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An Interview with David Novak, UC Santa Barbara

Duke Cultural Anthropology graduate students Jay Hammond and Joella Bitter sat down with visiting scholar David Novak (UC Santa Barbara)…

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“The Education of Bruno Latour: From the Critical Zone to the Anthropocene” Feature-Length Documentary

Celebrated French philosopher Bruno Latour travels with Duke University Critical Zone scientist Daniel D. Richter, PhD to the John C….

Academic Precarity in American Anthropology

In this article the authors seek to understand why a standard of professional success is being maintained in anthropology—indeed, normalized—despite the fact that it is presently unattainable by all but a few.

Climate Change, Cultures, Territories, Nonhumans, and Relational Knowledges in Colombia

Introduction Climate change (CC) has led not only to environmental transformations, but also to economic, and political responses of various…

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Afro-Asian Connections | Claire Kim, “Are Asians the New Blacks? Affirmative Action, Antiblackness, and the Sociometry of Race”

Claire Kim (UC Irvine), the keynote speaker for the Duke Asian American Studies Program Inaugural Conference, “Afro/Asian Connections in the…

The New Humanities?

David Ferris

In this essay, I examine the future state of the humanities, as has been done by others many times in the past, but in the context of the current positioning of the university and the future world to come as they pivot toward a quantifiable and technological future that conforms to STEM models.

Frames of Thought

This think piece employs a graphical format to argue against a traditional hierarchy in which words are more respected and valued in the world of knowledge than images.

What Water Teaches: Wissenschaft in the Age of Sea Level Rise

Does the sense of urgency occasioned by global warming and sea level rise have the power to reshape the humanities? Insofar as sea level rise will affect thousands of institutions of education and culture in coastal cities, the answer is yes.

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Donna Haraway | Making OddKin: Telling Stories for Earthly Survival

Multispecies environmental and reproductive justice must be practiced against human exceptionalism and in resistance to colonial capitalist divisions of species,…

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Nikky Finney: Sipping Kerosene at the Refectory

Famed poet Nikky Finney kicked off our Health Humanities & Social Justice Breath, Body, Voice Conference with a reading from…

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Symposium on Race & Transgender Studies

Transgender Studies + Humanities Series Symposium on Race and Transgender Studies, at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke…

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From Body to Body: Duke Students Learn From a Dance Legend

Video produced by Duke Office of News and Communications. Duke dance students got a unique opportunity to learn from professional…

Archaeology, Memory, and Conflicts Workshop [Panopto stream]

“Archaeology, Memory, and Conflicts” is a 3-hour workshop focused on the study of material culture for the interpretation of the…

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Craig Klugman: Future Trends in Health Humanities Publishing and Pedagogy

How might scholarly writing, textbook publishing, and pedagogical innovation contribute to the growth of the health humanities, an emerging interdisciplinary…

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Neurodiversities | Deborah Jenson: Flaubert’s Brain: Epilepsy, Mimesis, and Injured-Self Narrative

"Each seizure is like a sort of hemorrhage of innervation," wrote Flaubert to a friend. "The center of image formation…

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Neurodiversities | Cate I. Reilly: Cruel Translation: Psychoanalysis and Worlding

CATE I. REILLY (Assistant Professor of Literature) asks: Is it possible to think the global dissemination of psychoanalysis in the…

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Neurodiversities | Nima Bassiri: Disordered Conduct and the Moral Economy of Mental Illness in the Nineteenth Century

In this paper, NIMA BASSIRI (Assistant Professor of Literature) discusses some of the ways in which nineteenth-century psychiatrists and neurologists…

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ABEL – Directed by Fernando Arias, 2015.

The Prince Claus Fund commissioned artist Fernando Arias to make a short film and performance about the Principal Laureate Abel…

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… these borders that keep me down …

… these borders that keep me down … is co-sponsored by Humanities Futures in partnership with the Dance Program at…

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Death Drives | Annabel Wharton, “Body Model”

Though digital models are now dominant in the academy, they have not entirely displaced older model-types. A cadaver donated by…

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2018 FHI-NCCU Digital Humanities Fellows Symposium | Tony Frazier, The African Presence in the English Archives

Dr. Tony A. Frazier is Assistant Professor of History at NCCU. For his fellowship project, he designed a new course…

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2018 FHI-NCCU Digital Humanities Fellows Symposium | Julie Nelson, Creating Visual Stories and Digital Arguments

Julie D. Nelson is Assistant Professor in the NCCU Department of Language and Literature, where she teaches in the writing…

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2018 FHI-NCCU Digital Humanities Fellows Symposium | Shelvia Dancy, A History of the Black Press

Shelvia Dancy has held positions as a journalist-in-residence at North Carolina State University; a reporter and anchor at WPTY in…

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2018 FHI-NCCU Digital Humanities Fellows Symposium | Charmaine McKissick-Melton, 100 Years of Advertising

Dr. Charmaine McKissick-Melton is Associate Professor of Mass Communications at NCCU, where she also directs the department’s long-standing off-campus internship…

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After the Rebellion: Religion, Rebels, and Jihad in South Asia

This essay addresses how the events of 1857–58 minoritized and racialized Indian Muslims, with particular attention to the use of jihad as a rhetorical concept in the colonial period.

Clive Bell’s "Significant Form" and the Neurobiology of Aesthetics

Semir Zeki

Though first published almost one century ago, and though its premise has been disputed, Clive Bell’s essay on aesthetics in his book Art still provides fertile ground for discussing problems in aesthetics, especially as they relate to neuroesthetics. In this essay, I begin with a brief account of Bell’s ideas on aesthetics, and describe how they focus on problems of importance to neuroesthetics.