The Humanities Center is accepting applications for Student Fellows for next year’s seminar. Students with a minimum of a 3.0 grade point average who will be sophomores, juniors, or seniors in the 2024-25 academic year are eligible to participate in the Humanities Center as Student Fellows. You do not need to be an honors student to apply. As a Fellow, you will attend a two-semester honors seminar based on a theme.
Ayelet Brinn, assistant professor of history and Judaic studies, will lead the Humanities Center Seminar next year. She has selected the theme of “Banned Books” for the seminar. Here you will get to know some of the brightest students at the University of Hartford. You will also attend lectures by both university faculty and visiting speakers who are doing research on this theme.
Description of the seminar:
This seminar explores the history and politics of banning, censoring, and burning books, in both the U.S. and abroad. Reflected most recently in the rise in book banning in schools and libraries, censorship tends to focus on texts that stretch social boundaries in their depictions of race, sexuality, politics, gender, religion, and science. In the seminar, you will study banned books (such as the writings of Galileo, Darwin, and Judy Blume) within their historical context, compare and contrast the treatment of different texts across time and space, and examine the relationship between power, culture, and literacy in society. You will also read banned books and about the history of censorship while developing strategies for critically analyzing the arguments made for and against such censoring.
The Fall semester will be a traditional discussion-centered seminar-style class. The Spring semester will be a series of lectures by faculty members and visiting speakers on the topic of “Banned Books.” Students who are selected for this seminar are awarded a fellowship, receive a stipend of $1,000 and take the seminar for a total of six credits, three in the fall term and three in the spring term. The class meets both semesters on Wednesday evenings, 5 p.m. – 7:20 p.m., and student fellows must take both semesters.
See the attached letter for details on how to apply.