Thursday, March 1, 2007

Geoffrey Nunberg to Speak in the Glasscock Center Digital Humanities Lecture Series

The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research is pleased to announce this Spring’s first public lecture in the Digital Humanities Lecture Series. Geoffrey Nunberg, Professor at the School of Information at the University of Californina-Berkeley, will present his work entitled “The Phenomenology of Cyberspace; or, Should We Capitalize ‘the Web’?” at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, 8 March, 2007, in the Evans Library, Room 204E.

Nunberg presents a regular feature on language for the NPR show “Fresh Air” and chairs the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. He is also a senior researcher at Stanford University’s Center for the Study of Language and Information and a Consulting Full Professor of Linguistics. His recent publications include Talking Right (2006) and Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times (2005).

Describing his focus on the World Wide Web, Nunberg explains that, whether as "the public sphere" or "cyberspace," people always conceptualize the domain of public discourse in spatial terms. He points out how those spatializations rest ultimately on the material properties of the medium, both in the form of its artifacts (books or web pages, for example) or the means of diffusion. But, according to Nunberg, the metaphors can also shape misleading assumptions about discourse, in everything from the way we interpret Google rankings to our attitudes about the problems of online pornography.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, see our website http://glasscock.tamu.edu or contact the Glasscock Center at 979-845-8328.

Henry Rousso to Present in the Glasscock Center Lecture Series: “How Do We Keep Knowing?”

The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research is pleased to announce this Spring’s second public lecture in our continuing “How Do We Keep Knowing?” Glasscock Center Lecture Series. Dr. Henry Rousso, Director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, will present his study entitled "Post-Holocaust and Post-Colonial Memories: The French Battlefield," on Tuesday, 20 March 2007 at 7:30 p.m. in the Glasscock Building, Room 311.

In his talk, Rousso will explore what he calls “the wounded memories of Vichy France” and examine how the recognition of France’s involvement in the Holocaust led to profound changes in representations of its past. In the last twenty years, the idea of reparation for past crimes has influenced "public policies of the past." According to Rousso, far from being an element of the so called “exception française," the debates, policies, and even laws that address the past are now part of a "global memory" and of a trend indicating new relationships between past and present in contemporary societies.

Rousso began his career with a focus on World War II and the Holocaust, both of which inform his more recent work on collective memory and the functions of narratives of the past. His publications are extensive and some, such as The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 (1991), Vichy, An Ever-Present Past (1998), and The Haunting Past (2002), have been translated into English.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, see our website http://glasscock.tamu.edu/ or contact the Glasscock Center at 979-845-8328.