The University of Hartford Humanities Center is happy to announce seven faculty fellows for 2024–25. All will receive a stipend to support their research and will speak in the Spring 2025 Lecture Series on “Banned Books and Censorship,” organized by Ayelet Brinn, Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and History (A&S).
1. Fran Altvater, Associate Professor of Art History (Hillyer College), will give a talk titled “From Fig Leaves to Full Facial Obliteration: Censorship from Within Christianity.” Here, she will turn toward specific examples of censorship from within the Christian community (e.g., Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”) as a means of removing some of the perceived power of the imagery. Occurring at moments of tension in the theology and history of Christianity in a given area, this talk will be a meditation on the idea of proper visual expressions regarding theological material and their force in shaping the art of these faith communities.
2. Karen Lucas Breda, Associate Professor of Nursing (ENHP), will speak on the “Ideology of Bans and Censorship with Travesti and Trans Women in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.” This project aims to examine Brazilian travesti and trans women, understudied groups mostly existing on the margins of society, regarding social censorship with respect to changing gender, sexuality, religious and racial considerations.
3. Woody Doane, Professor of Sociology (Hillyer College) will present on his scholarship “Critical Race Theory: The Latest Battleground in the Defense of White Supremacy.” In this talk, he will address how the recent politicized campaigns against “critical race theory” and the attempts to ban DEI programs are part of a “new white nationalism,” conceptualized to maintain white dominance in the face of challenges from antiracist social movements.
4. Maria Esposito Frank, Professor of Italian Studies (A&S) will give a talk titled “Radical Censorial Interventions: The Case of the Decameron.” Here, she will examine how Boccaccio’s 14th-century masterwork the Decameron, a collection of 100 novellas, has been subjected to bans, condemnation and censorship – almost since its appearance – due to content deemed blasphemous, sexually explicit, and critical of the Church.
5. Susan Grantham, Professor of Communication (A&S) will speak on “The Suppression and Sequestration of Creative Non-Fiction” concerning environmental studies. Beginning with a discussion of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962), which changed the trajectory of environmental awareness in the United States, this talk will examine how tactics of deregulation and the undermining of scientific policy over the past 50+ years have led to the suppression and censorship of environmental science information and communication.
6. Rashmi Viswanathan, Assistant Professor of Art History (Hartford Art School) will address the recent controversies surrounding the display of the Pakistan-born artist Shahzia Sikander’s “Witness,” which was put on exhibition on the campus of the University of Houston’s Cullen Family Plaza of Public Art. The work, an exploration of feminine archetypes and their embodiment in South Asian and other artistic iconographies that honor a feminist present and potential future, has been deemed as blasphemous and “promoting child sacrifice” by the Texas Right to Life organization.
7. Amy Weiss, Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and History (A&S) will give the talk “Censoring Weddings: The Hallmark Channel, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Zola Controversy.” Here, she will speak about the controversy that ensued in 2019 when the organization One Million Moms successfully urged the Hallmark Channel to censor a series of ad campaigns from Zola, a wedding planning website, that featured heterosexual and same-sex. At the intersections of religion, sexual orientation and media, this case highlights the social and economic power dynamics associated with media censorship.
The Humanities Center aims to provide greater visibility for the humanities at the University of Hartford and to furnish venues for interdisciplinary exchanges across the humanities and the arts, sciences, technology, media, music, psychology, film, philosophy, history, and literature. It was founded in 1984 in the College of Arts and Sciences through a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant. For more information, contact Nicholas Ealy, director (ealy@hartford.edu), or visit our webpage or Facebook page.