Hello everyone, and welcome back! I hope the summer was the perfect combination of restful and productive. This year marks the start of two rich and engaging areas of exploration: “Democracy, Disposability, Repair” and “IndigenoUs Northern Virginia.”
Our residential fellows’ research, and much of our programming, will address our annual theme “Democracy, Disposability, Repair.” Forms of disposability (land dispossession, enslavement, forced migration, environmental degradation) have been characteristic--or even constitutive--of modes of social and political life across time and geography. Among other questions, we ask how and in what ways historical and contemporary social worlds and political systems are dependent on forms of disposability, precarity, and extraction, and whether democracy, in its broadest sense, might offer possibilities for resistance, reparation, and repair.
We will also embark on our public humanities project “IndigenoUs Northern Virginia,” made possible through an ARIE seed funding grant jointly funded by Mason's ORIEI and DEI Offices. Following our summer institute for undergraduates, led by Professor Gabrielle Tayac (History and Art History), we are planning to host a series of “Native Knowledge” roundtables, site visits for undergraduates, and other programming aimed at elevating and celebrating indigeneity, and indigenous ways of knowing, both at Mason and in the region.
We look forward to seeing you at our talks, roundtables, panel discussions, research presentations, book launches and reading and writing groups! Please explore our website (https://chr.gmu.edu) and read on for more information about our events and opportunities...
Alison Landsberg
Director, Center for Humanities Research
Professor, History/Art History and Cultural Studies