Wednesday, November 24, 2010

11.30 - Jacinta Arthur

Senses of place partake of cultures, of shared bodies of “local knowledge” through
which persons and whole communities render their places meaningful and endow
them with social importance. Through this relation of sensation with emplacement,
and in experiential and expressive ways, places are then felt, known, imagined,
remembered, voiced, and lived. By examining the process through which “space”
becomes “place”, this presentation will discuss the strategies through which senses
of place are arche-written across the landscape configuring spaces of knowledge.
Proposing the ritual of kai kai and rock art in Rapa Nui as metonyms of history
rendered by the Rapanui as messages from the ancestors, this presentation attempts
to demonstrate their efficacy in evoking narratives that stand as cartographies of
history. Through a dialogue between Rapanui narratives and scholarly discourse, this
presentation suggests kai kai and rock art as mnemonic marks displayed or evoked
across the landscape, mapping the history of Rapa Nui.

Friday, November 12, 2010

11.16 - Jenna Delgado

 The emergence of the term "public scholarship" does not reflect a new
discipline, but a new commitment to rethinking the relationship between higher
education and society. This involves de-centering ideas of expertise and
authority which would allow the creative and thoughtful work of all people to
use the university as a site to produce, discuss, experiment, learn, teach. For
this week's CHOT series, I invite you to consider: What is the public scholar's
ethical responsibility to social justice?  At what point does public scholarship
become exploitive? How is the university making the engaged scholar a better
community-based practitioner?