Miller Library, Colby College

Isabel Hofmeyr is Professor of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and Global Distinguished Professor in the English Department of New York University. Her most recent book is Gandhi's Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading (2013). She currently heads up a Mellon-funded project "Ocanic Humanities for the Global South: with partners […]

In the 1930s, Imperial Japan expanded into the Mongol territories of Northeast China, where nomadic herders lived on the steppe. Japanese planners, however, did not see seasonal migration as a rational use of resources, but rather, the root of overgrazing and degradation. As a result, they sought to eliminate nomadic features of herding. Japanese experimental […]

Please join us for an encouraging discussion of how a small group of impassioned nature conservationists fought and changed the course of bird extinction and bird decimation. From the 1860s to the 1930s, these activists employed the power of the written word and the great appeal of historic bird paintings in order to create an army […]

John Bear Mitchell, will share stories about his experiences growing up on the Penobscot Nation’s tribal headquarters of Indian Island and his childhood in a Catholic school. With humor and brief anecdotes, he will branch out into his professional escapades, and wonder with you, how he was so honored to have had the experiences he’s had […]

Brooke Williams will read from his Open Midnight, which weaves two parallel stories about the great wilderness: that of the author’s year alone with his dog, ground truthing, backcountry maps of southern Utah and that of his great-great-great-grandfather, William Williams, who in 1863 made his way with a group of Mormons from England across the […]

Varieties of Textual Experience is a one-day symposium with scholars from across the humanities to discuss the role of the material text in their research and scholarly practice. Papers will cover a wide range of topics and we will include Colby faculty scholars Anita Savo (Spanish), Ben Lisle (American Studies), and Sarah Watkins (History). The […]