Message from the Director
Message from the Director
Fall 2022
Arriving at Texas A&M in 2003 as an assistant professor in the Department of History, I benefited enormously from the Glasscock Center both as a generous source of grants and, more important, as an intellectual home. I believe that my exposure to the multitude of disciplines and the free exchange of ideas, for which the Center is well known, prepared me for the over ten years I spent teaching, researching, and leading at our campus in Qatar. Having returned recently to College Station and being asked to lead the Glasscock Center, I feel that I have been given the opportunity to repay some of that debt by helping it to succeed in its mission to foster and celebrate the humanities and humanities research among the community of scholars at Texas A&M University and the world beyond the academy.
We have begun what promises to be a momentous semester at the Glasscock Center, not least due to the historic structural changes across the university. The College of Liberal Arts, the administrative unit in which the Glasscock Center has existed since its foundation in 2002, has ceased to exist. Many of the College’s departments, including the vast majority of humanities faculty and students, have combined with elements of the former College of Science and College of Geosciences to form the new College of Arts and Sciences. While change is rarely easy, it most assuredly presents opportunities. The College’s leadership is deeply committed to the Glasscock Center and its continued success, evidenced by the fact that it is one of only two centers that report directly to the College’s dean (out of well over a dozen centers and institutes across the new College).
Despite the upheavals of both this year and the preceding years, the Glasscock Center is continuing to thrive—in no small part due to the leadership of its former director, Emily Brady, and the dedication of its outstanding staff. The Glasscock Center’s most recent annual report highlights a bountiful year of scholarship, events, and activities as the university bounced back from COVID-19. This semester, we welcomed two new Glasscock Internal Faculty Fellows: Evan Haefeli from the Department of History and Christopher Menzel from the Department of Philosophy. Along with a host of graduate students, faculty members, and ACES Fellows affiliated with the Glasscock Center, they will be presenting their work in our Colloquium Series. The Center’s Humanities: Land Sea Space initiative continues to thrive under the leadership of Ana (AJ) Baginski, the Glasscock Center’s Postdoctoral Research Associate, who joined us over the summer. Shortly, the Center will announce the winner of the Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship—a major award in the academy that predates the Center itself.
Thanks to the generosity and vision of Melbern and Susanne Glasscock, we are serving a wider community of humanities scholars and students than ever—spread across no fewer than five colleges and schools under the university’s new structure. Our Advisory Board reflects this commitment, as do our grants and programs and constantly updating calendar of events. We hope to see you at one of them.
Troy Bickham
Interim Director
Professor of History