Upcoming Events

Mar
12

Faculty Fellow Talk:
Dr. Mathilda Shepard,
Assistant Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies

"Jesus, John Wayne and Jair Bolsonaro: Streaming Militant Masculinities on the Brasil Paralelo Platform."

This talk examines recent transformations in the transnational mediascape of the New Right through the lens of Brasil Paralelo, a Brazilian streaming platform founded amidst the rising tide of right-wing radicalism that precipitated the ascension of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency in 2019. Known as the “Netflix of the Right,” Brasil Paralelo hosts a curated selection of original productions and third-party content reflecting the company’s commitment to free-market, Christian, and “anti-woke” values. While most critical discourse has focused on the platform’s heterodox presentation of Brazilian history and construction of a “parallel” national imaginary which privileges the country’s European, Catholic and anti-Communist heritage, I turn to its production of militant masculinities, proposing that masculine figures of empowerment, sacrifice and redemption are key to understanding how Brazil has both metabolized and reconfigured increasingly globalized notions of what it means to be a right-wing culture warrior today. Structuring my analysis around the ideological and aesthetic priorities outlined in Brasil Paralelo’s meta-critical documentaries and how these are put in practice through the production of its first in-house fiction film (Oficina do Diabo) and repeated platforming of international celebrities such as actor Jim Caviezel, I argue that Brasil Paralelo represents not only a continuation of the influential role that Brazil has historically played in shaping the cultural and intellectual currents that converge in the (not-so) “new” Right, but also a critical infrastructure for the transnational production of right-wing media in the age of digital streaming.

4pm, Humanities 108

Mar
26

Humanity Speaker Series:
Dr. John Ma
(Columbia University)

"Political equality, economic redistribution, and social justice in the case of the Greek city-state (Polis)"

This talk examines the tensions surrounding political equality and economic inequality in the polis, with specific attention to the practical consequences of the generalization of democratic regimes in the Hellenistic period. Did the democratic polis pursue specific policies to achieve economic redistribution or the curbing of excessive wealth ? Did they justify such practices in terms of civic ideology of the common good ? The possiible answers take us from Aristotle to Roman-era public inscriptions, but also to modern debates about class-struggle constitutions, redistribution, and taxation.

John Ma is a historian of ancient Greece, with particular interest in the Hellenistic period and in epigraphical material. He is the author of three books on these topics, the last one a survey of the history of the Greek polis. He currently teaches in the Department of Classics at Columbia University.  

5:30pm, Room 067, Media & Communication Building

Mar
27

Scholar-in-Residence Workshop with Dr. Stephanie Ann Frampton:
"Books as Friends: Translation, Transmission, and Community”

This session examines friendship and intellectual networks from Cicero to Petrarch to early modern readers of Latin texts. Participants will reflect on reading as an act of belonging and co-creation across languages and times.

Email humanitiescenter@ttu.edu to register.

2pm, 228 Weeks Hall

Apr
3

FaDe: The Faculty Derrida Colloquium

The second session of FaDe (The Faculty Derrida Colloquium) once again aims to bring scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to read and engage with one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, Jacques Derrida. Structured as a seminar led by James M. Kopf, the FaDe Colloquium is designed to build disciplinary bridges and approach difficult texts from a variety of aspects and viewpoints. Participants will grapple directly with the primary text and the primary text alone, posing questions, answering others, and opening their own semantic fields in an intellectually generous and decentralized manner. FaDe II will focus on "The Violence of the Letter: From Lévi-Strauss to Rousseau," an excerpt from Of Grammatology, one of Derrida's first major books.

Open to all faculty members and graduate students. Lunch will be served at the event's conclusion. It is expected that participants will have read the text prior to attending. Copies of the material will be available.

Email humanitiescenter@ttu.edu to register.

10:00am, Humanities 201