Bozeman Magazine

Montana State University will host its inaugural Humanities Matter lecture by an expert on preserving humanities programs in higher education at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, in the Museum of the Rockies Hager Auditorium. A reception will follow the event, which is free and open to the public. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, director of digital humanities and professor of English at Michigan State University. Fitzpatrick is the author of three books, including, “Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University.” In that book, she argues that it is essential for scholars in humanities fields to present their work in a collaborative, publicly visible way rather than taking a defensive approach or being motivated by funding or attention. Fitzpatrick’s lecture, titled “The Humanities, the Commons and What We Have to Share,” is sponsored by MSU’s College of Letters and Science. It will explore the institutional transformation possible when attention is focused on new models of leadership in and around the humanities. She also will discuss inspiring solidarity within humanities academia that is based on core values. Fitzpatrick is project director of Humanities Commons, an open-access, open-source network serving more than 30,000 scholars and practitioners across the humanities and around the world. She is the president of the board of directors of the Educopia Institute and a board member on the Council on Library and Information Resources. She worked for the Modern Language Association, where she co-authored the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. Prior to that, she was a professor of media studies at Pomona College, where she co-founded the digital scholarly network MediaCommons. Throughout her career, Fitzpatrick has worked to build resilient and sustainable scholarly communities and make their processes of communication more connected and collaborative. Humanities Matter is a new lecture series presented by MSU’s College of Letters and Science. For more information about the event, visit montana.edu/calendar/events/43821 or contact Stacy Nation-Knapper at 406-994-4288 or stacy.nation@montana.edu.