Humanities Now

On this episode, the Humanities Center's 2024-2025 Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Humanities, film scholar Dr. Daryl Meador, sits down with Michael Borshuk to speak about her research on West Texas in American cinema. Annotating five notable films that depict the region onscreen, Dr. Meador comments on settler colonialism, silent movies, John Wayne, Paul Newman, Larry McMurtry, New Hollywood, an...

On this episode, we’re exploring the Humanities Center’s year-long programming theme, “Celebrating Indigenous Resilience: Commemorating the Red River War and Honoring the Vibrancy of Native American History and Culture on the Southern Plains.”  Dr. John William Nelson from TTU's Department of History gives us some vital context for thinking about the Red River War and its relationship to Indi...

Could a gaggle of monkeys randomly typing produce a literary classic? Could they by chance produce the complete works of Shakespeare, as many have speculated in an ongoing thought experiment for over a century now. These questions are the starting point for a post-script conversation to our 2023-2024 Value/Values programming. On this episode, Michael Borshuk chats with TTU faculty members Dr. Heat...

In this episode, Michael Borshuk looks back on our February art exhibition, Jerry Hunt: Transmissions from the Pleroma , which the Humanities Center hosted in collaboration with Brooklyn's Blank Forms and the TTU School of Art. In thinking about Jerry Hunt's career and activities by those artists who influenced him, we contemplate the value of the avant-garde as another component of our...

On this episode, we continue our  Value/Values theme by thinking about the value of confronting works of art that challenge our values. Michael Borshuk speaks with Rob Weiner from Texas Tech libraries about transgressive cinema and the "video nasties" scandal of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, and then talks to Dr. Belinda Kleinhans, Associate Professor of German Studies, about censorsh...

On the first episode of our new season, Michael Borshuk introduces our programming theme for 2023-2024, Value/Values. Speaking about recent volatile debates in American universities about fiscal responsibility and academic programming, we find our way into some of the questions we will be pursuing this year. Next we hear from Paul Reinsch, who previews the film series we will host this year at Ala...

On this episode, Michael Borshuk speaks with Dr. Bill Poirier, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Joint Professor of Physics, and Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Research Awardee at Texas Tech.  In a very personal conversation, Bill shares his experience with Long COVID Syndrome, including his own research and approach to recovery, and how his symptoms have affected his academic career. ...

As we continue the Humanities Center's year-long Health theme we move to a conversation about art and the body with Texas Tech School of Art faculty member Ghi Fremaux and her collaborative partner Lando Valdez.  As As Ghi and Lando discuss with Michael Borshuk, the paintings they produce extend a long history of visual examination of the body as they put critical pressure on why we’re often...

On this episode, a special feature to continue our ongoing conversation about health: a conversation between one of the members of our Health programming theme this year, TTU History professor Dr. Paul Bjerk, and Dr. Heri Tungaraza, a Tanzanian oncologist committed to the well-being of low-income earners, and an activist practitioner in matters of public health. "Send us a message!"

As we return from hiatus to begin a new season, we introduce the Humanities Center's programming theme for 2022-2023: "Health." This year, we will imagine multiple ways of being healthy, and critique definitions of wellness or ability. We will close the gap between the mind and the body. We hear from multiple members of this year's programming theme: Dr. Julie Zook (Architectur...

On our season finale, we wish a happy fortieth anniversary to Texas Tech's Women's and Gender Studies program by talking at length with two WGS-affiliated faculty members about their recent books.  Dr. Elissa Zellinger from the Department of English speaks with us her book Lyrical Strains and its attention to nineteenth-century American poetry and the figure of the "poetess." ...

On this first episode back from winter break, we sit down with Dr. Bryan K. Hotchkins, a faculty member in TTU's College of Education, to hear about his new book  My Black is Exhausted: Forever in Pursuit of a Racist-free World Where Hashtags Don't Exist .  Extending our year-long conversation about anti-racism in scholarship and the arts, Hotchkins shows us how writing autobiographicall...

For our final fall episode before our winter break hiatus, Michael Borshuk sits down with Dr. Sebastian Ramirez, the Humanities Center's 2021-2022 Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Humanities.  Sebastian speaks with us about his research on white supremacy and "white backlash" and how his scholarship builds on the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles Mills, and others.  Over the course of the...

On this episode, we think about the relationship between art, racism, and social justice as we continue to engage our year-long Anti-Racism theme.  We speak with Dra. Leslie C. Sotomayor II, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Texas Tech, about her work as a scholar, curator, and working artist, and how her various projects contribute to an anti-racist mission.  Then...

On this first episode of season two, Michael Borshuk sits down with members of the programming team for the Center's scholarly theme for 2021-2022,  Anti-Racism .  We hear from Dr. Nadia Flores-Yeffal, dr. aretha marbley, Dr. Jennifer Nish, and Dr. Beau Pihlaja, as they explain what events and ideas provided the impetus for this year's programming and then forecast what topics and contex...

On this final episode of our first season, we conclude our ongoing discussion with this year's Alumni College Fellows by considering the new perspectives their research offers on the texture of everyday life.  We hear from Dr. Heather Warren-Crow, media theorist, interdisciplinary artist, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts, as she leads us through the history of singing ATMS; D...

On this episode, we continue visiting with our 2020-2021 Alumni College Fellows as they lead us in conversation on the relationship between who we are, how much freedom we possess, and the cultures we navigate in establishing either of the two.  We hear from Dr. Dale Kretz, Assistant Professor of History, who discusses African Americans' engagement with the federal government after the Civil...

On this episode, we reflect on creativity in its worldly context as we continue to visit with the Humanities Center’s most recent cohort of Alumni College fellows.   Our topic is New Perspectives on Art, Aesthetics, and the World at Large, and our guests are Dr. Ali Duffy,  Associate Professor of Dance and Founder and Artistic Director of the Flatlands Dance Theatre, Dr. Michael Jordan, Associate...

As we come back from winter break, we begin a new sequence of episodes featuring the research of our 2020-2021 Alumni College Fellows.  Between now and May, we have arranged our twelve scholars into four audio panels, all speaking under the broad banner “New Perspectives on…”  For our February installment, the topic is “New Perspectives on History and Society,” and we hear from historian Richard L...

To wrap up our first half-season before we take a pause for winter break, we discuss the Humanities Center's focus on interdisciplinary collaboration by introducing two of our funded working groups.  Belinda Kleinhans tell us the history of the Animal in the Humanities working group, which the center funded from 2017 to 2019.  Then we hear from our latest working group, the Medieval and Renai...

In this special Election Day episode, we put our democracy in context through various humanities perspectives. Sydnor Roy helps us compare American democracy with its long ago antecedents in ancient Athens, Carol Flueckiger tells us about her new exhibition commemorating the 19th Amendment, Sean Cunningham historicizes the culture of American elections, and Amy Flowerree helps us work through the...

On this episode, Michael Borshuk speaks with musicologists Roger Landes and Christopher J. Smith about their recurring conference "The Electric Guitar in American Culture," hosted here in Lubbock at Texas Tech.  We hear about what makes this conference unique and how it fits into the mission of TTU's Vernacular Music Center, before Landes and Smith narrate the technological history...

In this inaugural episode, Michael Borshuk, Director of the Humanities Center at Texas Tech, introduces you to the Center and its mission by previewing our scholarly theme for 2020-2021: Forests.  We hear from our theme programmers, Bruce Clarke, Sara Spurgeon, Curtis Bauer, and Christopher Witmore as they discuss different academic perspectives on forests and what those natural environments help...