This special workshop is designed to faculty members write and publish for broad audiences. The workshop includes practical exercises, information on pitching and crafting articles and book manuscripts, and collaborative discussion of participant writing. Participants leave the workshop with a project proposal or short article ready to pitch or submit for publication. The workshop will not be offered in 2020-2021.
In 2020, Writing for the Public took place Thursday, January 23 and Friday, January 24, 2020. The workshopwas led by Christopher Schaberg, Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University of New Orleans. Schaberg is founding co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of an essay and book series called Object Lessons, “a home for lucid, imaginative, concise writing about specific things—from conches to neckties, cinnamon ferns to sewing needles.” Schaberg and Bogost won National Endowment for the Humanities support for a series of NEH Institutes on public writing around the United States. Schaberg is the author of The Textual Life of Airports: Reading the Culture of Flight (2012), The End of Airports (2015), Airportness: The Nature of Flight (2017) and The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth (2018). He is editor (with Robert Bennett) of Deconstructing Brad Pitt (2014) and Airplane Reading (2016, with Mark Yakich).
Professor Schaberg also gave a public talk, Object Lessons: From Private Idea to Public Humanities at 5 p.m., Thursday, January 23.
Application instructions for the 2020 workshop:
Writing for the public is open to all full-time faculty members in the humanities, broadly construed. Visiting faculty are eligible to apply. Participants must commit to writing and circulating a suitable article or proposal with the workshop group no later than Friday, January 17, 2020. Participants are also expected meet with a small peer group during the week prior to Christopher Schaberg's visit; to provide constructive feedback on the work of all other participants (including one or more written commentaries); to attend all workshop sessions; and to attend Professor Schaberg's talk at 5 p.m. on Thursday, January 23.
Applications are due December 1, 2019. To apply, please submit a c.v. and a statement of no more than one page describing your proposed project and your interest in the program. In your statement, please indicate your position and years of service at Miami and the current status of your project. In selecting participants, the Humanities Center Steering Committee scholarly record, potential public of the proposed topic or project, progress on the project, and career stage. Please submit your application as a PDF titled "[YourLastName] Workshop Application" to humanitiesgrants@miamioh.edu. Please write “Scholarly Publishing Program” in the subject heading of your message.
In order to help the Humanities Center gauge preliminary interest in the program for planning purposes, potentially interested faculty are encouraged to register their interest on this form. Please direct questions or suggestions about this workshop to Tim Melley at melleytd@miamioh.edu.