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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


Earl Lovelace, the writer of Caribbean classics The Wine of Astonishment and Salt, will read from his new novel, Is Just a Movie.  His new work has been hailed by The Times of London as “funny, moving, endlessly inventive”; Junot Diaz calls it “Lovelace ... at his soaring rhapsodic best.”  Born in Toco, Trinidad, Lovelace has spent most of his life on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, but he travels extensively to give lectures and readings of his work. His short stories are widely anthologized, and his books have been translated into German, Dutch, French, and Hungarian.


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.

Learn more.


Theater in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Lessons from an Artistic Director

Malcolm Purkey

Thursday, November 10th
5pm

Herter Hall 231, UMass


ISHA is proud to host the noted South African theater director and playwright, Malcolm Purkey, who will speak from his experiences as Artistic Director of the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, one of the primary sites of anti-apartheid theatre in South Africa before 1994, and still one of its most innovative centers. Purkey is an award-winning director and playwright, and founder member of the Junction Avenue Theatre Company.  His most recent production, The Girl in the Yellow Dress, enjoyed seasons in Cape Town, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sweden and Johannesburg. Learn more.


‘With Courage, For Justice’: Overcoming Apartheid in South Africa

Eddie Daniels

Monday, October 3rd
4:30pm

Herter Hall 301, UMass


ISHA is delighted to host Eddie Daniels, noted South African anti-apartheid activist and former political prisoner. As repressive conditions in South Africa intensified, Daniels became a member of the African Resistance Movement, which initiated a campaign of sabotage against government utilities shortly before the African National Congress did the same. Arrested in 1964, he served a fifteen-year sentence on Robben Island, alongside other notable political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Ahmed Kathrada.  Join us to hear his compelling and inspiring story, as well as his particular perspectives on the struggle for justice in South Africa.  Learn more.


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


This April, ISHA will host three remarkable jazz musicians, Gary Smulyan, Ray Drummond, and Kenny Washington in collaboration with the UMass Amherst Department of Music and Dance and Amherst College for the ‘Beyond Borders’ Residency Program. The Residency will feature a Master Class with the musicians on Friday, April 8th from 4:30-6:30pm at UMass Amherst in Room 44 of the Fine Arts Center, as well as a concert on Saturday, April 9th at 8pm in the Amherst College Buckely Recital Hall, followed by a discussion with the audience.  Learn more.


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


Eighty years after the notorious Scopes Monkey Trial, the powerful Intelligent Design movement continues to claim that evolution is ‘only a theory.’ The ensuing debates go to the heart of what counts as rational and scientific in the public arena. Professor Kenneth Miller was the lead witness in the historic Dover Trial, where his testimony proved instrumental in the judge’s ruling that the local school board had no right to require teachers to offer Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution. Professor Miller is a bestselling author and repeat guest on The Colbert Report; his books include Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul. The topic of the Annual Lecture coincides with the ISHA theme for the year, on ‘(Ir)rationality and Public Discourse.’  Learn more and listen to the podcast.


“Who Made English the Global Language?”
A Public Lecture by Professor David Northrup

Thursday, March 24
5pm

Herter Hall 601


ISHA will be co-sponsoring a public lecture, "Who Made English the Global Language?" by Professor David Northrup, historian of Africa at Boston College on Thursday, March 24th at 5pm in 601 Herter Hall.  Professor Northrup's work on Africa encompasses economics, labor and culture, and his several books include Beyond the Bend in the River: A Labor History of Eastern Zaire, 1870-1940; Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834-1922; Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850; and Crosscurrents in the Black Atlantic, 1770-1965: A Brief History with Documents.


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 

 

ISHA is a proud co-sponsor of “Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt” at the University Museum of Contemporary Art. David Goldblatt (b. South Africa, 1930) is one of the great photographers of our time. As both citizen and photographer, he was witness to apartheid’s infiltration into every aspect of South African life. The exhibition of over 100 photographs, taken by Goldblatt during the past 50 years, focuses on South Africa’s human landscape in the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.  Visit the Museum website to learn more.



Caryl Phillips 

ISHA Residency Spring 2010: Writing/Migration


In April 2010, the Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts welcomed the renowned writer Caryl Phillips for its inaugural residency in the ‘Beyond Borders’ residency program. The weeklong event, on the theme of ‘Writing/Migration’, took place from April 5th-9th 2010, with major funding from a College of Humanities and Fine Arts Visioning Grant.


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.

Listen to the interview.



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.

See full album.

 

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.