HSS Humanities Center Past Events

Fall 2025

DATE	TIME/LOCATION	EVENT NAME	EVENT DETAILS
9/25/25	3:30 p.m., Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Allison Levy (St. John's College Santa Fe) will deliver a public lecture on "Eros, Beauty, and Statesmanship in Thucydides' Peloponnesian War" as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Emily Davis (Political Science) and the students of POLI 7991.
9/26/25	3:00 p.m., Hodges Hall Room 155	Graduate Student Reading Group	Allison Levy (St. John's College Santa Fe) will lead a discussion of Pericles’ Funeral Oration, as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Emily Davis (Political Science) and the students of POLI 7991. PDF of reading available by request to eadavis@lsu.edu. All interested HSS graduate students are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.
10/6/25	1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m., Zoom	Book Publication Workshop Series	Prof. Katelyn Knox (French), co-author of The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook, will lead a workshop for faculty on crafting the introduction chapter to monographs. Register for this Zoom workshop here: https://lsu.zoom.us/meeting/register/S8FpEpOTTrSZvEq5NpkgzA.
10/8/25	11:00 a.m., Hodges Hall Room 155	Graduate Student Reading Group	As part of the mini-residency hosted by Prof. Jessica Valdez (English) and the students of ENGL 7962, Susan Zieger (UC Riverside) will lead a discussion of "Against Management" from Fred Moten and Stefano Harney's All Incomplete. PDF of reading available by request to jvaldez@lsu.edu. All interested HSS graduate students are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.
10/8/25	5:00 p.m., French House Auditorium (Room 135)	Public Lecture	Susan Zieger (UC Riverside) will deliver a public lecture, "Henry Box Brown, Logistics, and Racial Capitalism,” as part of the mini-residency hosted by Prof. Jessica Valdez (English) and the students of ENGL 7962. Professor Zieger's talk drawn from Logistics and Power (University of California Press, 2025).
10/28/25	12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m., Hodges Hall Room 155	Graduate Student Workshop	Prof. Katelyn Knox (French) will offer this workshop for graduate students on “The Secret to Effective Academic Writing.” Topics will include revising your writing efficiently, building the essential skill of reverse outlining, and figuring out how the units of your chapters can work together best.
10/30/25	10:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m., Stubbs 126	Graduate Student Workshop	Elizabeth Fussell (Brown University) will host a graduate student workshop titled, “Ask a Journal Editor: Advice for graduate students on publication from the former editor of Population and Environment,” as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Kevin Smiley (Sociology) and the students of SOCL 7591. All interested HSS graduate students are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.
10/31/25	10:30 a.m., Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Elizabeth Fussell (Brown University) will deliver a public lecture, “Population return to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: A long-term perspective,” as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Kevin Smiley (Sociology) and the students of SOCL 7591.
11/4/25	12:00 p.m., Hodges Hall Room 155	Graduate Student Workshop	Gregory Pierrot (UConn Stamford) will lead a workshop for graduate students on translation and archival work, as part of his mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Bastien Craipain (French) and the students of FREN 7140/CPLT 7160. All interested HSS graduate students are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.
11/5/25	4:00 p.m., French House Grand Salon	Public Lecture	Gregory Pierrot (UConn Stamford) will deliver a public lecture, “How sweet it is to be Haytian: the theatre of Juste Chanlatte at the court of Henry,” as part of his mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Bastien Craipain (French) and the students of FREN 7140/CPLT 7160.
11/12/25	11:00 a.m., Hodges Hall Room 155	Book Publication Workshop Series	Join Julia Irwin (History), Jon Cogburn (Philosophy), Sue Weinstein (English), and Jas Sullivan (Political Science, Psychology, and African-American Studies) for a conversation about turning your dissertation into a book, approaching publishers, and more. We all know that the publishing process can be a bit mysterious — especially to first-time authors, but even to those who have published before! At this workshop, our interdisciplinary team of commenters will cover a range of topics: how to begin revising your dissertation (and how to know when it’s time to stop), drafting a book proposal, finding a press that’s the right fit for your book, the dos and don’ts of contacting acquisitions editors, and the review and publishing process. The leaders of this roundtable have a lot of experience as both writers and editors, and will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the process!

Spring 2025

DATE	TIME/LOCATION	EVENT NAME	EVENT DETAILS
2/3/25	4:00 p.m., Hill Memorial Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Jenny Mann (NYU) will deliver a public lecture on "The Forms of Utopia: Paradox, Labyrinth, and Infinity" as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. David Nee (English) and the students of ENGL 7943. Mann's most recent book is The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime, newly out in paperback.
2/6/25	12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m., Hodges Hall 155	Graduate Writing Workshop	Katelyn Knox (LSU Department of French Studies) will lead this workshop on "Building and Evaluating Your Bibliography: For seminar papers, journal articles, dissertation chapters, and general exam lists." This workshop is open to all HSS grad students, at every stage of their study. Topics to be covered include: What is secondary literature? What types of "buckets" do we need to ensure our bibliographies contain? How to do an exhaustive search for secondary sources. How to identify relevant sources. How to evaluate that unfolding bibliography, and to identify and fill gaps. (We will not be discussing citation management software, balancing reading and writing, annotated bibliography preparation, writing lit reviews, formatting bibliographies, or quoting from these materials.) Light refreshments will be served. Questions? Write Chris Barrett (cbarrett@lsu.edu) or Katelyn Knox (katelynknox@lsu.edu). Update: Prof. Knox has made available a video recap of the "Building Your Bibliography" event. You can watch that video here.
2/10/25	11:30 a.m., Hill Memorial Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Karma Chávez (UT Austin) will deliver a public lecture on "Rock Throwing, State Violence, and the Question of Resistance" as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Bryan McCann (Communication Studies) and the students of CMST 7970.
2/10/25	5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m., Hodges Hall 155	Graduate Workshop	Karma Chávez (UT Austin) will lead this session on "The State of Higher Education in the US South and Beyond," as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Bryan McCann (Communication Studies) and the students of CMST 7970. Refreshments will be served. All HSS graduate students are welcome.
2/20/25	11:00 a.m., Hill Memorial Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Jeanne-Marie Jackson (Johns Hopkins University) will deliver a public lecture on "Disciplined Fictions" as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Saumya Lal (English) and the students of ENGL 7221.
3/12/25	12:00 p.m., Howe Russell 313W	Book Institute Momentum Workshop	The HSSHC Book Institute’s Momentum Workshop Series welcomes Lauren Griffin (Religious Studies and History), who will discuss work in progress from her monograph. Write to organizers Pallavi Rastogi (prastogi@lsu.edu) or Benjy Kahan (bkahan@lsu.edu) to request a pre-circulated copy. All HSS faculty welcome to join the conversation; review of precirculated material not required. Light refreshments will be served.
3/17/25	2:00-4:00 p.m., Zoom	Graduate Student Workshop	Katelyn Knox (LSU French Studies) will lead a workshop for graduate students on "Conference Presentations for Humanities Graduate Students." Topics will include identifying key conferences in your field, determining the right time to attend, processes for getting on the program and sharing your work, preparing roundtable remarks or papers for delivery, communicating your research interventions successfully, and more. All HSS grad students are welcome to attend. Register for the event by clicking here.
3/18/25	12:00 p.m., Howe Russell 313W	Roundtable	The HSS Humanities Center is pleased to co-sponsor the "AI and Religion Roundtable." Colleagues from Philosophy & Religious Studies, English, and History will pose questions and possibilities for research on the social, cultural, and political implications of AI (broadly conceived). Write to organizers Lauren Griffin (lhgriffin@lsu.edu) and Lauren Coats (lac@lsu.edu) for more information.
4/7/25	3:30 p.m., Hill Memorial Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Alyosha Goldstein (University of New Mexico) will deliver a public lecture on "What is Colonialism Now?" as part of his mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Alex Meany (English) and the students of ENGL 7170.
4/8/25	12:00-1:30 p.m., Hodges Hall 155	Workshop	Alyosha Goldstein (University of New Mexico) will offer a research workshop for graduate students, "Abolition Democracy and Antifascist Futures beyond the Colonial Present," as part of the mini-residency hosted by Prof. Alex Meany (English) and the students of ENGL 7170.
4/17/25	12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m., Howe Russell 313W	Book Institute Momentum Workshop	The HSSHC Book Institute’s Momentum Workshop Series welcomes Jacob Berman (English), who will discuss work in progress from his monograph. Write to organizers Pallavi Rastogi (prastogi@lsu.edu) or Benjy Kahan (bkahan@lsu.edu) to request a pre-circulated copy. All HSS faculty welcome to join the conversation; review of precirculated material not required. Light refreshments will be served.
6/2/25-6/6/25	French House	Book Institute	The call for applications for the 2025 HSSHC Book Institute will be announced early in Spring 2025. For more information on the Book Institute, click here.

Fall 2024

DATE	TIME/LOCATION	EVENT NAME	EVENT DETAILS
10/4/24	12:00 p.m., Hill Memorial Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Karl Steel (Brooklyn College, CUNY) will deliver a public lecture "On the Unsuitability of Human Dogs: Medieval Reason, Falling Sheep, and The Limits of Clever Animals" as part of his mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Rick Godden (English) and the students of ENGL 7030.
10/7/24	11:30 a.m., Howe Russell 313 West	Monograph Publishing Workshop	Join faculty from English and History for a discussion of how to match your scholarly monograph with the right publisher. Discussion to include identifying publishers, selecting a press, and approaching acquisitions editors.
10/9/24	12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m., Howe Russell 313 West	Monograph Publishing Workshop	Prof. Katelyn Knox (French), co-author of The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook, leads this workshop on "Pinpointing & Sharpening Your Book Argument." You know your book needs a strong central argument to get published. But book arguments are complex and have a lot of points to hit: they’re tied to your book’s structure and need to emerge from your evidence. Where to start? In this workshop, we discuss the anatomy of a strong, significant book argument and show, using examples, how it differs from a claim for significance, a topic statement, and a collection of chapter arguments. We then walk you through some practical exercises for pinpointing your argument and testing its alignment with your book’s evidence. You’ll leave with language you can use to pitch your book to publishers, craft a standout book proposal, and write your book and chapter introductions.
10/15/24	4:00 p.m., French House Grand Salon	Public Lecture	Rita Felski (University of Virginia) will deliver a public lecture "On Resonance," as part of her mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Gundela Hachmann and the students of COMP 7010.
10/24/24	12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m., Howe Russell 313 West	SBI Momentum Workshop	The Second Book Institute Momentum Workshop welcomes Prof. Gundela Hachmann (WLLC), who will discuss work in progress from her monograph. Write to organizers Pallavi Rastogi (prastogi@lsu.edu) or Benjy Kahan (bkahan@lsu.edu) by Oct. 17 to request a pre-circulated copy.
11/7/24	11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Howe Russell 313 West	SBI Momentum Workshop	The Second Book Institute Momentum Workshop welcomes Prof. Deborah Goldgaber (PHIL), who will discuss work in progress from her monograph. Write to organizers Pallavi Rastogi (prastogi@lsu.edu) or Benjy Kahan (bkahan@lsu.edu) by Oct. 31 to request a pre-circulated copy.
11/13/24	5:00 p.m., Allen Hall 139	Public Lecture	Tore Olsson (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) will deliver a public lecture "Red Dead's History: How a Blockbuster Video Game Can Help Us Understand America's Violent Past" as part of his mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Julia Irwin (HIST) and the students of HIST 7956.
11/20/24	12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m., Hodges Hall 155	Monograph Publishing Workshop	Prof. Katelyn Knox (French), co-author of The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook, leads this Book Proposal Workshop. We break down the common elements of a book proposal and explain how to approach each one. Drawing on our experience of mentoring authors through numerous successful book proposal submissions, we demystify the genre of the proposal and give practical tips for writing the various sections. During the Q&A, we answer questions about approaching editors, assembling the other components of the proposal package, and submitting the proposal. You will leave with a fuller understanding of book proposals in general and greater confidence about writing your own.
12/2/24	12:30 p.m., Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall	Public Lecture	Eden Lin (The Ohio State University) will deliver a public lecture entitled "The Value of Connection," as part of his mini-residency, hosted by Prof. Anthony Kelley (PHIL) and the students of PHIL 4943.