Tuesday Lunches
See Also: Spring 2008 | Fall 2007 | Spring 2007 | Fall 2006 | Spring 2006 | Fall 2005 | Spring 2005 | Fall 2004
The purpose of these lunches is to enable faculty to present their research in its pure form (that is, not modified for a general audience) to their campus colleagues. We hope that the presentations benefit the presenters and their audience. We hope that new insights, applications, and collaborations come from the lunches. We encourage everyone to attend, and we welcome proposals for presentations.
For questions, email Humanities@utk.edu.
Fall 2008 Schedule
- September 2 -
Amy Billone, English
“Reality With A Twist: J.K. Rowling, Jane Austen and the Gothic Tradition”
On the one hand, the Harry Potter books transplant early Gothic narratives into a contemporary setting. On the other hand, following Jane Austen’s lead, Rowling pits the Gothic against another narrative technique: realism or what I will call the counter-Gothic. I will argue that by functioning as a genre composed of two opposing narrative techniques, Rowling’s Harry Potter novels fulfill the desires of the world at large at the turn from the twentieth to the twenty first century.
- September 16 -
Tricia Hepner, Anthropology
"Into the Frying Pan: Eritrean Asylum Seekers in Germany and the United States"
In recent years, tens of thousands of people have fled the Northeast African nation of Eritrea, determined to seek asylum in the North. Germany and the United States are primary destinations for the most resourceful and lucky of these refugees. However, when Eritreans arrive in Germany or the US, often after dangerous and expensive journeys, they encounter a new and often unanticipated set of challenges. These are related to the converging dynamics of both rigorous asylum procedures and the transnational political environment of Eritrean communities abroad. This talk will present preliminary findings of comparative ethnographic research done with recent and longtime Eritrean refugees in the US and Germany and suggest areas for further inquiry and analysis.
- October 7 -
Michael Handelsman, Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures
“Latin American Critical Thought. A Poetics of Resistance and (Re)construction”
In this paper I examine Latin American critical thought through the literary essay and in the context of globalization, and argue that this "pensamiento" illustrates an on-going process of struggle for decolonization defined in terms of resistance and (re)construction. My thesis is that there are Latin Americans who are creating real alternatives of thought vis-à-vis those social and cultural forces that would homogenize everything and everyone in a globalized hyper-reality that values media-driven images constructed for the market place more than life itself.
- October 21 -
Ben Lee, English
Periodizing Twentieth-Century Poetry
This talk surveys recent, contradictory accounts of the development of twentieth-century American poetry, paying special attention to the use of categories such as “modern,” “late modern,” “postmodern,” and “contemporary.” It briefly considers theoretical arguments about periodization itself before turning its attention to the poetic insights and innovations of the 1950s and 1960s, which I argue have been unfairly dismissed or undervalued in recent critical narratives.
- November 4 -
Jenn Fishman, English
- November 18 -
Rachelle Scott, Religious Studies
“Buddhism, Miraculous Powers, and Sacred Biographies: Re-thinking the Stories of Theravāda Nuns”
Throughout the history of the Theravāda tradition, stories of pious Buddhists and their miraculous powers have circulated widely in Buddhist communities. This lecture will assess the role of miraculous powers in the stories of exceptional Theravāda Buddhist women. Their stories not only underscore the importance of miraculous powers within the tradition, they also provide a new lens for viewing the lives of Theravāda Buddhist nuns in the past and in the present.