Borghesi-Mellon Workshops
Since 2000, the Center's Workshops in the Humanities have provided an opportunity for students and faculty to work together outside of the classroom, in working groups centered on an interdisciplinary topic, broadly conceived, drawn from any period, field, or method of research in the humanities.
One of the Center’s most exciting programs, the Workshops have led to conferences, books, teaching innovations, and the creation of long-term research centers and projects. Recent and current workshops have focused on Comics, Disability Studies and Activism, Food Studies, Digital Humanities, and Critical University Studies.
From 2000 to 2015, the A. W. Mellon Foundation generously funded over 50 distinct “Mellon Workshops" through multiyear grants. In 2014, the Mellon Foundation matched an endowment gift from UW-Madison alumni Nancy Borghesi (B.A.’69, Economics, and a member of the College of Letters & Science Board of Visitors) and David Borghesi (BBA’70, Accounting), acknowledging the leadership and dedication of the Center for Humanities Director, Professor Sara Guyer. Beginning in 2015 this longstanding program was renamed the Borghesi-Mellon Workshops in the Humanities.
This workshop brings together a cross-disciplinary group of scholars with a focus on the diverse ways that empire has been (re)imagined in antiquity, early modernity, the 18th and 19th centuries, and the contemporary world.
This workshop attempts to map the historic and future praxis of technological adaptation in the Black diaspora, including the spiritual, material, and cultural tactics of resilience and self-determination informed by such modes as Afro-Futurism and Afro-Optimism.
How might attention to multispecies ethics redefine the politics and structures of environmental justice? This workshop brings together researchers across multiple disciplines to carve out new terrain at the under-explored intersection of multispecies studies and political ecology.
This artist-led workshop and event series will illuminate intersections between art, the humanities, and environmental studies, showcasing a range of expressions that explore the relationships between humans and the world they inhabit in this era of ecological complexity.
This workshop explores the influence of the Greek author Plutarch (c. 45 - c. 125 CE) on the literature produced during the Byzantine Empire (4th - 15th century).
Objects as material legacies are powerful proxies connecting contemporary researchers to the early modern era, while attention to the senses, as biologically-based shared knowledge, can cross cultures to provide key insights about human experience. This workshop uses the time and setting of early modern Asian to explore more possibilities for the study of senses and material culture.
Alt-right groups frequently sport medieval symbols and evoke imagined, racially pure, medieval nations to support their cause. This interdisciplinary workshop challenges us to think about race in both medieval and contemporary contexts, exploring intertwined aspects of migration, representation and appropriation.
Focusing particularly on Nordic-American cultures, this workshop explores the long-term effects of migration experiences more generally in generations that follow the initial migration, and the potentials of collaborative, participatory research that seeks to understand and document such legacies.
Propose a Borghesi-Mellon Workshop
Support from Nancy and David Borghesi and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation allows the Center for the Humanities to support 3-5 new interdisciplinary workshops in the humanities each year.
