The NSU Center for the Humanities in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences host the third annual Crossroads Humanities Student Conference on April 10. The conference will be virtual this year and focus on the theme of “Networks.” Topics for the conference include disease and culture, viral media, collective and individual identity and sources of social action, among many others.
In response to all that has occurred this past year, the idea of networks and networking has become increasingly prevalent. In addition to the fear of socializing and spreading disease, this concept of connectivity and networking has also propelled social movements.
Aileen Farrar, associate chair of the department of humanities and politics and director for the Center of Humanities, was able to provide insight on the importance of this year’s theme.
“In particular [with] the ‘Networks’ theme, there’s a lot in the past year that we could be talking about. The ‘Networks’ theme, for instance, lends itself to biological networks, viral transmissions — or the viral metaphor of networks itself in the way that things go viral on the internet — or the way that we have established new social media networks in the past year,” Farrar said. “There are so many different kinds of networks that have become apparent in the last year because, ironically, we have been physically separated from each other, but we are still impacting each other in very significant ways, and in the past year, we have seen how these networks function.”
In addition to the conference itself, a unique part of this year’s Crossroads is the Digital Humanities Crossroads Contest.
“With this networks and networking theme that we have this year, we have also added on more emphasis in the digital humanities, recognizing how everything has moved to the virtual in this past year, but also [how] digital humanities have been a growing area for the past several decades. So, we are instituting a digital humanities conference that is sponsored by the dean’s office,” said Farrar.
The digital contest invites NSU students to showcase their digital humanities research at the Crossroads Conference. Those participating in Crossroads are eligible to submit their conference projects to this contest connecting to the theme of “Networks.” The top three contestants will be announced during the conference with a first-place prize of $200. The first and second runner up with a $100 and $50 prize, respectively. The deadline to submit for this contest is March 27.
While the deadline to submit research for the Crossroads Humanities Student Conference has passed, students are still encouraged to attend the virtual event on April 10, with more information on the registration to come.
“Over the course of this coming month, in March, we are going to be releasing our conference program. So, we invite students to look over that program and see which panels they would like to attend. You do not have to be a presenter here or a contestant to be a part of the conference, you can come and be a part of the discussions and hear what other people are doing,” said Farrar.
