2024-2025 Brown Bag and Coffee Hour Application

The Humanities Center invites applications from scholars in the humanities, arts, and related disciplines who would like to deliver a talk in at the Center in 2024-2025. The Center is accepting applications for two programs:

The Walter F. Edwards Brown Bag Colloquium Series:  One of the Center's signature programs, this series provides a regular forum for the exchange, development, and synthesis of ideas among humanities and arts scholars at Wayne State. The series helps the Center fulfill its mission to be a catalyst for interdisciplinary conversations and fellowship among WSU scholars at all stages in their careers. In keeping with the spirit of this series, the Center especially welcomes submissions from scholars who hope to present works in progress as they work toward refining their research findings for publication. Talks should be 30 to 45 minutes in length, followed by Q&A. This series is ideal for presenters interested in receiving detailed feedback on a specific research project. Collaborative submissions that showcase interdisciplinary work are especially encouraged.

The Humanities Coffee Hour Series: This program provides faculty, staff, and students with the opportunity to discuss relevant topics of interest within the humanities and adjacent fields. Rather than presenting a formal paper, the facilitators of these conversations share brief comments (10 to 15 minutes) intended to open up a free-wheeling group discussion about subjects that are timely, provocative, and urgent. This series is ideal for presenters interested in sparking an open discussion of issues and questions that may be scholarly, pedagogical, academic, or cultural in nature. Joint and group applications are especially encouraged.

Deadline: Applications for both programs are due by May 17th.

Eligibility: All WSU scholars in the humanities, arts, and related disciplines are eligible to submit proposals. Doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy and MFA students who are in their final year are also eligible. However, please note the following exceptions:

  • Scholars may not deliver the same talk more than once.
  • Scholars may not use talks to share published work.
  • Applicants may only submit one proposal total.

Please note: The Advisory Board will review all submissions in order to ensure a regular rotation of speakers. Priority will be given to junior faculty, non-TT faculty, graduate students, and scholars who have not recently presented at the Center.

Guidelines for Proposals

Each proposal must include the following elements:

1. A tentative title

2. A tentative abstract (150 words maximum)

3. A bio (200 words maximum)

4. If you are proposing a Brown Bag, a statement of anticipated outcomes from this Brown Bag, with publication and future research plans (200 words maximum)

Conditions

1. Brown Bag presenters must inform the Humanities Center of any publications that eventually result from the talk.

Fields with asterisks (*) are required.

Type of Presentation *