UMaine Humanities Initiative Offers Week of Events Highlighting Research and Community Collaboration

A week of lectures, panel discussions and tours highlighting humanities research and exploring its intersects with community partners will be held May 13–16 on campus and in downtown Bangor, coordinated by the University of Maine Humanities Initiative.

The week culminates with a Maine Humanities Summit May 17 in Augusta.

The events involve 37 participants, including UMaine faculty and staff, leaders of regional arts and cultural organizations, and area teachers and policymakers. The interdisciplinary sessions showcase UMaine arts and humanities research and explore ways of making this scholarship more visible and pertinent to community partners.

All events are free and open to the public. Registration is required for the Maine Humanities Summit.

More information is online or by contacting UMaine Humanities Initiative Director Justin Wolff, 207.581.3259.

A summary of the events:

On campus, May 13

Faculty and Staff Development Seminar, 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m., with introductory remarks by Dean Jeff Hecker and President Paul Ferguson at 9 a.m.; “Politics, Performance and Palimpsests: The Cartography of Social Space,” with Robert Glover, Michael Grillo, Sarah Harlan-Haughey and James Warhola at 9:30 a.m., all in Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall; lunch at the Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center, followed at 2 p.m. by “Online Teaching” with Justin Hafford, Richard Powell and Owen Smith, moderated by Jeff St. John.

On campus, May 14

Faculty and Staff Development Seminar, 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m., featuring “Humanities Approaches to Nonviolence,” with Doug Allen, Hugh Curran and Tina Passman at 9 a.m.; “Teaching Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries” featuring Katherine O’Flaherty, Stefano Tijerina and Jennie Woodard at 11 a.m.; and “Wasahpskekmenehan (Marsh Island): A Wabanaki Sense of Place” with Gretchen Faulkner, John Bear Mitchell and Micah Pawling, moderated by Darren Ranco, Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall.

Downtown Bangor, May 15

“The Garden Artists: A Retrospective Look at Collective Women’s Art in Changing Times,” by Mimi Killinger, with a University of Maine Museum of Art tour led by director George Kinghorn, 10 a.m., May 15, UMaine Museum of Art, 40 Harlow St., Bangor.

Walking Tour of Downtown Bangor, led by Tom McCord and Ben Sprague, 11:15 a.m., May 15, starting at the Hannibal Hamlin statue on Kenduskeag Canal, downtown Bangor.

“Connecting Classrooms and Cultural Organizations: A Dialogue,” a panel moderated by Marcia Douglas and featuring Marcie Bramucci, Kal Elmore, Mimi Killinger, George Kinghorn and Bari Newport, 1:30 p.m., May 15, Penobscot Theatre, 131 Main St., Bangor.

“Humanities and the Book,” featuring presentations by Barbara McDade — “The Bangor Book Festival”; Elizabeth Neiman — “The Minerva Press and Romantic-era Redefinitions of Literature”; and Rachel Snell — “Nineteenth-century Cookbooks and Public Domesticity,” 3:15 p.m., May 15, Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow St., Bangor.

Collaborate and Celebrate: The University of Maine Humanities Initiative, featuring live music by Larry LeBlanc & Mike Conant, and Raw Chicken, a fine art exhibit curated by participants in the UMaine Museum of Art’s Young Curators program, and other activities to usher in Penobscot Theatre’s production of “Around the World in Eighty Days,” 5 p.m., May 15, Maine Discovery Museum, 74 Main St., Bangor, sponsored by the University of Maine Humanities Initiative, Maine Discovery Museum and the Downtown Bangor Arts Collaborative.

On campus, May 16

Faculty and Staff Development Seminar, 8:30 a.m.–noon., featuring “The Downeast Fisheries Trail,” with Kathleen Ellis. Catherine Schmitt and Natalie Springuel at 9 a.m.; “Interdisciplinary Community Engagement,” with Melissa Ladenheim, Linda Silka and Claire Sullivan, 10:45 a.m., Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall.

Augusta, May 17

Maine Humanities Summit, featuring panel discussions on humanities-related topics, including museums, libraries and public policy, with remarks by Hayden Anderson, director of the Maine Humanities Council, and Julie Richard, director of the Maine Arts Commission, and a lunchtime address by award-winning journalist Colin Woodard, speaking on “Liberal Arts in the Real World: An Author-Historian-Journalist’s Argument for the Importance of the Humanities,” 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., May 17, Governor Hill Mansion, Augusta. Registration required: email amy.cross@umit.maine.edu.