Going Public: Reimagining the PhD

This episode is part of a special series for 2023-2024 featuring some of our popular talks from our annual Katz Distinguished Lecture series. This month’s episode features Alexander Nehamas’s talk from 2005 titled “Only in the Contemplation of Beauty Is Human Life Worth Living.” Alexander Nehamas is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He is a champi...

This episode is part of a special series for 2023-2024 featuring some of our popular talks from the center’s annual Katz Distinguished Lecture series. This month’s episode features Robin D.G. Kelley’s talk from 2010 titled “When Africa Was ‘The Thing’: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times.” A pathbreaking scholar, prolific writer, and engaged intellectual, Robin D.G. Kelley is Distinguished Professo...

Historians and literary scholars have struggled with the ideas of world history and world literature, but their efforts have largely run parallel with each other. Taking cue from discussions of world history and world literature, how might we conceive of world art and the place of Asian feminist art within it? What new geographies are possible when we consider Asian feminist art on the world scale...

In this special edition of Going Public: Reimagining the PhD, Danny Hoffman (Jackson School of International Studies) interviews Catherine Cole, 2022 Katz Distinguished Lecture. Danny is joined by Nikki Yeboah, playwright and assistant professor in University of Washington’s School of Drama. They discuss the topic of her lecture, which examines how unresolved pasts tend to return. In the aftermath...

In this special edition of Going Public: Reimagining the PhD, Danny Hoffman (Jackson School of International Studies) interviews Ato Quayson, 2022 Katz Distinguished Lecture. They discuss the topic of his lecture, which asks, what is the place of disputatiousness in the history of tragic form and how might it help us to further understand tragedy from the Greeks to African literature? The Greeks g...

In residence at the Simpson Center as Katz Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities, Romila Thapar conducted a graduate seminar on Early Indian History and contributed to many diverse campus conversations. Professor Emerita of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, Romila Thapar is one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient Indian history, and a clear voice for the nece...

In his 2006 Katz Distinguished Lecture, Richard Salomon discusses the efforts of scholars and Buddhist practitioners to isolate the original teachings of the Buddha out of the enormous volume of Buddhist scriptures as they have been preserved in many different Asian languages and countries. He also discusses the implications of the recent discoveries of the earliest surviving Buddhist manuscripts...

From his creative beginnings as a political cartoonist and journalist to his success as a novelist, essayist, short story writer, screen- and teleplay writer, and university professor, Charles Johnson’s life is a model of interdisciplinarity. In his 2007 Katz Distinguished Lecture, Johnson addresses his personal journey in finding his passion as an artist, writer, and scholar. Johnson discusses ho...

This bonus episode features a sound art piece by Mary Edwards for the 2023 ASAP/14 conference in Seattle and Bothell, Washington. About the sound piece: The Call in the Limitless Space comprises a collection of short, recorded reflections from people in the Wa Na Wari community who reflect on themes of spatial reclamation, Black Joy and belonging, specifically to their ancestral lineage or connect...

Wendy Brown’s 2008 Katz Distinguished lecture addresses the curious phenomenon that finds nation-states building physical walls at their borders. In an ostensibly connected global world, such walls raise a series of questions. What is the relationship between these walls and the erosion of national sovereignty by transnational forces? Do the walls assert sovereignty or confess its failures? What i...

In this episode of Going Public , Professor Stephen Groening (Cinema & Media Studies, University of Washington, Seattle) examines the utility of theoretically grounding publicly-engaged work, the necessary transformation of doctoral training environments, and the importance of informal spaces of exchange both in the cultivation of new publics and the training of publicly engaged scholars. Epis...

In this episode of Going Public , Professor Sara Goering (Philosophy, University of Washington, Seattle) talks about the public nature of philosophical questions, the value of collaboration, and pedagogical approaches to public-facing projects in graduate education. Episode Transcript, Sample Syllabi, and the Going Public Archive: https://simpsoncenter.org/podcasts/ep-10-sara-georing-good-public-p...

In this episode of Going Public , Professor Amanda Doxtater (Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle) talks about the rewards of collaborating with museums and other public institutions, the necessity of pedagogical flexibility, and, of course, the question of developing and sustaining relationships of respect between the university and community partners. Episode Transcript, Sampl...

In this episode of Going Public , Professor Regina Lee (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, University of Washington, Seattle) discusses the pedagogical implications of the risks of online content creation, the visualization of public scholarship as labor, and the intersections of antiracist feminist pedagogy and public pedagogy. Episode Transcript, Sample Syllabi, and the Going Public Arc...

In this episode of Going Public , Professor Leigh Mercer (Spanish & Portuguese, University of Washington, Seattle) talks about navigating the gap between vision and logistics, partnering with K-12 educators, and, of course, the importance of listening to graduate students. Episode Transcript, Sample Syllabi, and the Going Public Archive: https://simpsoncenter.org/podcasts/ep-7-leigh-merce...

In this episode of Going Public , Julian Barr (Geography, University of Washington, Seattle) discusses the affordances and limits of various digital platforms, the ways in which the dissertation form might shift to integrate public scholarship, and how a walking tour can powerfully excavate gentrified spaces, subordinated knowledges, and competing memories through his project, “Pioneer Square and...

In this episode of Going Public , Professor Jesse Oak Taylor (English, University of Washington, Seattle) explores the difference between ecocriticism and environmental humanities, the value of public-facing writing, and the payoff of experimentation in doctoral education. Episode Transcript, Sample Syllabi, and the Going Public Archive: https://simpsoncenter.org/podcasts/dwelling-critically View...

In this episode of Going Public , Janice Moskalik considers the challenges and rewards of working in the K-12 context, the importance of adaptability in both philosophy and publicly-engaged work, and the relationship between building trust and taking risks. Episode Transcript, Sample Syllabi, and the Going Public Archive: https://simpsoncenter.org/podcasts/questions-we-keep-coming-back

In this episode of Going Public , C. R. Grimmer explores how to work collaboratively and reciprocally with students, the intersections of social media and public scholarship, and hope as a call to action through their project, The Poetry Vlog (TPV) . The Poetry Vlog (TPV) is a YouTube teaching channel and podcast dedicated to building social justice coalitions through arts, higher education, and p...

In this episode of Going Public , Professors Colin Marshall and Ian Schnee (Philosophy, University of Washington, Seattle) discuss the work of collaboration, both between students and between faculty, responsiveness to the contemporary moment in the classroom and beyond, and philosophy as a public practice. Episode Transcript, Sample Syllabi, and the Going Public Archive: https://simpsoncenter.org...

In this episode of Going Public , Professor Richard Watts (French & Italian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle) explores the role of failure in publicly engaged scholarship and teaching, the imperatives of departmental transformation, and, of course, translation as a public practice. Episode Transcript, Sample Syllabi, and the Going Public Archive: https://simpsoncenter.org/podcasts/ep...