Newsletter, 8 August 2014

Our SHARP fellows Josh Stallings and Jesse Shulman will formally present their research to their peers on August 11, 2014. In this presentation, they will profile several public humanities programs, and unveil their digital map of public humanities hotspots. The map will be made available on our Cultural Agents website in the coming months. As it represents an ongoing project, please continue to monitor its development. While William Leong and Joel Ostdiek will not participate in the presentation, it is important to acknowledge their contributions to this project.

Harvard University PhD Candidate and Cultural Agents collaborator, Amy Fish, is halfway through her time at the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (IHNCA) at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in Managua. She is continuing her survey of early twentieth-century literary and cultural magazines from Nicaragua. She has located a number of treasures, including the original publications and collaborations of many great Nicaraguan poets and the feminist editorials of Josefa Toledo de Aguerri. The digitalization of these resources by the IHNCA will be a gift to scholars. In addition, Amy is gathering valuable information that will support her analysis of June Jordan’s literary solidarity with Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s.

China
This week concludes Literature Out Loud (Pre-Texts) training with teachers from the Hokmah International School in Shenzhen. In the picture below, teachers act out scenes related to their interpretations of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘How Do I Love Thee (Sonnet 43).’  This text was selected in honor of Chinese Valentine’s Day, which was last Saturday!

Mexico
The teachers who participated in the Pre-Texts workshops in Saltillo in June began to use Pre-Texts in their classrooms this week! In honor of the continued support of the Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila’s Rector Blas José Flores Dávila, his administration, and a great local team, here is a photograph of the Rector and some of his administrators performing a song based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince during a Pre-Texts celebration.

Chile
With the support of María Paz Domínquez and Integra_Lab, Pre-Texts will be introduced to visitors as part of a series of workshops on teacher training at the 7 Salón Internacional de la Educación in Santiago. For more on this event, which will be held at the Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho on August 21 and 22, 2014, see:  http://www.salondelaeducacion.cl/

United States
On Friday, August 29, 2014, an optional Pre-Texts training workshop for Romance Languages and Literature students with graduate students from Comparative Literature will begin at the Bok Center as part of the Bok Center’s Great Teachers Series. This initial planning session will be held in room 317, from 2:30-5pm.The Great Teachers Series profiles nominated faculty members at Harvard, offering a portrait of his or her work through a selection of interrelated videos. For more information, see:
http://greatteachers.harvard.edu/about-project

Other Active Cultural Agents 

Venezuela and Beyond
El Sistema is a musical education program that was founded in Venezuela in 1975 by the economist and musician José Antonio Abreu. It has since spread to many parts of the world, including the United States. El Sistema is an intensive music program that uses ensemble music and the pursuit of musical excellence as a means to support productive experimentation, risk-taking, and collaboration.
For more information on the ongoing work of El Sistema, see:
https://elsistemausa.org/el-sistema-in-venezuela.htm