Events at the School of Humanities this September

The Office of the Dean of the School of Humanities invites the University community and general public to the following events.

Sixty Years of J.R.R. Tolkien:

A Lecture by Professor Thomas Alan Shippey

Wednesday, September 27 2023 | 5:00 PM | Leong Hall Auditorium, Ateneo de Manila University

Author of The Road to Middle-earth and one of the world’s leading experts on the life and works of JRR Tolkien, Prof. Shippey will talk about his long involvement with Tolkien as a reader, writer, lecturer, and fan. Among other topics, he will discuss Tolkien’s Catholicism, the reasons for his success, and the reluctance to admit him into the literary canon. Prof. Leonard Neidorf, author of The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet and The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior and Shippey’s collaborator in the latest translation of Beowulf, will serve as reactor.

This event is free of charge and open to the public. To register, please visit this link:  https://forms.gle/ydcxzjE34JYyj4FR8

Beowulf and the Digital Humanities:

A Lecture by Professor Leonard Neidorf

Friday, September 29 2023 | 2:00PM | Leong Hall Auditorium, Ateneo de Manila University

Leonard Neidorf, Professor of English at Nanjing University, will discuss how the disciplines broadly described as the “Digital Humanities” can shed new light on old debates, particularly those arguments presented in a paper he co-authored with scholars from Harvard, MIT, and other universities. Titled “Large-Scale Quantitative Profiling of the Old English Verse Tradition,” the paper received mainstream media coverage in venues such as The Guardian, The Times, The Boston Globe, and Smithsonian Magazine. Professor Neidorf considers why the paper received such coverage, and then offers a critical assessment of what the Digital Humanities can and cannot do, how such studies are best interpreted, and how the knowledge generated in the traditional humanities remains essential to them. He stresses the importance of collaboration and argues that the Digital Humanities should be viewed as a complement to, rather than as a competitor of, traditional humanities scholarship. 

This event is free of charge and open to the public. To register, please visit this link: https://forms.gle/eCbnRiJJ2WHmr4nSA 

Please be advised that the availability of slots for both events is limited, making registration at your earliest convenience highly advisable. Should you require any clarification or assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to jvreyes@ateneo.edu. Your inquiries are most welcome.

These events are powered by a donation from the Kwan Laurel family.

Thank you for considering our invitation and we hope to see you there!