annual report 2022-2023
The Willson
Center for
Humanities & Arts
University of Georgia
scroll
annual report 2022-2023
The Willson
Center for
Humanities & Arts
University of Georgia
scroll
annual report 2022-2023
The Willson
Center for
Humanities & Arts
University of Georgia
scroll
annual report 2022-2023
The Willson
Center for
Humanities & Arts
University of Georgia
scroll
annual report 2022-2023
The Willson
Center for
Humanities & Arts
University of Georgia
scroll
Nicholas Allen
Welcome from
our Director
“The arts and humanities are at the core of the university, of the economy, and of what we imagine collectively our society might be.”
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GIVE TO THE WILLSON CENTER
Dear friends,
I hope you will enjoy reading about and seeing the rich tapestry of thought and creativity that is the fabric of our past year at the Willson Center. Each time we gather the materials for our report I am struck by the diversity and brilliance of our community, gifts measured in major awards, publications, grants, installations and, most of all, ideas.
The arts and humanities are at the core of the university, of the economy, and of what we imagine collectively our society might be. As a new academic year starts I think of the rising generations of students who will bring their own individual hopes and dreams to this institution.
They do so with the mentorship of great teachers, researchers, and fellow citizens, who have given the best of their decades of learning to open opportunities for other enquiring minds. You will see evidence of such supportive innovation everywhere in this report, which is a summary of the local impact of the global reach of the arts and humanities at the University of Georgia.
Thank you for supporting us by giving, sharing and turning up. We could not do this work without you. If you can, please consider a donation at the link below. We will put it to good use.
I appreciate your good company and look forward to seeing you in the coming year. Please do say hello when you see me, I enjoy the conversations.
As always,
Nicholas Allen
Director, Willson Center for Humanities and Arts
Baldwin Professor in Humanities
University of Georgia Welcome from our Director
“The Willson Center truly excels at bringing the world to Georgia and Georgia to the world.”
Blair Dorminey, Chair, Willson Center Board of Friends
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Video of “Part I: The Tambour,” a collaborative project by students in Prof. Martijn van Wagtendonk’s entry-level Fundamentals of Sculpture class in the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The work was inspired by HandsHouse Studio's “Notre-Dame La Forêt” model workshop and supported by the Willson Center and the Dodd School. "The Tambour" is the first phase of a project that will span multiple courses over several semesters. scroll
The Tambour
“The Willson Center is impressive in its ability to bring together in a coherent and meaningful way multiple strands of endeavor – research, practice, performance – encompassing nearly the full breadth of human experience and creativity. The center consistently involves the local community and the state while supporting faculty and students and distinguishing itself as one of the premier humanities and arts centers nationally and internationally – no small feat. Personally, I have benefited from hearing and often meeting scholars, authors, artists, and others I would never have met or had access to had it not been for the Willson Center.
The Willson Center truly excels at bringing the world to Georgia and Georgia to the world. As a Georgia native with a large curiosity about the world abroad, I am honored to have the opportunity to contribute to the Willson Center’s mission in some small way.”
Blair Dorminey
Chair, Willson Center Board of Friends
annual report 2022 - 2023
About the
Willson Center
The mission of the Willson Center is to promote research, practice, and creativity in the humanities and arts. It supports faculty and students through research grants; support for visiting scholars, artists, and practitioners; and public lectures, conversations, conferences, exhibitions, and performances. It is committed to academic excellence and public impact.
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Board of Friends
Administration
Faculty Advisory Board
“I could not engage in in-depth and far-ranging research, or have the freedom to think deeply and creatively about history, without the uninterrupted time to research and write that the Willson Center Research Fellowship provides. The world-class humanistic research that UGA faculty generate would not be possible without the Willson Center.”
associate professor
department of history,
American Council of Learned Societies fellow, 2021, National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, 2022, Three-time Willson Center Faculty Research Fellow
Jennifer l.Palmer
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Malinda Maynor Lowery, Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University, gave a Women’s History Month keynote talk on “Stories of Lumbee Women,” co-presented by the Institute for Women’s Studies and the Hargrett Library. Malinda Maynor Lowery 0{{current_slide_index}}
UGA faculty members in a variety of disciplines participated in a conversation on “Global Stories: Humanities Research at UGA and Beyond,” co-presented by the Morehead Honors College, the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, the Office of the Provost, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of Global Engagement.
GLOBAL STORIES PANEL 0{{current_slide_index}}
The Willson Center hosted a public celebration of St. Patrick’s Day with Irish music by Athens duo Hog-Eyed Man, joined for the occasion by Tallahassee, Florida multi-instrumentalist Paddy League.
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Ed Pavlić, Distinguished Research Professor of English and African American Studies, explored the use and significance of music in creator/star Issa Rae’s Netflix show “Insecure” as part of the Franklin College’s lunchtime discussion series Screen Time with Your Humanities Professors. Screen Time: “Insecure” 0{{current_slide_index}}
David Beavan of the U.K.’s Alan Turing Institute gave a talk titled “Beyond Digital Humanities: Weaving Humanities, Research Software Engineering and AI.” His visit was co-presented by the DigiLab and the UGA Libraries.
David Beavan Annual report 2022 - 2023
UGA Humanities Festival
UGA presented its first annual Humanities Festival, a series of public events showcasing the richness and diversity of research and practice in the humanities at UGA and throughout our extended community, March 15-27, 2023. The festival was organized by the UGA Humanities Council.
UGA HUMANITIES COUNCIL
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A public conversation in Penn Center’s Frissell Community House considered the significance of land and community to Sea Islands culture and history, and shared perspectives on what they mean today. The stage backdrop is a reproduction of a painting by Amiri Geuka Farris, 2023 Penn Center Artist in Residence.
Students in the Spring 2023 Research Residencies met with Black veterans at the Grand Army of the Republic Hall in Beaufort, S.C., which the veterans have restored and now steward. The Hall is a part of the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.
Jery Bennett Taylor and Angela Dore, research coordinator for the Culture and Community at Penn Center partnership, at Taylor’s sweet grass basket-weaving workshop at the Lyndon House Arts Center. Born and raised in Mount Pleasant, S.C., Taylor is one of two living people who weave in the “Lowcountry Sea Island Coil Basket” tradition. Her baskets are on exhibit at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Nik Heynen and Maurice Bailey, co-directors of UGA’s Cornelia Walker Bailey Program on Land and Agriculture on Sapelo Island, Ga., led an indigo-dyeing workshop for the 2022 and 2023 Research Residencies. Heynen is Distinguished Research Professor of Geography at UGA and a visiting scholar at Spelman College, and Bailey directs the Sapelo Island nonprofit Save Our Legacy Ourself.
Students in the Spring 2023 Research Residencies enjoyed an alfresco lunch of authentic Gullah Geechee cuisine prepared by chef Thomas Baker during a tour of Mitchelville Freedom Park, site of the United States’ first self-governed community of formerly enslaved African Americans.
Annual report 2022 - 2023
Culture and Community at the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District
The Willson Center’s partnership with South Carolina’s Penn Center had its second year of public programs, including public conversations, an annual artist in residence, and on-site classes and workshops with students and faculty from colleges and universities across the Southeast. The partnership project is funded by a $1 million grant to the Willson Center by the Mellon Foundation.
learn more
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WILLSON CENTER
Research Clusters
The Willson Center’s Research Clusters support groups of faculty who are organized to address large-scale humanities and arts questions in partnership with colleagues from allied departments, colleges, centers, and institutes. The program is designed to build research capacity in the humanities and arts and increase the profile and competitiveness of faculty for grants and support. + 21st Century Studies
+ DIGI: Complex Systems and the Humanities
+ DIGI: eHistory
+ DIGI: DigiLab + Interdisciplinary Modernism
+ Arts Collaborative / a2ru
Willson Center Research Clusters
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The 21C cluster facilitates the exchange of new ideas and creative work in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Focused on contemporary culture(s), it provides faculty and students with the opportunity to share cross-disciplinary and discipline-specific approaches that engage the broad question of what has endured and transformed with the advent of the new millennium, especially in relation to new technologies, subjectivity, visuality, terror, and the Anthropocene.
21st Century Studies
Working with the Athenaeum, UGA’s downtown contemporary art space, the 21C cluster brought experimental poet Douglas Kearney to campus to meet with students and to give a public reading.
Willson Center Research Clusters
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Complex Systems and the Humanities is an effort to promote the study of complex systems at UGA. It is based on a website hosted by the DigiLab, which provides basic information about complex systems, and links to the linguistic research of the Linguistic Atlas Project.
DIGI: Complex Systems and the Humanities
Density estimation maps, like these of the Middle and South Atlantic States from a website in development by the Complex Systems cluster, can be used to show the density of occurrence of linguistic features in areas of a survey region.
Willson Center Research Clusters
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eHistory is a digital scholarship collective founded at UGA in 2011 by historians Claudio Saunt and Stephen Berry in the belief that new technologies make possible a new kind of research in the humanities, one in which students, scholars, and a broader public are full partners and collaborators.
DIGI: eHistory Research assistant Benjamin Roy helped extend eHistory’s Private Voices project by producing a new podcast devoted to the letters of common Civil War soldiers. Willson Center Research Clusters
digilab
The Digital Humanities Lab (DigiLab) provides support, training and consultation for digital research projects. The DigiLab research cluster offers the Lab the flexibility to offer new programming and funding to support these efforts.
DIGI: DigiLab
Focus on “Henry V,” a peer-reviewed, digital multimedia book supported by the DigiLab, is an open educational resource authored by students and faculty at UGA and Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3. Willson Center Research Clusters
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The Interdisciplinary Modernism Workshop aims to encourage collaborative initiatives in Modernism studies among faculty from a wide variety of disciplines. It holds monthly seminar-style meetings in which a faculty member, visiting scholar or advanced graduate student presents work-in-progress, followed by discussion and critical feedback.
Interdisciplinary Modernism
Interdisciplinary Modernism hosted a workshop with Ian Afflerbach, assistant professor of American literature at the University of North Georgia and author of Making Liberalism New: American Intellectuals, Modern Literature, and the Rewriting of a Political Tradition. Willson Center Research Clusters
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The UGA Arts Collaborative is a catalyst for innovative, interdisciplinary creative projects, advanced research and critical discourse in the arts, and for creative applications of technologies, concepts, and practices found across disciplines. It is a collaborative network of faculty, students, and community members from all disciplines of the visual and performing arts in addition to other disciplines in the humanities and sciences.
This cluster is also a primary point of contact for UGA’s membership in the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru). Arts Collaborative / a2ru
Undergraduate student Sudhan Chitgopkar interacted with attendees of the opening reception for Generative Garden, his art exhibit in the Cube Gallery at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The exhibit was supported by an Idea Lab mini grant from the Arts Collaborative.
Digital Humanities at
the University of Georgia
DigiLab
The Digital Humanities Lab (DigiLab), an initiative of the UGA Libraries, the Willson Center, and the UGA Press, is an instruction space as well as an incubator and hub for nationally recognized digital humanities projects. The DigiLab is outfitted with advanced technological resources and flexible workspaces for individual or collaborative projects, and its staff lead workshops, offer consultations, and conduct outreach to share skills and knowledge in digital humanities throughout the campus and the community.
DigiLab staff visited David C. Barrow Elementary School to participate in a learning session with the Girls Coding student group.
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Nabil Ayers
Writer and music executive Nabil Ayers joined David Barbe, director of the Music Business Program in the Terry College of Business, for a conversation about Ayers’s memoir, My Life in the Sunshine, and his life in the music industry.
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Seán Hewitt, Louise Kennedy, and Martin Doyle
Three acclaimed Irish writers – Seán Hewitt, Martin Doyle, and Louise Kennedy – joined Willson Center Director Nicholas Allen for a group reading and conversation co-presented by the annual Betty Jean Craige Lectureship in the department of comparative literature and intercultural studies. 0{{current_slide_index}}
Paula M. Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association, gave a talk on “The Humanities at Work.”
Paula m. krebs
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A Global Georgia talk by Vincent Carretta, professor emeritus of English at the University of Maryland, was part of The Genius of Phillis Wheatley Peters: A Poet and Her Legacies, a year-long partnership project by UGA and Texas Christian University. The Genius of Phillis Wheatley Peters
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack Davis gave the Odum Environmental Ethics Lecture on “The Bald Eagle: The History of a Symbol and Species,” co-presented by the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program and the College of Environment + Design.
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jack davis
annual report 2022 - 2023
Global Georgia Public Events
The Global Georgia public event series brings world class thinkers to Georgia. It presents global problems in local context by addressing pressing contemporary questions, including the economy, society, and the environment, with a focus on how the arts and humanities can intervene. The Spring 2023 series overlapped with the UGA Humanities Festival, and encompassed 12 in-person and online events. learn more
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“The work that I am doing is ambitious and novel. It has positioned me in my field in a really exciting way and given me the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of a new development in Intercultural Performance Theory. As a result, I was hired by Florida State University as Assistant Professor of Theatre, beginning this fall. The research and work I will continue at FSU grow out of the research and work that the Willson Center funding allowed me to carry out.”
Willson Center Graduate
Research Awardee, Fall 2022
PhD, Performance Studies, 2023
Assistant Professor of Theater,
Florida State University Brandon LaReau
humanities & arts
Research
The Willson Center is an active supporter of scholarly research in the humanities and arts. Its fellowships and graduate awards directly underwrite research and practice in the humanities and arts at UGA, while other grant-funded programs and partnerships provide resources and connections to those engaged in scholarship and creative activity. + Faculty Fellows + Graduate Research Awards + Research Seminars
+ Achievements and Awards + a2ru + Arts Lab read more
humanities & arts research
Faculty Fellows
Willson Center Faculty Fellows are selected by an interdisciplinary UGA committee of distinguished artists and scholars. Fellowships support excellence in the humanities and arts by providing faculty with time to engage in research and creative activity.
Isabelle Loring Wallace, Associate Professor of Art History in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, received a 2022-23 Faculty Fellowship to support work on her manuscript Jasper Johns and the Paradox of the Perfect Copy.
[Image: Jasper Johns, “Ventriloquist,” 1983] read more
humanities & arts research
Graduate Research Awards
Graduate Research Awards provide support toward research‐related expenses for arts and humanities projects that are essential components of a graduate degree program. Application is open to any humanities and arts graduate student registered for an advanced degree.
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“Stairs and Portals to the Same Place,” Mickey Boyd, MFA 2023, Lamar Dodd School of Art, a Fall 2022 Graduate Research Award recipient. humanities & arts research
Research Seminars
Willson Center Research Seminars support faculty organizing year-long interdisciplinary discussion groups on particular research topics. Seminars bring scholars from other institutions to the UGA campus. read more
The Postcolonial Collective research seminar presented “Modernism Without Modernity? African Letters and Media from Things Fall Apart to Kintu,” a talk by Nathan Suhr-Sytsma, associate professor of English at Emory University. humanities & arts research
Faculty and Student Achievements and Awards
University of Georgia faculty and students in the humanities and arts have great success at winning awards and fellowships from national and international organizations, in addition to the University of Georgia Research Foundation’s annual Research Awards.
EXTERNAL HONORS
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Nora C. Benedict, assistant professor of Spanish and digital humanities in the department of Romance languages, was recognized with the UGA Research Foundation’s Early Career Scholar Award. uga awards
humanities & arts research
a2ru
The Willson Center is a participating member of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru), a partnership of institutions committed to ensuring the greatest possible support for the full spectrum of arts and arts-integrative research, curricula, programs, and creative practice for the benefit of all students and faculty at research universities and the communities they serve.
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humanities & arts research
Arts Lab
The Arts Lab is a multi-year initiative spearheaded by the UGA Arts Council to enhance research, practice and community engagement in the arts. One of its functions is to award Arts Lab Fellowships to faculty and graduate students which facilitate research and practice projects. It also houses the Athens Hip Hop Harmonic, a community-engaged music project that brings UGA faculty, students and local hip-hop artists together to collaborate in a series of community performances. read more
athens hip hop harmonic
The Athens Hip Hop Harmonic, codirected by Connie Frigo and Montu Miller, gave a performance at Hugh Hodgson Hall featuring premieres of music co-created by four hip-hop artists and four UGA composers, with approximately 100 undergraduate and graduate student performers involved across four unique ensembles.
university of georgia
American Conference
for Irish Studies | SOUTH
The 2022 American Conference for Irish Studies / SOUTH was held December 2-3, 2022 in Athens, with the theme of “Border Crossings.” The ACIS is a multidisciplinary scholarly organization with approximately 800 members in the United States, Ireland, Canada, and other countries around the world. ACIS / SOUTH 2022 was supported by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.
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Caoimhe Ní Chonchúir, Consul General of Ireland, Atlanta, gave introductory remarks at the conference’s opening plenary conversation in the UGA Delta Innovation Hub.
The 2022 American Conference for Irish Studies / SOUTH was held December 2-3, 2022 in Athens, with the theme of “Border Crossings.” The ACIS is a multidisciplinary scholarly organization with approximately 800 members in the United States, Ireland, Canada, and other countries around the world. ACIS / SOUTH 2022 was supported by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.
Attendees participated in roundtable panel discussions in the Delta Innovation Hub on the conference’s second day.
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American Conference
for Irish Studies | SOUTH
university of georgia
The 2022 American Conference for Irish Studies / SOUTH was held December 2-3, 2022 in Athens, with the theme of “Border Crossings.” The ACIS is a multidisciplinary scholarly organization with approximately 800 members in the United States, Ireland, Canada, and other countries around the world. ACIS / SOUTH 2022 was supported by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.
university of georgia
learn more
A public closing reception at Ciné included readings by novelist Rónán Hession and poets LeAnne Howe and Adrian Rice, and music by Cicada Rhythm (pictured).
American Conference
for Irish Studies | SOUTH
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Angela Brown gave a free public performance in Edge Recital Hall at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, joined by the UGA African American Choral Ensemble.
Brown posed backstage with members of the African American Choral Ensemble following their performance in Edge Recital Hall.
Brown performed with piano accompanist Greg Hankins for a student assembly at Clarke Central High School.
Students at Clarke Central High School interviewed Angela Brown in a panel discussion after her performance there.
Brown talked informally with students following her event at Clarke Central High School.
Delta Visiting Chair for
Global Understanding Angela Brown
The Willson Center welcomed famed soprano Angela Brown, a renowned operatic soprano and prominent advocate for representation in music, to UGA and Athens as the 2022-23 Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding. The Delta Chair hosts outstanding global scholars, leading creative thinkers, artists, and intellectuals who engage with audiences on and off the UGA campus through lectures, discussions, performances, and other community events.
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Annual Report 2022 - 2023
Mellon Foundation /
Global Georgia Research Projects
A grant from the Mellon Foundation enabled the Willson Center to expand its Global Georgia program, a public humanities project in place since 2013, to include initiatives focused on three areas: Research projects that connect visiting speaker programs to curricular and experiential learning activities addressing large-scale humanities questions at UGA; Humanities in Place, a series of projects aimed at bolstering previously existing off-campus public humanities collaborations; and an annual statewide Georgia Humanities Symposium. The Athens African American Oral History Initiative, a Humanities in Place project, provided production support for the local history podcast Hot Corner, created by Aleck Stephens and Broderick Flanigan. scroll
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Hot Corner Podcast
“I keep an eye on what events and speakers the Willson Center is sponsoring and encourage students to attend those that connect to class discussion.” senior lecturer, department of English
Winner, University of Georgia Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2023 Nancee Reeves
willson center
Shared Programs
+ Distinguished Artists
and Lecturers
+ Cinema Roundtables
+ Spotlight on the Arts
+ Short-Term
Visiting Fellows
+ Public Impact Grants
+ Special Events
The Willson Center supports dozens of public offerings each year through recurring funded programs and special provisions. These include visiting artists and speakers, performances, screenings, discussions, and other events that are shared with the community on campus and beyond. shared programs
The Willson Center Distinguished Artist or Lecturer program supports individual faculty or interdisciplinary groups in bringing leading thinkers and practitioners to campus in support of ongoing and innovative research projects. Distinguished Artists
and Lecturers
Spoken-word artist, musician, and filmmaker Alain Kassanda visited UGA to present his documentary Trouble Sleep as a guest of the department of Romance languages. shared programs
The Willson Center Public Impact Grant supports faculty in the organization on campus of conferences, exhibitions, and performances that showcase humanities and arts research in a broad context. The Public Impact Grant is designed to offer interaction between national and international scholars and UGA faculty, students and the community. Public Impact Grants
The Complexions Ballet gave performances, Q&A sessions, and masterclasses for the public, UGA students, and Athens community youth in a visit presented by the department of dance. shared programs
The Willson Center Cinema Roundtable meets to discuss topics of film history, criticism and theory. Richard Neupert, Wheatley Professor of the Arts, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, and film studies coordinator in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, organizes and moderates one roundtable each semester. Audiences are invited to participate and the events are free and open to the public. Cinema Roundtables UGA faculty discussed "Everything Everywhere All at Once and Its Frenetic, Multicultural Multiverse” with English and film studies alumna Jianna Justice of A24 film studio. shared programs
The Willson Center Short-Term Visiting Fellows, nominated by UGA faculty, bring distinguished artists, scholars and performers to the arts and humanities community at the University of Georgia. Visiting Fellows conduct intensive workshops for faculty and students, and give public presentations of their work.
Short-Term Visiting Fellows
The Hugh Hodgson School of Music hosted composer Natasha Barrett for a residency that included a lecture and concert, both open to the public.
shared programs
The University of Georgia spotlights its arts programs and venues during an annual nine-day festival that includes concerts, theater and dance performances, art exhibitions, poetry readings, film festivals, discussions on the arts and creativity, and more.
Spotlight on the Arts
Filmmaker, artist, and musician Jay Bolotin took part in an evening of film, music, and conversation presented by the Willson Center at Ciné. shared programs
The Willson Center supports numerous public events each academic year outside of its recurring grant-funded programs. Many of these events are hosted and sponsored by the Willson Center itself, or in collaboration with on- and off-campus partners. Others are hosted by faculty and/or students with Willson Center support through Research Seminars, Research Clusters, Mellon Foundation-funded Global Georgia projects, and other programs.
Special Events
Mexico City cook and scholar Juan Escalona was among the international participants in a two-day workshop presented by Food, Philosophy and Art in the US and Mexico, a research project funded by the department of philosophy, the Office of Global Engagement, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, and the Willson Center.