On Tuesday, September 27th at 6:00pm in the basement of Donovan Hall, join undergraduate students Alan Luc and Aryan Patel in a conversation about what it means to navigate cultural identities as Asian American Appalachians. This event is co-sponsored by the UK Asian American Association.
We're excited to host the Malina Brothers! An extraordinary fusion of Bluegrass and Baroque music from the Czech Republic.
In 2010 the three Malina brothers, namely banjo player Luboš (oftheaward-winning „Czechgrass“ group Druhá tráva), guitarist Pavel, and violinist Josef, formed their family band Malina Brothers, which was eventually joined by Pavel Peroutka on double bass. All four “Brothers” are natives of Náchod, a city on the Czech-Polish border. They have toured extensively in the USA, as well as on domestic and European stages, and they have collaborated with Czech and international musicians such as Peter Rowan, Charlie McCoy, Béla Fleck and others. The Malina Brothers honour their musical connections to the Eastern-Bohemian Bluegrass and “Tramping” traditions, which were their main influences during the stark years of the Communist regime. The three Malina brothers eventually developed their own, unique musical style based on their listening to American Country and Bluegrass recordings (which would occasionally make their way into Czechoslovakia through the Iron Curtain), combined with the musical influences of the local “Tramping” movement, Eastern European Folklore, and Classical music.
On their latest album, “Baroquegrass 1721-2021” the Malina Brothers introduced a fusion of Bluegrass and Baroque music with a series of original arrangements, creating a brand new musical style: Baroquegrass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mzW_9QWAtE
This event is part of the Many Mountains Fall Festival, check out our full calendar for other events!
Join us for a Work-In-Progress screening and discussion of The Mountain Fiesta: Bridging the Gap & Building Community in Rural Appalachia, featuring filmmakers Roderico Yool-Díaz and Emily (Gibson) Rhyne of Iximché Media at the Niles Gallery on Monday, September 26th at 5:00pm.
This event is part of the Many Mountains Fall Festival, check out our full calendar for other events!
Please join us for a virtual performance and Q&A featuring Appalasia. Appalasia was formed by Mimi Jong, Jeff Berman, and Sue Powers in Pittsburgh, PA. Together they have created an evocative and ambitious performance language for dulcimer, erhu, banjo, and vocals that combines the influence of their folk-roots with original composition and inspired improvisation.
This event is co-sponsored by the UK Appalachian Center & Appalachian Studies Program, the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, Passport to the World's Year of Cultures Without Borders, the Gaines Center for the Humanities, and the Office of China Initiatives. It is presented in association with the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
We'll have a virtual viewing session at the John Jacob Niles Gallery, April 1st, at 3:30PM, or you can tune in via Zoom: https://uky.zoom.us/j/83469552756
"I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said, “The Master’s gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.”
—Chia Tao, “Searching for the Hermit in Vain”
I argue that the "return of a lost commons," to cite Jared Sexton's term, is insufficient to address the bondage of the modern world. Looking at the television show Queen Sugar and the novel We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge, I show that notions of land ownership and philosophical notions of the "self" under Western society fail to redress the wounds of slavery and land theft experienced by Native Americans and, by extension, after the Civil War, by African Americans. Instead, I build on abolitionist rejections of Western notions of the human as well as regimes of property in order to show that a method of non-ownership and no-self are articulated in Zen ideology. I align this alternative framework with the philosophies of Zen Buddhism, showing that the "life of homelessness" for the purpose of ego death, aligns with an abolitionist ethos. In doing so, I connect Afropessimism with Zen philosophy, in order to schematize methodologies of personal and collective liberation. In this talk, I will point to the maroon communities of the Caribbean as embodying an abolitionist ideology and reference the work of black Zen teacher Zenju Earthlyn Manuel in her forthcoming book The Shamanic Roots of Zen, connecting all of these epistemes in a framework that destabilizes capitalist progress narratives and suggests radical possibilities for imagining freedom beyond the hold.
***
Stefanie K. Dunning is an Associate Professor of English at Miami University. She is a graduate of Spelman College and the University of California, Riverside, and a Ford Fellow. Her first book, Queer in Black and White: Interraciality, Same-Sex Desire, and Contemporary African American Culture, from Indiana University Press, was published in 2009. Her latest project, Black to Nature: Pastoral Return and African American Culture from the University Press of Mississippi was published in April 2021. In addition to her published books, she has been published in African American Review, MELUS, Studies in the Fantastic, and other journals and anthologies. She also has a podcast, called Black to Nature: the podcast, available for listening on all major platforms.
The Department of Sociology and the UK Appalachian Center & Appalachian Studies Program are thrilled to host Dr. Aaron Thompson, graduate of the UK Department of Sociology and President of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. Dr. Thompson will be giving a public lecture entitled "Making Higher Education Matter to Kentucky" at the E. Britt Brockman, M.D. Senate Chamber, in the Gatton Student Center at 2:30 pm on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022. From his start as a low-income minority youth in rural Clay County to Council on Postsecondary Education President, Dr. Aaron Thompson will share his story about the transformative power of higher education. Thompson will also speak about how his passions for closing opportunity gaps and increasing the value of higher education have influenced the state’s new strategic agenda for postsecondary education.
If you would like to join virtually, please see the Zoom webinar registration information below.
https://uky.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_x2oeM49eQ5OZ9kEum0b10g
Also join us also for a special coffee hour earlier in the day featuring Dr. Thompson at 10:00AM at the Appalachian Center or virtually, via Zoom.
Additionally, graduate students are invited to join Dr. Thompson for lunch in the Gatton Student Center, Room 331 at 12:00 noon. Students should RSVP to Justin Conder at justin.conder@uky.edu.
Dr. Aaron Thompson is a passionate advocate for higher education. As a first-generation college student from rural Clay County, Kentucky, he experienced first-hand the transformative power of a college credential. As President of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, he works to ensure all Kentuckians have an equal opportunity to improve their lives through postsecondary education. Before taking the helm of CPE, Thompson served as interim president of Kentucky State University and as executive vice president, provost, and faculty member at Eastern Kentucky University. He has extensive leadership experience within the private and non-profit sectors and is a highly sought-after national speaker. Thompson has authored numerous books on diversity, cultural competence, first-year experience programs, retention and student success. Thompson received his doctoral degree in sociology from the University of Kentucky, with an emphasis on organizational leadership. He earned a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Kentucky, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Eastern Kentucky University.
OCTOBER 21 | An Evening with Carter Sickels | 7 PM
Join us for our virtual evening with novelist Carter Sickels! The Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program is co-sponsoring the MFA in Creative Writing Program's Visiting Writers Series with the Gaines Center for the Humanities.
About Carter Sickels:
Sickels is the author of the novel The Prettiest Star (Hub City Press), winner of the 2021 Southern Book Prize and the Weatherford Award. The Prettiest Star was also selected as a Kirkus Best Book of 2020 and a Best LGBT Book of 2020 by O Magazine. His debut novel The Evening Hour (Bloomsbury), a 2013 Oregon Book Award finalist and Lambda Literary Award finalist, was adapted into a feature film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. His writing appears in various publications, including The Atlantic, Oxford American, Poets & Writers, BuzzFeed, Guernica, Joyland, and Catapult. Carter is the recipient of the 2013 Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Award, and has received fellowships from the Bread Load Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He is an assistant professor at Eastern Kentucky University. For more information on Carter Sickels, visit www.cartersickels.com!
To register, click HERE!
Fall semester classes begin on Aug. 23, 2021. View the full academic calendar for the fall semester here.
Are you interested in publicly-engaged scholarship and working with local communities? Please join us for a panel featuring scholars from a variety of disciplines to learn more about their work and suggested best practices. The workshop will acquaint you with a broad array of resources and conversations on the topic of publicly-engaged scholarship and answer any questions you may have.
Co-Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies, the Appalachian Center, and the Center for Equality and Social Justice. Register at https://uky.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ldOuqqj4sE9J_LsYywrLeKI_nv-I0mh…
For more information about our presenters, please see their personal webpage:
Dr. Christia Brown, Dr. Ann Kingsolver, Dr. Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, Dr. Natalie Nenadic, and Dr. Matthew Wilson
As a prelude to the Fall Semester, Associate Provost Kathi Kern and Dean Mark Kornbluh will discuss the challenges posed by teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty and students alike worry about the logistics. How will we maintain a safe and healthy learning environment? How much of instruction will need to be moved online or “flipped”? How does technology enable or restrict us? How do we continue to foster strong student-teacher bonds at a distance? How do we build community in our current environment?
And while these questions are urgent for the particular moment, they also point to a lasting shift in how we go about our work as educators. Even after the pandemic subsides, we will likely find ourselves reflecting on the unexamined, yet sacred elements of what makes a college education. As disruptive as the pandemic has been, it has also ignited a climate of innovation. We are led to think anew about the journeys that our students take, how our research and disciplines best serve a diverse community of learners, how the wicked problems of the world defy institutional silos, and how we can best support individuals while also strengthening communities. Our lessons learned and enduring challenges from the past few months afford us a unique opportunity to anticipate these emergent paradigms for teaching and learning.
Pandemic and the Professor from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.
