This paper uses Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to index the declining authority of the humanities to the rise in economic logic of neoliberalism.  Looking at the institutions and practices that elevate the discourse of economics over alternative modes of assigning value (namely, ethics and politics), Lavin argues that the esteem of the social sciences—and […]

Autistic narratives unfold under the dueling pressures of diagnostic and literary expectation. The diagnostic expectation holds autism to be a life-long proposition: either a permanent disorder that may be ameliorated but never dissipated or a distinctive mode of being that should never be dissipated but must be accommodated. The literary expectation—set by the mass audience […]

How does medicine help us understand society? Using Chinese medicine as an example, my talk shows the conception of illness and the therapeutic rationale of deploying poisons in first-millennium China. Liu identifies a striking parallel: Just like doctors’ use of potent drugs to eliminate malign entities out of a physical body, the state established stringent […]

Adam Rome, Professor of History and HI Faculty Fellow Can capitalism become green without fundamental changes in the rules of the marketplace? The last 30 years has been a revealing test of the limits of corporate sustainability initiatives. In the United States, no major environmental legislation has passed since 1990, yet many businesses have worked […]

Charles L. Davis, II, Assistant Professor of Architecture and OVPRED/HI Public Humanities Faculty Fellow This presentation examines the racial politics of space that were manifest by Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision of a Prairie Style architecture. While the American prairie was spatially defined by the wide-open spaces that inspired the horizontal massing and flowing interior spaces […]

Mary Nell Trautner, Associate Professor of Sociology and OVPRED/HI Public Humanities Faculty Fellow Why do some medical problems become legal problems and others do not? This project is based on interviews with 100 parents of children who experienced the same kind of birth injury about their decisions whether or not to pursue legal action against […]

Dimitri Anastasopoulos, Associate Professor of English and HI Faculty Fellow Oia: Perils of American Tourist Children in Greece (a docufiction) incorporates political analysis of the Greek economic and political crises (2008-2018) together with nonfiction travel writing, cultural critique, and a recasting of Plato’s Cave. Fictional narrative in Oia also sits in with a range of […]

Join us at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center for our ninth year of Faculty Fellows talks! This lecture series brings current UB humanities research out into the community – with complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres. Free and open to the public. Michael Rembis, Associate Professor, History and Director, UB Center for Disability Studies, 2019-20 OVPRED/HI Public […]