91原创

The Partnership for Public Education (PPE), in collaboration with 91原创鈥檚 Center for Research Use in Education, is working with 91原创 researchers and Delaware educators to translate research into practical tools and resources for teachers in an effort to support English teachers' use of quad text sets to foster a deep understanding of social justice. Recognizing a need to more clearly incorporate issues of equity into the curriculum, the research team, led by Dr.Jill Ewing Flynn (91原创 English Education), created a publicly available听听developed by the Gates Foundation as part of its Advancing Actionable Knowledge initiative. The site has had nearly 3,000 visits since its inception, and the team also discusses the work in an episode of the听. Flynn and Dr. Bill Lewis (91原创 School of Education) are currently working with teams of teachers in the Appoquinimink School District to integrate equity-focused quad text sets. They presented with Appoquinimink English teachers and a district leader at the 2023 National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention and the 2024 Delaware Policy and Practice Institute.

Researcher(s):听Dr. Jill Flynn
Collaborators: Dr. Jill Flynn, Dr. Bill Lewis, Taria Pritchett (91原创XEE '12), Casey Montigney (91原创XEE '12).

Professor Lowell Duckert's current book project asks a simple question:听what听is听cold? Natural philosophers, explorers, and artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries offered a variety of responses. Cold was a material substance comprised of 鈥渇rigorifick atoms鈥�; it was the elemental force behind freezing, or, 鈥渃onglutination鈥�; it pierced bodies and plugged up its pores; it was a shapeshifter that appeared as icebergs, snowflakes, and sheets; it lived in the 鈥渇rozen zone鈥� of the upper globe, but it also rode the north wind and spread out across glaciers; it took, prolonged, and gave life; it was intensely pleasurable. At a time in which popular climate studies obsess over the听"end" of a planet headed for meltdown, or a world "after" or 鈥渨ithout鈥� ice, I believe that the various听doings听of early modern cold assist in counter-apocalyptic thinking: they ask us to identify what has been lost and who is at risk in the thinning cold, but they also urge us to imagine alternate futures focused not on inevitable collapse but on ethical obligation and care.

Researcher(s):听Lowell Duckert

nti-Blackness is woven into the fabric of the U.S., and more specifically, in English Education programs. In order to enact social justice, we have to explicitly acknowledge the presence of anti-blackness. The research study explores how Black English Education faculty center Blackness in their courses, to develop a framework to determine how centering Blackness can be the foundation of English Education programs. This shifts from just stating that Black Lives Matter, to听action.听

Researcher(s):听Kisha Porcher

Modelwork: The Material Culture of Making and Knowing. 听Edited with Martin Br眉ckner and Sandy Isenstadt, Eds. University of Minnesota Press,听2021. With entries on Sensing, Knowing, Making, and Doing, this volume makes clear that regardless of time period or physical media, modeling invokes particular听registers of phenomenology and听epistemology; as a facsimile of a thing or a process, it inevitably creates ways of sensing, knowing, and operating in the world. The听volume points toward larger conceptual debates about the way in听which models of the past as well as new digital ones鈥攎odels within models鈥攑rofoundly shape the听world around us. Contributors include Johanna Drucker, Peter Galison, Lisa Gitelman, Annabel听Wharton, and several others.

Researcher(s): Martin Br眉ckner,听Sandy M. Isenstadt, Sarah Wasserman

Collaborators: Johanna Drucker, Peter Galison, Lisa Gitelman, Annabel Wharton, and several others

McKay Jenkins and his听Environmental Humanities students are central partners听in听The Stillmeadow Peace Park project,听听an听environmental justice, reforestation and community restoration project in West Baltimore being conducted in听partnership with听the U.S. Forest Service; local watershed restoration nonprofits; and the congregation of a local African-American church.听With a tree nursery already growing some 1,100 trees; teams of 91原创 volunteers removing invasive species; and Forest Service Hot Shots preparing to drop close to 100 dead ash trees, the ecological restoration project is already well underway. Along with the restoration of a diverse and robust forest ecosystem,听the 10-acre Stillmeadow Peace Park will also ultimately include hiking trails; meditation gardens; and听performance and outdoor educational spaces for the church and its surrounding community. Scientists and other researchers are exploring the benefits of forest-based physical, mental, cultural and spiritual health听for 听individuals and households suffering from trauma, such as citizens returning from incarceration, and those who have experienced crime or racial oppression. An overarching goal is to provide new ways for听urban communities to think of themselves in relation to natural systems, such as rivers, trees, and biodiversity; to rebuild both cultural and ecological infrastructure; and to expand the way we think about urban ecological and cultural restoration, so that the Stillmeadow project can ultimately serve as models for similar projects in cities across the United States.

Researcher(s):听McKay Jenkins

Collaborators: U.S. Forest Service

The Planetary Estate: Environmental Agency in the 19th Century Transatlantic听argues for the crucial role played by nineteenth-century texts in forging an understanding of听human environmental agency听鈥� the capacity of human beings to intervene in ecological systems.听 Conceptions of human environmental agency are key to our current understanding 鈥� or denial 鈥� of the human role in phenomena such as climate change. Yet, as Dipesh Chakrabarty famously remarked of the Anthropocene, there is a 鈥渜uestion of鈥� human collectivity鈥� that accompanies any discussion of large-scale environmental agency at the level of the human species. Rather than sidestepping this question, this investigation unpacks the history of how certain kinds of natural engineering came to be associated with imperial power, while others 鈥� such as the agencies of Scottish Highlanders, Native Americans, and African slaves 鈥� were repressed in imperial discourse. Attending to human environmental agency in the works of writers such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Walter Scott, Mary Prince, Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, and H.G. Wells also means attending to the means by which certain environmental agencies were excluded from, while others came to define, the category of 鈥渢he human.鈥�

Researcher(s):听Siobhan Carroll

ThingStor听is an interactive digital database designed to find objects in literature and the visual arts. Showcasing over 100 objects, the current prototype connects objects, texts, and images, illustrating how students and scholars can recognize, understand, and ultimately conduct new research on or teach with material objects found in works of fiction or visual art. Conceived and developed by Martin Br眉ckner (PI), ThingStor is a work of collaboration between graduate students from the Humanities at the 91原创 and the DH staff from the 91原创 Library. The ThingStor Team welcomes your participation, comments, or suggestions! Once you are on our landing page, use the tab "About ThingStor" to learn about our vision. You can participate by using the tab "Suggest an Object" where you will find instructions and a submission form.

Researcher(s):听Martin Br眉ckner

Common Destinations: Maps in the American Experience听is a path-breaking exhibition that charts objects and imagery related to America鈥檚 historical fascination with maps.听 听Created by Martin Br眉ckner, Professor in English and American Literature at the 91原创, assisted by Winterthur鈥檚 Catharine Dann Roeber, Alana Staiti and Heather Hansen, Common Destinations was displayed in the Winterthur Galleries (April 20, 2013 to January 5, 2014) and is now permanently available online.听 Presenting over 100 items from the Winterthur collections, the exhibition shows how long before there was a听National Geographic听magazine or听Google Earth, maps were central to the social and commercial activities of Americans. In six sections featuring giant wall maps and tiny pocket globes, hefty folio atlases and fragile map handkerchiefs, the exhibition shows the rise of American maps from rare collectibles to popular object available to American citizens of all backgrounds. Visitors of the online exhibition will see how men used maps at home and abroad; how women and children engaged with maps to foster family ties; and how maps became the social glue that would bind a people of strangers into a community during times of change and development. Emphasizing everyday habits and material culture, each of the exhibition鈥檚 section highlights particular map genres and map users, asking the basic question: how would you鈥攂ased on education, gender, age, and even race鈥攅ngage with maps in early America?

Researcher(s):听Martin Br眉ckner

鈥婽he Reverend William Jackson was a radical writer, an Anglican clergyman, and a spy for the French revolutionary government at the height of the Reign of Terror. He was arrested while on a spy mission to London and Dublin in April, 1794, was convicted of high treason the following year, and committed suicide at his sentencing hearing. The importance of the Jackson Affair has been noted by Irish historians, but my research shows that its impact was felt much more broadly in the Atlantic world in the 1790s, and has a significant relation to the infamous trials of the London Radicals and to the Alien and Sedition Acts in the United States. It offers us the opportunity to see how print and political discourse was affected by the Pitt ministry鈥檚 counter-terror measures in a new way because Jackson (unlike so many others targeted by the British government) actually was a traitor bent on the violent overthrow of his government.

Researcher(s):听Matthew Kinservik

His听current research comes in two parts, both of which concern the nature of religious experience as it is embodied in literary texts. My focus is on texts which we as writers create and also texts in which writers attempt to embody or provoke a religious experience. The first book, in progress now, blends together medieval meditative practices used in听lectio divina听with modern composition and cognitive theory to explore a series of ways in which readers can respond to spiritual texts. Each chapter outlines and explores a different discovery strategy, provides sample models of how to apply the strategy, and concludes with a suggested series of texts that might be fruitfully explored. The second study examines selected texts that teach and explore the mysteries of faith. Some are intended for a wide audience who are in need of basic teaching; some seem intended only for those who are initiated. What is expected of a reader of such texts? How do these texts 鈥渢each鈥�? Do reader expectations and experience differ as you move from genre to genre, from printed text to art and architecture? Readings include medieval interpretations of the Hebrew Bible鈥檚 鈥淪ong of Solomon,鈥� the morality play听Everyman, the York crucifixion play, Julian of Norwich鈥檚 mystical writings, Bunyan鈥檚听Pilgrim鈥檚 Progress, George Herbert鈥檚听The Temple, Donne鈥檚听Devotions on Emergent Occasions, and Milton鈥檚听Paradise Lost.

Researcher(s):听George Miller

Gabrielle Foreman,听in collaboration with Sarah Patterson, James Casey ; and many others too numerous to list here.听听In the decades preceding the Civil War, free and fugitive Blacks gathered in state and national conventions to advocate for justice as Black rights were constricting across the country. ColoredConventions.org recovers and shares information about delegates and associated women whose civic engagement, political organizing and publications have long been forgotten. The Colored Conventions Project, which features graduate students as leaders across its committees, has been covered in the听听and was selected as an NEH Digital Humanities grant winner.