Three CAS professors named WSU Humanities Fellows

Three professors in the College of Arts and Sciences are the inaugural humanities fellows at WSU.

Donna Potts and Susan Dente Ross, professors of English, and Michael Hubert, assistant professor of Spanish, were among 14 WSU faculty members who submitted research proposals that were evaluated by an independent faculty committee.

The three awards and accompanying $12,500 grants were conferred for AY 2014-15 through the Humanities Planning Group (HPG) with funding support from CAS.

“The work of these three fellows underscores the integral nature of the humanities to intellectual life and society in general,” said Christopher Lupke, chair of HPG and professor of cinema studies and Chinese.

The humanities fellow designation and grant are intended to promote further research and to encourage pursuit of greater, external funding for humanities research.

Academic disciplines within the humanities include history, philosophy, religion, ancient and modern languages, cultural studies, literature, art history, classics, and linguistics.

Fellows present research in public lectures

Potts, whose expertise is in Irish and world literature, women’s studies, and trauma theory, recently delivered the first public presentation in the Humanities Fellows Lecture Series.

In “‘Readings Will Grow Erratic’: Reading Rape in the Humanities,” Potts examined literary and cinematic representations of sexual assault, especially in the college setting. Her presentation was also part of the WSU Honors College’s Distinguished Lecture Series.

Ross, who specializes in public policy and media issues as well as social movements and peace and cultural studies, will present about her research on March 3, 2015. In her lecture “A Madwoman in Suburbia: Life In and Out of Asylums,” Ross will explore the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness by examining associated biases, sexism, and misunderstandings.

On April 2, Hubert, whose research focuses on second-language acquisition, particularly Spanish, will present “The Development of Speaking and Writing of Foreign Language in Academia,” an investigation of the widely misunderstood relationship between speaking and writing in the development of foreign language proficiency.

Humanities in action at WSU

HPG is a cohort of WSU faculty members who have been working to create a Center for the Humanities at WSU. The group has sponsored a variety of events and initiatives on the Pullman campus, and plans to submit a proposal this fall to the Faculty Senate to establish a center at WSU.

For more information, visit the Humanities Planning Group website.