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Humanities & Western Civilization Newsletter

Spring 2015

University of Kansas Bailey Hall Room 308 1440 Jayhawk Blvd Lawrence, KS 66045

U nive rs ity o f K ansas University of Kansas

James Woelfel: Honoring a long and distinguisHed Career

In May 2015, Professor James Woelfel will retire from the University of Kan-sas after a long and distinguished career. Jim earned a B.A. from the University of Oklahoma (1959), a M.Div. from Episcopal Divinity School (1962), a M.A. from Yale University (1964), and the Ph.D. from the University of Saint Andrews (1967). He joined the University of Kansas in 1966, and served the Departments of Religious Studies, Philosophy, and the Humanities and Western Civilization Program, which he directed from 1985 to 2010. During this time, Jim has served on virtually all major committees in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the University of Kansas.

During his tenure at KU, Jim has taught a variety of courses in all three units, including Search for Meaning (now Introduction to Religious Studies), Existential-ism, Kierkegaard, Classics of Peace Literature, Peace & Conflict Studies: Texts and Methods, and of course, Western Civilization I and II. Students and colleagues alike have praised his pedagogy. Among the acknowledgments of his excellence in teaching are a HOPE Award nomination, two awards for Excellence in Teach-ing Philosophy from the KU Center for Teaching Excel-lence, and the W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Ex-

cellence (1998). Many former GTAs who are now teaching at colleges and universities across the nation have commented that Jim’s mentoring and support throughout their years with the HWC Program have played a key role in their professional success.

Professionally, Jim has been an active participant in the annual con-ferences of the Association for Core Texts and Courses. His publications include Borderland Christianity: Critical Reason and the Christian Vision of Love (Chapman, 1974), Camus: A Theological Perspective (Abingdon, 1975), Augustinian Humanism: Studies in Human Bondage and Earthly Grace (University Press of America, 1979), The Agnostic Spirit as a Com-mon Motif in Liberal Theology and Liberal Scepticism (Edwin Mellen, 1990), Portraits in Victorian Religious Thought (Edwin Mellen, 1997), The Existentialist Legacy and Other Essays on Philosophy and Religion (University Press of America, 2006). With Sarah Chappell Trulove, Jim edited four editions of Patterns in Western Civilization, Volumes I and II (Pearson). He has been a prolific author of book chapters and journal ar-ticles. Jim is currently at work on the chapter, “The Idea of a Liberal Edu-cation: Continuity and change,” for the anthology Toward the Blue: The History of the University of Kansas, 1965-2015. Jim’s colleagues in HWC congratulate him on a long and distinguished career at the University of Kansas and wish him well in his retirement.

Inside . . .

James Woelfel: Honoring a Longand Distinguished Career 1

New Curricular Initiatives in HWC 2

Seniors Graduating with a B.A. inHumanities 2

The Spring 2015 Mid-AmericaHumaities Conference . . . 3

Featured Instructors:Three Distinguished GTAs 3

Student Opportunities in theHWC Program 4

Faculty Notes 4

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neW CurriCular initiatives

in HWC

HWC 175 Kansas Environment and Culture

The Humanities and Western Civilization Program took an active role this year in the KU Academic Accelerator Program, a new opportunity for international students that provides English-language instruction from The Applied English Center along with enrollment in select KU courses. HWC 175 Kansas Environment and Culture, developed and taught by Antha Cot-ten-Spreckelmeyer and Fatemeh Sadraee, forms a key part of the KUAAP curriculum providing students with information about the peoples and places of Kansas. In addition to reading and writing about the state, the university, and the local com-munity, students participate in activities such as the Haskell Indian Art Market in the fall semester, and visits to campus museums throughout the year. Students enjoyed learning about popular traditions such as the KU Jayhawk, and the Wizard of Oz as well as Civil War legends and Kansas personalities. Antha served as Interim Academic Director of the KUAAP during the past academic year, and will return to HWC in June of 2015.

LA&S 494 Senior Seminar in Liberal Arts

Last year the Humanities and Western Civilization Pro-gram was asked to develop a senior seminar and capstone course for the Bachelor of General Studies in Liberal Arts and Sciences. LA&S 494 Senior Seminar in Liberal Arts is especial-ly designed for those students who choose to fulfill their degree requirements under “Option B” which includes taking courses (minimum two credit hours) from fifteen unique departments within the College. In the capable hands of Sean Seyer, lecturer/academic program associate, LA&S 494 has been designed as an

seniors graduating WitH a B. a. in Humanities

Congratulations to the following students who have completed their senior project for the B.A. in Humanities:

David Buteyn, “Religious Origins of Gandhi and King’s Nonviolence”

Parker Redel, “Posthuman Exclusion: Reality and Perception in Pohl’s Man Plus, Gibson’s Neuromancer, and Stephenson’s Snow Crash

Sukhindervir Sandhu, “The Political and Anthropological Meaning of Hair during the Taiping Rebellion in Qing China” (Honors)

eight-week course that allows students to assess, evaluate, and integrate their coursework. Lessons take students through topic creation and development, the research process, developing an annotated bibliography, working with multiple perspectives, and preparation of a final paper, a presentation of research, and a portfolio. The HWC Program anticipates offering LA&S 494 in both online and on-campus formats.

The Bachelor of Arts in Humanities

Several new courses have been developed to enhance our Bachelor of Arts in Humanities. Professor Diane Fourny has developed a new course, HWC 240 Introduction to World Lit-erature, which will acquaint students with the field of world lit-erature as an approach to critical reading and writing about liter-ary works in a global context. This course also fulfills KU Core Goal 2.1 (Written Communication), and is designed to enhance students’ ability to analyze and evaluate assumptions, claims, evidence, arguments, and forms of expressions used to examine works of world literature. This course also serves as a gateway to the World Literature track in the B.A. in Humanities. Other gate-way courses to the major are HWC 110 Introduction to Humani-ties, HWC 250 Civilization and the Individual (Civilization in a Global Context track), and PCS 220 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies (Peace and Conflict Studies track).

To further prepare students to enter the workforce, HWC has also developed a new course, HWC 320 Being Human in the Workplace. Designed and taught by Rick Botkin, Multi-year Lec-turer, this course will fulfill KU Core Goal 5.1 (Social Responsibil-ity) and will tackle such workplace problems as bullying, whistle-blowing, sexism, as well as major questions of applied ethics such as the fair distribution of resources, traditional moral standards in a world of changing technology, and responsibility to the environ-ment. The Spring 2016 Mid-America Humanities Conference will also focus on highlighting the importance of the humanities in negotiating work, the workforce, and the workplace.

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tHe spring 2015 mid-ameriCa Humanities ConferenCe:

“roBots, automata, & CyBorgs: teCHnology and tHe Humanities”

marCH 26 and 27, 2015, university of Kansas

Each year the Mid-America Humanities Conference (MAHC) provides a forum for talented undergraduate and graduate students to present their research. This spring the MAHC explored what it means to be human in an era of fast-paced technological advances. This year sixteen students from the University of Kansas, Emporia State University, and Creigh-ton University addressed such issues as how technologies have changed our thinking about intelligence, our understanding of conquest and colonization, how to lead an intentional life, and what makes a utopia or dystopia. As in the past, student pre-senters appreciated the opportunity to present their work in a professional academic setting and received valuable feedback from their peers and faculty.

The keynote speaker for the conference was Minsoo Kang, Associate Professor of History at the University of St. Louis, Missouri. His publications include Sublime Dreams of Living Machines, The Automaton in the European Imagination (Har-vard, 2010), a co-edited work, Visions of the Industrial Age, 1830-1914: Modernity and the Anxiety of Representation in Eu-rope (Ashgate, 2008), as well as a collection of short stories, Of Tales and Enigmas: Short Stories (Prime, 2006). Professor King spoke to a packed and appreciative audience on “The Coming War with Robots: A Historian’s Perspective.”

As always, the HWC Program thanks the co-sponsors of the Mid-America Humanities Conference, whose generous support has made each conference a success: the Departments of American Studies, Economics, English, Germanic Languages and Literatures, History of Art, Program of Jewish Studies, Phi-losophy, Spanish and Portuguese, and Women, Gender, & Sexu-ality Studies; the Center for Global and International Studies; College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Hall Center for the Hu-manities; Max Kade Center; and the Spencer Museum of Art.

featured instruCtors: tHree distinguisHed gtas

Terilyn Johnston Huntington is a Ph.D. student in the Politi-cal Science department at the University of Kansas where she studies the role and impact of technology in warfare through the lens of critical international relations theory. With previous graduate degrees in theological studies (Bethel Seminary, 2007) and international studies (Uni-versity of Denver, 2009), Terilyn

is interested in interdisciplinary research that bridges the hu-manities and the social sciences. Terilyn joined the Humanities and Western Civilization Program in the Fall of 2010, and has served the HWC Program as a graduate representative to the Program Committee and to the Western Civilization Working Group, and as president of the HWC Graduate Student Orga-nization. Both her on campus and online sections of Western Civilization I and II have been enthusiastically received by stu-dents and faculty alike, who have praised her “relaxed class-room demeanor.” She has been revising both online courses in light of their place in the KU Core. She has presented papers at professional conferences, including the Midwest Political Sci-ence Association and the International Studies Association. In the Spring of 2014 Terilyn presented the Distinguished Gradu-ate Instructor Lecture, “The Rise of the Cubicle Warrior: Un-manned Aerial Vehicles and the Alienation of the Pilot from the Battlefield.”

Ashley Acosta-Fox is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy, where she is espe-cially interested in ethics. She earned a B.A. from Old Domin-ion University, and completed an M.A. in Philosophy in 2010. Ashley joined the Humanities and Western Civilization Pro-gram in 2008, and quickly es-tablished herself as an excellent instructor in the Western Civi-lization I and II. Students and

faculty alike commended her for her “energetic, enthusiastic, and creative approach” to texts. Ashley has been successfully teaching and revising her own online version of the Western Civilization I and II sequence. During her tenure with HWC, Ashley has served as a member of the Graduate Teaching and Instructional Resources Committee, and was active in estab-lishing the HWC Course Content Blackboard Resource. She worked with HWC and the Center for Teaching Excellence’s

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Documenting Learning Success” In the fall of 2013, Ashley pre-sented the paper, “Morality of the Market[place]: Conscientious Consumerism and Ethical Products” at the Seventh Annual Fe-lician Ethics Conference at Felecian College (Rutherford, NJ). In the fall of 2013, she presented the Distinguished Graduate Instructor Lecture, “Go and Do Likewise: Radically Redefining Our Moral Obligation to Others.”

Benjamin Guyer is a Ph.D. stu-dent in the Department of His-tory, and has a M.A. in Religion from Florida State University (2006), and a M.A. in History from the University of Kansas. Ben joined the Humanities and Western Civilization Program in 2012, and has served as the grad-uate representative to the HWC Program and as president of the HWC Graduate Student Orga-nization. He has distinguished himself in teaching Western Civ-

ilization I and II, with students and faculty alike considering him an outstanding instructor. To mention a few of his publica-tions, Ben is co–editor , with Paul Avis, of The Lambeth Con-ference: History, Theology, and Purpose — The First 150 Years (Forthcoming, T&T Clark, 2017), and is editor and contribu-tor to Pro-Consideratione: Theological Essays on the Anglican Covenant (Pickwick 2012) and editor of The Beauty of Holiness: The Carolingian Divines and their Writings (Canterbury Press, 2012). This spring, Ben was the Distinguished Graduate In-structor Lecture, presenting “Three Discourses of Reformation: Religion in England, 1500-1700.”

student opportunities in tHe HWC program

Katie Drape is a graduating senior from Lenexa, Kansas majoring in History. She took multiple courses in HWC and has been accepted for graduate studies in the World History program at New York University.

“This semester I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Dale Urie for my independent study, after taking her course “Europe Today” last fall. Our focus was on World War I, specifically how the “Great War” resulted in the partitioning of the Middle East, forever changing the world map. I read amazing works by renowned authors such as Margaret Macmillan and Barbara Tuchman. My project was to prepare a 45-minute lecture and Power Point, which proved to be both challenging and very re-warding. . Urie was a wise and knowledgeable guide and her perspective truly broadened my knowledge of World War I and the effect it still has on our modern world. This independent study was an experience that will greatly shape my graduate studies as I focus on a topic for my Master’s degree this fall.”

faCulty notes

Richard Botkin, Multi-year Lecturer, continues his exemplary efforts in our Western Civilization I and II courses, par-ticularly in transforming his large lecture into a hybrid course. Rick’s HWC 300 Phi-losophy and Film draws rave reviews from faculty and students alike and introduces media into a curriculum that has been pri-marily text-based. This year he designed a

new course, HWC 320 Being Human in the Workplace, which we hope will soon receive final approval for KU Core Goal 5.1 (Social Responsibility), and continue to move our curriculum in new directions.

Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer, Associate Di-rector of the Humanities and Western Civili-zation Program, has been on leave from HWC

this year. She has been serving as the Interim Academic Director of the Kansas University Academic Accelerated Program for incoming international students. Antha designed and taught HWC 175 Kansas Environment and Culture for that program. In July she will present a paper on Robin Hood and land law at the International Robin Hood Conference in Doncaster, England.

Christopher Forth, Jack and Shirley How-ard Distinguished Teaching Professor of Humanities and Western Civilization, con-tinues as editor-in-chief for the journal Cul-tural History. Among his publications this year are, with Alison Leitch, the peer-re-viewed collection Fat: Culture and Material-ity (Bloomsbury), to which he contributed the introduction, “Materializing Fat” and

the chapter, “Thinking Through Fat: The Materiality of Ancient and Modern Stereotypes,” and the co-edited anthology, Honour, Violence, and Emotion: Historical Perspectives (Bloomsbury). He has begun a new project, “Men’s Milk: A Cultural History of Se-men,” for which he has received a sabbatical in Spring 2016.

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Diane Fourny, Associate Professor of Hu-manities and Western Civilization, has been actively working on a long-term project on “Revisiting French Enlightenment Con-structions of China” and from that proj-ect, presented a paper, Voltaire’s Tragic Vi-sion and Historical Thinking: The Case of L’Orphelin de la Chine,” at the annual con-ference of the American Society for 18th-Century Studies. She has also designed a new course, HWC 240 Introduction to World Literature, which will debut in the fall, and has been working on an online version.

Marike Janzen, Assistant Professor of Hu-manities and Coordinator for Peace and Conflict Studies, had an active year of re-search, with two book chapters in press, “Solidarity, Human Rights, and the Poetics of Connection” forthcoming in the edited volume Identity and Community after the Cold War Era, and “Experiencing Form: Service Learning in the Literature of Human

Rights Classroom,” forthcoming in the edited volume Modern Lan-guage Association “Options for Teaching.” Teaching Human rights in Literary and Cultural Studies.

Devon Mihesuah, Cora Beers Price Inter-national Teaching Professor, has continued working on her book project, Surviving In-dian Territory, and has published the article, “Sustenance and Health among the Five Tribes of Indian Territory, Post-Removal to Statehood” in the current issue of the jour-nal Ethnohistory. Her article, “Creating the Outlaw Mystique: The Case of Ned Christie,” has been accepted for publication in the Chronicles of Oklahoma. She has also created online versions of our courses, including HWC 348 Indian-White Relations to 1865, HWC 350 Indian White Relations since 1865, HWC 551 Foodways: Latin America, and HWC 345 Indian Terri-tory which will debut online this fall.

Brian Moots, Lecturer/Academic Pro-gram Associate, joined the Humanities and Western Civilization Program as a GTA in the fall of 2012. He completed his Ph.D. in the Department of French and Italian with honors in May 2014, and has ably taken over Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer’s duties as scheduling of-ficer and GTA mentor and supervisor.

He has supervised the HWC graduate teaching assistants, handled scheduling courses, and taught HWC 110 to rave student reviews. In addition, he is one of the co-authors of “Current Research Direc-tions in French Renaissance Studies,” forthcoming in Lingua Fran-ca. Brian will be leaving HWC this summer to take a tenure-track position as an assistant professor in the Department of English and Modern Languages at Pittsburgh State University. We wish Brian all success!

Martha Rabbani, Lecturer, was a guest speaker this spring in the 2014-2015 Peace and Conflict Studies Series of Missouri Western University, presenting “What Binds Us Together: Changing Perspectives on the Moral Order of Society.” In May she was a guest speaker on a panel organized by the UMKC School of Education to launch the campaign, “Education Is Not a Crime” about the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran. For the second consecutive year, along with a few other parents, she has been leading a Social Justice Club for middle schoolers. Twenty students have been attending this program since its begin-ning in 2013.

Sean Seyer, Lecturer/Academic Program Associate, joined the faculty of the Humani-ties and Western Civilization from Auburn University, where he finished his Ph.D. in history. He taught HWC 150 Civilization and the Individual to enthusiastic students, and designed LA&S 494 Senior Seminar in Liberal Arts, which will serve as the capstone and degree assessment course for the Bach-

elor of General Studies in Liberal Arts. He also presented a paper, “World War I, the Wilson Administration, and the 1926 Air Com-merce Act,” at a conference in Lawrenceville, Georgia, dedicated to the Centenary of World War I.

Dale Urie, Senior Lecturer in Humani-ties and Western Civilization, continues to excel in teaching all her courses from the Honors versions of Western Civilization I and II through her upper-division courses like HWC 505 Europe Today (cross-listed with History and European Studies), for which she receives near-perfect scores. She directed the Study Abroad Semester in Florence and Paris in Spring 2014. In the Fall 2014 she designed and taught a First-Year Freshman Seminar, “The Great War and the Individual: Making the Modern,” in conjunction with the Of-fice of First Year Experience and the European Studies Program, which has proven so successful it will be offered again in Fall 2015.

Sandra Zimdars-Swartz, Professor and Director of the Humanities and Western Civilization Program presented the paper, “Our Lady of Necedah and her Weapons of Faith,” at the American Folklore Society in November. She was moderator the session on “Apparitions of the Virgin Mary” at the American Academy of Religion (AAR). She is a member of the advisory committee for

the Marian Apparitions Experimental Session of the AAR, as well as a member of the steering committee for the Folklore and Reli-gion Seminar. In addition to teaching HWC 110 Introduction to Humanities this year, she has enjoyed teaching REL 104 Introduc-tion to Religious Studies after a hiatus of almost fifteen years.

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The Humanities and Western Civilization Program at the University of Kansas offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of intellectual traditions and cultural practices in world civilizations with an emphasis on the influence of Western Civilization on the history of ideas and other cultures. The program’s focus on values, ethics, and civilized debate is also reflected in its emphasis on critical thinking, reading and writing, and on individualized student advising and a flexible curriculum.

Save the Date:

September 7, 2015, 7:00 P.M. Peace and Conflict Studies & Seaver Lecturer, Sheyda Jahanbani, Associate Professor, Department of History. Malott Room, Kansas Union.

March 31 & April 1, 2016: Seventh Annual Mid-America Humanities Con-ference on “Work and the Workplace: Perspectives from the Humanities, Kansas Union

The KU Humanities and Western Civiliza-tion Program wants to stay in touch with its alumni and former graduate teaching as-sistants.  Learn about developments in our program and let us know about your activi-ties.  To update your contact information and share your news, use the form you will find at: http://hwc.ku.edu/alumni-updates.

Humanities Western Civilization program fund

Private gifts through our Endowment account enrich the life of the program, including the Mid-America Hu-manities Conference, student awards, the Seaver Lec-ture, the Peace and Conflict Studies Lecture, and other events. We invite all friends, alums, colleagues, and other lovers of HWC to support our ongoing activities. Donations to the HWC Program may be made on line at http://hwc.ku.edu/alumni-friends. Or checks may be sent to

Gift Processing DepartmentKU EndowmentPO Box 928Lawrence, KS 66044-0928

Be sure to specify the gift is for the Humanities and Western Civilization Program