly significant contribution to conservation, particularly related to water resources and/or endangered species. This year's recipient is Betty Osceola, an Everglades educator, conservationist, and anti-fracking and clean water advocate.

Panel Discussion 

The year 2022 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s landmark book, The Everglades: River of Grass (1947). Though Douglas is most noted as an environmentalist, she also engaged in activism for many other causes, including women’s rights, civil liberties, civil rights, and efforts to improve the social conditions of African Americans and of migrant laborers. The Center for the Humanities is partnering with the Office of Civic and Community Engagement to organize a panel discussion that will highlight the connections between the history of the environmental movement and the fight for racial justice.

The event will begin with a brief presentation of the intersection of Douglas’s environmentalism with her other forms of activism. It will then turn to the same intersections in the present, through a discussion with representatives from a number of community organizations. The overview of Douglas’s activism will be presented by Professor Robin Bachin, who is the Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor of History, the Founding Director of the Office of Civic and Community Engagement, and is an urban and environmental historian by training. 

Panelists

Professor Robin Bachin, University of Miami
Natalia Brown, Catalyst Miami
Rev. Houston Cypress, Love the Everglades Movement
Commissioner Nancy Metayer, City of Coral Springs
Kathleen Elliott and Robert O’Bryant, Mahogany Youth Corporation
Rachel Silverstein, Miami Waterkeeper

To learn more about upcoming events related to the celebration of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s book, The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), and events related to UM’s annual Earth Day celebration, please visit: https://civic.miami.edu

Virtual Program. Tuesday, March 8, 2022 @ 7:00pm.

University of Miami: Dr. Krista Goff, Dr. Gabrielle Cornish, and Dr. Dina Moulioukova
This teach-in, hosted by University of Miami professors, will provide information to UM community members that will help them to better understand the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia, as well as what they can do to help. Professors Krista Goff, Gabrielle Cornish, and Dina Moulioukova will briefly address the history of Ukrainian-Russian relations and the current political landscape in the region before opening the conversation up for general discussion.

Dr. Krista Goff is an Associate Professor in the History Department. Dr. Gabrielle Cornish is an Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Frost School of Music. Dr. Dina Moulioukova is a Lecturer in International Studies and a Research Associate at UM’s European Union Center.

Register here.

Thursday, October 21, 2021 @ 5:00 pm. Please join William Germano for this virtual lecture. All kinds of writing get revised, from fiction to poetry and drama and on to ad copy. So does scholarly writing. As academics, we write a lot. We have to. What really matters, though, is what we do with what we write -- not where we submit it but what we do with the completed version of a manuscript before we let a publisher see it. This talk will lay out the three big principles of revising scholarly writing - argument, architecture, and audience - and how they can help you focus your work so that a publisher will want it. 

William Germano has served as editor in chief at Columbia University Press and vice-president and editorial director at Routledge. Since 2006 he has been professor of English literature at Cooper Union. Among his books are Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books (3/e 2016) and From Dissertation to Book (2/e 2013), both published by the University of Chicago Press. His most recent book, written with Kit Nicholls, is Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document That Changes Everything (Princeton, 2020). Over the past twenty-five years he has given talks and led workshops on scholarly writing at institutions in North America, Europe, Abu Dhabi, Australia and New Zealand. On Revision: The Only Writing That Counts will be published in October 2021 by the University of Chicago Press.

Register Here!

Thursday, November 18 @ 5:30 pm. Co-organized by the Lowe Art Museum and the Center for the Humanities. With Keidra Daniels Navaroli (McKnight Ph.D. Fellow, UCF) and Keri Watson, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, UCF). To celebrate the opening of American Impressionism: Treasures from the Daywood Collection at the Lowe Art Museum, scholars Keri Watson and Keidra Daniels Navaroli will discuss paintings from the exhibition in relation to their forthcoming book This is America: Re-viewing the Art of the United States. Their book prioritizes underrepresented stories through the inclusion of marginalized makers, diverse media, and vast geographic regions.

Recording here!