Message from the Director
Message from the Director
Spring 2023
This academic year is proving to be another busy one for the Glasscock Center.
As part of the new College of Arts & Sciences, we have joined with many of the other legacy units of the former colleges of Geosciences, Liberal Arts, and Science to contribute to this important pivot at Texas A&M. Yet, because the humanities have been central to the concept of universities since their inception, the Glasscock Center has long served faculty and students beyond our home college. As such, our faculty advisory board includes members from five of Texas A&M’s colleges and schools, and participation in our programs is even broader.
This month we welcomed our new Associate Director, Dr. Jessica Herzogenrath, who will lead our Public Humanities Initiative as well as our undergraduate research programs. Our inaugural Glasscock Graduate Residential Fellows, Janet Cho and Victoria Green, have also joined us. They will spend the spring semester in residence in the Glasscock Center writing their dissertations and contributing to its intellectual life. We will also welcome our first Short-Term Visiting Fellows—a program which enables Texas A&M faculty to nominate a leading scholar to spend a week in residence in the Center, engaging with faculty and students.
As always, the Glasscock Center remains a hive of activity, supporting and hosting small conferences, colloquium series, workshops, guest speakers, and our more than twenty working groups exploring a range of multidisciplinary scholarly concerns. Please check our calendar and twitter feed regularly for upcoming events at the Glasscock Center as well as grant and program funding opportunities.
In particular, I would like to highlight the public lecture being given on February 28th at the MSC by Professor Nadia Y. Kim, whose book Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in LA (Stanford University Press, 2022) won the 23rd Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize. We are excited to welcome Professor Kim to Texas A&M to receive this unique and prestigious award in the humanities.
Thanks to the generosity of Melbern G. Glasscock ’59 and Susanne M. Glasscock and the enthusiasm of the Texas A&M community, the humanities at Texas A&M continue to thrive! I hope to see you at one of our events.
Troy Bickham
Interim Director
Professor of History
Past messages
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
Spring 2022
The Glasscock Center has been hosting and supporting a range of research activities this semester, and I’d like to update everyone on our news and upcoming events.
Earlier this month, we held the Twenty-Second Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship event. Dr. Nicole Fleetwood delivered a public lecture about her winning book, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration and participated in a community event hosted by the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute. Dr. Fleetwood is a MacArthur Fellow and the James Weldon Johnson Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. We were honored to celebrate this deeply important book and to play a role in showcasing the impact of Dr. Fleetwood’s research.
Joined by the College of Liberal Arts, we recently co-hosted an NEH Regional Grant-Writing Workshop webinar, presented by Dr. Judith Adkins, NEH Senior Program Officer. On our Media webpage, you can find the webinar recording and presentation slides which provide information and tips for writing competitive NEH grant applications.
Every Tuesday afternoon, Glasscock faculty residential fellows, faculty fellows, affiliated ACES fellows, and graduate fellows meet in our colloquium series to present and discuss their research and work-in-progress. Please join us to learn about their work! Glasscock Working Groups have been busy hosting speakers and holding other interdisciplinary research activities this semester. An upcoming event is the Latinx Studies Working Group’s Second Annual Latinx Scholarship & Creativity Symposium which will take place across the month of April. Check out our web calendar for other exciting events!
Our Global Health Humanities and Humanities: Land Sea Space initiatives are collaborating to hold the “Planetary Health and the Humanities” conference on March 31 & April 1 at the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center. This is among the first international conferences to bring humanistic perspectives to bear on “planetary health,” a new concept and cross-disciplinary field emerging from growing concerns over the direct impacts of environmental degradation and decline on the interdependent health of humans and ecology. Our keynote speaker is Dr. Nancy Tuana, DuPont/Class of 1949 Professor of Philosophy and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Founding Director of the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State University. Panel topics at the conference include: Indigenous & Decolonial Approaches to Planetary Health; Pandemics, Ecology, & Wellbeing; and Climate Change & Planetary Health.
We’re delighted to have recently welcomed Leigh Goyco, our new Program Assistant, who is assisting our Program Coordinator, Amanda Dusek. In June, Dr. Ana Baginski is joining the team as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Dr. Baginski’s research and teaching interests focus on contemporary literature and environment of the U.S.-Mexico border. Through these two appointments, we’ve been able to build support that is more sustainable for the Glasscock Center and its programs.
We’re so grateful for the generosity of Melbern and Susanne Glasscock and the commitment of Texas A&M faculty, students, and staff, which enable the Center to continue its work in supporting the university community in creative, flexible, and safe ways during the ongoing pandemic. I, and the Glasscock team, send along our very best wishes for a safe and rewarding rest of the semester.
Emily Brady
Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock Director and Chair
Professor of Philosophy
Dr. Nicole Fleetwood, winner of the Twenty-Second Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship.
Fall 2021
The Fall semester is underway, and at the Glasscock Center we have been continuing the vital work of supporting faculty and student humanities research through our grant opportunities, weekly colloquia series for our Glasscock Fellows, Undergraduate Summer Scholars program, working groups, and Global Health Humanities and Humanities: Land Sea Space initiatives.
During the summer, we welcomed Glasscock’s first group of Summer Research Fellows. These new fellowships were introduced to support faculty and graduate research from within the Texas A&M community as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impede research activities. Each fellowship is entitled to a faculty member to fund a graduate student research position during the three summer months. We plan to continue this grant program for next summer, too. Check our website for details about upcoming presentations from our summer fellows about their projects.
Our Undergraduate Summer Scholars presentations took place on August 31, under the overall theme of “Gender, Power Structures, and Social Change.” This fantastic set of student research projects are led by three faculty directors in the departments of International Studies, Philosophy, and Sociology.
In September, we were delighted to announce the winner of the Twenty-Second Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Nicole R. Fleetwood, for her book Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Harvard University Press, 2020). Dr. Fleetwood is a writer, curator, and the inaugural James Weldon Johnson Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. We are very much looking forward to Dr. Fleetwood’s virtual visit to Texas A&M in early March 2022 to receive the prize, deliver the prize lecture, and discuss Marking Time with the campus and wider community.
The first Buttrill event of the year, organized by our Buttrill Ethics grant recipient, Dr. Carlee Purdum, took place in hybrid format in Rudder and Rudder Plaza. “Can’t Beat the Heat: Extreme Temperatures and the Lack of Air-Conditioning in Texas Prisons,” featured a panel discussion with Dr. Purdum (Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center), Dr. Amite Dominic (Texas Prisons Community Advocates), and Zulema Alvarez (Breaking Chains & Staying Connected), and a mock cell and poster exhibit. The Carrol O. Buttrill ’38 Endowed Fund for Ethics promotes on-going investigations into ethical questions of significance to the Texas A&M community.
Through our two initiatives, which promote new directions of research in the humanities, we have a series of events planned for the fall and a conference to follow in the spring. Humanities: Land Sea Space is hosting a series on Plants, People, and the Humanities, with the first event in TAMU’s Teaching Gardens on October 21, and the second event, a webinar, on November 5. This series will be accompanied by a virtual discussion group focused on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s books, Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss. Global Health Humanities will be hosting a Brown Bag Lunch series, with invited speakers on the question, “How has the pandemic affected how you think about your humanities research?” Check our website as more details become available. The spring conference, which is scheduled to take place on April 1, 2022, will feature work at the intersection of the health and environmental humanities to address the topic of “Planetary Health and the Humanities.”
Thanks to the generosity of Melbern and Susanne Glasscock and the commitment of Texas A&M faculty, students, and staff, we continue our work in supporting the university community in flexible and safe ways during the ongoing pandemic. All of us at the Glasscock Center send our best wishes for a safe and rewarding semester.
Emily Brady
Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock Director and Chair
Professor of Philosophy
Spring 2021
On behalf of the Glasscock Center team, I would like to send along our concern and well wishes to all affected by the awful winter storm in Texas last week and subsequent power outages and water problems. We hope that everyone is staying safe.
These tumultuous times bring to the fore the importance of shared humanity across communities and more widely across societies and cultures. Our major upcoming events speak to this virtue of interconnectedness in the context of current events. On March 1, a half-day webinar symposium, “The Long-Term Impacts of Pandemics: Ongoing Disruptions to Society, Families, and the Economy,” will focus on various disruptions to individuals, society, and economies during and after epidemics. Panels will incorporate the perspectives of those with first-hand experience of epidemics, as well as humanities scholars and healthcare practitioners. We are collaborating with the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service to present this event.
On March 3, we are delighted to welcome the winner of the 21st Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Professor Susan Neiman, for a short webinar presentation and Q&A about Learning From the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil. In her deeply topical and engaging book, Professor Neiman draws upon philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans to explore how they are grappling with the evils of their own national histories.
This month, we are holding our annual (virtual) Glasscock Humanities Festival, which draws together a set of our key events. The festival kicked off with the opening of our virtual exhibition of the awarded COVID-19 Micro-grant projects: arts and humanities-based works engaging lived experiences of the pandemic. We encourage you to view these amazing projects. We have also been enjoying discussions at our weekly Glasscock Fellows’ colloquia, which continue on Zoom throughout the semester. Please join us for these events, as well as our upcoming book chats! Finally, we are excited to launch a new part of our website which provides information, news, and events relating to our developing Public Humanities initiative.
Thanks to the generosity of Melbern and Susanne Glasscock and the commitment of Texas A&M faculty, students, and staff, we continue our work in supporting the university community in flexible, creative, and safe ways during the ongoing pandemic. All of us at the Glasscock Center send our best wishes for a smooth and rewarding semester.
Emily Brady
Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock Director and Chair
Professor of Philosophy
Fall 2020
As we begin this new semester, I hope that this message finds you all well. During these difficult times, the work of humanities centers is more important than ever. Humanistic perspectives embody the openness, imagination, critical thought, and generosity which good and just citizenship requires. The generous commitment of our faculty, students, and staff enables the Glasscock Center to fulfill our vital mission of promoting and fostering humanities research at Texas A&M and beyond. In 2020-2021, we continue our work of supporting the university community in flexible, creative, and safe ways.
We have an exciting calendar of virtual events planned for the semester, including our weekly faculty fellows’ colloquia and graduate fellows’ colloquia, Undergraduate Summer Scholars presentations, and events presented by our two initiatives. Global Health Humanities will be focusing on “Frontline worker’s stories during Covid-19.” Speakers will address such topics as training challenges in the health professions, emotional and physical burnout, and priorities in patient care during a time of crisis. The series will explore the role of sharing and listening to stories in understanding these issues. Humanities: Land Sea Space, in partnership with Texas A&M’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, will present events on the theme of “Coastal Communities and Justice,” concerning environmental justice, energy, community, and forms of resilience in coastal areas in Texas and beyond. The series begins with a screening of the award-winning film, Seadrift, and Q&A with the director, Tim Tsai. This year, Humanities: Land Sea Space is delighted to be partnering with Rice University’s Center for Environmental Studies. Check our website for details about their series of virtual talks on sustainable design, Green New Deals, and ecologies of the global south. We also continue our Glasscock Book Chats series and will be featuring Chaitanya Lakkimsetti’s book, Legalizing Sex: Sexual Minorities, AIDS and Citizenship in India, with a response by Vanita Reddy to kick off our discussion.
Although we will miss the opportunity for in-person conversation and exchange of ideas this autumn, please do join us for our virtual events. We encourage you to explore our website for new information and updates about our activities, grants, and programs.
All of us at the Glasscock Center wish you a safe and rewarding semester.
Emily Brady
Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock Director and Chair
Professor of Philosophy
April 2020
The Glasscock Center team extends their concern and support to everyone affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope that you are well and safe.
In these extraordinary times, I have been struck by the tremendous response of the arts and humanities in providing much needed cultural support. Museums are offering virtual exhibitions, theatrical productions are streaming online and via social media, film festivals have become virtual, and the arts are striving to be more accessible in myriad ways. Teaching online is currently the norm, and libraries are making their collections more widely available to serve a range of needs. Humanities scholars, and many others from various disciplines, are responding imaginatively and critically to the unprecedented ways in which the pandemic has changed daily lives across the planet.
The Glasscock Center is developing ways to contribute, too. We continue our important mission of awarding grants and supporting faculty and student research, with necessary adjustments through digital and other means. Our colloquia series has been continuing online. The Global Health Humanities and Humanities: Land Sea Space initiatives have been active: check out the blog Health Humanities during COVID-19 and the upcoming discussion group on “Covid-19 and the Environment.” We are excited to announce a new, responsive grant, “Micro-Grants in the Arts and Humanities,” which is intended to encourage the documentation and creative interpretation of people’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. We encourage and welcome your participation in all of these activities!
The Glasscock Center will continue to work productively to find ways to be flexible, creative, and safe in line with our mission and these changing times.
Take care and best wishes,
Emily Brady
Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock Director and Chair
Professor of Philosophy
Spring 2020
Our semester is well underway here at the Glasscock Center, with activities ranging from our weekly faculty and graduate colloquia, working group activities, and book chats, to our own major events and those which we support and co-sponsor through a range of grants.
We have been busy organizing the celebration of our 20th Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship, which has been awarded to Louis Hyman (Cornell). His book, Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary, is the untold history of the surprising origins of the “gig economy.” The book was named a “Triumph” of 2018 by The New York Times book critics, is the winner of the William G. Bowen Prize, and has been shortlisted for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award. The New York Times writes that Temp is “Illuminating and often surprising…a book that encourages us to imagine a future that is inclusive and humane rather than sentimentalize a past that never truly was.” Please join us for a community event at 6:30pm on Wednesday, March 4th in the George Bush Presidential Library, and the award presentation and lecture at 4pm on Thursday, March 5th in our own Glasscock Library (Room 311).
Our two initiatives, Global Health Humanities (GHH) and Humanities: Land Sea Space (HLSS), which reflect pressing global issues and novel cross-disciplinary research, have been gaining strong momentum through various research activities and building new partnerships. Colonial Psychiatry and its Aftereffects will take place on April 1st and is co-sponsored with the History Department. This forum engages the practices and concepts associated with colonial psychiatry and their ongoing effects upon global health. Coastal Communities and Justice, a symposium to be held on April 23rd, will explore questions concerning environmental justice, community, and forms of resilience in coastal places in Texas and beyond. This event is co-sponsored with the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center at Texas A&M. We are very excited to be screening the documentary film, Seadrift (Tim Tsai, 2019) as part of the symposium. The film tells the story of tragic events which took place in the Seadrift, Texas fishing community in 1979 and their aftermath. Seadrift has been featured at numerous film festivals, including Slamdance, where it was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. As always, our Glasscock events are free and open to all!
The Glasscock Center recently welcomed two graduate research assistants to the team, Shannon Gonzenbach (English) and Victoria Green (Philosophy). They are assisting us with our two initiatives, as well as making progress on researching and developing new GCHR projects related to the public humanities. We’re delighted to have them on board!
We hope that you enjoy the rest of the semester, and we look forward to welcoming you to our colloquia and upcoming spring events! Check them out on our web calendar for more information.
Emily Brady
Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock Director and Chair
Professor of Philosophy