Events

Fall 2021 Event Calendar coming soon. In the meantime, keep an eye on our web calendar!

Illuminating Humanities: Dr. Glen Miller Illuminating Humanities: Madelyn Kennedy Illuminating Humanities: Kate Girvin Illuminating Humanities: April Lee Hatfield Illuminating Humanities: Brian Linn

Illuminating Humanities: Dr. Glen Miller

Dr. Glen Miller, Instructional Professor, 2023-24 Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholar Director, Departments of Philosophy and History, Texas A&M

The Glasscock Center is excited to continue this series that highlights humanities research at Texas A&M, as well as the vital role played by the humanities beyond the academy. For this highlight, we invite Dr. Glen Miller (PHIL) to tell us about his experience as a faculty director for the Glasscock Center’s Undergraduate Summer Scholar (UGSS) program.

Dr. Glen Miller is an Instructional Professor in the Philosophy & Humanities Department and a Cybersecurity Center Fellow at Texas A&M University. His most recent book, a co-edited volume titled Thinking through Science and Technology: Philosophy, Religion, and Politics in an Engineered World (available here), critically examines the forces that shape the advancement of science, technology, and engineering, and explores how these changes impact the human condition. Dr. Miller is also spearheading his department’s development of an Ethics of Artificial Intelligence Course, supported by a grant from the National Humanities Center’s “Responsible Artificial Intelligence Curriculum Design Project.”

Dr. Miller’s Undergraduate Summer Scholar seminar, Ethics and Politics of Artificial Intelligence, critically examines the social, ethical, epistemological, and legal ramifications of various forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI). As faculty director, Dr. Miller provides mentorship to undergraduate students as they develop a proposal for submission to the LAUNCH Undergraduate Research Scholars thesis program. Dr. Miller encourages students to chart their own research trajectories, to use what he has taught them as a departure point, not the terminus, noting, “I am doing my job when my students’ research extends beyond what I know.”

The cover of Dr. Miller’s most recent book, a co-edited volume titled Thinking through Science and Technology: Philosophy, Religion, and Politics in an Engineered World

The program gave Dr. Miller the time and resources he needed to get to work individually with motivated students on a topic that matters to them. Typically he teaches a large course in engineering ethics and a 25 person course in ethics in the digital age. The seminar gave Dr. Miller an opportunity to discuss ideas and evaluate the materials he was planning to use in a new course he was developing on the ethics of artificial intelligence, which debuts in the fall semester of 2023. Dr. Miller fine-tuned his curriculum by identifying areas students that caused difficulties and learning about their interests and concerns. He says of the intensive seminar period, “It helps me teach better: I start to understand where students have problems when I’m able to work closely with students over an extended period of time.”

Dr. Miller emphasizes the importance of the UGSS program for both undergraduate students and faculty because it provides a unique opportunity to collaborate on research projects. “To ensure that our students are well-rounded, we need institutional support for efforts like these, which assist professors in receiving funding and recognition for the time they commit to projects such as this,” Dr. Miller says. “There aren’t many funding options available for undergraduate research.” However, the benefits of involving students in research do not only accrue to students. “[Students] are a joy to work with because they’re energetic, they’re curious, and they have new ways of thinking about the world,” explains Dr. Miller. Moreover, these project align with the mission of the university as well. “[T]eaching students how to do research is part of the future of what the university should be doing, and our undergraduates are ready to do the research.”

In Dr. Miller’s opinion, humanities research encourages students to become better thinkers, writers, researchers, and, ultimately, better citizens. “The point of university is not simply to create talented, skilled workers,” but “to create independent citizens who are able to understand and thoughtfully act in their communities, their workplaces, and the other organizations to which they belong.”

Dr. Miller’s experience as a faculty director has been overwhelmingly positive; a sentiment echoed by the students in his seminar. His ability to create a community fostered a space for growth and exploration. “It’s absolutely a community, a reciprocal community, where they work, learn something, ask questions, and I work, learn something, ask questions,” Dr. Miller says. “…a lot of times I learned from them and they learned from me and that’s part of the goal.”

Illuminating Humanities: Madelyn Kennedy

Madelyn Kennedy, 2023-24 Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholar, Department of University Studies, Society, Ethics, and Law (S.E.A.L.), Texas A&M

The Glasscock Center is excited to continue this series that highlights humanities research at Texas A&M, as well as the vital role played by the humanities beyond the academy.

For this highlight, we invite Madelyn Kennedy to tell us about her experience as a Glasscock Center Undergraduate Summer Scholar (UGSS) participating in the Ethics And Politics Of Artificial Intelligence seminar directed by Dr. Glen Miller (PHIL).

Madelyn Kennedy is a Junior majoring in University Studies with a concentration in Society, Ethics, and Law (S.E.A.L.) at Texas A&M University. Kennedy plans to pursue a master’s degree after graduation before going to law school.

Kennedy is currently a Glasscock Center Undergraduate Summer Scholar (UGSS) participating in the Ethics of Politics and Artificial Intelligence seminar directed by Dr. Glen Miller (PHIL), which critically examines the social, ethical, epistemological, and legal ramifications of various forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Dr. Miller suggested that Kennedy apply to the UGSS program; before then, Kennedy was unaware that undergraduate students could be involved in research. Now, she is spearheading a research project of her own.

The UGSS program provides various resources, including mentorship, to undergraduate students with the goal of developing a proposal for submission to the LAUNCH Undergraduate Research Scholars thesis program. Kennedy emphasized how the Glasscock Center’s frequent communication and openness fosters a positive experience saying, “They’ve been able to really connect everyone together, which I honestly did not think was a possibility.” Students also attend a series of writing workshops hosted by the University Writing Center, which have helped Kennedy strengthen her writing skills and provided an opportunity for all the UGSS to interact. Kennedy believes that one of the most important aspects of the program is the individual mentorship, she mentions how Dr. Miller has helped her through the entire process, from providing tips on how to organize a literature review to understanding how large-language-model AI works.

Kennedy believes it is critical to understand how AI works because it permeates all facets of society. She has always wanted to learn about AI but was initially intimidated because she lacks a technological background. However, instruction provided by Dr. Miller during the first 2-weeks of the program ensured that she was equipped and comfortable with the topic. For Kennedy, “Learning the whole new world of computer science has been super exciting.” Miller’s seminar also opened Kennedy’s eyes to the importance of the relationship between the humanities and technology like AI. She says, “AI is so new and you have to think about what it could evolve to be, in even just 10 years into the future; humanities is not only what is right now, but what could be in the future.”

Kennedy has chosen to write her thesis on ChatGPT, an AI chatbot launched in 2022 by OpenAI. Instructors raised concerns about academic dishonesty because ChatGPT can mimic human-like prose at extended length and is readily available. For one account that explains why instructors have expressed apprehension about AI, see AP News’ article “EXPLAINER: What is ChatGPT and why are schools blocking it?” Kennedy’s research project aims to understand how ChatGPT affects academic integrity and, more precisely, how students can use AI ethically and how universities should regulate it.

Kennedy has always enjoyed putting puzzles together, stating that “It is so satisfying” to complete a project. Participating in the UGSS program has helped crystallize her enjoyment of the research process. She looks forward to completing her research puzzle and anticipates submitting her paper to an academic journal under Dr. Miller’s guidance. When asked about her biggest takeaway from this experience, Kennedy said that it is to “stop questioning myself…I am here for a reason.”

Illuminating Humanities: Kate Girvin

Kate Girvin '23, Glasscock Center Program Aide, 2021-22 Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholar, Department of Philosophy & Humanities, Texas A&M

The Glasscock Center is excited to continue its series which highlights humanities research at Texas A&M, and the vital role played by the humanities at the university and in the world beyond the academy.

For this highlight, we invite Kate Girvin '23, to tell us about her experience as a 2021-22 Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholar and role on the Glasscock team.

This May, Kate Girvin crossed the threshold from Texas A&M student to former student, earning her B.A. in Philosophy & Humanities. In a moment that represented the culmination of years of intensive study, Kate strode across the stage at Reed Arena, shaking hands with college deans and university higher-ups before accepting her diploma amid the cheers and applause of her elated family and friends.

Kate's journey in Aggieland began after she moved from her hometown of El Paso, TX, during the fall of 2019. She quickly took on various leadership roles in and around campus, becoming a counselor for Fish Council and a director for SLIDE, where she advocated for mental health and sexual assault awareness. In addition, Kate helped edit the university's undergraduate philosophy journal, Aletheia and co-organized the second annual International Virtual Conference for Undergraduate Philosophy with St. Francis Xavier University (Canada). And most recently, the College of Arts and Sciences named Kate an Outstanding Graduating Senior, a prestigious award given to only ten seniors. She feels "deeply honored to represent the Department of Philosophy & Humanities."

Kate considers her connection with the Glasscock Center as a particularly significant element of her undergraduate career. Kate's ties to the Center started when she participated as a Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholar following her sophomore year. The ten-week program offered Kate and other undergraduates the opportunity to immerse themselves in a research topic of their choosing. Under the guidance of her faculty mentor, Dr. Omar Rivera, Kate honed her scholastic know-how, including exploring potential research questions, employing various methodologies, attending writing workshops, and formulating a comprehensive plan for broader research endeavors.

Over the course of a year, Kate transformed her initial findings into a thoughtful paper that became her honors capstone project. Using theories first presented by philosophers Maria Lugones and Silvia Federici, Kate's essay investigates "how Western attitudes toward gender and race reinforce motherhood reproductive imperatives for women of the U.S./Mexico Borderlands." Specifically, it traces how the borderland, with its colliding cultures and ideologies, empowers women to mold their own belief systems and shape a distinctive culture for themselves. Within these in-between places, diverse perspectives can thrive unimpeded by the influence of any dominant culture.

Kate reflects that her participation as a Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholar "changed the trajectory of my undergraduate education in the best possible way," elucidating the sometimes murky ins and outs of academia and inspiring her to consider it as a potential career. Kate states, "My experiences in the Center have been incredibly enriching, as they have allowed me to explore new ideas and expand my perspectives on the field of philosophy, which has always been a passion of mine." She encourages other undergraduates to take advantage of the Center's opportunities. Kate urges, "If you are an undergraduate student considering applying to the Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholars Program, this is an excellent opportunity for you to engage in advanced research, expand your academic horizons, and gain valuable experience that will prepare you for future academic pursuits and careers."

As the Program Aide at Glasscock Center, Kate also helps with the Center's day-to-day functioning. Her position entails numerous responsibilities, such as coordinating logistics during conferences, creating appealing layouts for annual reports and promotional flyers, and overseeing the Center's social media presence on platforms like Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Drawing from her experience as a former Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholar, Kate also developed an Undergraduate Summer Scholars Research Guide to aid current and future summer scholars in their research pursuits. According to Amanda Dusek, Assistant Director of the Center, Kate has been an "invaluable asset to our team, leveraging her varied skill set and impeccable professionalism to improve our programs – most notably, the Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholars Program, in which she previously participated. Her dedication and pursuit of learning are emblematic of an exceptionally bright and motivated young scholar."

As Kate contemplates her next steps, whether it be graduate school, law school, or both, she feels confident that the mindset she has cultivated while at Texas A&M will benefit her in her future pursuits. She states, "My philosophical studies have broadened my perspectives on life and have exposed me to different ways of thinking. For example, the philosophy of amor fati, which means 'love of fate,' has taught me to take responsibility for my life and to embrace the present moment. This philosophy has guided me throughout college and reminded me to find joy and meaning in my struggles and to view every experience as an opportunity for growth and self-improvement."

Illuminating Humanities: April Lee Hatfield

Dr. April Lee Hatfield, Associate Professor, Department of History, Texas A&M

For this highlight, we invite Dr. April Lee Hatfield, to tell us about her Internal Faculty Fellowship and co-convenorship of a Working Group supported by the Glasscock Center.

Dr. April Lee Hatfield is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Texas A&M University. Her latest manuscript, Boundaries of Belonging: English Jamaica and the Spanish Caribbean, 1655–1715 (available here), maps out how various individuals in the Caribbean sought belonging within its shifting and contested borders.

The Glasscock Center has been instrumental in supporting Dr. Hatfield's book. In 2009, Dr. Hatfield received an Internal Faculty Fellowship. She reflects that the semester-long fellowship afforded her the "time and space to think about how I wanted to set up this project in its early stages." Her connection with the Center continued, and in 2018, Dr. Hatfield presented her project's conclusions at its annual Land Sea Space symposium.

Dr. Hatfield has also co-convened the Caribbean and Atlantic Studies (CAST) Working Group since 2017. Along with 20 other Center-sponsored Humanities Working Groups, CAST invites both professors and students to come together and discuss research-related paper proposals, practice for upcoming conferences, workshop articles, and more. Dr. Hatfield remarks, "CAST has for many years served as a really helpful community where I could try out my ideas as I developed them and present initial drafts of research."

For scholars, Working Groups like CAST are indispensable. While it's a common misconception that academics work alone–plugging away at their keyboards day and night, only rising on occasion to drop Yoda-esque insights on the rest of us–research that truly satisfies is collaborative. It is born from rigorous seminar discussions, refined in conferences, subjected to peer review and critique, and polished during revision. Even after publication, research continues to evolve as readers engage with it, countering or building on its claims.

Dr. Hatfield's compelling narrative encourages us to move beyond accounts that limit the development of American political identities to the Age of Revolutions (1775-1848). She explains "definitions of citizenship" in the new nations that emerged from independence wars had "roots in the colonial period" and, in particular, the "clashes that happened in the Caribbean."

With its colliding polities and peoples, studying the Caribbean during the colonial period offers crucial insight into understanding questions regarding subjecthood, the colonial precursor of citizenship. What did it mean to be a subject of the British Empire or a vassal of the Spanish Crown? Who participated? And what protections, if any, did monarchs guarantee? Dr. Hatfield's research demonstrates that subjecthood was not predetermined but disputed and variable.

Rival empires developed different criteria for political membership, and in the Caribbean, colonies with competing grounds for belonging lay close to one another. People seeking an alternative legal regime might find several nearby. For the Spanish, the original colonizers of the region, adherence to Catholicism remained the paramount precondition for political subjecthood. But for the English, who emerged in the seventeenth century as prominent contenders in the race to colonize the Caribbean, Dr. Hatfield asserts that race became a "crucial determinant of subject identity."

To legitimize their involvement in the trafficking of human beings, English and Dutch enslavers imposed racial hierarchies that associated Blackness with an inferior status. This dehumanization enabled them to assuage themselves of wrongdoing and view enslaved Africans as objects to be bought and sold.

As the British Empire rose to become a formidable trade and military power in the eighteenth century, it successfully imposed its notions of belonging onto the broader political landscape, and and their concept of race-based political belonging "came to influence who was inside and outside the law of nations" in the 1700s and beyond. Dr. Hatfield is particularly interested in exploring how her findings relate to the early American republic. After gaining independence, former colonists attempted to shed their British identities and embrace American citizenship. However, the Revolution's ideals, so richly spelled out in the Declaration, rang hollow for many as racial distinctions first articulated in the British West Indies were codified in the policies and laws of the nascent republic. Dr. Hatfield's candid assessment of the origins and consequences of racial inequalities in the Caribbean and its lasting influences on the US exposes the limitations of American exceptionalism, challenging readers to confront its flawed history and calling on them to pursue its founding ideals.

Illuminating Humanities: Brian Linn

Dr. Brian Linn, Department of History, Texas A&M

For this highlight, we invite Dr. Brian Linn, to tell us about his Glasscock Internal Faculty Residential Fellowship supported by the Glasscock Center.

Dr. Brian Linn, a 2021-2022 recipient of the Glasscock Center's Internal Faculty Residential Fellowship, is the Ralph R. Thomas Class of 1921 Professor in Liberal Arts in the History Department at Texas A&M University. During his semester-long fellowship at the Glasscock Center, Dr. Linn completed the final draft of Real Soldiering: The US Army in the Aftermath of War, 1815-1980 (available here). His manuscript tracks the US Army's postwar policies and practices following the War of 1812 and ends in 1980, after the Vietnam War.

The chance to devote an entire semester to writing remains a rare luxury for most in academia, and Dr. Linn is "extremely grateful to the Glasscock Center" for its support. He also credits the Center's "stimulating intellectual community" with broadening his scholarly outlook. Through its initiatives, like inviting humanities experts to share their latest projects at free public-facing events, the Center promotes thoughtful conversations across disciplines.

Dr. Linn's interest in studying postwar periods emerged while working as a Visiting Professor at the Army War College between 1999 and 2000. He remembers being struck by the visceral reaction of US veterans to General Eric Shinseki's (Army Chief of Staff, 1999-2003) ambitious plan to transition the Army from what he considered its archaic Cold War ways to becoming a modern, technologically-savvy fighting force. Far from enthusiastic, many veterans expressed cynicism, like they had seen this all before. Dr. Linn wanted to understand their apathy.

General Shinseki's zeal for his postwar "transformation train" relied on widely-held assumptions regarding previous successes. For example, after the Vietnam War, officials claimed that the Army learned from its past mistakes and had gone about remaking itself for the better, heralding victory in the Gulf War as proof of its new and improved training tactics. But Dr. Linn remained skeptical. He resented how lawmakers and military commanders had skewed historical data to persuade others to adopt certain policies. He thought the evidence should speak for itself.

After scouring Army records, Dr. Linn realized that the challenges facing recovery procedures were eerily similar from one war to the next, no matter the decade. As a result, he organized his research around several recurring themes, including the immediate outcomes of war, the process of preparing for future wars, and the impacts of recovery agendas on both officers and enlisted soldiers.

Most postwar recovery narratives tend to focus on top-down directives. But Dr. Linn's findings indicate that such limited considerations do little to expose the untidy realities of on-the-ground soldiering. Higher-ups may issue brilliant doctrine, spend billions on equipment, and puzzle endlessly over the Army's organization, yet still fall short of achieving actual transformation.

Dr. Linn maintains that a genuine understanding of postwar periods only occurs when we shift our attention to focus on the soldiers themselves. What did their day-to-day experiences in a peacetime Army look like? How did such lofty prerogatives play out in muddy training fields and not-so-crowded barracks? According to Dr. Linn, the "real problems center on human beings being unable to exercise those concepts'' due to issues with recruitment, retention, and logistics. By "poking into this legend of recovering armies," Dr. Linn aims to "restore military history back to the human dimension."

As a military scholar who has spent years studying the ins and outs of the US Army, Dr. Linn's respect for the institution is evident. His writings reflect his admiration and expectation that it will live up to its reputation characterized by "self-sacrifice, dedication, and commitment to excellence." Dr. Linn asserts that most service members want to engage in honest conversations about the Army's past, not flatter themselves with reassuring fables. He states that officers and enlisted alike "are dedicated to improvement" because "they recognize that if they don't get it right, people die." Ultimately, Dr. Linn "hopes to have an impact on how both the public and armed forces understand today's current challenges" by using historical knowledge "to inform themselves and the American public of how they will fulfill their mission of defending the nation."For more, see Dr. Linn's latest journal articles in War and Society: "Evolving Grand Narratives: A Forty-Year Perspective " and "Forty Years On: Master Narratives and US Military History." You can also listen to an interview featuring Dr. Linn in the popular podcast series, "Military Historians are People, Too."