ISHA News
ISHA to Expand into
The Interdisciplinary Studies Institute (IS)
ISHA is proud to announce that beginning in Fall 2012, we will become a fully-fledged institute--the Interdisciplinary Studies Institute (IS). The ISHA seminars, residencies, and events we have sponsored since 2001 will continue and be enhanced in the Institute, but our constitution and orientation will change to better address our needs as a truly interdisciplinary organization. We are grateful to the Provost and to the Deans of both the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences for their support, and also to the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences for supplementary funding. We look forward to an exciting year!
See full list of IS board members
Earl Lovelace Reads from His New Novel
Tuesday, March 13th
4:30pm
Campus Center 174-176

Co-sponsored by the UMass Amherst English Department; Five Colleges, Inc. Lecture Fund; Amherst College Department of English; UMass Amherst Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies; UMass Amherst W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies; Five College Latin American Studies Council; Professor Roberto Márquez, Mount Holyoke College; Smith College Department of English Language and Literature.
Call for Applications 2012-2013:
ISHA Seminar “Engagement: The Challenge of Public Scholarship”
Proposal deadline: Friday, February 24th
In its inaugural year the newly established Interdisciplinary Studies Institute (IS) takes up the legacy of W.E. B. Du Bois for its first seminar entitled ‘Engagement: The Challenge of Public Scholarship’. Following in Du Bois’s footsteps, we’d like to consider what public engagement means to us today, in whatever fields we explore, whether in the humanities, arts, social sciences, or natural sciences. What does it mean to be an engaged scholar or artist? What lines do we cross over—or open up—when we transfer our spheres of learning and dissemination from the academic to the public? What examples do great public intellectuals and artists give us, what problems have they had to confront? We invite you to submit a proposal setting out your particular interests. All fellows will receive a $2000 research allowance.
Theater in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Lessons from an Artistic Director
Malcolm Purkey
Thursday, November 10th
5pm
Herter Hall 231, UMass

‘With Courage, For Justice’: Overcoming Apartheid in South Africa
Eddie Daniels
Monday, October 3rd
4:30pm
Herter Hall 301, UMass

Paul Theroux:
Faculty Symposium
Thursday, September 29th
4:00-5:30pm
Bartlett Hall 316, UMass
Faculty are invited to a special symposium with Paul Theroux. Registration is free, but required. To register, contact Lynne Latham.
ISHA Seminar 2011-2012: Transformations
History is a story of transformation, while continuity and change tug at the inner dynamics of politics, society, culture, science. How have our very concepts of transformation changed? Or is transformation only an illusion? We at ISHA feel it is time to explore the provenance, prospects, and principles underlying transformation as approached by scholars in all disciplines.
Visit Seminars for a more about our current seminar, Transformations, and this year’s fellows.
The ISHA Residency 2011:
Gary Smulyan, Ray Drummond, and Kenny Washington
April 8th-9th

The ISHA Annual Lecture 2011:
“The Evolution Wars: Why Do They Matter? Why Do They Continue?”
Kenneth Miller, Brown University
Thursday, March 31
4:30pm
Campus Center 165-69

“Who Made English the Global Language?”
A Public Lecture by Professor David Northrup
Thursday, March 24
5pm
Herter Hall 601

Interested faculty and graduate students are further invited to participate in Professor Northrup's Five-College seminar the following day, Friday, March 25, from 2-4pm in Bartlett Hall 316 University of Massachusetts. Seminar participants will read and discuss Professor Northrup's work on Africans in Atlantic world cities, including nineteenth-century Freetown, Sierra Leone, with background reading from his Africa's Discovery of Europe.
Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt
Thursday, February 3 - Sunday, May 1
University Gallery

Caryl Phillips
ISHA Residency Spring 2010: Writing/Migration

Through Caryl Phillips’s examination of migration and exile in settings ranging from Africa, to Europe, to the new world, he has founded a body of work that is both relevant and timely as well as innovative in form and approach. He joined the University community in a full spectrum of activities, including a fiction reading, a lecture, a screening of one of his films, and a reading of one of his plays. All these events were free and open to the public. For more information see our Residency page.
Listen to Phillips’s Interview with WFCR
Phillips speaks about literature, education, and his life during an interview with WFCR’s Morning Edition host Bob Paquette.
View Images from the Residency
View images from Caryl Phillips’s fiction reading, “Distant Shores,” the Annual ISHA Lecture, “Colour Me English,” and more. Photographs of Caryl Phillips at ISHA public events courtesy Dennis Vandal.
The Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts is a forum for faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to engage with one another in a spirit of intellectual and creative adventure. Our activities range from seminars, to speakers, to working groups and colloquia. Welcome to ISHA.