10:00am – Symposium, “Toward an Expansive Definition of Genocide” – John Cox, UNC Charlotte

11:00am – “Can the Spanish Genocide Speak?” – Scott Boehm, Michigan State University

12:00pm – Roundtable Discussion

• Almudena Carracedo, Film Director
• John Cox, UNC Charlotte
• Sebastiaan Faber, Oberlin College
• Cristina Moreiras-Menor, University of Michigan
• Joseba Gabilonda, Michigan State University

Speaker: Dr. Felix Kronenburg

The basic blueprint of the physical classroom has not
changed all that much in over a century, even as new
teaching methods and approaches, new technologies,
and new interdisciplinary insights into better ways to
support learning have greatly advanced during that same
timeframe. Do we still need physical learning spaces in
this age of ubiquitous computing? If we do, how can we
design and build them so that they will be able to adapt
to new educational transformations? Dr. Kronenberg
will give insights into and solutions from the new
interdisciplinary field of learning space design.

Film Screening

The Silence of Others

Goya Award for Best Documentary

Shortlisted for 2018 Best Documentary Academy Award

Followed by a discussion with Almudena Carracedo

Shinto in Contemporary Japan: From Basic Teachings to Anime

From core principles to the ways Shinto is practiced today, this talk will address shrines for sports, fertility and protection from STDs, appropriation by popular culture (such as in anime and advertisements), and new spirituality movements including the power spot boom.

Dr. Stephen Covell

Chair of the Department of Comparative Religion and the Mary Meader Professor of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University. Dr. Covell was the founding director of WMU’s Soga Japan Center and has published widely on Buddhism and other Japanese religious topics.

Sponsored by the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities, IAH Connecting Pedagogy and Practice Fund, Department of Religious Studies, Asian Studies Center, and MSU Japan Council.

Speaker: Christina Boyles – Assistant Professor of Culturally-engaged Digital Humanities

 Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) Talk

Accessibility and Appeals: Methods For Inclusivity

Kate Sonka, Assistant Director of Academic Technology, College of Arts & Letters    

The accessibility movement exists to ensure an equitable learning environment for all students, as does the need for multi-modal appeals to faculty, students, and practitioners to implement accessible practices. This talk will explore an interdisciplinary approach to coalition building centered on six methods for encouraging adoption of accessible practices: student success, social justice, Universal Design for Learning, broader community impact, legal, and business/ROI. Attendees will hear how these approaches have been used and will be invited to consider how any number of them might be suited for their own teaching practice.

Talk begins at 12:00 and runs about 1 hour.  Networking with coffee and refreshments immediately after the talk.

About C4I: The Michigan State University Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) advances interdisciplinary research and pedagogy at the University while preparing the next generation of citizen leaders to address the most challenging questions of our time. In addition to conducting its own research, C4I serves as a resource for faculty, postdocs, and graduate students in the College of Arts & Letters and across campus, as well as for partners in the local community and across the region. It also serves as an advocate for researchers and scholars, consults with teams, provides resources for and about interdisciplinarity, and creates opportunities for training, education, networking, mentorship, visibility, and funding both on and off campus.

Ed Tech Brown Bag #1: Speed Dating

Wed., Feb 5. 12:00-1:00pm. Wells Hall B342

ELC Ed Tech Specialist Austin Kaufmann will give a 2-minute Speed Dating pitch for each of his Ten Most Frequently Used Ed Tech Tools. Participants will note down which tools they are most interested in, and based on their top choices, Austin will create a semester schedule for smaller group trainings. (Feel free to bring your lunch!)

Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) Talk

Mapping a Comic Imaginary: Locality, Community, and Identity in North American Comics

Julian C. Chambliss, Professor and Core Faculty, Department of English and Consortium for Critical Diversity in a Digital Age Research (CEDAR)

In this presentation, I will discuss how an emerging digital humanities project utilizing MSU Library Comic Arts Collection metadata allows us to investigate how comic book culture might be shaped by location. Traditional narratives of comic book history have long emphasized the centrality of publication hubs such as New York, Tokyo, and Paris. With this project, we hope to explore how catalog metadata may reveal new relationships that shape comic culture.

Talk begins at 12:00 and runs about 1 hour.  Networking with coffee and refreshments immediately after the talk.

About C4I: The Michigan State University Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) advances interdisciplinary research and pedagogy at the University while preparing the next generation of citizen leaders to address the most challenging questions of our time. In addition to conducting its own research, C4I serves as a resource for faculty, postdocs, and graduate students in the College of Arts & Letters and across campus, as well as for partners in the local community and across the region. It also serves as an advocate for researchers and scholars, consults with teams, provides resources for and about interdisciplinarity, and creates opportunities for training, education, networking, mentorship, visibility, and funding both on and off campus.

Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) Talk

Philosophical Investigations in Ethnobotany

Catherine Kendig, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy

Lichens have a weird naming history. They have been and continue to be classified outside the formal Linnaean system by both lichenologists and indigenous naturalists such as the Sámi and Sherpa. These informal nomenclatural practices encode knowledge about the physiology of lichen symbionts, their economic use as the basis of textile dyes, as an ingredient in bread and beer-making, the source of medicine, and as a critical foodstuff central to reindeer husbandry. These diverse nomenclatures can contribute to understanding not only in ethnolichenology, history, and physiology, but also in metaphysics. But how should we go about retaining this diverse knowledge when doing so requires much more than simply compiling a list of synonyms? I explore plural, perspectival strategies of knowledge integration, paying attention to the diverse purposes for which lichens are named and the frequently incommensurable ontologies employed to ground lichen names.

Talk begins at 12:00 and runs about 1 hour.  Networking with coffee and refreshments immediately after the talk.

About C4I: The Michigan State University Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) advances interdisciplinary research and pedagogy at the University while preparing the next generation of citizen leaders to address the most challenging questions of our time. In addition to conducting its own research, C4I serves as a resource for faculty, postdocs, and graduate students in the College of Arts & Letters and across campus, as well as for partners in the local community and across the region. It also serves as an advocate for researchers and scholars, consults with teams, provides resources for and about interdisciplinarity, and creates opportunities for training, education, networking, mentorship, visibility, and funding both on and off campus.