Everyone is invited to hear our graduating Humanities students present their research. The Thesis Symposium will be Friday, December 6th, 2 -3 pm in CLA 1.302B (the Glickman Conference Center).
Tyler Austin
“Representations of Irving Thalberg”
Sara Ness
“Onward to Utopia:
Practical Models for Building Intentional Communities”
Seve Kale
“Criminal Sainthood:
Folk Religion, Drug Trafficking, and Jesus Malverde”
Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement
of the educated mind; it is also the most useful.
It pervades the whole being. The administrator
with a sense for style hates waste; the engineer
with a sense for style economizes his material;
the artisan with a sense for style prefers good
work. Style is the ultimate morality of mind.
Alfred North Whitehead
The Topic:
In Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way the narrator is describing his neighbor’s difficulties with his daughter: “But a man like M. Vinteuil must have suffered much more than most in resigning himself to one of those situations which are wrongly believed to be the exclusive prerogative of the bohemia life: they occur whenever a vice which nature itself plants in a child….” We are never told the “vice,” but the narrator goes on to observe: “But the fact that M. Vinteuil perhaps knew about his daughter’s behavior does not imply that his worship of her would thereby be diminished. Facts do not find their way into the world in which our beliefs reside; they did not produce our beliefs, they do not destroy them; they may inflict on them the most constant refutations without weakening them, and an avalanche of afflictions or ailments succeeding one another without interruption in a family will not make it doubt the goodness of its God or the talent of its doctor” (p. 151, translated by Lydia Davis).
Write an essay in which you agree or disagree with the narrator’s (who may call Proust) assertion about fact and belief. Needless to say, the more well developed your thoughts, the more specific your language, the better.
Eligibility: Current Liberal Arts Honors Freshmen and Sophomores
Specifications: 750-1000 words, titled, double-spaced, and typed, with your name in the upper-right hand corner. No cover page.
Awards:
1st Prize: $1500
2nd Prize: $500
3rd Prize: $250
Submission Deadline: Friday, January 17, 5:00 p.m. in the Liberal Arts Honors Office. The judges reserve the right to withhold awards in the absence of prize worthy essays.
From June 16 to July 11 of this summer, the Rome Institute for the Liberal Arts (RILA), which is affiliated with the Thomas Jefferson Center, will offer two courses for which you can get UT credit:
“Beauty and the Sacred”
and
“Empire and the Soul”
These are discussion intensive, great books based courses. Like all CTI courses, the focus will be on the study of primary texts and what they can teach us about questions of perennial importance. They also fulfill CTI requirements.
Classes will be supplemented by guided tours to sites in Rome and excursions outside Rome. Also, we are hoping that Erik Dempsey, lecturer and assistant director for the Jefferson Center, will be teaching one of the courses.
There will be an information session on RILA on Monday, December 9, at 2 PM in Waggener 403B. Mr. Dempsey will be there to discuss the program and scholarships that are available for it.
If you can’t make the meeting, you can email Mr. Dempsey at ed6335@utexas.edu for more information. RILA also has a website at http://www.rilarts.org.
The Eastside Community Connection is a local nonprofit that provides emergency food assistance for food insecure families. They are recruiting freshmen and sophomores to fill a vacant board position. If you’re interested, please contact former LAH student Health Cleveland, who serves as the graduate student representative on the board at : heathcleveland@gmail.com
Doing some writing or photography over winter break? Remember that Echo, the LAH literary journal, is accepting submissions for the 2014 edition!
Submit your prose, poetry, and photography to echolitmag@gmail.com. Feel free to submit any number of pieces in any or all of the categories. The deadline this year is Monday, January 27th, 2014.
To receive Facebook notifications about Echo, “like” the Echo Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/EchoLitMag).
Raudel Garza, Texas and is Manager and CEO of the Harlingen Economic Development Council (http://www.harlingenedc.com/), would like to be more actively engaged and offered internships for any economics LAH students who are from the Valley or who would be willing to live there for the summer in order to get experience. If you are looking for an internship in Harlingen please contact Raudel Garza.
Raudel Garza, Manager & Chief Executive Officer
Harlingen Economic Development Corporation
2424 Boxwood Street, Suite 125
Harlingen, TX 78550
(956) 245-1303 cell
(956) 215-5081 office
Sign up for a Ransom Reading Group by December 1! Books will be provided by the Co-op and LAHSC. They’ll be delivered in time for you to pick them up before winter break.
The sign up sheet is available only as a Google Doc.
Undergraduate Research in Race, Ethnicity, and the Demography of Crime and Punishment
Population Research Center and Department of Sociology, UT-Austin
The Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with the Department of Sociology, is hosting the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program in Race, Ethnicity, and the Demography of Crime and Punishment for the summer of 2014. This eight-week summer program, which is held during June and July and is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (but also with significant contributions from the UT Population Research Center, Department of Sociology, and College of Liberal Arts), offers eight very selective upper-division undergraduate students from both UT-Austin and from around the country the opportunity to study social demography through course work and a mentored research experience with senior PRC graduate students. The program pays for tuition, room and board, and computer expenses. REU students also receive a $4,000 stipend for participation in the program, which allows the selected students to fully concentrate on their REU experience over the 2-month program. Students participate in a 3-hour summer course during the first half of the program, then dedicate the second half of the program to their own projects in collaboration with their graduate student mentor and under the overall guidance of the faculty co-directors, David Kirk and Keith Robinson. Student papers are then presented in the fall at a specified professional conference. Former students from the REU program are now on the faculties of Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, Pennsylvania State University, Vanderbilt University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Pennsylvania, and more, and currently in social science graduate programs at the Universities of Wisconsin, Chicago, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California at Los Angeles, as well as Harvard University, Stanford University, Princeton University, Northwestern University, Duke University, and more. This program is specifically geared toward students with junior standing who are seriously thinking about attending graduate school in the social sciences and, particularly, in sociology or demography.
The 2014 summer REU Program application deadline is FEBRUARY 16, 2014. See http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/prc/training/undergraduate.php for details about the REU program and the program application, as well as information about other research and training programs of the UT Population Research Center.
WRITERS AND ARTISTS: Looking to share your work? Want to see your name in print? Get published by Analecta, the official literary and arts journal of UT. We are now accepting writing and artwork submissions for our next publication. Poetry, fiction, nonfiction: there’s a $75.00 prize per category! Visit www.analectajournal.com for information and guidelines. Submissions are due by Friday, December 18th, 2013.