Promoting collaborative research on ideas central to the pressing issues of our time.

Pamela VanHaitsma, Associate Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences; Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Tuesday, October 15, 2024, Noon-1:00pm. 124 Sparks Building

Lunch will be provided.

While Rachel Carson’s public contributions to the mainstream environmentalist movement are widely recognized, few people realize how these contributions were enabled by her intimate, same-sex relationship with Dorothy Freeman. In the last few years, however, some writers and even organizations have started to celebrate Carson as a “queer icon” of environmentalism. My talk embraces this moment of remembering Carson’s queerness but calls for deeper consideration of its intersections with questions of gender, disability, race, and nation. How, I ask, can a queer public memory of Rachel Carson be fashioned to serve what activist and eco-communicator Leah Thomas theorizes as intersectional environmentalism?

Click here to learn more about this semester’s Resident Lecture Series.

Episode 8 of HumIn Focus, “To Be Indigenous: Learning with Native Peoples” premiered on WPSU on February 22nd, 2024, at 9:00 p.m. 📰 Click here to read the release announcement in the news.

HumIn Focus is a multi-part web series centering on pressing social issues through the lens of the work of humanities scholars. To learn more about the web series, visit the HumIn Focus website.

As part of a university initiative to create synergies across the Penn State University system, faculty at the Harrisburg and Greater Allegheny Penn State campuses, have produced a video series promoting the value of Humanities education, called “Humanities Works”.  The series is produced by Rosemary Martinelli and Catherine Rios.

Visit Commonwealth Campuses Collaboration Programs to view the recordings from this series.