The Future Knowledge seminar series will provide the UNCW community with an opportunity to explore the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of humanistic inquiry. Emerging technologies, computational methods and vast amounts of data are partially responsible for transforming the way researchers and students understand their work and disciplines. This is especially true in the humanities, social sciences, and arts where the impacts of these advances are still unfolding. This series will bring leading scholars into conversation with our university community to help us better understand how these developments are contributing to a growth in interdisciplinarity and reshaping humanistic inquiry in the twenty-first century. The Future Knowledge seminar series is supported by an Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series (IRSS) grant from the UNCW Research Development Office. For more information, please contact John Knox at knoxj@uncw.edu.
Jonathan Kramnick (Yale) will give a public lecture entitled "What is close reading?" that draws on his recent book, Criticism and Truth: On Method in Literary Studies (U Chicago, 2023). Long recognized as the distinctive technique of literary studies, close reading is the critic’s way of pursuing arguments and advancing knowledge. Drawing on the rich and varied landscape of contemporary criticism, Kramnick’s scholarship changes how we think about the basic tools of literary analysis, including the art of in-text quotation, summary, and other reading methods, helping us to see them as an invaluable form of humanistic expertise. In this lecture, Kramnick will make a powerful case for the necessity of both literature and criticism within a multidisciplinary university.
Jessica Otis (George Mason University) will be visiting UNCW on Thursday, March 27, 2025. Otis will lead a workshop for faculty and students and give a public lecture on her recent work, By the Numbers: Numeracy, Religion, and the Quantitative Transformation of Early Modern England (Oxford UP, 2023) and related digital projects. Details about the events are forthcoming. For more information, please contact John Knox at knoxj@uncw.edu.