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“Where are your people?”: Cai Emmons in conversation with Madeleine Barnes on Weather Woman
Friday, November 30, 2018
Weather Woman by Cai Emmons is a Climate Fiction novel about the life of Browyn Artair, a graduate student turned meteorologist who discovers she possesses the unique ability to control the weather. Feeling isolated and unsure of how to use her newfound power, she voyages around the world to Siberia where climatologists are studying methane…![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WWHighRes-1-663x1024.jpg)
“Our shelf is a table with shared stuff”: From VHS to Analog Archives
Friday, August 16, 2019
Alexandra Juhasz The VHS Archives working group closed out its second year with an End of the Year Party, Workshop, and Demo. While “party” had been serving as a metaphor during our 2018-2019 meetings to express our commitments to creating opportunities for enjoying and using archives together, this time we were not…![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Alex-image-3-1-1024x768.jpeg)
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The Urban Politics of Climate Change: a conversation with Naomi Schiller
Monday, August 7, 2023
The vanguard of the climate struggle is not solely in areas we designate as “rural,” “remote” or “natural.” In fact, the popular assumption that it is—the myth of wilderness—might be part of our problem. The historian William Cronon argued this in his great essay, “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,”…
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Exploring the Liminal Space of Inter-Rituals by Three Chinese Female Artists
Thursday, May 25, 2023
On the 30th of March, the exhibition, “Inter-Rituals: Between Materiality and Performances” took place at the Caelum Gallery in Chelsea. Curated by Jin Wang, Ph.D. student in Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center, the exhibition featured works by three Chinese female artists working in the US, Kun Hong, Yin Zhang, and…
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On The Letters of Rosemary and Bernadette Mayer, 1976–1980: An Interview with Gillian Sneed and Marie Warsh
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
It’s astonishing to me that there is so much in Memory, yet so much is left out: emotions, thoughts, sex, the relationship between poetry and light, storytelling, walking, and voyaging to name a few. I thought by using both sound and image, I could include everything, but so far, that is not so. —Bernadette…
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Speculating the Environment: An Interview with Claire Donato and Audrey Lindsey
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
The breadth and depth of our environmental crises encourages us to think beyond the bounds of traditional academic disciplines. To me, this is one of the most promising aspects of the environmental humanities as it’s currently taking shape. But, of course, for environment knowledge to transcend and blend disciplinary practices, it must also push…
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The Art and Poetry of Susan Weil’s Poemumbles
Friday, January 27, 2023
Vanessa S. Troiano, a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center, reflects upon working with American artist Susan Weil to document her nearly 40-year practice of synthesizing art and poetry into daily poemumbles. Supported by an archival grant from Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, Troiano’s research forms part…
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Towards collectively doing things differently: an interview with Celina Su
Thursday, January 5, 2023
Celina Su is the Marilyn J. Gittell Chair in Urban Studies—through which she anchors the Gittell Urban Studies Collective—and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York. This interview was conducted by Kendra Sullivan. Can you tell me a little about the Gittell Collective and your work with it?…
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Submerging Within the Environmental Humanities
Thursday, January 5, 2023
In this series of essays and interviews, Distributaries spotlights scholars, instructors, and students engaged with public-facing environmental humanities projects across the City University of New York. The aim is to explore that term—“environmental humanities”—by talking with some of the people who are shaping its meaning. For this initial essay, I reflect on my own…
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Storytelling as Healing Practice: A Retrospective on Kamau Ware at the Graduate Center, CUNY
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Helena Najm in Conversation with Nawal Muradwij, Dunni Oduyemi, and Alexandra Rego of Mindscapes On May 20, 2022, CUNY’s Center for Humanities welcomed Kamau Ware, a storyteller and founder of the Black Gotham Experience, for an event “For What? For Whom? An Evening of Collective Storytelling” at the CUNY Graduate Center. The event was…
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On Translation, Responsibility, Solidarity: Celina Su’s Route 1095
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Neither Celina Su nor I grew up speaking in English, yet English has become the language of most dimensions of our lives. It’s also the language of our friendship. In our ongoing conversation on the politics of language, we often reflect on the fluidity in navigating cultures and linguistic registers, and on what kind of…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Romani_2x1.png)
Everyone is No One: The ‘Public’ in ‘Public Humanities’
Friday, August 26, 2022
Over the past year, as Writer-in-Residence at Distributaries, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with several public humanities practitioners scattered across the CUNY campuses. I picked their brains about a range of topics: how they understand the term ‘public humanities,’ how they see their public humanities/public scholarship initiatives taking shape within and against…
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Conceptualizing a Healing Room: A Conversation between CUNY’s Mindscapes Team and the Brooklyn Museum’s Work-Study Staff
Monday, June 27, 2022
How can art help us heal from trauma? Artist Guadalupe Maravilla explores the relationship between art and healing in his exhibition, Tierra Blanca Joven,on display at the Brooklyn Museum from April 8 to September 18, 2022. The show explores themes of migration, illness, and healing, drawing from Maravilla’s own experience of displacement during El Salvador’s…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Maravilla-sculpture.png)
Wild Intelligence: An Interview with Lost & Found editor M. C. Kinniburgh about her new book on poets’ libraries
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
Lost & Found General Editor Ammiel Alcalay interviews Lost & Found Editor Mary Catherine Kinniburgh on the origins and journey from CUNY Graduate Center student and Lost & Found scholar to her present position as partner with Granary Books—and the book that she wrote along the way. Her new book Wild Intelligence: Poets’ Libraries and…
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The Archive to Come Is a Garden
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Archives in Common is a collaborative project radically situated in the space-time of the pandemic as it has been lived in the South Bronx. The project and website can be thought of as a living archive of mutual aid initiatives and other collaborative and creative efforts devised since April 2020 by the Saavedras, an…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Bruckner-Mott-Haven-Garden-photo.png)
No Research About Us, Without Us: Discussing the Public Science Project’s Community-Based Research Practice with Co-Founder Michelle Fine
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Via this series of interviews, Distributaries seeks to sketch out the contours of the public humanities ecosystem—the centers, institutes and initiatives undertaking the work of the public humanities—at the City University of New York. Apart from sharing the specific work these programs and centers do, we also wish to offer up their visions of…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/polling_new1.png)
The Value of Early and Diverse Public Engagement: An Interview with Linda Alcoff, Co-Director of the Mellon Public Humanities Program at Hunter College
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Via this series of interviews, Distributaries seeks to sketch out the contours of the public humanities ecosystem—the centers, institutes and initiatives undertaking the work of the public humanities—at the City University of New York. Apart from sharing the specific work these programs and centers do, we also wish to offer up their visions of…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/linda-alcoff.jpg)
Optimism, Even Amidst Austerity: An Interview with Anne Valk, Executive Director of the American Social History Project
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Via this series of interviews, Distributaries seeks to sketch out the contours of the public humanities ecosystem—the centers, institutes and initiatives undertaking the work of the public humanities—at the City University of New York. Apart from sharing the specific work these programs and centers do, we also wish to offer up their visions of…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/anne-valk-480x590-2.jpg)
The Public Humanities at Brooklyn College: A Conversation with Dr. Rosamond King, Director of the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Via this series of interviews, Distributaries seeks to sketch out the contours of the public humanities ecosystem—the centers, institutes and initiatives advancing undertaking the work of the public humanities—at the City University of New York. Apart from sharing the specific work these programs and centers do, we also wish to offer up their visions…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IreneEdited-7-smaller.jpeg)
Surveying Ukraine’s Musical Landscape: 2020 to 2022
Thursday, March 3, 2022
In anticipation of the 2022 Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival which takes place Friday, March 18th to Sunday March 20th, and is now in its third year, organizer and creative director Leah Batstone offers an update on Ukraine’s musical landscape since the inaugural Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in 2020. Since my blog post regarding research…
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Public Humanities at CUNY: An Interview with Dr. Stacy Hartman and Dr. Bianca Williams from the PublicsLab
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
By Queenie Sukhadia The central mission of the PublicsLab at the Graduate Center, CUNY, is to work toward transforming doctoral education to be more publicly engaged. The PublicsLab undertakes this work through various channels: by running an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation–funded program for doctoral students called the Mellon Humanities Public Fellowship program;…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Bianca-Stacy-and-Queenie.png)
Blue Humanities: Interview with Eric Dean Wilson
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
By Nga Than I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Dean Wilson, author of After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort, and Teaching Fellow in the Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research through the Center for Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Eric gave insight on…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/After_Cooling.jpeg)
Embracing Your Whole Self through Your Public Commitments: An Interview with Kendra Sullivan
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Via this series of interviews, Distributaries seeks to sketch out the contours of the public humanities ecosystem—the centers, institutes and initiatives undertaking the work of the public humanities—at the City University of New York. Apart from sharing the specific work these programs and centers do, we also wish to offer up their visions…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mare-Liberum_220216_193229-1-1024x683.jpeg)
Meet the Mindscapes 2022 Cohort
Monday, January 31, 2022
Mindscapes and the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY are pleased to announce the 2022 cohort of Graduate Research Assistants that will be working on public programming relating to Mindscapes, an international cultural program organized by the Wellcome Trust that aims to support a transformation in how we understand, address and talk…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Mindscapes-NYC-image-by-Ivyy-Chen_resize.png)
Public Engagement, Collaboration and Post-PhD Career Exploration: A Conversation with Katina Rogers
Monday, November 1, 2021
Via this series of interviews, Distributaries seeks to sketch out the contours of the public humanities ecosystem—the centers, institutes and initiatives undertaking the work of the public humanities—at the City University of New York. Apart from sharing the specific work these programs and centers do, we also wish to offer up their visions…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_6928-822x1024.jpg)
A CUNY Public Humanities Map
Thursday, June 10, 2021
Aurash Khawarzad The Public Humanities Map, created for the Center for the Humanities, is an attempt to frame the geographic scope and social connectivity of research projects being carried out by faculty in the Andrew W. Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research. Humanities programs at CUNY have been at the forefront of…
![](https://centerforthehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Pub-Hum-map-2.jpg)