Humanities Seminar
The Humanities Research Seminar is an academic yearlong seminar on an interdisciplinary theme, coordinated by a Bentley faculty fellow aiming to cultivate research by bringing together eminent scholars from across the Greater Boston area and beyond. Seminars typically involve undergraduate students as for-credit participants, as well as graduate students among various fields.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Open until May 1, 2024
Humanities Research Seminar
Got BIG Research Ideas?
Do you want to:
- work with colleagues who share your research interests from different disciplinary perspectives?
- connect with colleagues from across campus and the greater Boston area?
- mentor exceptionally motivated students interested in your research?
Consider applying for this unique fellowship through the Valente Center for Arts & Sciences.
Purpose
With continued funding from a National Endowment for the Humanities challenge grant, the Valente Center is seeking proposals for the 2024-2025 Humanities Research Seminar. Under this program, a full time Bentley faculty member is designated an Organizing Faculty Member and proposes a yearlong interdisciplinary topic, rooted in the humanities, that will become the subject of research, teaching, and seminars. Issues in medial, digital, or public humanities come to the forefront, but any idea is welcome. Up to twelve Participating Faculty members from Bentley University, including up to four from greater Boston colleges and universities are invited to take part in the seminar and its intellectual activities (and receive a stipend). The seminar may lead to the publication by participants of a volume of articles or chapters. Highly interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary themes with roots in the humanities are encouraged.
For example: The theme of the 2023-2024 is "Media Literacies" led by Prof. David Stamps (IDCC). Previous seminars include Loneliness, coordinated in 2022 - 2023 by Prof. Axel Seemann (Philosophy). For the 2021-22 seminar the theme was Taking Action on the Climate Crisis: Just & Equitable Solutions coordinated by Prof. Laurel Steinfield (Marketing) and Prof. Zana Cranmer (natural and Applied Sciences). Previous seminars include Risk Communication in Times of Crisis, coordinated by Prof. Danielle Hartigan (Natural and Applied Sciences) and Prof. Rob Deleo (Global Studies); How Taxes Shapes Lives, coordinated by Prof Bridie Andrews, History (2019-2020); Intersectionality (coordinated by Prof. Laurel Steinfield, Marketing (2018-2019); A Transdisciplinary Investigation of Evidence and Its Use (2017-18: coordinated by Prof Sean McDonald, Global Studies (2017-2018), Seeking Solutions to Gender-Related Career Challenges, coordinated by Prof. Susan Adams, Management, (2016-2017); Environmental Justice: Global to Local Contextsm coordinated by Prof. Joni Seager, Global Studies (2015-2016), and Intended Consequences? The Historical and Contemporary Problematic of Planning, organized by Prof. Cyrus Veeser, History (2014-2015).
The Valente Center for Arts & Sciences is proud to be able to support such a breath of research.
Organizing Faculty Fellow's Responsibilities
* Spring / Summer 2024: Plan and organize the seminar;
* Refine the focus of an interdisciplinary topic for the academic year;
* Ensure that the seminar topic both speaks to a broad constituency informed by the humanities, and provides sufficient focus to cultivate publishable research;
* Invite, review, and select participating scholars and student fellows;
* Organize seminar activities, including preliminary planning meetings, specific themes to be explored, publicity for seminar events;
* AY 2024 -2025: Direct the seminar;
* With administrative support from the Valente Center team, arrange for the seminar's logistical details, including space, food and speaker arrangements;
* Make periodic reports on activities to the director of the Valente Center;
* Facilitate research collaborations between faculty.
Eligibility and Compensation
All full time faculty members with a well-established research record and leadership experience are eligible. The Organizing Faculty member will receive a stipend of $8,000 for AY 2023-2024. We also welcome a collaborative approach, for instance a team-led seminar. In that case the stipend will be split. Participating members of the seminar receive a stipend up to $3,000, $1000 per semester and $1000 upon proof of submission of an article or manuscript.
Application Process and Deadline
For consideration as the AY 2024-2025 Humanities Research Seminar Organizing Faculty, submit a brief statement (approximately three pages, maximum) describing:
* The applicant's vision for the Humanities Research Seminar, proposed topic, and potential for internal/external participating faculty and student involvement; and
* The applicant's research and leadership qualifications.
* Please also submit an abbreviated CV highlighting relevant research, leadership, and student supervision experience.
The deadline for applications is May 1, 2024. Applications should be submitted to Valente Center Director Johannes (Hans) Eijmberts (jeijmberts@bentley@bentley.edu).
Decision Process
The Valente Center Advisory Board will review applications in consultation with the Valente Center Director. Selection and notification will be made in May 2024.
For questions about the program, potential topics, or applications, please contact Hans Eijmberts (jeijmberts@bentley.edu or call 6178889021).
2024- 2025 Seminar
2023- 2024 Social Identities and Media
Identity, or the act of being and existing in social spaces, can profoundly affect how an individual builds relationships, self-reflects, and engages in social spaces. One area often aligned with identities is media, which has become foundational in our evolving global society. As such, understanding the importance of access and comfort with media is imperative (Bawden, 2008; Milenkova & Lendzhova, 2021). As one example of engagement, media literacies recognize individuals' potential to participate in civic and political life and may decrease the knowledge gap (Martens & Hobbs, 2015). To illustrate, research has drawn attention to audiences’ critical assessment (i.e., literacy) of news and digital media as a means to gather vital information during turmoil or hardship (Nguyen et al., 2020), maintain relationships and well-being (Stamps et al., 2021), and empower vulnerable communities (Beaunoyer et al., 2020).
The dependence on media has increased (Dwivedi et al., 2021; Vukanovic, 2009). Nevertheless, as of 2020, only 58.4% of the global community has access to digital media, 54.6% has access to mobile devices, such as smartphones and digital tablets, and a quarter of the world’s population remains digital illiterate, thus lacking the skills to recognize misinformation or possess the necessary skills to fully use digital platforms (Mamedova & Pawlowski, 2018; Statista, 2021). Scholars have predicted that by 2030, 90% of the world’s population will need media literacy skills to navigate a diverse and ever-changing media landscape (Morgan, 2021). Understanding the gaps in access and potential issues with media use, and bridging the divide among communities, requires a deep comprehension of media and its relationship to diverse audiences.
Past Seminars
2022- 2023 Loneliness: The Mental Health Crisis of Our Time?
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our time was often described as the age of loneliness. Numerous studies argued that people, at least in the Western world, felt lonelier than ever before; the news were awash with reports of a "loneliness epidemic". Famously, the UK government in 2018 appointed a "Minister for Loneliness". Since then, the social isolation brought about by the pandemic has only increased people's sense of loneliness. Lockdowns that brought solitary confinement, online forms of work and socializing, and obligatory masks that conceal facial expressions all have contributed to an apparently pervasive sense of feeling alone. This experience is linked to increases in not only mental health problems but also heart disease and even death.
2021-2022 Seminar I: Taking Action on the Climate Crisis: Just & Equitable Solutions
The theme of the first 2021-2022 seminar is “Taking Action on the Climate Crisis: Just & Equitable Solutions.” The world needs stronger AND more equitable climate action through solutions that address inequities and work toward a more just world. Doing so requires an interdisciplinary and global understanding of the problem and the potential solutions. This seminar will invite scholars to share their work, with the goal that scholars may be able to produce a publishable paper in a journal relevant to their fields, a chapter in a book, or a grant application. It will seek to generate constructive discussions and opportunities to learn from other disciplines. It will connect scholars across fields so that we might explore methods, connections and debates around what does and does not increase equity and mitigate climate change.
The Humanities Research Seminar is made possible by a Challenge Grant awarded to Bentley University by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2011. The co-coordinators for this seminar are Laurel Steinfield, Associate Professor in the Marketing Department and Zana Cranmer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences.
2021-2022 Seminar II: From Scapegoats to Citizens: This Era of Black Activism
Starting in 2005, Florida and then dozens of other states passed so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws, which enabled by and large white civilians to kill people of color without legal consequences. Then in 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman in Florida, who invoked a Stand Your Ground defense and won acquittal on the murder charge. The resulting protests and ongoing activism against both civilian and police murders of Black people constituted the Black Lives Matter movement.
In 2006 Tarana Burke founded the "Me Too" movement, to enable women and girls to come forward and talk about their experiences of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape. The movement went viral on social media in 2017 and continues to progress. Benjamin Chavis, Jr. initiated the movement against environmental racism in 1982, a movement which has begun to gain greater traction in the social media era. April Reign in 2015 took on the entertainment industry with the #OscarsSoWhite campaign. Lastly, high school and college students have used social media to develop #Black@ movements, to address racism on their campuses.
All these movements were created by Black Americans. They have developed widespread impacts, broad and diverse support, and continue to reveal both active and passive complicity with racist and sexist agendas in politics, policing, environmental protection, education and business, to name but a few. We believe this is a moment when the Valente Center Research Seminar would be well served to focus on how these movements, building upon but also building beyond the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, are working to transform the lives of Black Americans as well as US society as a whole. It is a moment to reflect upon and engage in research on the goals, the means, the leaders, the supporters, and the outcomes of this period of activism. It is also critical to engage in research on various kinds of backlash these movements have faced, including legal, social, criminal and mediated responses, and their subsequent actions as well.
The coordinators for the second seminar is Mary Marcel, Associate Prof. Information and Design and Corporate Communications and Kiana Pierre-Louis, Sr. Law Lecturer, Law and Taxation Department.
2020 - 2021 Seminar: Risk Communication in Times of Crisis
The Jeanne and Dan Valente Center for the Arts and Sciences at Bentley University invites faculty working on issues around evidence, evaluation or impact to apply to become participating Fellows in Bentley University's year-long Humanities Research Seminar. The seminar will hold once a month meetings on the third Thursday of the month from 3-5 PM from September 2020 though April 2021. The seminar will take place over Zoom in the Fall semester with a potential hybrid format in 2021 if possible.
The theme of the 2020-2021 seminar is "Risk Communication in Times of Crisis." Risk communication is broadly defined as "the real-time exchange of real-time information, advice and opinions between experts and people facing threats to their health, economic or social well-being."(1) In times of crisis, effective risk communication is often a matter of life and death. The field of risk communication is radically interdisciplinary and the proposed Humanities Research Seminar will explore the myriad cultural, economic, political, and social dynamics of risk communication before, during, and after a crisis.
The Humanities Research Seminar is made possible by a Challenge Grant awarded to Bentley University by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2011. The co-coodinators for this year's seminar are Rob DeLeo, Associate Professor in the Global Studies Department and Danielle Hartigan, Associate Professor in the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences. Please contact Rob and Danielle with any questions.
[1] World Health Organization (WHO). 2012. “Risk Communication.” Available at: https://www.who.int/risk-communication/background/en/.
Valente Center Humanities Research Seminar Series 2018-2019
“Intersectionality at the Intersect of Disciplines”
This theme is broadly construed as the goal of this seminar and is for scholars to share and learn about different disciplinary perspectives and methodological tools used to examine intersecting oppressions.
As per Davis (2008, 68), internationality can be conceptualized as “the interaction [among] categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power.” Originating from black feminist scholarship, “intersectionality” has enabled scholars, activists, businesses, and policy makers to better understand and address injustices that occur for individuals and groups from overlapping identity categories, whether race, gender, class, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.
This seminar invites fellows to explore topics related to a field of interest that either have or could benefit from an intersectional lens. This may include political, educational, or environmental processes/policies that result in the exclusion or disadvantage of certain groups, corporate/social entrepreneurial interventions that seek to address and empower disadvantaged groups, representations or sociocultural practices that perpetuate marginalization or misrecognitions, the sociocultural or psychological aspects involved in the interaction of privileges and oppressions, among many other possibilities.
This seminar was organized by Laurel Steinfield, assistant professor of Marketing. The Humanities Seminar is proudly organized by the Valente Center with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Valente Center Humanities Research Seminar Series 2017-2018
"A Transdisciplinary Investigation of Evidence and Its Use"
Evidence is a cornerstone of academic research and has application across multiple, if not most, disciplines. Additionally, governments, corporations, NGOs and other organizations harness evidence to identify emerging trends, inform decision-making, and, ultimately, justify actions. Every academic discipline has its own definition and standard of evidence. From law to political science, history to math, geography to geology, scholars universally recognize the importance of evidence but often rely on widely different methodologies for acquiring, analyzing and disseminating evidence and other “empirical” metrics. Even within disciplines scholars frequently quarrel over the value of qualitative versus quantitative techniques, debates that ultimately center on the relative value of different types of evidence—ranging from contextual accounts of specific events to robust statistical databases. Indeed, many academic conferences devote entire sections or, at the very least, a handful of subset panels to addressing these pressing methodological questions.
The Humanities Seminar was proudly organized by the Valente Center with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The organizing faculty fellow for the 2017-18 Valente Humanities Seminar is Sean McDonald, Associate Professor of Global Studies.
Valente Center Humanities Research Seminar Series 2015-2016
“Environmental Justice: Global to Local Contexts”
This theme is broadly construed, and we are eager to bring participants to the table who work on a wide range of issues related to differential health and environmental burdens caused by poverty and racial, ethnic, gender, or class discrimination. We anticipate that topics might include patterns of toxic pollution, food insecurity, differential public health outcomes, impacts of climate precarity (at any scale), and the lack of representation of minority communities and diverse participants in environmental politics and environmental movements, among many other possibilities. The convener for this year’s seminar is Joni Seager, Professor and Chair, Global Studies, Bentley University.