{"id":1112,"date":"2017-06-01T18:06:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T18:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/?page_id=1112"},"modified":"2017-06-01T18:06:47","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T18:06:47","slug":"may-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/may-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"May 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ideas in Unexpected Places: Why a Marketplace Intellectual Life Still Matters<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 By Davarian L. Baldwin<\/strong><\/a>
\nBlack Perspectives<\/em> [publication of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS)]
\nThis post is a condensed version of Davarian L. Baldwin\u2019s keynote address at the 2017 AAIHS conference at Vanderbilt University:
\n\u201cI want to express what an honor it is to offer a keynote to you here at the African American Intellectual History Society\u2019s second annual conference. The very legacy of this organization is historic in itself. Here we have mostly junior faculty assessing the limits of how the academy imagines and institutionalizes \u201cintellectual history.\u201d Instead of just offering critique, these young scholars moved forward to create a space where we can cultivate new directions and pathways within the field. It must be noted that this is no small feat, when the academy tells us that the only thing a junior faculty member should be concerned with is getting tenure.
\nIn the spirit of this year\u2019s theme \u201cexpanding the boundaries,\u201d I am going to offer a bit of personal intellectual genealogy to explain how and why I needed to come up with the seemingly anachronistic idea of a marketplace intellectual life. I hope this bit of biography can serve as a useful primer for folks trying to think about how to do intellectual history differently, especially when our people\u2019s stories have not been held within the traditional archives nor fully embraced by the likes of the Society of Intellectual Historians\u2026\u201d
\nDavarian L. Baldwin is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Only Part of the \u2018Guernica\u2019 Story<\/strong><\/a> – By Michael FitzGerald<\/a><\/strong>
\nThe Wall Street Journal<\/em>
\nTo mark the 80th anniversary of the most famous painting of the 20th century, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof\u00eda is presenting \u201cPity and Terror: Picasso\u2019s Path to \u2018Guernica\u2019\u201d through Sept. 4, a reinterpretation that is both deeply enthralling and strangely detached from the roots of Picasso\u2019s art. Curated by two eminent art historians, T.J. Clark and Anne M. Wagner, the exhibition aspires to the nearly impossible task of stripping away decades of critical debates and opening direct access to the painting and Picasso\u2019s creative process…
\nMr. FitzGerald teaches the history of modern and contemporary art at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.<\/em><\/p>\n

Feeling the beat: West Hartford’s Eric Galm founded Samba Fest at Trinity College<\/strong><\/a>
\nWest Hartford Life<\/em>
\n\u2026The culmination of Eric Galm<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s study, practice and passion has resulted in his founding the annual Samba Fest.
\nThe festival began when Galm, an associate professor of music and ethnomusicology at Trinity College, was teaching a class and hoped to have his students collaborate with local musicians\u2026<\/p>\n

In the Age of Trump, We Need to Protect Map Databases<\/strong><\/a>
\nSlate<\/em>
\nNo one would blame you for missing the early January introduction of two identical bills known as H.R. 482 and S.103. Sponsored by Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, both bills held the distinctly unremarkable title of the \u201cLocal Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017.\u201d
\nIn the chaos of the Trump administration\u2019s first couple of months in office, most people have continued not to notice these two bills. But many American geography and mapping professionals as well as fair housing advocates and academic researchers, are sitting up and paying attention. That\u2019s because these bills include language that would actively prevent federal funds from being used to create and maintain geospatial databases covering affordable housing access and racial disparities\u2014cutting off a key source of accessible and easy-to-use information for researchers and communities. (Geospatial data is data that\u2019s associated with a particular geographic location)\u2026
\n\u2026There\u2019s another possible rationale behind these bills: If you don\u2019t collect data on a certain problem, it makes it easier to deny a problem exists at all. \u201cI can\u2019t find a reason for this bill other than to make all these other issues go away,\u201d says Jack Gieseking<\/strong><\/a>, a cultural geographer and assistant professor at Trinity College in Connecticut. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have the data, you can\u2019t prove it. I\u2019ve heard people say \u2018it\u2019s not about the data.\u2019 And I agree: It\u2019s not about data, it\u2019s about the fight for justice this supports. And housing and race are linked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hartford Archdiocese announces parish consolidations, church closings<\/strong><\/a>
\nNational Catholic Reporter<\/em>
\nThe Hartford Archdiocese announced May 7 that its 212 Connecticut parishes will be consolidated into 127 by June 29, downsizing the archdiocese by about 40 percent.
\nIt may be the most massive effort of its kind in a series of consolidations that have taken place in dioceses in the Northeast and the Midwest over the past decade as the number of priests and Catholic Massgoers in those regions decline\u2026
\n\u2026The response so far to the plan has been muted, said Mark Silk<\/strong><\/a>, director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford. Connecticut’s cities have long struggled, and Catholics have left them over the decades into its thriving suburbs.
\n“They’ve done it in a fairly careful way,” he said of the archdiocese’s process, which in the end offered few surprises to those who were paying attention.<\/p>\n

Labor Market Bounces Back With 211K New Jobs<\/strong> <\/a>
\nInside Sources<\/em>
\nThe labor market was able to bounce back from its lackluster growth the previous month by adding 211,000 new jobs in April, according to a federal report Friday. \u2026 The labor force participation rate and underemployment have also been a point of concern. The participation rate tracks the number of employed and those actively seeking work as a percentage of the total population. Workers experiencing underemployment are stuck in part-time positions or can\u2019t find roles that match their skills.
\nThe participation rate has declined rapidly in the decade since the last recession. The concern by some is that too many working age adults are among those who have dropped out. Trinity College Prof. Josh Stillwagon<\/strong><\/a> contests the participation rate shouldn\u2019t be as big a concern since most of the decline is due to retirees and student adults.
\n\u201cThere is too much focus on labor force participation,\u201d Stillwagon, who teaches economics, said. \u201cThese numbers are skewed by the fact that you have baby boomers retiring now and more young adults attending college. It is better to look at the employment-to-population ratio for prime age workers.\u201d
\nThe employment-to-population ratio for prime age adults has shown steady growth since the recession. The ratio dropped from 81 percent of the population to 74 percent when the recession hit. It is approaching where it was before the recession.
\n\u201cI do worry about underemployment though,\u201d Stillwagon said. \u201cThere have been a large number of part-time workers, which was a serious concern, but that is less so the case now. There is also a worry of underemployment in the sense of workers entering jobs below their qualifications.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Syrian Refugees Speak About New Life In Connecticut<\/strong><\/a>
\nHartford Courant<\/em>
\nZeyad Al Abas, a Syrian refugee recently relocated to Glastonbury, told his story to the crowd at the Community Conversation on “The Muslim Ban: An Examination of the Underlying Factual, Legal, Religious, Humanitarian, Policy and Economic Consideratins,” on May 11 at the Riverfront Community Center\u2026
\n\u2026Giving a historical perspective was Dr. Abigail Fisher Williamson<\/strong><\/a>, an assistant professor of political science and public policy and law at Trinity College, who said that the United States has had a long history of ambivalence toward immigration and dramatic pendulum swings toward immigration restrictions.
\nIn the 1830s, she said, there was outcry against of Irish and German Catholic immigrants, but little or no government restrictions. The 1917 Immigration Act started to tip the country toward restriction, in the shadows of World War I. Limits established then stayed in place until 1965.
\n“We see the concerns about Catholics, and they are certainly parallel to the concerns about Muslims today,” she said, adding that while refugees make up a very small portion of immigrants, the American public has, historically, felt threatened by both refugees and other immigrants\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ideas in Unexpected Places: Why a Marketplace Intellectual Life Still Matters \u2013 By Davarian L. Baldwin Black Perspectives [publication of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS)] This post is a condensed version of Davarian L. Baldwin\u2019s keynote address at the 2017 AAIHS conference at Vanderbilt University: \u201cI want to express what an honor it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1424,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1112\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}