#FacultyFeature: Fall 2021 HUMSOC Round-Up

Hello, again, and welcome BACK to the 255! We, here at HUMSOC, are thrilled to be back online and keeping you posted on all things related to the Humanities and Social Sciences. As we near the end of the semester, we want to share with you all the amazing work our faculty has been up to! We have brought together some highlights of a variety of faculty work across the Division. From medieval literature to gender and development in Rwanda, this post will give you the 411 on our work here at the 255! Without further ado, let’s jump right in!

Professor Jennifer Brown, Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences Division and Professor of Writing, Literature, and Language, had multiple essays published this semester and co-edited a book on medieval devotional traditions! First, editors Michelle Sauer and Jenny Bledsoe brought together a multitude of works addressing a variety of anchoritic texts that explore reclusion and materiality, spanning from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Released on the 31st of October, Sauer and Bledsoe’s The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion features an essay by Professor Brown entitled “The Material of Vernacular English Devotion: Temptation and Sweetness in Ancrene Wisse and Richard Rolle’s Form of Living.” In Brown’s essay she examines how language about the material world describes the spiritual world, and, further, how language evolves throughout medieval devotional texts. Additionally, Professor Brown co-edited a book with Nicole Rice entitled Manuscript Culture and Medieval Devotional Traditions: Essays in Honour of Michael G. Sargent which explores the great religious and devotional works of the Middle Ages in their manuscript and other contexts. The essays center around the work of Michael Sargent and pay tribute to his influence on devotional texts and the books in which they appeared over time. To learn more about Professor Brown’s work, you can find her essays in the links below. A big congratulations to Professor Brown for her publications and dedication to researching such a fascinating and complex topic.
- Manuscript Culture and Medieval Devotional Traditions: Essays in Honour of Michael G. Sargent (here)
- The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion (here)

This next faculty feature demonstrates the diversity of work of our faculty here at HUMSOC. Professor Sharon Meagher, Professor of Philosophy and former Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at MMC, served as a contributing editor to and her work is featured in a book entitled Gender and Learning in Rwanda. The book, released in November of this year, provides an account of “the establishment of an innovative and culture-shifting approach to leading and managing culture change in Rwanda, following the devastating Genocide of 1994.” Additionally, the book recounts the formation of the first Gender, Culture, and Development Master’s Program at the Kigali Institute of Education, to which Professor Meagher was a founding leader and faculty member. The establishment of this educational program in Kigali is essential to development of a more inclusive society which supports and empowers women as leaders, both in Rwanda and worldwide. We, here at HUMSOC, couldn’t be prouder of Professor Meagher’s contribution to the creation of such a vital program. To find out more about Professor Meagher’s work, check out the link to the book below! Congratulations to Professor Meagher for the publication of the book!
- Gender and Learning in Rwanda (here)

Our next faculty feature returns to the world of literature to explore the global legacies of the French Revolution! Professor Cecilia Feilla, Associate Professor of Writing, Literature, and Language, has recently been published both in peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as book chapters. Professor Feilla’s research interests include 18th-century literature, drama and performance theory, genre studies, urban literature, and the literature of revolution. Her article, “Future Perfect History: Historiography and Republican Space-Time in French Revolutionary Theater” was recently published in the New Literary History journal. Feilla’s research explores the 1793 play, L’Heureuse Décade, and argues that the piece “represents not the spectacle of history or current events, but the spectacle of a new historiography in the making.” Further, Feilla’s article reveals that L’Heureuse Décade creates a reimagined historical paradigm that “presents a complex thinking of history’s relationship to the people, the everyday, and the future to posit a notion of history that lies ahead of France, not behind.” Second, Professor Feilla also has another publication entitled “Crypts, Corpses, and Living Tombs on Stage during the French Revolution: Crises of Burial and Mourning” that will be featured as a chapter in Last Scene of All: Representing Death on the Western Stage edited by Jessica Goodman. To learn more about Professor Feilla’s awesome works check out the links below! A huge congratulations to Professor Feilla on her accomplishments.
- Future Perfect History: Historiography and Republican Space-Time in French Revolutionary Theater” New Literary History 52.1 (2021): 27-51. (here)
- “Crypts, Corpses, and Living Tombs on Stage during the French Revolution: Crises of Burial and Mourning” In Last Scene of All: Representing Death on the Western Stage, Ed. Jessica Goodman, Legenda (forthcoming 2021)

Our last faculty feature today highlights the work of Professor Hannah Bacon. Professor Bacon, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Ferraro Fellow in Prison Education and Public Philosophy, recently published her article, “The intersubjective responsibility of durational trauma: Contributions of Bergson and Levinas to the philosophy of trauma,” in Continental Philosophy Review 2021. In Bacon’s article, she outlines a “genealogy to trace the emergence of what is now the dominant temporal framework of psychological catastrophe,” and “supplement this evental nosology with a durational consideration of trauma by drawing on the works of Henri Bergson and his articulation of duration, memory, and lived experience.” Further, Bacon adds a new perspective to this field of study by “draw[ing] on Levinas and his intersubjective ethics drawing out the relevancy his work has for this concept of durational trauma.” Her work pushes these fields forward by combining the studies of Bergson and Levinas together, and to a larger degree, the fields of “philosophy of trauma and ethical responsibility and temporality of ongoing systematic harm.” To learn more about Bacon’s work and read her article, check out the link below! Another huge congratulations to Professor Bacon. Her interdisciplinary studies demonstrate a key value of the HUMSOC Division!
- “The intersubjective responsibility of durational trauma: Contributions of Bergson and Levinas to the philosophy of trauma” in Continental Philosophy Review (here)

Thank you to all the professors who eagerly shared their work for this semester’s faculty feature round-up. It is always a pleasure to see the research projects and publications of our tremendous HUMSOC faculty. Next semester, we look forward to bringing you monthly faculty features to continue to highlight the essential work of our Division. Thank you for joining us here on the 255, we are so excited to be bringing you back content. As always a gentle reminder to be kind, stay safe, and stay warm throughout this winter season. We here at HUMSOC wish you all the happiest of holidays!
