Take a moment to answer three questions. Where do you bank? When did you open your first bank account? Why do you even need a bank? Today’s episode, part one of two, considers the rise of modern banking and the global crisis of the world’s unbanked. Episode two will explore the problem of the unbanked in more detail and present some technologies that could provide some solutions. Further reading: John Lanchester, "When Bitcoin Grows Up," London Review of Books, 21 April 2016, p. 3. … [Read more...]
Behind the Tower
On August 1, 1966, possibly the most important event in Austin history took place. A twenty-five-year-old University of Texas student went up to the observation deck of the UT tower armed with guns, ammunition, and canned food and for the next 96 minutes held the campus in a state of terror. He killed 14 people that day and wounded more than 30. The shooting was broadcast on the radio and on television and it became a major news story both nationally and internationally. There were thousands of eyewitnesses and dozens of survivors as well as a large local archive of police reports; a … [Read more...]
From Jawsmania to Shark Week
In this special Shark Week edition of Humanities Highlights, we talk with Janet M. Davis, professor of American studies and history at the University of Texas about her latest research on the history of shark and human interactions. In her work, Davis traces our love-hate fascination with sharks from the rise and fall of whaling and the growth of tourism in former whaling towns to a series of shark attacks in the early twentieth century and on to the wildly popular novel and film Jaws. She also discusses how this history with sharks not only reflects, but also affects our relationship to the … [Read more...]
Anthropomorphizing Animals
Why do we talk about animals as if they are people? Do we have to anthropomorphize animals in order to feel empathy for them? And, does this say more about them or more about us? In this episode we explore how we anthropomorphize animals and what this means about our relationship with the natural world. Bevo XIV's obituary Dr. Naomi Rose's TED Talk on the family structure of orcas … [Read more...]
Two Authors–One Literary Spar
Two authors--one complicated relationship. "[Hemingway] has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" William Faulkner is known for his experimental, stream-of-consciousness style, and his attention to diction and cadence. His characters are distinctly Southern--former slaves and their descendants, poor or working class whites, and the stubborn remnants of a fading aristocracy. Consequently, his subject matter tends towards the Gothic and grotesque, such as in his short story "A … [Read more...]
Texas Domestic Slave Trade Project
Rachel Winston and Daina Berry’s project Mapping the Texas Slave Trade Routes is an interdisciplinary research effort that draws upon the work of UT faculty, staff, and graduate, and undergraduate scholars across campus to address the previously under-researched subject of slave trading in Texas and other parts of the Americas. Their team researched slavery and domestic slave trading in Texas between 1821–1865, reviewing census records and other primary documents such as maps, narratives, and newspapers. They then integrated research data with geo-mapping and data visualization technologies. … [Read more...]
Animal Economics
In this episode, we'll look at what animals reveal about economic and social divides among people, specifically the role pets have played in the gentrification of neighborhoods in Austin, Texas, and the relationship that this issue has to our beliefs about civilization and savagery. You can learn more about Eric Tang and the East Avenue project at segregatedaustin.org. Life & Letters magazine also featured his work in a recent article, "Leaving Home: Austin's Declining African American Population." In her latest book, The Gospel of Kindness, Janet M. Davis explores the broad cultural … [Read more...]
The Heart of Human Rights
“It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—the suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a … [Read more...]
The RRK: The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection
The RRK, or Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection is a collection of over 150 nineteenth-century American wood type specimens assembled by design educator, collector, and historian Rob Roy Kelly. Kelly began collecting wood type from local printers in the late 1950s for use by his students at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, and continued adding to the collection over the next decade. He started researching the history and manufacture of American wood type partly in response to his students’ questions about it. Over time, the RRK collection made its way to the … [Read more...]
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Title X, Part 2
Today’s episode, part 2 of 2, explores some of the other arguments in Title IX funding’s impact on higher education. … [Read more...]