The Digital Humanities and Literary Cognition Lab—housed in the English Department—warmly invites you to our upcoming exhibit and conference showcasing pandemic art, Creativity in the Time of COVID-19: Art as Medicine. Our exhibit and conference are products of a $3M Mellon grant headed by Dr. Natalie Phillips, Dr. Julian Chambliss, and a dynamic team of undergraduate and graduate researchers.
Our interactive collections at LookOut! Gallery at Snyder-Phillips and (SCENE) Metrospace feature diverse multimodal art pieces inspired by and reflecting upon personal experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, selected from over 2,000 global submissions to our Lab’s digital archives. The exhibit focuses on accessibility while highlighting the experiences of BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, and disability communities during the pandemic. We explore themes such as pandemic-inspired social change and the developing field of health humanities as we explore the relationship between creative expression, trauma, and healing.
This upcoming Thursday and Friday, we will host a 2-day conference, October 10th and 11th from 2-8pm with keynote discussions at 6:30 each evening by Dr. Georgina Kleege (author and professor of creative writing and disability studies) and Dr. G. Gabrielle Starr (author, President of Pomona College, Guggenheim Fellow and professor of English literature and neuroscience) covering topics such as cognitive approaches to art, beauty, performance, and learning. In addition to our exhibition and these keynotes, there series of art events and talks of potential interest to faculty, students, and staff that include performance art, seated yoga, interactive embroidery and butterfly origami, as well as literature and talks on issues of access, interdisciplinary research, and the humanities. There is a free catered dinner both nights to sustain everyone during the long day, as well as coffee, fruit and snacks.
Would you be willing to share our event with colleagues, students, and staff? Whether it’s a mention at the beginning of a lecture, a brief email, or extra-credit for attendance, your support would be greatly appreciated. You may want to mention that our event counts towards the Department’s Passport Program. We look forward to seeing you and/or your colleagues!
The conference schedule and information are available here.
MSU English PhD alums, Jessica Lopez and Cody Mejeur will be presenting at 4:15-5:30 panels Thursday (Lopez) and Friday (Meijer) on autism & accessibility and transgender gaming in Covid-19 respectively.