Q+A: Caroline Winterer, new Stanford Humanities Center director
Caroline Winterer, professor of history, was recently named the new director of the Stanford Humanities Center, a post she will assume on Sept. 1.
Stanford Humanities Center
Food trucks not returning to campus in the spring
As the ASSU Executive’s winter quarter food truck pilot program comes to an end, a lack of student demand means that late-night food trucks will not return to campus in the spring. Lunch trucks, organized by food truck management company Off the Grid, will return next quarter, while Net Appetit, a popular and long-serving food truck, is unlikely to come back.
Nat’l identity from history, says fellow
“Our images of other people, of ourselves, reflect the history we are taught as children. This history marks us for life,” said Mario Carretero, quoting French historian Marc Ferro before an audience in Levinthal Hall on Tuesday evening. Carretero, a professor of psychology at Autonomous University of Madrid, gave a presentation on “Historical Narratives and the Construction of National Identities” at the Stanford Humanities Center, where he is currently a research fellow.
Artist presents interpretive Qur’an project
Artist Sandow Birk presented his American Qur’an project as part of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies event series “We the People: Islam and U.S. Politics.” The project is Birk’s attempt to hand-transcribe the entire Qur’an, illuminating the text with scenes from contemporary American life.
Honing in on the Humanities
Research within the humanities can seem like a daunting task. Students are used to quarter sessions, where theories fly by in a conceptual whirlwind of midterms and profoundly caffeinated essay writing. In classes, it’s expected to spend one week analyzing a book, two weeks on a social phenomenon, three on an entire epoch. So, how does one escape the curse of the cursory?
Award-winning novelist discusses ethics of war writing
Celebrated writer Tim O’Brien, best known for his Vietnam War accounts in award-winning novels “Going After Cacciato” and “The Things They Carried,” delved into his personal experience with war and discussed the ethics of writing about war with Stanford professor and novelist Tobias Wolff during his Stanford visit yesterday.
Author Maxine Hong Kingston switches to poetry
Renowned Chinese American author Maxine Hong Kingston read sections from an unpublished poem at the Stanford Humanities Center last night, providing her audience with what she called a “world premiere” preview to her next major work, a 201-page poem.