Visit our Digital Humanities page to find out about their upcoming talks and events.
Spring 2025 Events
| Academic Talks and Speakers |
Rita Felski Lecture, "On Resonance and the Love of Literature" |
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Location: Kendall Room, South Caroliniana Library Rita Felski is John Stewart Bryan Professor at The University of Virginia. Felski's research centers aesthetics, interpretation, and method/methodology, particularly in context of literary criticism, cultural studies, and comparative literature. Felski recently published Hooked: Art and Attachment (The University of Chicago Press, 2020). Felski’s talk explores the idea of resonance. How does resonance provide a fresh slant on the “love of literature,” while also clarifying how critical theory can animate, and captivate? This talk draws out affinities between the ideas of German social theorist Hartmut Rosa and two academic novels (Stoner by John Williams and Theory by Dionne Brand) that capture moments when words reverberate and come alive, that portray the transformative aspects of intellectual life as well as the alienating aspects of academic institutions. |
Book Discussion with Rita Felski |
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Date and Time: January 30 at 12:30-2 pm Location: All Good Books Rita Felski will lead a follow-up discussion surrounding the topics of the seminar and her work at All Good Books. The public, faculty, and students are invited to ask questions and participate in discussion. If you would like to join, please RSVP to Holly Crocker by Friday, January 24th. Lunch will be provided, and Professor Felski will discuss different aspects of her resounding work. She has shared a chapter from her upcoming book on the new Frankfurt School (chapter provided upon RSVP). |
Faculty Spotlight: Tanya Wideman-Davis & Thaddeus Davis |
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Date and Time: February 6 at 3:45 pm Location: Petigru 217 Join us in celebrating award-winning research at the University of South Carolina. Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis are associate professors in the Department of Theatre and Dance. They are joined by collaborators Michael Malique McManus and Petra Everson. Their company Wideman Davis Dance specializes in dance performances that tell the layered stories of Black spaces and history. Wideman-Davis and Davis were awarded a grant from the Mellon Foundation in 2022 to expand Migratuse Ataraxia, a dance-based initiative that engages live audiences in intimate antebellum stories. |
Esra Mirze Santesso Lecture, "Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing"
(Comics Studies) |
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Location: Gambrell 429 Esra Mirze Santesso is Professor of English at the University of Georgia. She is the author of Disorientation: Muslim Identity in Contemporary Anglophone Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She teaches courses on postcolonial theory, human rights
narratives, and immigrant literature. Santesso will discuss her book Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing (The Ohio State University Press, 2023). Her talk analyzes comics from the Middle East to push back against stereotypical representations of Muslims based on racial and moral cliches. |
Health and Justice Series, "Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We cand Do about It"(Carceral Studies) |
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Date and Time: February 20 at 6-8 pm Location: Karen J. Williams Courtroom, USC School of Law Roger Mitchell Jr., M.D, Jay Aronson, Ph.D., and Madalyn Wasilczuk, J.D., will discuss the public health crisis caused by the high number of deaths within the U.S. prison system. Mitchell and Aronson are authors of Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do about It (John Hopkins University Press, 2023). Moderated by Madalyn Wasilczuk, these speakers will educate about this urgent issue and explore ways individuals can take action. Register here. |
Reem Hilu Lecture, "The Intimate Life of Computers: Digitizing Domesticity in the 1980s" |
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Location: Close-Hipp 401 Reem Hilu is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Hilu's research involves digital media and the relationship between gender, domesticity, and technological change. Hilu will discuss her latest book The Intimate Life of Computers: Digitizing Domesticity in the 1980s (University of Minnesota Press, 2024). |
Jedediah Purdy Lecture, "Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law"(Mellon Seminar) |
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Location: Karen J. Williams Courtroom, Rice School of Law Jedediah Purdy is Raphael Lemkin Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law. A prolific scholar, Purdy teaches and writes about environmental, property, and constitutional law as well as legal and political theory. Purdy is the author of Two Cheers for Politics: Why Democracy Is Scary, Flawed, and Our Best Hope (Basic Books, 2022) and This Land is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth (Princeton University Press, 2019). Purdy’s talk argues that our heated political culture is a symptom not of too much democracy but too little. Today, the decisions that most affect our lives and our communities are often made outside the political realm entirely, as market ideology, constitutional law, and cultural norms effectively remove broad swaths of collective life from the table of collective decision. The result is a weakened and ineffective political system and an increasingly unequal and polarized society. Purdy explores how we might begin to heal our fractured and contentious relationship with the land and with each other. |
Book Discussion with Jedediah Purdy |
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Date and Time: March 4 at 12:30-2 pm Location: All Good Books Jedediah Purdy will lead a follow-up discussion surrounding the topics of the seminar and his work at All Good Books. The public, faculty, and students are invited to ask questions and participate in discussion. |
Ramadan Night Market(The Muslim South) |
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Location: Columbia Museum of Art Join the CMA, The Muslim South, and Columbia Muslim Association on Boyd Plaza for Columbia’s first-ever Ramadan Night Market! Enjoy a night of community and commerce — shop with handicraft and clothing vendors, grab a post-sunset dinner from local food trucks, and participate in free activities including paper lantern making, date stuffing, henna, and personalized calligraphy from local artists. Throughout the evening Muslims in observance of Ramadan will have space dedicated to prayer. Qur’an recitation will take place after the evening prayer time. Come by for this welcoming market, meet members in and outside the Muslim community, and learn about one of the most important traditions of the Islamic faith. Free. Click here for more information. |
Arts-Based Research Online Series(Arts-Based Research) |
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Date and Time: February 24 - April 21 at 3:00 - 4:00 pm Location: Online. Register here. Dr. Rachael JacobsBollywood Dance and Hindi Language course: Intergenerational approaches to dementia prevention and additional-language development Date: February 24 This talk looks at the impacts of a community arts program that combined dance, drama and Hindi language classes to make learning dynamic, engaging and culturally located. Through arts-based research, Jacobs found that participants acquired new language quicker and had greater recall when dance movements were used. Older participants also felt more neurologically agile after engaging in the program. This session will discuss the arts-based methodologies used and participants will be able to experience some of the strategies that were found to be successful. Dr. Paul SuttonThe Wisdom of Crowds: C&T’s approaches to using big data to inform arts-based research Date: March 10 C&T are a UK arts organization combining drama, learning and digital technology. This presentation will explore how C&T are combining these disciplines to develop new tools for the evaluation of arts projects and impact measurement. The presentation will include a number of C&T projects and tools to illustrate their approach. Dr. Rita IrwinA/r/tography: Looking back to look forward Date: March 24 This presentation will provide a review of four themes that have dominated a/r/tographic literature while providing an example for each: relationality and renderings; ethics and embodiment; movement and materiality; and propositions and potentials. In so doing, this talk provides an introduction to individuals interested in a/r/tography as a potential practice while assisting those who are already using a/r/tography to contemplate new pursuits. Dr. Patricia LeavyThe Power, Possibility, and Promise of Arts-Based Research and Social Fiction Date: April 7 Dr. Patricia Leavy explains how she came to arts-based research (ABR), the limitations of traditional academic writing, the nature and strengths of ABR. She further reviews the practice of social fiction; a term she coined and practice she has helped legitimate around the world. This review will include brief discussion of the neuroscience of how we experience literature and the history of scholars adapting literary forms. She will discuss a few of her novels as examples. The presentation concludes with a review of the promise ABR and social fiction hold for the research community. Dr. Toby JenkinsUnleashing Hip-Hop Energy: Poetry, Performance, & Knowledge of Self Date: April 21 Creative performances and co-construction of knowledge between audience and artist, educator and student can help to disrupt conventions that pressure educators and students to constrict both learning and themselves. Centered in the power of hip-hop culture and spoken word poetry, this session will facilitate a dialogue on the viability of “knowledge of self,” creative expression, and performance poetry as tools of liberatory learning. |
Student Debate, "Trump Should End Universal Birthright Citizenship, Yes or No?"(Co-sponsored by the Mellon Foundation and Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough Center on Professionalism) |
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Date and Time: March 24 at 7pm Location: Karen J. Williams Courtroom, Rice School of Law This student-organized debate is run by the Lincoln-Douglas Society. It will feature students from U of SC Law on each side (along with guests from Heritage and the ACLU). Arguing "yes" will be Amy Swearer (Heritage) and Greenlee Rigby (2L). Arguing "no" will be Allen Chaney (ACLU) and Cameron Newton (2L). |
Derrick Spires Lecture, "Simple Justice: Reading the Nation through the Early Black Press"(Mellon Seminar) |
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Location: Kendall Room, South Caroliniana Library Derrick Spires is Associate Professor of Literatures in English and affiliate faculty in American Studies, Visual Studies, and Media Studies at Cornell University. He specializes in early African American and American print culture, citizenship studies, and African American intellectual history. Spires’ lecture draws on The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) to discuss how early African American intellectuals and organizers used newspapers and the Colored Conventions Movement to develop sophisticated analyses of democracy and citizenship in the United States. These writers returned to founding documents—the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention—to create a vision of political community with “simple justice” as its founding ideal. |
Book Discussion with Derrick Spires |
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Date and Time: March 28 at 12:30-2 pm Location: All Good Books Derrick Spires will lead a follow-up discussion surrounding the topics of the seminar and his work at All Good Books. The public, faculty, and students are invited to ask questions and participate in discussion. |
Jay Clayton Lecture, "Clones, Zombies, and Serial Killers: Cultural Studies and Genomics" |
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Date and Time: April 2 at 11 am Location: Gambrell 429 Jay Clayton is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science. He is author of Literature, Science, and Public Policy: From Darwin to Genomics (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Charles Dickens In Cyberspace: The Afterlife of the Nineteenth Century in Postmodern Culture (Oxford University Press, 2023). Clayton's transdisciplinary research of genetics in literature, film and popular culture
unites science and the humanities. Clayton is part of GetPreCiSe: The Center for Genetic Privacy and Identity in Community Settings. This NIH-funded working group is dedicated to articulating best practices for genetic privacy
in the age of big data. Clayton will discuss how to successfully attain grants for transdisciplinary research. He will also present a paper that centers genetics and literature in contemporary sci-fi. Lunch provided. |
James, by Percival Everett(Co-sponsored by the Department of English) |
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Date and Time: April 4 at 6-7 pm Location: Johnson Performance Hall, Darla Moore School of Business
Everett will speak about James. An action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the novel was an instant New York Times bestseller, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was named a best book of the year in myriad publications. As the Chicago Tribune declared, James is “A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own.” Percival Everett grew up in Columbia, SC and is a graduate of A.C. Flora High School.
He has |
Robert Gross Lecture, "The Minutemen and their World"(Mellon Seminar) |
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Date and Time: April 8 at 5:30 pm Location: Petigru 108 Robert Gross, Draper Professor of American History, University of Connecticut (Emeritus), specializes in the social and cultural history of the U.S., from the colonial era through the nineteenth century. He is the author of the bestselling, The Minutemen and their World (Hill & Wang, 1976), the leading book on the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the first battle of the American War of Independence. He will discuss that battle and its origins in the everyday lives of Concord citizens on April 8, 2025 – 11 days before the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. |
Faculty Book Launch: Seulghee Lee, Leah McClimans, and Jabari Evans
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Date and Time: April 11 at 6 pm Location: All Good Books Join us in celebrating recent publications by University of South Carolina faculty, Seulghee Lee, Leah McClimans, and Jabari Evans. Seulghee Lee is the author of Other Lovings: An AfroAsian Theory of Life (The |
Date and Time: January 31 at 2 pm
Date and Time: February 13 at 5 pm
Date and Time: February 21 at 3 pm
Date and Time: March 3 at 5:30-7 pm
Date and Time: March 6 at 5-8 pm
Date and Time: March 27 at 3-4:30 pm
The 2025 edition of The Open Book will conclude with a special appearance by 
published two dozen novels in addition to poetry and other writings. Among his many
honors are an NEA fellowship and a Guggenheim fellowship, and in 2021 he received
the Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle.
Ohio State University Press, 2025). Leah McClimans is the author of Patient-Centered Measurement: Ethics, Epistemology, and Dialogue in Contemporary Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2024). Jabari Evans is the author of Drill Rap, Sex Work, and the Digital Underground: (Clout)Chasing on Chicago’s Southside (Rowman and Littlefield, 2024).
Browse our archive of past lectures and events.