Karen Bassi

Update from Karen Bassi

Karen BassiI am directing a UCHRI Research Residency in fall 2015 on the topic of The History Mortality: Interdisciplinary Approaches. The call for applications for the Residency — with a description — can be found at http://uchri.org/cfps/residential-research-group-fellowship-f2015/. The deadline for applying is February 11, 2015.

As a lead up to the Residency, I will also be directing a workshop on this topic to be held at the UCHRI in January 2015.

I am teaching a senior seminar this term (fall 2014) on the topic of “Ghosts in Pre- and Early-Modern Literature.” This course deals with the ways in which ghosts function as heuristic devices in literature, not only as characters in a variety of genres but also as figures for the effects of aesthetic experience. The course stems directly from discussions that took place during the Institute this summer and incorporates a number of readings and artifacts studied during the Institute.

Together with two other colleagues from the Institute, Deborah Lyons and Renee Calkins, I have submitted a successful panel proposal to the annual meeting of the Classical Association of Great Britain; the meeting will take place April 10-13, 2015 at the University of Bristol. The name of our panel is The Mortal Body and its Afterlives.

I’ve been invited to give a paper at a conference at Wellesley College in May 2015. The conference is on the topic of “House and Home.” My paper, titled “Domesticating Death: “The House of Hades,” will explore a variety of Greek texts and artifacts in which the houses of the dead and the houses of the living suggest a compensatory homology between these two separate realms. The paper is directly related to the work we did during the summer Institute.

I am also in the very early planning stages with NEH participant Gretchen Henderson for an NEH Institute in Washington DC on the role of museums in humanistic research and teaching. More on this as the planning progresses!

Karen Bassi is Professor of Literature and Classics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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