Scholarly Programs Archives | Page 4 of 4 | National Humanities Center

Scholarly Programs

%customfield(subject)%

National Humanities Center Announces 2020–21 Fellows

The National Humanities Center is pleased to announce the appointment of 33 Fellows for the academic year 2020–21. These leading scholars will come to the Center from universities and colleges in 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, as well as from Canada, China, Germany, and Uganda. Each Fellow will work on an individual research project and will have the opportunity to share ideas in seminars, lectures, and conferences at the Center.

%customfield(subject)%

Kate Marshall, “The Nonhuman Turn in American Literature”

Non-human, post-human, anti-human. In recent years, historians, political theorists, philosophers and others have increasingly tried to think beyond an anthropocentric perspective to gain insights on a wide range of questions. But these ways of thinking have a long precedent in American fiction. In this podcast, Fellow Kate Marshall, associate professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, discusses how weird fiction, cosmic realism, and pseudo-science fiction have imaginatively grappled with non-human points of view from the late 19th century to the present.

%customfield(subject)%

Nancy F. Cott, “Accidental Internationalists: American Journalists Abroad Between the World Wars”

This lecture will illuminate the field of international possibility seen by a leading fraction of young Americans in the 1920s. It offers a counter-narrative to the well-worn account of American “expatriates” who succumbed to the seductions of Paris and soon returned home chastened. A far larger stratum of would-be writers lived outside the United States without desire to be “expatriates,” found vocations in journalism, brought the world home to American audiences, and allowed these international ventures to shape their lives.

%customfield(subject)%

Gregg A. Hecimovich, “The True Story of Hannah Crafts, America’s First Black Female Novelist”

Gregg A. Hecimovich (NHC Fellow, 2015–16; 2022–23) identifies the first black female novelist and tells her life story. At once a detective story, a literary chase, and a cultural history, The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts discovers a Dickensian tale of love, friendship, and betrayal against the backdrop of America’s slide into Civil War.