Prof. Antoinette Burton: The Work of the Humanities in a STEM-STEM World
From Randall Cotton
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From Randall Cotton
Abstract: This presentation outlines the work of IPRH and the humanities more broadly on campus. Prof. Burton argues that humanistic inquiry has certain core definitions but that the way it manifests itself institutionally depends on local conditions. At Illinois, where STEM is predominant, humanists must balance the competing demands on their research agendas generated by forces and resources both north and south of Green. Making that tension a source of new knowledge production and of flourishing for faculty and students is a major feature of institutional life for humanists at Illinois, who are at the forefront of sponsored research accomplishment among the nation’s public universities.
Bio: Antoinette Burton is professor of History and Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies. She has been a faculty member at Illinois since 1999; she was department chair of History for 5 years and interim head of Sociology for two years. She has been the director of IPRH since 2015. She is a historian of the modern British empire whose work has been supported by awards from the NEH, the ACLS and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is currently the PI on 4 Mellon Foundation grants, including "Humanities without Walls.” Her most recent publication is a co-edited textbook called World Histories from Below: Disruption and Dissent, 1750 to the Present (2016), which is designed to help undergraduates appreciate how and why the long history of globalization has been shaped by resistance from the ground up.