Join this year's cohort of Fellows at the Society for the Humanities for presentations on work-in-progress on the 2024-25 focal theme of Silence. Each presentation will be followed by a Q&A. Open to the public.

Friday, April 25

Coffee and light refreshments: 9:30am

10:00am-11:30pm Panel 1

Migration to the Moon, and Other Theories of Avian Absence
Julia Laurel Mueller Society Fellow

Silent, Silenced, and Silencing: Black Deaf and Blind Education in the Jim Crow South 
Jenifer Barclay Society Fellow

Transnational Historical Novels and Human Rights History
Cassie Falke Society Fellow

15-minute break

11:45am-12:45pm Panel 2

The Cold War, Capitalism, and the Color Line: Reading Silence in The Human Condition
Patchen Markell Faculty Fellow

Sounding Khmerican Life in Straight Thru Cambotown
Brian V. Sengdala Mellon Graduate Fellow 

12:45pm-2:00pm Lunch

2:00-3:00pm Panel 3

C'Est Si Bon: The Queer Pas de Trois of Lorraine Hansberry’s “Chanson du Konallis”
Sara Warner Faculty Fellow

Is Yeshaya Silent-?-The Presence of the Jewish Dead
Jonathan Boyarin Faculty Fellow

15-minute break

3:15pm-4:45pm Keynote

Re-storying Silence: Mad, Deaf, and Disability Histories
Susan Burch
Professor of American Studies, Middlebury College

In this talk, Susan Burch traces some of the multivalent relationships silence has to institutionalization, institutionalized people, and to their kin on the outside.  Centering on life stories and drawing on critical disability, Mad, and deaf history, she reveals wide-ranging meanings and functions of silences that cross generations and reach into the present day.

5:00pm Reception

This event will feature American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation.

Please contact adwhitehouse@cornell.edu for accommodations.

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The Elephants of Dzanga Bai - Photo and Sound Installation
Thursday, April 24 5-7pm
A.D. White House

“The Elephants of Dzanga Bai.” Photo and sound installation by Ivonne Kienast (K Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics) and Annie Lewandowski (Department of Music), in collaboration with the Society for the Humanities 2025-26 focal theme of "Silence" and the Annual Spring Fellows' Conference. 

For more information visit: https://events.cornell.edu/event/the-elephants-of-dzanga-bai-photo-and-sound-installation