UB’s Humanities Institute is asking Buffalo “How did we get here?” The answer is something that UB, along with other local colleges, is attempting to answer at the first Buffalo Humanities Festival.
The first Buffalo Humanities Festival is Sept. 26 and 27 and focuses immigration in “Migration Nation: Moving Stories.” There will be events Friday and Saturday at the Burchfield Penney Art Center and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, near Buffalo State College.
“Everyone [in Buffalo] is migrant and from somewhere else,” said Erik Seeman, director of UB’s Humanities Institute and a history professor at UB with a Ph.D. in education. “You want to understand Buffalo, you have to understand migration.”
The Humanities Institute at UB was created in 2005 and has become an important entity helping us “question, comprehend and transform an increasingly complex world,” according to the institution’s mission statement. It encompasses multiple liberal arts disciplines and uses different methods to distinguish what is shaping local and global humanities.
Seeman and Elizabeth Otto, the executive director of UB’s Humanities Institute and associate professor of art history, worked together in the development of the Humanities Institute.
Seeman attended a meeting more than a year ago with multiple directors of humanity centers across the country. He said he noticed a trend when talking to the other directors – festivals that celebrated the humanities were being held all over the country.
Otto and Seeman set out to bring a humanities festival to Buffalo. Seeman realized immigration was a “controversial issue” and chose the topic as the festival’s first theme.
“We thought, we have all these colleges full of educated people,” Seeman said. “Buffalo, no longer a rust belt city and built on education, has a young educated audience that reflects the new Buffalo.”
Canisius College, Buffalo State College, SUNY Fredonia and Niagara University are also involved with the festival.
Otto asked each school to invite its best faculty members to speak at the festival. After looking over the possible topics, the organizers made a plan for what topic would bring the best discussion.
The schools combined their resources to help people learn about and experience the humanities, Seeman said. The festival organizers intend people take a “step back from those set ideological and political positions” that some people have about the humanities.
This collaborative effort from the local schools will work toward “providing context for today’s most important issues” of immigration and migration, according to Seeman.
Gary Shteyngart, author of New York Times-bestseller Little Failure, will be doing a reading and book signing at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Friday at 8 p.m. The Russian-Jewish American writer uses dark satire in this book to express his feelings about immigrating to America. David Schmid, associate professor in the English department, will also be interviewing Shteyngart on stage.
The festival will host 16 speakers Saturday at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. These presenters will speak about topics ranging from Burmese immigrant stories to the music of the Dust Bowl Migration in the 1930s.
The festival will feature seven short films that tie into the theme of the day. There will also be a Conversation Station with informal conversation with graduates and students from local colleges. Festival attendees are encouraged to add to the conversation.
Tickets will be $15 for students and $20 for non-students Friday night, and $10 and $12 for students and non-students on Saturday.
email: news@ubspectrum.com
