Below, participants in our HPG Summer Internship program reflect on what the humanities mean in their workplace, how concepts and methods from their disciplines translate to their workplace, and they are reimagining their own research and writing in their scholarly work in light of their internship experiences.
When we think of the people that populate a college campus, faculty members are often the first people that come to mind. This is especially true at research intensive universities like Iowa. But when it comes to expanding our knowledge base about all the humanities can teach us, we ignore too many people. For the moment, I want to focus on one group: staff members at the University of Iowa.
What does research look like? Can everything be found in a library or online? What can we gain from experiencing a place that is otherwise fully-documented in books and articles?
The Strengthen, Grow, Evolve Campaign at The Englert is in full swing. On Saturday, June 22nd, I arrived at the SGE tent for the Downtown Iowa Block Party. Despite the calls for rain all day, the sky was clear and the air breezy. At the tent was Grace, an employee of The Englert, as well as Joe Tiefenthaler, the Executive Director of FilmScene, and Andrew Sherburne, the Marketing Director of FilmScene. I was heartened to see not just volunteers for the tent, but the leadership for the campaign present and engaged with the community.
When students first step onto the University of Iowa campus their first year, it is an explosion of new experiences and day-to-day learning opportunities. First Hawkeye football game. Eating lunch on the Pentacrest lawn. Cramming for those first midterm exams in the Main Library. All these touchpoints shape the academic life of UI students.
This is a twelve-inch-wide culvert pipe. I point it out to you only because I needed it pointed out to me, by Chris Ward, the city administrator of the town of Vinton, Iowa. I needed it pointed out to me because culvert pipes (twelve-inch or otherwise) are designed and put in place so as not to be seen—so as to channel water beneath roads and sidewalks and on its way to the next largest creek, stream, or river.
In reading the introduction to Generous Thinking by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, I was struck by the moment where she differentiates between the notion of community as evoking a “dangerous, mythical notion of organic unity” instead of a “form of solidarity, of coalition-building.” I agree with Fitzpatrick that the romanticized, fanciful understanding of community as something easy, spontaneous, and naturally occurring is destructive.
My role thus far in writing about forty of Iowa’s rural historic sites for the Iowa Valley RC&D’s Scenic Byway Tour has been an evolving amalgamation of journalist, historian, and tourist. Drives between my home in Iowa City and the various rural sites are long and scenic, winding around cornfields and pastures.
On Saturday, June 15th I walked through downtown Iowa City in the early afternoon. Post-parade, Pride was in full-swing as dancers and performers prepared for the afternoon show and pedestrians wandered from venue to venue, table to table. In front of The Englert Theatre was a table tent for the Strengthen, Grow, Evolve Campaign, a joint venture shared by The Englert and FilmScene to "build the greatest small city for the arts in America."
2019 HUMANITIES FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD INAUGURAL CLASS OF SUMMER INTERNS The following humanities and humanities-adjacent University of Iowa PhD students have been competitively selected to spend this summer working with local arts and culture organizations on specific projects. They…
uihumanitiesforthepublicgood.com 