2002-2003 Narrative Report and Compendium of Events

Introduction

During the 2002-03 academic year the Center for the Humanities supported more than twenty-five lectures, sixteen performances or exhibits, and eleven readings on the Evergreen campus.  It also funded fifteen different opportunities for students to attend dramatic or musical performances off-campus.  In addition, the Center provided three junior faculty sabbaticals, six grants for faculty publication costs, and three summer grants for faculty on regular sabbaticals.  Nine summer adjunct reading awards and two student summer research fellowships were granted.  The work of eight students serving as research assistants for faculty members was supported by the Center as well.

The academic year 2002-03 also marked the culmination of a three-year review and strategic planning process on the part of the Center for the Humanities.  In 2000-01 and 2001-02, the Steering Committee assessed all of the Center’s current programs.  In October, 2002 the Center’s Steering Committee, supplemented by members of other divisions of the College, met for a two-day planning retreat in which the Center’s roles at the College were evaluated, and in which new roles and directions for the Center in the coming decade were mapped out.  What follows offers a summary of some of the year’s program highlights, and describes the new directions identified for the Center in coming years.

Program Highlights

 Through the Cardin endowment, the Center, in cooperation with the Department of Classics, hosted a visiting scholar, Frank Romer, as the Cardin Chair.  The Cardin Chair is a professorship dedicated to the study of the humanities in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Dr. Romer taught two classes, led a faculty seminar, and gave two public slide lectures in addition to furthering his research.  The Eighteenth Annual Jerome S. Cardin Lecture featured Vivian B. Mann, the Morris and Eva Feld Chair in Judaica at The Jewish Museum in New York City.  Dr. Mann gave the slide lecture “Jewish Art/Christian Art? Symbiosis and Otherness.”

 This year’s humanities symposium featured Aldous Huxley’s book Brave New World, and the theme “Post Human?”  In addition to the keynote lecture featuring Francis Fukuyama, author of Our Posthuman Future, the symposium included a variety of events: a screening of  Fritz Lang’s classic film Metropolis with live organ accompaniment from the original movie score; a gallery exhibit, “Utopian World State: Fact of Fiction”; and a concert, “Hybrid Forms,” featuring the Da Camera Singers and Players.  The symposium also included five additional lectures co-sponsored by the departments of Classics, Communication, History, Political Science, and Theology.  For the first time ever, the meeting of classes in McManus Theater during symposium week was cancelled due to more than two feet of snow that blanketed the city of Baltimore. 

 The Modern Masters Reading Series continued its tradition of bringing some of the best of the country’s writers to campus, while making these writers accessible to an even broader range of students and faculty members under the direction of Ned Balbo, Lia Purpura, and Jane Satterfield.

 Notable among the Center’s many other events was the co-sponsorship of a cross-disciplinary lecture by novelist/mathematician Manil Suri, author of The Death of Vishnu, through the efforts of Christos Xenophontos and George Mackiw; the sponsorship of Italian Week, in February, a week-long celebration of Italian language, literature, and culture organized by Leslie Zarker Morgan and Giuliana Risso Robberto; and a poetry recitation contest for students, sponsored by Kathryn St. Ours.

Future Directions

During its strategic planning session it became clear, primarily from the input of guests from other areas of the College, that the Center needs to do a better job of disseminating information concerning the Center’s awards, programs, policies, and roles.  While traditionally the Center has operated reactively—funding proposals that come to it—
it became clear that the Center could serve a stronger positive role by also operating proactively: soliciting proposals in areas in which it saw need, or developing programs that addressed perceived needs at the College. 

The Steering Committee has a special interest in strengthening the intellectual climate on campus among the student body.  Currently under consideration are ways in which the Center might assist in attracting the most academically motivated students and students with a particular interest in the humanities to come to Loyola.  The Center is also exploring ways in which it might contribute to student orientation to academics at Loyola, and how it might better nurture  and reward those among the student body who are academically motivated.  Three new programs are being developed for the coming year, one for nurturing intellectual friendships, one which would offer stipends for otherwise unpaid summer internships, and one which would offer stipends for summer study-abroad programs.  The Center is also exploring ways to engage students in mentored research.  It plans to make available current research projects and interests of humanities faculty to students to further encourage participation the the funded summer research program, and to strongly and explicitly encourage students with summer research fellowships to submit their work to the student research colloquium. 

Finally, the Center is also exploring ways in which it might build partnerships with other institutions and constituencies in the local community  for the benefit of our students.  Another, and related, goal is to raise the profile of the College as an institution with a strong tradition in the humanities.  To this end, and to the end of hosting even more productive and successful events, the Center is currently experimenting with advertising on the local public radio network.

 PROGRAMS AND EVENTS
 SPONSORED BY THE CENTER IN AY 2002-2003

I.  Funding for Teaching and Research

Enriching Classroom Teaching: Conferences   Total Spent: $762.00
Funding for a member of the Fine Arts Department to attend the College Art Association Conference’s sessions on museums and exhibitions in order to further develop a course on European and American museums.

Enriching Classroom Teaching: Materials    Total Spent: $122.09
Purchase of slides for member of Theology Department’s course on Theology and Art.

Faculty Publication Costs      Total Spent: $2,900.00
Funds were distributed to six different faculty members for costs incurred related to publication.  The faculty members, and the publications, are as follows:
1. Janet Headley, Fine Arts,  “A Brahmin Response to Christopher Columbus” in American Art
2. Nicholas Miller, English,  Ireland and the Erotics of Memory (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
3. Robert Miola, English, Norton Critical Edition of Macbeth
4. Mark Osteen (ed.), English, The Question of the Gift: Essays Across Disciplines (Routledge, 2002)
5. Jane Satterfield, Communication, Assignation at Vanishing Point (Elixir Press, 2003).
6. William Welton, Philosophy, Plato’s Forms: Varieties of Interpretation (Lexington Press, 2003)

Faculty Publication Library     Total Spent: $237.15
Funds were distributed to one faculty members for the purchase of his recently published book to be distributed to other members of the faculty.
Thomas Ward, Modern Languages and Literatures, La Anarquia Inmanentista de M.G. Prada

Junior Faculty Sabbaticals and Expenses     Total Spent: $74,920.78
The Center reimbursed the college for onesemester's salary plus a portion of benefits for three faculty members granted junior faculty sabbaticals.  Additional funds were distributed to cover costs related to the sabbaticals.  The faculty members, and the titles of the research projects, are as follows:
1. John Betz, Theology, “Hamann Before Postmodernity”
2. Ana Gómez-Pérez, Modern Languages and Literatures, “The Traps of Memory: Apocalyptic Thought in Galdos, Baroja, Chacel and Torrente Ballester”
3. Janet Maher, Fine Arts, “Explorations in Waterless Lithography and Digital Printmaking”

Awards        Total Spent: $10,435.69

• Funding was provided for the Nachbahr award and related events (lecture, reception and dinner).  This year’s award was granted to Dr. Richard Boothby, Dept. of Philosophy
• Up to $1,000 in funding was provided for each of the eight department in the Humanities for the distribution of student writing awards.
• $200 was provided for the Modern Languages Poetry Recitation Contest, in which twenty-two students participated. Four $50 awards were granted.

Student Summer Fellowships     Total Spent: $4,000.00
Funding was provided for two student summer research fellowships, including stipends for their faculty mentors. 

•  Michael Winder, with Mark Osteen, English: “Cruel Comedy: The Language and Class Consciousness of the Marx Brothers”
• Natania Barron with Carol Abromaitis, English: “Fellowship and Faith: J.R.R. Tolkein’s Catholic Vision”

Student Research Assistant Program    Total Spent: $4,866.25
Funding was provided for eight student assistants to work with six different faculty members, for a total of approximately 588 research hours.

 Summer 2002
 Regina Puleo with Phil McCaffrey, English
 Randall Beeler & Kristina Guerra with Angela Leonard, History

 Fall 2002
 Kristina Guerra with Angela Leonard, History 
 Alexis Romano with Janet Headley, Fine Arts
 Natania Barron with Ron Tanner, Communication
 Gina Petrizio with Jane Satterfield, Communication

 Spring 2003
 Leola Brady-Price with Angela Leonard, History
 Gina Petrizio with Jane Satterfield, Communication
 Ashley Markiewicz with Lia Purpura, Communication

Summer Study Grants for Adjunct Faculty   Total Spent: $27,000.00
--Four adjunct faculty members received grants of $3,000 for the summer of 2002
--Five grants of $3,000 were given for the summer of 2003
 The faculty recipients of these grants are as follows:

 Summer of 2002
1. Ned Balbo, Communication, “By Accident or Choice: an Exploration of Adoption in Literature and Culture”
2. Lia Purpura, Communication, “Shattering”
3. Angela O’Donnell, English, “The Poetry of Witness and the Language of Extremity”
4. Willie Young, Theology, “Virtue and the Meaning of Truth in Aristotle and Aquinas”

 Summer of 2003
1. Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner, Theology “Medieval Religious Women’s Exercise of Normative Authority”
2. Dave Belz, Communication (Writings of G. K. Chesterton)
3. Katherine St. Ours, Modern Languages & Literatures “Literature in the films of Francois Truffaut”
4. Nanette Thrush, Fine Arts “Ekphrasis, cont.: Art in Literature in the Victorian Era”
5. Lia Purpura, Communication  Shattering (A collection of essays)

Cardin Chair        Total Spent: $70,253.91
The Cardin Chair is a professorship dedicated to the study of the humanities in the Judeo-Christian tradition, filled bi-annually, on a rotating basis, by a department in the Humanities.  This year the Cardin Chair was held by Frank Romer, hosted by the Dept. of Classics.  Dr. Romer taught two classes, Greek 121 and CL/HS 339 “Greek and Roman Religions.” He also led a faculty seminar, “The Idea of Community in the World of Emerging Christianity.”
While at Loyola Dr. Romer gave two public slide lectures, “The Roman Map of Spain” “Catacomb Communities: Defining and Unifying Jewish, Christian and Other Social Groupings.” 

Full-time Faculty Sabbatical Research Funds   Total Spent: $12,000.00
Three grants of $4,000 each were given to support the summer research of full-time faculty members on sabbatical.

II.  Funding for Lectures, Performances, and other Public Events

The Humanities Symposium:     
Total Spent: $46,896.40
Text: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Theme: “Post Human?”
Funding and other support was provided for the following events:

• Keynote lecture by Francis Fukuyama, Bernard Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.  Dr. Fukuyama is the author of Our Posthuman Future, and 2002 appointee to the President’s Council on Bioethics.  Response by J. Bottum, Books & Arts Editor, The Weekly Standard.
• Concert, “Hybrid Forms” with the Da Camera Singers and Players, directed by Ernest Liotti, Dept. of Fine Arts.  Concert included Bach: Cantata No. 140; Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4; and Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue.
• Screening of the film Metropolis (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1927) with live organ accompaniment from the original movie score, performed by organist Michael Britt
• Gallery exhibit, “Utopian World State: Fact or Fiction” by Colette Copeland and Jane D. Marsching
  o Screening of films Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, USA, 1997) and The City of  Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, France, 1995).
• Faculty Seminar on teaching Brave New World, led by Dr. Phil McCaffrey, English

Departmentally sponsored lectures on Huxley’s Brave New World and related themes:

• 
  Leon Kass, M.D., Ph. D. “Brave New Biology: Challenge for Human Dignity”
  Dr. Kass is the Chairman of The President’s Council on Bioethics, Addie Clark Harding Professor at The University of Chicago, and Hertog Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute.
  Sponsored by the Dept. of Political Science
• Elizabeth Fenn “Smallpox, Past and Present: An Old Virus in a New World”
  Elizabeth Fenn is a member of Department of History, Duke University,
  Sponsored by the Dept. of History
• Amy Laura Hall, “On Scientists, Vampires and Orphans: The Dickensian Warning of Jeunet and Caro’s ‘Lost Children’”
  Amy Laura Hall is an Assistant Professor of Theology, Duke Divinity School
  Sponsored by the Dept. of Theology
• Brian Murray “Aldous Huxley and the Mystery of Life”
  Brian Murray is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Communication at Loyola College in Maryland
  Sponsored by the Dept. of  Communication
• Lesley Dean-Jones, “How Inferiority is Inscribed in the Body According to Aristotle”
  Lesley Dean-Jones is a Professor Classics, University of Texas (Austin)
  Sponsored by the Dept. of Classics
    

Other Symposia, Lecture Series and Performance Series:

Modern Masters Reading Series:     Total Spent: $24,998.76
This series was comprised of readings and other events, such as master-classes on craft or class visitations, involving the following distinguished authors and poets:

• Wendy Bishop, Kellogg W. Hunt Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University.  Author of numerous books, essays, and articles, including Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem.
• Allison Joseph, Associate Professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.  Award winning author of What Keeps Us Here, Soul Train, and In Every Seam.
• Ron Hansen.  Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University. Author of six novels including Maiette in Ecstasy, Hitler’s Niece, and the nonfiction collect A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction.
• Debra Spark, Director, Creative Writing Program and Colby College, and faculty in MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.  Award winning novelist.  Author of Coconuts for the Saint and The Ghost of Bridgetown.
• Mark Doty, award winning author of nine books, including Bellotto’s Grand Canal and Firebird.  Doty teaches in the graduate program at the University of Houston, and is a frequent guest lecturer at NYU and Columbia.
• Valerie Miner. Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.  Miner is the author of ten books including Range of Light, A Walking Fire, Winger’s Edge, Blood Sister, and The Low Road: A Scottish Family Memoir.
• Ira Sadoff, Dana Professor of Poetry at Colby College.  Sadoff is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Barter, as well as The Ira Sadoff Reader and the novel Uncoupling .
  Faculty Sponsors: Ned Balbo, Lia Purpura, Jane Satterfield, Dept. of Communication

Shenandoah Shakespeare Express     Total Spent: $6,850.00
The traveling theater company presented two plays, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Macbeth .
Faculty Sponsors: Bryan Crockett and Bob Miola, Dept. of English

Voice Master Class Series      Total Spent: $4,363.93
This series presented two events.  The first, with Dr. Thomas Houser, focused on the specific technical problems encountered in healthy singing in English.  The second, with Betty Garrett, examined the skills necessary for actors who are also singers to present polished, engaging live performances.
Faculty Sponsor:  Elizabeth Hart, Dept. of Fine Arts

Theology Dept. Lecture Series: Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God :  
Total Spent: $3,181.12
This series centered around the use of Hurston’s novel as a common text in all Introduction to Theology sections and included three events.  First, was a faculty seminar on the book led by Martha Wharton, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs & Diversity.  Second was a faculty seminar and public lecture by Ruthe T. Sheffey, Professor of English at Morgan State University and founder and president of the Zora Neal Hurston Society, entitled, “Their Eyes Were Watching God: But They Searched Their Hearts for Truth.”  Third, a second public lecture was given by Dr. Anthea Butler entitled “Zora Neal Hurston: You Got to Go There to Know There.”

Annual Colloquium on Language Literature and Society                             Total Spent: $3,015.82
“The Effects of Globalization on Language, the Arts and Society Today.”
Co-Sponsored with the Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures, Education for Life, Multicultural Affairs, Student Activities and the Dean of Freshmen

Italian Week, 19-28 February, 2003
Italian Week included the following events:

• Lecture by Samuele Rosa, International Monetary Fund, “Italy, A Country of Entrepeneurs”
• Reception and exhibit of Italian Cookbooks, Loyola-Notre Dame Library
• Lecture by Francesco Ciabattoni, Graduate of the Musical Conservatory of Turn, “An Overview of Contemporary Italian Singers and Songwriters”
• Mass in Italian at the Loyola Chapel
• Lecture by D. Medina Lasansky, Cornell University, “The Multi-Media Landscape of the Italian Sacri Monti”
• Poetry reading and discussion of translation from Cesare Pavese into English
  Faculty sponsors: Leslie Zarker Morgan and Giuliana Risso Robberto

Co-sponsored with Catholic Studies, Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures, Fine Arts, the Loyola-Notre Dame Library and Student Activities

Individual Lectures and Performances    Total Spent: $10,981.49

• The Eighteenth Annual Jerome S. Cardin Lecture,  Vivian B. Mann, Morris and Eva Feld Chair in Judaica at The Jewish Museum in New York City, “Jewish Art/Christian Art? Symbiosis & Otherness.”
  Supported by the generosity of the Jerome S. Cardin Family
  Faculty Sponsor: James Bunzli, Dept. of Fine Arts
• Campus Visit by Stephen Corey, Associated Editor of The Georgia Review.  Public lecture/discussion, and seminar discussion in CM 310 “Art of Prose: E. B. White.
  Faculty Sponsor: Barbara C. Mallonee
• Lecture by Alan Shapiro, “Heroine or Whore?  The Judgment of Helen in Athenian Art”
  Faculty Sponsor: Martha Taylor, Classics
• Faculty seminar and lecture by Therese Lysaught, Asst. Professor of Religious Studies, University of Dayton, “What if God Were One of Us: Thinking Theologically About Stem Cell Research”        
   Faculty Sponsor: Stephen Fowl, Dept. of Theology
• Poetry reading, student discussion, and lecture by Paul Mariani, author of Thirty Days: On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius.
  Co-sponsored with Catholic Studies and the Dept. of English
  Faculty Sponsor: Angela O’Donnell 
• Bus Trip to performance of Euripides’ Medea ,
  featuring Fiona Shaw and the Abbey Theatre (the national theatre company of Ireland)
  Faculty Sponsor: Martha Taylor, Classics
• Lecture by novelist/mathematician Manil Suri, author of The Death of Vishnu .
  Faculty Sponsors: Christos Xenophontos and George Mackiw, Dept. of Math Sciences
• Classical Guitar Concert by Francesc de Paula Soler, “The Golden Polyphemus”
  Faculty Sponsor, Ana Gómez-Pérez, Modern Languages & Literatures
• Lecture by Christopher Brown, “Slavery and Antislavery in the Revolutionary World”
  Faculty Sponsors: Matthew Mulcahey and Katherine Brennan, History
• Lecture by Susan Barber, director of “Sexual Justice and the American Civil War Project.”
  Faculty Sponsor: Matthew Mulcahey, History
• Lecture by Richard Wertime, “Citadel on the Mountain and the Modern Memoir”
  Faculty Sponsor: David C. Doughterty, English
• Poetry Reading by X.J. Kennedy, distinguished poet and author.
  Faculty Sponsor: Loxley Nichols, English
• “Histories and Disaffections: A Poetry Reading” by Geoffrey Brock
  Faculty Sponsor: Michael McShane, Philosophy
• Lecture by Bart Gruzalski, “Why Nonviolence is a Better Response to Terrorism than Violence”
  Faculty Sponsor: Gary Scott, Philosophy
• Lecture by Diane Batts Morrow, “The Centrality of Race in the Antebellum Experience of the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
  Faculty Sponsor: Arthur Sutherland, Theology
• The 20th Annual Sr. Cleophas Costello Lecture, Dr. Diana Eck, author and Professor of Comparative Religion at Harvard University.
  The Center was a co-sponsor of this event of the Mount Saint Agnes College Alumnae Association. 
  College Sponsor: Brian Bowden, Director of Alumni Relations
• Lecture, “Political Violence from a Student’s Perspective” by Tatiana Béjar Calderón.
  Faculty Sponsor: Thomas Ward, Dept. of Modern Languages & Literatures

Miscellaneous        Total Spent: $644.12

III.     Honors Program     Total Spent: $43,807.92

The Honors Program receives half of its funding from the College's regular operating budget and half from the Center for the Humanities.  The Center pays for expenses related to the Honors Experience as outlined below, as well as for the certain administrative costs associated with running the program (Programs Coordinator  salary; photocopying; postage).

Student-Faculty Colloquia
The following is a sampling of student-faculty colloquia held throughout the year, in addition to those colloquia that built on other performances and lectures around campus.

• Screening and discussion of We Were Soldiers
• Screening and discussion of A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• Discussion of The Two Towers (Book and Movie)
• Screening of The Murder of Emmett Till, with discussion of the film and Andre Dubus’ “The Sorrowful Mysteries”
• Viewing and Discussion of old master paintings at the National Gallery of Art
• Attendance and discussion of play, My Children! My Africa! By Athol Fugard
• Discussion and meal based on “The Historical Foundation of Mediterranean Gastronomy”
• Guided tour of the museum, battlefield and underground railroad building at Gettysburg, Pa.

Performances and Exhibits
Students were given the opportunity to attend the following performances and exhibits:

Plays
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, Center Stage
Medea, performed by the Abbey Theatre Company with Fiona Shaw
No Foreigners Beyond this Point,  by Warren Leight, Center Stage
Ain’t Misbehavin’, by Richard Maltby, Jr., Center Stage
Intimate Apparel, by Lynn Nottage, Center Stage
Mary Stuart, by Friedrich Schiller, Center Stage

Museum Tours
Metropolitan Museum of Art
 
Concerts:
Six different concerts performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Film Series

• Accelerator, Vinnie Murphy (Ireland, 1999)
• Burnt by the Sun, Nikita Makhalkov (Russia, 1995)
• Genesis, Cheik Oumar Sissoki (Mali, 1999)
• Burnt by the Sun, Nikita Makhalkov (Russia, 1995)
• Shower, Zhang Yang (China, 1999)
• Monsoon Wedding, Mira Nair (India, 2001)
• Amores Perros, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Mexico, 2000)
• Kolya, Jan Sverak (Czechoslovakia, 1997)

Social Gatherings

The Center funded a picnic and Christmas party for honors students, as well as a wine tasting for senior honors students with wine critic and English professor, Paul Lukacs.

Return to Home page

Return to Overview