Arts and Humanities

Loving the art but not the artist

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:45:24 +0000

Loving the art but not the artist Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/21/2024 - 13:45

Adamari Ruelas

CU Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller

The transition from summer to fall—trading warm days for cool evenings—means that things are getting … spookier. Witchier, maybe. For fans of the series, the approach of Halloween means it’s time to rewatch the Harry Potter movies.

This autumn also marks the 25^th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book three in author J.K. Rowling’s seven-book series about a boy wizard defeating the forces of evil with help from his friends. Many U.S. readers of a certain age cite Azkaban as the point at which they discovered the magic of Harry Potter.

However, in the years since the series ended, Rowling has gained notoriety for stating strongly anti-trans views. Harry Potter fans have expressed disappointment and feelings of betrayal, and asked the question that has shadowed the arts for centuries, if not millennia: Is it possible to love the art but dislike the artist? Can the two be separated?

CU Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that, "Even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

“In principle, you can try to focus on the purely aesthetic properties of an artwork. This is the aestheticist attitude,” says Iskra Fileva, a University of Colorado Boulder assistant professor of philosophy who has published on topics of virtue and morality. “But even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

The Impact of Knowing

Fileva offered as an example the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro. In a short story called “Wild Swans,” Munro depicts a young girl on a train who is sexually assaulted by an older man sitting beside her, but who pretends to be asleep and does nothing because she is curious about what would happen next.

Munro’s daughter came forward several months after Munro’s death in May to say she’d been abused by her stepfather and that her mother, after initially separating from her stepfather, went back to live with him, saying that she loved him too much.

Fileva points out that in light of these revelations, it is reasonable for readers of “Wild Swans” to reinterpret the story. Whereas initially they may have seen it as a psychologically nuanced portrayal of the train scene, they may, after learning of the daughter’s reports, come to read the story as an attempt at victim-blaming disguised as literature.

Fileva contrasts Munro’s case with cases in which an author may have said or done reprehensible things, but not anything that bears on how their work should be interpreted—as when Italian painter Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, but the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

Fileva points out also that the question of whether the art can be separated from the artist may seem particularly pressing today, because modern audiences know so much more about artists than art consumers in the past may have. If no one knows facts about the author’s life, art consumers would be unable to draw parallels between an artwork and biographical information about the author.

“These are things that, historically, few would have known about—the origin of a novel or any other kind of artwork. Art might have looked a little bit more magical, and there may have been more mystery surrounding the author and in the act of creation,” says Fileva, explaining how the personal lives of artists have begun to seep into the minds of their consumers, something that has recently become common.

"The Crowning of Thorns" by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (ca. 1602-1607). Philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that even though Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

In 1919, poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “I have assumed as axiomatic that a creation, a work of art, is autonomous.” And in his essay “The Death of the Author,” literary theorist Roland Barthes criticized and sought to counter “the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person.”

However, early 20th-century movements such as New Criticism, which considered works of art as autonomous, have given way to more nuanced considerations of art in relation to its artist.

“I do think that if you want to understand what work literature does in the world, starting with its historical moment is an important step,” Amy Hungerford, a Yale University professor of English, told author Constance Grady in a 2019 story for Vox. “But I also am fully committed to the idea that every generation of readers remakes artworks’ significance for themselves. When you try to separate works of art from history, whether that’s the moment of creation or the moment of reception, you’re impoverishing the artwork itself to say that they don’t have a relation.”

Too many tweets

The growth of social media has added a new layer to the issues of art and the artists who create it. According to Fileva, social media have made it more difficult to separate the two because of how much more the consumer is able to know, or think they know, about the artist: “Artists are often now expected to have a public persona, to be there, to talk to their fans, to have these parasocial relationships, and that might make it difficult to separate the art from the artist,” she says.

In Fileva’s view, all this creates a second way in which facts about the author seem to bear on the public’s perception of an artwork. While learning about the revelations made by Munro’s daughter may lead some readers to reinterpret “Wild Swans,” other readers and viewers may feel disappointed and “let down” by the author even without reinterpreting the artwork or changing their judgment about the work’s qualities.

This fall marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which many U.S. readers of a certain age cite as their entry point into the series.

This is another way in which it may become difficult to separate the art from the artist: The work becomes “tainted” for some audience members because of what they have learned about its creator.

It may have always been the case, Fileva suggests, that people who really loved a work of art, even when they knew nothing about its creator, imagined that they were connected to the artist, but this is truer today than ever. Fans are able to follow their favorite artists on social media and feel that they know the artist as a person, which creates expectations and the possibility for disappointment.

Perhaps inevitably, greater knowledge of the artist as a person affects how consumers interact with his or her art—whether it’s Ye (formerly Kanye) West’s music, Johnny Depp’s films or Alice Munro’s short stories.

So, where does that leave Harry Potter fans who have been disappointed by Rowling’s public statements?

Different books by Rowling illustrate the two different ways in which biographical information about the author may affect readers’ interpretation of the work, Fileva says. Rowling’s book (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith) The Ink Black Heart, featuring a character accused of transphobia, is an example of the first way: Facts about the author’s life may bear directly on the interpretation of the work.

When, by contrast, a transgender person who loved Harry Potter in her youth and loved Rowling feels saddened by statements Rowling made about gender, the reader may experience the book differently without reinterpreting it, Fileva says. Such a reader may think that the book is just as good as it was when she fell in love with it; it’s just that she can no longer enjoy it in the same way.

Some art consumers are more inclined to be what Fileva calls “aestheticists”—Barthes’ account of the death of the author resonates with them. Aestheticists may find it easier to separate the art from the artist in cases in which biographical information about the author is irrelevant to understanding and interpreting the work.

Whether any reader, whatever their sympathies, can separate facts about Munro’s life from the story “White Swans” or Rowling’s public pronouncements on gender from the interpretation of her book The Ink Black Heart, Fileva says, is a different question.

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CU Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller.

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Scholar challenges rigid boundaries in African philosophical thought

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Scholar challenges rigid boundaries in African philosophical thought Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/30/2024 - 00:00

Cody DeBos

CU Boulder PhD candidate Idowu Odeyemi argues that African philosophy should not be limited to a single definition

“To define African philosophy is to limit it,” argues Idowu Odeyemi, a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder. “And to limit it is to conserve it.”

Odeyemi, whose article “African Philosophy Cannot Be a Thing” was published in the journal Metaphilosophy this month, argues that African philosophy, like Western philosophy, should not be limited to a single definition but instead be seen as a vast array of concepts and traditions.

Odeyemi’s insights push for a reconsideration of what philosophy is, who defines it and how it affects people’s lives.

Idowu Odeyemi, a CU Boulder PhD candidate in philosophy, argues that to define African philosophy is to limit it.

To live is to wonder

“Everyone, at the first-order level, can be said to qualify as a philosopher,” Odeyemi says. “Everyone wonders.”

Whether it’s a neighbor’s peculiar morning routine or a sibling’s attitude at a family gathering, everyone has something to wonder about at nearly every point in life. Yet what sets philosophers apart, according to Odeyemi, who was recently awarded a fellowship with the Center for African and African American Studies, is that they ask where their wonder comes from.

Philosophical wonder, says Odeyemi, does not exist in a vacuum. It is curated by the society in which one grows up. “Philosophical concerns are usually an element of what the social world allows philosophers to gain interest in.”

Citing the work of CU Boulder Associate Professor of Philosophy Ajume Wingo, who recently explored the political modesty of Nelson Mandela, and the late Ghanaian philosopher Kwesi Wiredu, who advocated for consensual democracy over Western representative democracy, Odeyemi emphasizes that African philosophers, like their Western counterparts, are deeply influenced by their social context.

However, Odeyemi is cautious with the term “African philosophy,” given its monolithic connotations. African philosophy, he says, cannot be confined to a single narrative or definition. Rather, it encompasses a multitude of voices and ideas, all rooted in the experiences and social contexts born of various cultures, languages and histories across the vast continent.

The unwritten richness of African philosophy

Much of African philosophical thought has been passed down from generation to generation through myths, proverbs and oral traditions. This unwritten heritage challenges popular, though misguided, Western notions that valuable philosophy must be documented in writing.

In his paper, Odeyemi draws a parallel to Socrates, one of the most revered figures in Western philosophy.

“Socrates left no philosophical writings. It is Plato, his follower, who contextualized some of Socrates’ dialogue, and thus, the philosophies accorded to Socrates today,” Odeyemi points out. “How is this any different from when a wise man in an African village offers philosophical insights, and this is carried on to the next generations until somebody else writes about it?”

Of course, this isn’t to say African societies rely solely on oral traditions to pass knowledge between one generation and the next. Countries like Egypt have an extensive history of writings that offer a glimpse into their thinking.

Odeyemi also reflects on his own life and Yoruba heritage, sharing how metaphor and oral traditions affect philosophy and daily communication.

“The Yoruba language is deeply metaphorical,” he says. “For instance, instead of telling you that you are stubborn, a Yoruba person might say ‘you have a coconut head,’ meaning your character is not easy to crack.”

The rich use of language and metaphor in African cultures illustrates how philosophy can be woven into the fabric of everyday life. To Odeyemi, that’s an important hallmark of good philosophy.

A philosophy that can be easily neglected by the people it should be speaking to—a philosophy that has no bearing on its people—cannot be said to be a good philosophy.”

He also reiterates the evolution of written tradition, particularly across generations. Compared to novels by such writers as Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart), Buchi Emecheta (The Joy of Motherhood) and Wole Soyinka (The Trial of Brother Jero), novels published by African authors in the past two decades illustrate a significant shift in language use.

Odeyemi also notes that older generations of African writers and thinkers frequently engaged with myths, proverbs and oral traditions in their writings. By contrast, many contemporary African writers don’t emphasize these elements.

“I think it is the people that are influencing the philosophy rather than vice versa,” Odeyemi says.

Connecting philosophy with everyday life

For many people, philosophy belongs squarely in the realm of academic discourse. Odeyemi notes that this is a challenge shared by African and Western philosophy. He also believes the opposite should be true.

“A philosophy that can be easily neglected by the people it should be speaking to—a philosophy that has no bearing on its people—cannot be said to be a good philosophy,” he says.

Part of a philosopher’s job is to examine the systems people rely on and try to correct them so people can live a better life, Odeyemi notes. Of course, it’s not the philosopher’s job to make people lead a better life—it is the people’s duty to make that choice.

Even so, philosophers must make their ideas accessible and meaningful to ordinary individuals before they can have a widespread impact. Odeyemi argues that workshops and public discussions can play an important role in encouraging broader engagement with philosophical ideas.

Furthermore, Odeyemi challenges society to embrace philosophical discourse in the mainstream.

“I think the only step that can be taken is to stop defunding philosophy departments and make the public see why reading and studying philosophy is important for their daily lives,” he says.

“Non-African philosophers contributing to African philosophical discourse is as important as Africans contributing to non-African philosophical discourses. We all need to be in dialogue with one another to understand each other better.”

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CU Boulder PhD candidate Idowu Odeyemi argues that African philosophy should not be limited to a single definition.

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The Loch Ness monster: myth or reality?

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 16:30:29 +0000

The Loch Ness monster: myth or reality? Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/27/2023 - 09:30

Bradley Worrell

Marking the 90th anniversary this month of the first 'photograph' of the Loch Ness monster, CU Boulder scholar muses on what qualifies as ‘truth’ and ‘fiction’ and the overlap of conspiracy theories and myths

Some 90 years ago this month, the publication of a photo purporting to show a creature traversing the waters in Loch Ness, Scotland, started what may be the very first viral trend.

On Nov. 12, 1933, a man named Hugh Gray took a photo of something moving in the water—although what it was, exactly, remains a deep point of contention today.

Whatever the case, that 1933 photo paved the way for many others to share their own tales of spotting the fabled Loch Ness monster—including the much more famous “surgeon’s photo” of a dinosaur-looking creature seemingly swimming in the Scottish lake, which was published in April 1934 in The Daily Mail, one of Britain’s largest newspapers.

In the 90 years since Hugh Gray’s 1933 photo was published, there have been 1,155 sightings and counting, according to Britain’s Sky News, which recently published a story on the continuing interest in the Loch Ness monster.

Hugh Gray of Scotland took what is credited as the first "photo" of the Loch Ness monster. (Photo: Scottish Daily Record)

Some would cite the many independent sightings as evidence of the creature’s existence. Skeptics, meanwhile, have attributed sightings to a host of factors, including the misidentification of mundane objects, such as driftwood, as well as the perpetration of outright hoaxes.

With each camp claiming the evidence strongly supports their side, how does the independent observer decide what is “fiction” and what is “reality”?

It’s a topic with which Annjeanette Wiese, associate chair and director of undergraduate studies of the Humanities Program at the University of Colorado Boulder, is very familiar. Wiese teaches Humanities 4170, Fiction and Reality, which concerns modern attempts to define the two categories. Additionally, she is the author of Narrative Truthiness: The Logic of Complex Truth in Hybrid (Non)Fiction, which explores the complex nature of truth by adapting TV host Stephen Colbert’s concept of “truthiness” (which on its own repudiates complexity) into something nuanced and positive. In the book, she uses narrative theory to analyze several examples of hybrid (non)fiction: works that refuse to exist as either fiction or nonfiction alone, and that challenge monolithic definitions of truth.

Recently, Wiese spoke with ColoradoArts and Sciences Magazine about how stories of the Loch Ness monster fit into larger conversations about fiction reality. Her responses have been lightly edited for style and condensed for space considerations.

Question: Regarding myths/stories like the Loch Ness monster, generally, is there any discernable element of truth to the story, or do they seem to be completely made up?

Wiese: I think these stories gain their power from the combination of the importance of perception and the power of the imagination.

Perception is not simply seeing what is in front of us. Our brain is interpreting the information it takes in on many levels, starting with the visual, but extending into realms that involve semantics, associations, emotions and sense-making.

CU Boulder researcher Annjeanette Wiese is the author of Narrative Truthiness: The Logic of Complex Truth in Hybrid (Non)Fiction, which explores the complex nature of truth.

So, when we see something that doesn’t fit into our typical understanding, we have two choices: either we normalize it so that it does fit, or we have a problem to deal with. When someone sees something unusual in the water, and there is no obvious explanation for it, the imagination kicks in. Maybe it’s a problem—maybe it’s a monster! And didn’t someone else say they saw something strange, too? When such a story spreads, it takes on more and more meaning.

At this point, it doesn’t matter anymore if the original sighting was crying wolf, because the idea of the monster has taken hold and become a sort of reality of its own, prompting further “sightings” and stories—as well as some merchandizing, I would assume.

It may be an urban legend, but how many urban legends today still make us act in what would otherwise seem to be strange ways? (Do parents still check their kids’ Halloween candy for sharp objects or poison?)

Question: With the Loch Ness monster story, there are some grainy black-and-white photos that purport to show a creature. How much 'evidence,’ if any, is required for a story/myth to take root?

Wiese: Surprisingly little evidence is required. This brings us back to ‘truthiness.’ Stephen Colbert described truthiness as what feels true rather than what is factual. Things that feel true to us can take root much more strongly than facts.

Let’s say someone knows someone who knows someone who said they saw the Loch Ness monster. That might feel truer than the likely fact that there is no such being. And then if there’s a photograph, or even the hint of one, it serves as evidence.

We probably can’t individually inspect the photograph, but we might trust that it exists if it aligns with what we think to be true. The two are mutually reinforcing, especially if we can’t inspect the evidence directly.

Another element here is that photographs make us think that what we see is real. Photographs are connected to reality—a person in a photograph, we believe, was actually there in front of the camera when it was taken. And we are often right about this. But, of course, photographs have always been manipulable, and now that the images are digital and editing technology is so advanced, all bets are (or should be) off. Yet photographs still tend to reinforce our sense that seeing is believing.

Question: Do continued advances in technology (i.e., satellite imagery, manned/unmanned exploration vehicles, prevalence of phones/recording equipment, etc.) make the creation of new myths less likely ?

Wiese: We have an increased ability to establish evidence and, arguably then, a requirement for producing it. We can hold information accountable and can do our research regarding what is already known. This might lead us to think that the creation of new myths should decrease.

For example, we see a blurry image of something in the water, but what does it actually show us? How do we know when and where it was taken? Are we going to trust the information that accompanies it, even if it isn’t personally verifiable? And now, of course, and to an increasing degree: How do we know it wasn’t tampered with?

The famous Loch Ness monster "surgeon's photo," published in 1934, was later revealed to be a hoax. (Photo: Getty)

We have to be willing to interpret what we see in a way that doesn’t simply reinforce our own assumptions, but that takes time and effort. Myths take hold and are much easier to believe than to disprove, especially if they feel true or we want them to be true.

We are also inundated with so many images and ideas, and it seems that people lack the skills or time or will to verify all of that information. So, when we interpret what we see or read or hear, other factors play a larger role than verification, such as whether it supports a narrative that we already believe to be true. We might think that if it seems true, it probably is. But, of course, this can be a dangerous presumption.

Question: Alternatively, does technology, in the form of AI, increase the chance that myths will increasingly take shape because they can create compelling photos, visuals or other evidence to advance a myth?

Wiese: AI and the vast dissemination of information that is not vetted by responsible parties mean that myths will likely keep reproducing rapidly. For a myth like the Loch Ness monster, there is a history to it that is charming and fun, but what happens when chatbots start creating myths that then are believed by those who read them despite the fact that no one has any idea where they came from?

Whether created with the aim of misinformation or mere curiosity, the end result could be the same. The creation of images and videos is probably more concerning at the moment than words, because seeing is still believing, and images impact us more immediately and viscerally than words, which take time to process. But both have power, especially when we are used to absorbing information without verifying it.

If you can simply create a story and the imagery to support it with a few phrases typed into a chat window, what’s to keep people from doing so? The question becomes what happens to that information and what does it take to make it catch on?

Question: To what extent do myths—Nessie, Sasquatch, maybe the Flat Earth movement—converge with conspiracy theories (i.e., the government or other powers are suppressing 'the truth’)?

Wiese: I worry more about conspiracy theories than myths, since the former seem to be rooted in the everyday present, at least in terms of their reach or consequences. For example, people are deciding whom to vote for based on lies. This has long been true, of course, but now it is much easier to spread misinformation.

A 1951 photo by Lachlan Stuart purported to show the Loch Ness monster; it was quickly debunked as a hoax. (Photo: The Guardian)

Here, too, truthiness plays a role. People buy into these stories because they feel like they are true, and that reinforcement of what feels true is more important to the believers than whether the stories are verifiable.

They hear a story and think, ‘Yes! That fits perfectly with what I was thinking! Of course, the government is suppressing the truth about this. If the truth got out, they’d be ruined.’ And so on.

That’s the other thing about myths and conspiracy theories alike. The evidence that would disprove them is rejected because it doesn’t reinforce the myth or theory. And as such, it feeds the narrative that the truth is being suppressed.

Moreover, people become so invested in these narratives that their very identities become tied to believing them. So, to accept contrary evidence would undermine who they think they are. And we’re all resistant to that.

Question: Do you have thoughts on why some people choose to believe in certain myths despite the lack of scientific evidence?

Wiese: We all want to believe what feels true.

This is particularly egregious in the case of conspiracy theories. When one’s worldview involves the idea that people in power are trying to keep other people from knowing the truth, then that person is predisposed to distrust the normal channels of information (e.g., the media or the government) and more susceptible to manipulation by those who would spread misinformation. And strong emotions about the issue in question reinforce this susceptibility further.

In the case of Loch Ness, it’s relatively harmless to believe there is a monster, and I would guess that there are more people who merely want there to be a monster than those who would insist on its existence. The latter, however, likely face some level of ridicule for their beliefs, which might prompt them to defend them all the more.

That’s the other thing about myths and conspiracy theories alike. The evidence that would disprove them is rejected because it doesn’t reinforce the myth or theory. And as such, it feeds the narrative that the truth is being suppressed.”

Question: What is your take on whether the line between truth and fiction is more or less clear today than it was in the past?

Wiese: I think it is less clear. Or, perhaps it is better to say that we are more aware today of how unclear it is. Some of that awareness is good: It’s difficult to talk about our experiences in purely factual ways, because that’s not how perception and interpretation work. But this is a double-edged sword, because we aren’t always attuned to those nuances, and so we treat such information as if it were fact.

And we have technology at our fingertips that enhances the degree of blurriness between fiction and reality, and all the many related terms and concepts. There is an unfortunate lack of nuance in so much of the information we process today. It’s much easier to forward or repost a video, meme or story than to think about what it really says, much less what it implies. But we can do that if we want to, and that’s why practicing critical thinking is so important.

Question: Why do certain myths (the Loch Ness monster, Area 51, etc.) seem to take hold while others fade away?

Wiese: I think curiosity and cultural narratives play a role. Loch Ness plays into the belief that there are aspects of our world that remain unknown, and to buy into that—or, more strongly, to feel like one has oneself seen something—gives the believer a sort of privileged standing. Only a special few have been lucky enough to be privy to the monster’s existence.

Area 51 works similarly, although it also ties in with stories about the government keeping secrets and not wanting regular individuals to find out. Combining UFO folklore and governmental cover-ups makes for a great story.

The possibility of a monster in Loch Ness allows us to believe in something intangible and unexplainable but ultimately harmless. Who wouldn’t want to believe it?

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Reducing violence, with help from The Bard

Anonymous — Tue, 23 May 2023 16:55:16 +0000

Reducing violence, with help from The Bard Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/23/2023 - 10:55

Sarah Kuta

Colorado Shakespeare Festival staffers share Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program with scholars and practitioners in England, including at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre

Scientists largely understand what contributes to violence in schools and communities—and how to stop it. But actually putting that research into practice can be challenging.

Live theater can help.

That was the message the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Amanda Giguere and Heidi Schmidt shared with an array of Shakespeare scholars and practitioners during a weeklong outreach tour in England in early May.

During their trip across the pond—funded by grants from the Office for Outreach and Engagement and the Center for Humanities & the Arts—Giguere and Schmidt met with experts at Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Shakespeare Institute and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

They gave presentations on CU Boulder’s innovative Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program in hopes that other theater companies and related organizations might one day implement similar initiatives to help prevent bullying, mistreatment, self-harm and violence in schools.

Amanda Giguere (left) and Heidi Schmidt (right) outside Shakespeare’s Globe.

“We have the research, but the science alone is not enough,” says Giguere, the festival’s director of outreach. “We really need engaging, human-focused storytelling and art to solve the problem of violence.”

Becoming an ‘upstander’

Founded in 2011, the Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program aims to help students recognize harmful or potentially unsafe situations and take steps to intervene. This interdisciplinary initiative is a collaboration between the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence.

Through the program, actors visit various Colorado elementary, middle and high schools to perform abridged versions of Shakespeare plays. (During the most recent school year, they performed The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice, and next year they’ll be touring and presenting Romeo and Juliet and The Comedy of Errors.)

Afterward, the actors invite students to role-play moments of conflict or violence from the play and ask them to propose an alternative strategy to help reduce or prevent some of the harm.

“This is all rooted in the power and efficacy of the ‘upstander,’ also known as an ally or active bystander,” says Giguere. “It can be extremely effective when one person decides to take action if someone is being bullied or if they are aware of planned violence, rather than passively sitting by. Sometimes all it takes is one person to say, ‘Hey, that’s not cool,’ and usually the mistreatment stops right away.”

Giguere and Schmidt along with the staff of Globe Education.

To help conceptualize violence, researchers often use the metaphor of an iceberg. Although really big acts, such as school shootings, are the ones that make the news, they are just the tip of the iceberg, says Giguere. Those acts are typically rooted in a broader culture that tolerates and even perpetuates bullying, microaggressions and general mistreatment. The violence iceberg also includes self-harm and suicide.

In the long run, the program’s organizers hope that cultivating a robust community of upstanders among students will help reduce small acts of violence and, ultimately, will help foster more positive, supportive school climates. Together, those changes should, in turn, help prevent even larger, more devastating incidents in the future.

And just as rehearsing helps actors polish a performance, practicing can help students become more comfortable and familiar with an array of upstander strategies.

“We’re using Shakespeare’s plays to give the kids a fictional metaphor they can step into and practice their own upstander strategies,” says Giguere. “We practice so many things in this world that we want to get better at—we practice tying our shoes, we practice CPR, we practice active shooter drills. All of those things don’t come easily, and they take practice. The same goes for upstander behavior.”

Borrowing from The Bard

Shakespeare’s plays—particularly the tragedies and history plays—are brimming with conflict. And while the words may be more than 400 years old, the themes remain relevant today.

“Many of these stories are rooted in a lot of what still shapes violence today, which is deep pain, deep trauma, deep division, deep disconnection,” says Giguere. “As I’ve been investigating these plays over the years, I really do think Shakespeare was trying to figure out something about why humans are so violent with each other.”

His plays also contain multiple perspectives—sometimes even within the same character—which helps students think about the complexity and messiness of the human experience. People are not all bad or all good, but some mix of both.

Schmidt (left) and Giguere (right) seated inside Shakespeare’s Globe.

Role-playing also helps students develop empathy because it encourages them to step into a character’s shoes and consider the scene from their point of view, Giguere says. That’s a useful skill for responding calmly and compassionately during a heated moment, rather than reacting with additional anger or violence.

“Taking time to pause, take a breath, think about the world from another person’s perspective is one of the key building blocks of a safer community,” Giguere says.

The power of interdisciplinary collaboration

During the past 12 years, the program has reached 126,000 students across the Front Range, with a goal of spreading into other parts of the state in the near future. Collaborating with other university departments has been a major driver behind that success, says Giguere.

In addition to drawing on evidence-based research from the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, the program has collaborated with numerous other partners, including the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance, the School of Education and the Department of Theatre & Dance.

As the program has demonstrated, bringing together experts from across campus—then sharing that combined knowledge with the public—can produce powerful results.

“Synthesis of knowledge across disciplines and fields is one way that such knowledge becomes more meaningful and more connected to social practice and everyday life,” says David Meens, director of the Office for Outreach and Engagement.

To learn more or support the Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program, follow this link.

Colorado Shakespeare Festival staffers share Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program with scholars and practitioners in England, including at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre.

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Archaeologist, classicist wins NEH fellowship

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 20:51:15 +0000

Archaeologist, classicist wins NEH fellowship Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/04/2023 - 14:51

Dimitri Nakassis, classics professor and former ‘genius grant’ winner, lands support from National Endowment for the Humanities to complete paradigm-shifting study of ancient Greece

Dimitri Nakassis, an archaeologist and classicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, has landed a substantial grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to advance his paradigm-shifting study of ancient and Mycenaean Greece.

Nakassis, who is professor and chair of the CU Boulder Department of Classics and was a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, has won a $60,000 NEH fellowship that will support his research and writing that will yield a book that will challenge the “historical periodization of ancient Greece and the historical construction of Mycenaean Greece as a unified, homogeneous world from 1650 to 1075 BCE.”

Nakassis’ project is titled “Reassembling Mycenaean Greece, ca. 1650–1075 BCE.” It is one of 204 humanities projects that will receive $28.1 million in grants this year.

Top of page: Mycenaean fresco from Mycenae (1250-1180 BCE). Archeaological Museum Mycenae. Above: Dimitri Nakassis (PhD Texas 2006) studies the material and textual production of early Greek communities, especially of the Mycenaean societies of Late Bronze Age Greece.

In documents outlining his plans, Nakassis notes that the stories that archaeologists tell about the past matter in the here and now. “Yet, although we know that ancient societies were complex and heterogeneous, we often present them as monolithic entities, even as simplifications and caricatures. We are conditioned to do so by a long tradition focused on isolating and studying individual cultures, a tradition that emerged from the search for national, ethnic and even racial origins,” he writes.

This way of thinking perpetuates “simplistic narratives in which such cultures are arranged serially across time to produce master narratives, like the rise of Western civilization,” he observes, adding: “But in order to understand the past productively and accurately, we require approaches that reject categories rooted in racial and ethnic essentialism and instead embrace the complexity of the past. If we use outmoded categories, we will tell outmoded stories.”

These problems appear specifically in the study of ancient Greece, Nakassis says, because people have traditionally imagined Classical Greece (ca. 480-323 BCE), and especially Athens, as the originator of so much: democracy, philosophy, tragedy and so on.

“In the master narratives that attempt to explain the emergence of the so-called ‘Greek miracle,’ the Mycenaean societies of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1650-1075 BCE) that preceded the Classical era have wrongly been reduced to a caricature: the oppressive, hierarchical, and centralized early state,” he observes.

Nakassis plans to use the NEH support to write Reassembling Mycenaean Greece, a book that will propose a new way of understanding the archaeology of mainland Greece in the Late Bronze Age.

“Its goals are to undermine the reductive role that Mycenaean Greece plays in Eurocentric master narratives and to unlock the enormous amount of new archaeological evidence has been published in recent years, but which has had little effect on our understanding of this critical phase in Greek (pre)history,” Nakassis writes.

I argue that a paradigm shift is needed to activate this data and transform the field. The shift is, in short, to eliminate the notion of a culturally homogeneous Mycenaean world and to replace it with a post-cultural archaeology that focuses on specific practices. We can trace the histories of these practices through time and space, and assemble them to produce rich, textured historical understandings.”

He adds: “I argue that a paradigm shift is needed to activate this data and transform the field. The shift is, in short, to eliminate the notion of a culturally homogeneous Mycenaean world and to replace it with a post-cultural archaeology that focuses on specific practices. We can trace the histories of these practices through time and space, and assemble them to produce rich, textured historical understandings.”

Nakassis has developed new methods for investigating individuals named in the administrative Linear B texts, and he argued from this evidence that Mycenaean society was far less hierarchical and much more dynamic than it had been considered in the past. He is the co-director of the Western Argolid Regional Project, an archaeological survey in southern Greece, and the Pylos Tablets Digital Project, a museum-based research project that makes use of computational photography and other techniques.

Nakassis holds an MA and PhD in classics from the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the CU Boulder faculty in 2016. He won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—also called a MacArthur “genius grant”— in 2015. Nakassis is one of nine CU Boulder professors to win the award.

NEH Fellowships are competitive awards granted to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody “exceptional research, rigorous analysis and clear writing.” Recipients must clearly articulate a project’s value to humanities scholars, general audiences or both. Nakassis is the 12^thCU Boulder professor to win an NEH fellowship.

Dimitri Nakassis, classics professor and former ‘genius grant’ winner, lands support from National Endowment for the Humanities to complete paradigm-shifting study of ancient Greece.

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CU Arts & Sciences seeks input on deans of divisions postings

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 18:47:48 +0000

CU Arts & Sciences seeks input on deans of divisions postings Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/09/2023 - 11:47

The College of Arts and Sciences has posted job announcements for its deans of division for arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences

The positions are being advertised as a further implementation of the college reorganization. These three dean positions are now official officers of the university, as defined by the CU regents, and as such, require formal searches to fill the positions.

Those job announcements are now posted online:

The job posting for the dean of division for natural sciences is at this link.
The job posting for the dean of division for social sciences is at this link.
The job posting for the dean of division for arts and humanities, which is open to internal candidates only, can be found this way:
Log in to the MyCUInfo portal
Select CU Resources > Business Tools > CU Boulder Jobs Internal Job Board
Use the Keyword Search to find this posting number: 45916

Also, with respect to arts and humanities, the college will hold a second “listening session” with the community to solicit your views about the attributes most desired in this key leadership position, as well as gather feedback on the structure of the upcoming interviews.

This listening session, led by Robert McDonald, chair of the search committee and dean of university libraries, is set for 11 a.m. to noon on Thursday, Feb. 16. The meeting will be held via Zoom, at this link.

Participants’ feedback will be guided by a survey at this link. The college encourages people to come to the listening session, but in addition to or instead of going to the session, people can submit feedback or nominations for candidate via the survey.

“Please share this information widely and encourage anyone who fits the descriptions to apply,” said Glen Krutz, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, adding, “As we move to the next stages of the process, I will report back to you on our progress.”

The College of Arts and Sciences has posted job announcements for its deans of division for arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

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