Looking Forward: Reimagining Lives and Societies after Crisis

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew.  This one is no different.  It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
--Arundhati Roy

In 2021-22, “In These Times: A Humanities Program for Today” is exploring not only the individual and social consequences of COVID-19 but also the new visions of human existence inspired by other departures from the “normal,” such as war, revolution, and economic change.  As discussion leaders, University of Rochester faculty members draw on historical documents, visual arts, social science, and literary texts to examine the challenges and opportunities that crisis has created, past and present. 

The program is held on zoom to enable people to join from wherever they live. In spring, 2022, the program consists of seven once-a-week sessions held on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8:30 pm EST/EDT.

The spring segment continues the fall series, which ended at World War I, by considering topics that range from the 1930s to today—and beyond.  It is not necessary, however, to have attended the earlier sessions to register for the spring discussions, and participants may choose to join individual sessions as well as the entire program.

Alumni, faculty, staff, students, and friends of the University are all welcome to join.  Brief readings to enrich discussions will be circulated so that participants may think about them in advance of session meetings.

February 16 – April 13
7 - 8:30 p.m. (ET)

Seven sessions - select as many as interest you.
Participants are not required to attend all sessions.
Session selections with topics and discussion leaders are listed below.

Sessions will take place through a Zoom meeting platform. Brief readings to enrich discussions and the Zoom link will be included in your registration confirmation email.

Pre-registration is required. You can register by clicking the "Register Here" button above.
Participation is limited to the first 80 registrants. If a session is at capacity, and you would like to be added to the waiting list, please use the contact information at the bottom of the page and be sure to include which session(s) you are interested in.

Schedule of Sessions:

Wednesday, February 16
Cinematic Responses to the Great Depression
James Rosenow
Department of English

Wednesday, February 23
World War II and the American Moral Imagination
Robert Westbrook
Department of History, Emeritus

March 2
Are Our Lives Absurd?  Perspectives from 20th Century Philosophy
Earl Conee
Department of Philosophy

March 9 - No session (UR spring break)

Wednesday, March 16
How to Change the World: Making Music in the Long 1960s
John Kapusta
Department of Musicology, Eastman School of Music

Wednesday, March 23 - No Session
Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture
Department of Anthropology 

Wednesday, March 30
AIDS as a Social and Cultural Crisis
Laura Stamm
Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Dentistry

Wednesday, April 6
Self-evident Truths: Rights, Robots, and Japan
William Bridges
Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

Wednesday, April 13
The Spiritual Crisis of China's Middle Class
John Osburg
Department of Anthropology

Faculty bios:

William Bridges, Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, received a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from Princeton in 2012. He is the author of 
Playing in the Shadows: Fictions of Race and Blackness in Postwar Japanese Literature (University of Michigan Press, 2020). He describes his “intellectual home” as located at the intersection of modern Japanese literature, African American literature, and comparative literature.” Currently he is working on two book projects: The Futurist Turn: Reimagining the Unwelfare State in Intertemporal Japan, which reads works of contemporary Japanese literature, art, anime, and culture in both their historical and futuristic contexts; and The Black Pacific: A Poetic History, which considers the development of modern Japanese literature not as the body of fiction produced by an island nation, but as a body of fiction developed on a central port in a transpacific dialogue on racial existence.  

Earl Conee is Professor of Philosophy, with special interest in ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. He has a distinguished record of publications on evidentialism, and teaches a popular undergraduate course titled “The Meaning of Life.”

John Kapusta is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. He studies musical life in the twentieth-century United States and is currently writing a book about music and social reform in the postwar period. Before completing his Ph. D. (U.C. Berkeley), he studied voice and opera at the New England Conservatory and performed solo roles with the Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, and other companies.  

John Osburg is Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of Rochester. Since the early 2000s, he has conducted several years of ethnographic field research in China and is the author of Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality Among China’s New Rich, which examines the impact of China’s market reforms on the local moral worlds and social networks of entrepreneurs and government officials in the southwest city of Chengdu. He has published several articles on topics including corruption and anti-corruption under Xi, changing norms of gender and sexuality in post-Mao China, and the tensions inherent in China’s state capitalist system. He is currently working on a book examining new forms of religion and spirituality among China’s urban middle class. 

James Rosenow is Assistant Professor of English.  She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Laura Stamm recently joined the faculty in the Department of Medicine at the School of Medicine and Dentistry as Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  In that role, she leads and facilitates initiatives aimed at promoting health equity and diversity in the Department of Medicine. Prior to joining URMC, she taught at University of Pittsburgh and University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. She completed her doctorate in Film and Media Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies in 2018 at the University of Pittsburgh and is the author of The Queer Biopic in the AIDS Era (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Robert Westbrook retired from the Department of History at the University of Rochester in December 2020, and is Joseph F. Cunningham Professor Emeritus. The American experience of World War II is a subject about which he has long written and taught. His books include Why We Fought: Forging American Obligations in World War II (2004).

Facilitator:

Joan Shelley Rubin is the Dexter Perkins Professor in the Department of History and the Ani and Mark Gabrellian Director of the Humanities Center at UR.  A Guggenheim Fellow, she is an American historian specializing in the popularization of the humanities;  the history of reading practices; and the intersection of classical music and print culture in the twentieth century United States.   She is delighted to welcome participants to “In These Times:  A Humanities Program for Today.”

The University of Rochester is committed to providing inclusive experiences and equal access to programs and services. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Humanities Center using the information below. In all situations, a good faith effort (up until 24 hours before the event) will be made to provide accommodations.