All posts by Lisa Gates

About Lisa Gates

Lisa Gates is associate dean for fellowships and research at Middlebury College. To contact Dean Gates, send an email to lgates@middlebury.edu or call x3183.

AIDS Memorial Quilt Panel on Display April 11-29, Davis Family Library

For Faculty, For Staff

We are pleased to let you know that a section of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display on the second floor of the Davis Family Library, beginning the week of April 11 through the end of April. This display is part of a current course “Constructing Memory: American Monuments and Memorials,” and we are glad to make it available and open the the community.  We will have an interactive component for those who wish to share their reflections to the display; these will be added to an area adjacent to the AIDS Memorial Quilt display. 

We invite all interested members of the community to visit the display, share reflections and incorporate it into your own courses or conversations. Below, please find more information about The Quilt. 

AIDS Memorial Quilt Background: In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This meeting of devoted friends and lovers served as the foundation of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.

On October 11, 1987, The Quilt included 1,920 panels and was displayed for the first time on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The Quilt returned to Washington, D.C. in October of 1988, when 8,288 panels were displayed on the Ellipse in front of the White House. The entire Quilt was again displayed on the National Mall in 1992 and 1996, when it contained approximately 37,440 individual panels. Today, the Quilt contains more than 94,000 names on 48,000 panels.

The Quilt was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, and is today the largest community art project in the world.  (from http://www.aidsquilt.org/about/medianewsroom#Facts )

AIDS Quilt Image(Photo courtesy of the NAMES Project Foundation)

The display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at Middlebury College is sponsored by the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research; the American Studies Program; the Davis Family Library; and the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life.

Deb Evans, American Studies

Lisa Gates, Center for Teaching, Learning and Research

Undergraduate Symposium on Digital Media–call for papers/proposals

research, Student Activities

Re:Humanities is the first national digital humanities conference of, for, and by undergraduates, to be held at Haverford College, April 3-4, 2013. The theme for Re:Humanities 2014 is “Play. Power. Production.” The Re:Hum Working Group, comprised of students from Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Swarthmore Colleges, seeks undergraduates who engage with contemporary currents in digital humanities, scholars who both apply digital methodologies in traditional humanities research while posing critical humanities questions about those technologies. Undergraduates who will think interdisciplinarily, theorizing relationships between new digital technologies and the webs of power and access that surround them invited to submit proposals. The Working Group welcomes submissions of criticism and projects at all stages of development, with the understanding that a substantial amount of research will be accumulated to present at the conference at Haverford College, April 3-4, 2014.  Website: http://blogs.haverford.edu/rehumanities/

Proposals on the following encouraged, but not limited to:

  • Postcolonial Studies, Queer Studies and New Media Studies.
  • Criticism of New Media Technologies.
  • Collaboration and Solidarity in the Digital Humanities.
  • Game Analysis, Design and Play.
  • Digital Production and “Maker” Culture.
  • Performance and Affect in Participatory Media
  • Appropriation Culture: Theory and Practice.
  • Global and Transnational Perspectives on the Digital Humanities.

Students selected to present will receive a small award to defray travel costs. Lodging will be arranged at no cost to participants. Middlebury participants can also apply for travel support if needed through the Academic Conference Travel Fund:  http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/resources/uro/funding/conferencefund

The submission deadline is December 1, 2013 (Midnight GMT) and decisions will be announced before the new year.

Submissions must include your name, institution, a short biography of 2-3 sentences, and a titled description of your project (maximum 700 words). Send a .doc/.docx, .pdf or .jpg file to rehumanities@gmail.com.