Mandel Center for the Humanities

This group discusses the interdisciplinary scholarship about the socio-political consequences of climate change and efforts to curb its damage. We also focus on the responsibilities of liberal arts universities in general, and Brandeis in particular, to create and spread knowledge of the threat and its relationship to other forms of injustice through scholarship, teaching, outreach, and creative work in all disciplines, including the humanities. For more information, contact Sabine von Mering. 

Historically, public discourse surrounding equitable education policy has been situated within broader conversations about democracy, equality, opportunity, inclusion, and other dimensions of social justice. This reading group aims to discuss education policy in those broader contexts through conversations on humanistic texts written in the past 125 years. These might include texts by James Baldwin, John Dewey, Frantz Fanon, bell hooks, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, and others, whose work facilitates conversations aiming to bridge the divide between education policy and social justice. Then, depending on the interests of the group, we might also look at ongoing policy initiatives in antiracist teaching, special education, language policy, refugee education, adolescent mental health, adult education, edTech, charter schools, and more. 

To participate email Esha Senchaudhuri (esenchaudhuri@brandeis.edu)

This reading group will explore the study of Palestine by reading social science, literary, and popular texts related to Palestine. Participants will, in community, engage, question, build on, and critique the ideas presented. Graduate students, faculty, and staff are welcome to participate. Given the community-building components, participants will need to commit to attend at least ¾ of the sessions, and an introductory dinner before the first reading group meeting. If you are interested in joining, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/qkp8cdG5X8hxV2xp8

Organized by: The interdisciplinary minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation (CAST), Tom King and Toni Shapiro-Phim, co-chairs.

This ongoing and interdisciplinary MCH Reading Group aims to create a space for (1) uncovering and fighting anti-Blackness in our institutional, scholarly, creative, and curricular frameworks and practices; (2) facilitating our development as artists, researchers, educators, community-engaged practitioners, and administrators; and (3) following the leadership of our colleagues working in such areas as DEI research and implementation, Black and African American studies, and critical race studies and supporting, promoting, and celebrating their work at Brandeis. The MCH Reading Group welcomes participation by all faculty, administrative staff, and graduate students at Brandeis who (1) understand creativity, broadly defined, as a key component of their practice, research methodology, or object of study; (2) commit to centering the voices and knowledge of those whose lives have been rendered most precarious by anti-Blackness; and (3) commit to the process of learning together in community and to the principles for engagement established at our meetings. 

This graduate student-led reading group works along side the Challenging Anti-Blackness in Literary Studies speaker series to deepen our engagement with the scholarship of the speakers with an emphasis towards key pedagogic implications to each scholar's work. Co-led by participants, the sessions meet via Zoom a few days before every speaking engagement and feature a different essay by or related to each upcoming topic in the series. Other topics are accommodated as group interest evolves and time permits: for instance, a session on Black bibliography is planned for May 2023. Occasionally Brandeis faculty may join us in. Contact Jenny Factor, jfactor@brandeis.edu to be added to our mailing list.

The contemporaneity group is an interdisciplinary group of 5-12 humanities faculty and graduate students who meet monthly throughout the academic year to discuss new scholarship on contemporary literature and culture. We bring in speakers once or sometimes twice a year and maintain an archive of readings from past sessions on LATTE. Any interested faculty or graduate students are welcome to join.

Developing your Teaching Persona is a collaborative pedagogy reading group created with the intention of helping each other elevate our approach to classroom instruction. Meeting once a month beginning in mid-November we will discuss art of teaching, the craft of communicating our research to an undergraduate audience, and how to create a student-centered learning environment. We will supplement these discussions by inviting Brandeis faculty members to talk about their own classroom experiences. To accommodate everyone, sessions will be held in a hybrid format (although we will be serving food at some sessions so we hope to see you in person!).

 

This collaboratively-shaped and facilitated reading group is centered in the anthropology department but open to all faculty, students and staff at Brandeis. We hold 1-2 meetings per semester and select texts by nomination and voting. Meetings are usually held at someone's home on an evening that works for as many as possible, and are facilitated by a student volunteer. In our first two years, we have read the following: Progressive Dystopia by Savannah Shange, Intimacies of Four Continents by Lisa Lowe; Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman, and Savage Kin by Margaret Bruchac.

This reading group facilitates conversations between medievalist and early modernists across departments, with particular focus on practical skill building and encouraging interdisciplinary collaborations. Aimed at graduate and undergraduate students, though faculty members are welcome to attend and participate, this group incorporates skill building workshops, such as learning how to use digital tools or work with archival materials, paired with relevant readings meant to encourage medievalists and early modernists to think about the application of these skills in their specific fields and future projects. This group also incorporates trips in the Boston area to promote the utilization of and familiarity with local resources. 

 

This reading group examined recent public humanities work across disciplines and cultivated public humanities projects at Brandeis. The group identified new publics for humanities scholarship, explored diverse media and genres for engaging audiences, considered opportunities for collaborating across institutional and professional lines, imagined viable public humanities enterprises, and analyzed the curricular implications of public humanities possibilities.