Dear Humanities Students,

Would you like an opportunity to work on a real faculty research project—and get paid to do so? 

Each year, the Humanities Center places about a dozen outstanding students to work on faculty research projects.  Apprentices work one-on-one with faculty members, gaining  valuable experience in humanities research.  Faculty receive help on ongoing projects.  This program is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.  
Ten humanities faculty members are currently seeking apprentices.  The positions they are seeking to fill are listed below.  If you see one that interests you, please write directly to the faculty member who is offering the apprenticeship.  I encourage you to move quickly.  Faculty will begin filling these positions in the coming week.  
For more information about the program, please go here. 

Sincerely,

Tim Melley
Director of the Humanities Center

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APPLY NOW FOR THESE 2016-17 APPRENTICESHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Materializing the Bible 
Dr. James S. Bielo, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
[log in to unmask], 513-529-8777,124A Upham

Materializing the Bible is a one-of-a-kind project of public digital scholarship. Launched in July 2015, the site curates an interactive catalogue of attractions throughout the world that transform the written words of scripture into physical, experiential environments. It is intended for both popular audiences and fellow scholars in anthropology, religious studies, and related disciplines that examine issues of materiality, the senses, globalization, entertainment, tourism, and pilgrimage. The undergraduate apprentice who is selected will help design and implement at least one new component for the site. Possible additions include:
•	Creating virtual tours of attractions using photography and video;
•	Creating an interactive timeline to illustrate when attractions opened to the public;
These are examples; part of the initial work will be to propose further possibilities by researching other examples of digital scholarship. Students with particular interests in the study of religion, as well as students with general interests in public scholarship, are welcome to apply!

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Empire and American Religion
Dr. John-Charles Duffy, Department of Comparative Religion
[log in to unmask], (513) 529-4304, 200G Upham Hall
 I am seeking one or two research apprentices to help prepare an innovative textbook that presents the religious history of the United States through the thematic lens of empire. My immediate goal is to complete, by the end of spring 2017, a book proposal and two sample chapters to submit to publishers.
The research apprentice(s) will
•	pursue leads for historical documents to excerpt for inclusion in the textbook.
•	compile historical data for timelines and maps.
•	compile comparative data on leading textbooks in U.S. history and U.S. religious history.
•	offer feedback about the readability of the sample chapters.
This apprenticeship would be ideal for a student of history, American studies, or international studies who wants to place U.S. history in global contexts. Experience with desktop publishing (Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Photoshop, etc.) would be a plus, as would an interest in cartography.
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Rescuing Archives in Pará, Brazil
Paula Gândara, Professor of Lusophone Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
[log in to unmask], 529-6039, 249 Irvin Hall
This project aims to identify and create a provisional inventory of parish documents in the area of Belém do Pará, Brazil. These parishes hold baptismal, marriage, and marriage related documents, and other kinds of ecclesiastical sources, particularly from the end of the 18th to the 19th century and are extremely important for the history of colonial Brazil, specifically the history of the old state of Grão-Pará, which constituted one of the most important regions of the Portuguese Empire during the 18th century.
The inventory will comprise information from at least two books, the book of slaves and the book of deaths.  It will contain the name, date, place of birth, race and civil state whenever provided for each entry of these books – an average of three entries per page on a total of 283pp. I expect to use these records in order to study the specific role of indigenous women in the family, be it through numbers of mixed Portuguese-Indigenous marriages, the ratio of Portuguese husbands/wives vs indigenous husbands/wives and the concomitant alteration of social and political practices that accompanied the phenomenon as time went by.  This inventory will be shared with the British Library and made available to all researchers.
The research apprentice will help create the inventory both in English and Portuguese. He or she should speak Portuguese and should have an interest in Brazilian history as well as an excellent academic record. 
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Indigenous Ancestry as Heritage Tourism
Dr. Sandra Garner, Assistant Professor of American Studies
[log in to unmask], 513-529-5333, 120 McMillan Hall
This new research project that explores heritage claims of Indigenous ancestry from the perspective of heritage tourism.  I take as a starting point the argument that Indigenous is a legal and political designation and is a fruitful analytical category describing culturally distinct groups impacted by colonialism.  I am interested in sites of heritage tourism where claims of a particular ancestry are the impulse driving what Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett refers to as a “mode of cultural production in the present that has recourse to the past” (7). I am interested in studying this phenomenon at the local, national, and global levels and from the tourist and institutional perspectives. 
I seek an undergraduate researcher to create an annotated bibliography of resources on the topic of heritage tourism.  The apprentice will assist with bibliographic research, compiling a literature review and providing brief annotation of the sources broadly in terms of tourism and specifically in the area of heritage tourism. The candidate should possess basic research skills; have the ability to find and evaluate relevant academic sources; be detail-oriented; have strong organizational skills; and be able to identify and articulate key ideas/points. Candidates for this apprenticement should send a resume and a paragraph of introduction that addresses their interest in this position to Professor Garner at [log in to unmask]
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DEFA in Divided Europe: Film Co-Productions and Exchange in East German Cinema (1946-1992)
Dr. Mariana Ivanova, Assistant Professor of German
[log in to unmask], 513-529-2526, 170 Irvin Hall
This is a study of East German cinema during the Cold War in the context of its various exchanges with other cinematic traditions. The dialog between film and genre traditions; motion picture production studios; and politicians and cultural mediators who exchanged films across the Iron Curtain are at the center of my argument. The monograph relies to a large extent on new and unpublished archival research. For the project, I would like to work with an undergraduate research assistant who has advanced or excellent reading skills in German, as well as very good writing skills in English. I will offer guidance in the following tasks:
•	Translating quotes and short texts from German into English;
•	Proof-reading of already completed translations;
•	Compiling of a bibliography and a list of relevant film co-productions and archival sources.
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The History of the Body: Concepts and Care
Dr. Cynthia Klestinec, Associate Professor of English
[log in to unmask], 529-5221; Bachelor Hall 319

My current research investigates the history of the body in a time period (1350-1650) that witnessed a shift, in some sectors of care and cultural production, from a body conceptualized through the four humors to a body conceptualized through solid structures and (eventually mechanical) parts. In the domain of medicine, for example, the seventeenth-century medical marketplace featured not only potions and elixirs that claimed to purge the body of malevolent humors but also wigs and other prostheses that, quite literally, added parts to the body. My research explores the actors involved in these conceptual and practical shifts: philosophers, anatomists, surgeons, barbers, artists or artisans (instrument makers, wig makers, etc), patients (where possible), and the marketplace. Why did people begin to accept, in a more fundamental sense, that the body was solid rather than fluid, built of parts rather than coursing humors? 
The research apprentice for this project will focus on creating a visual archive for surgical instruments, on reading and annotating a range of neoplatonic texts about love (including a number authored by women), and on developing an understanding of the history of prosthetics. In addition to taking an interest in the early history of the body and the interdisciplinary study of the history of medicine, the apprentice should be organized and capable of systematically searching databases and collecting materials, and a careful reader. Under Professor Klestinec's guidance, the apprentice will be asked to do some of the following:
1. Instruments: Search online databases and digitized collections of rare books for illustrations of instruments and build an annotated bibliography of these sources (especially important here is to identify the instruments that were designed for specific procedures)
2. The Body in Literature: Read and annotate a list of sources on neoplatonic love, including works by Plato, Pico della Mirandola, Castiglione, and Italian women writers in this tradition (all are available in translation).
3. The Mechanical Body: Compile a bibliography of images and texts on prosthetics, emphasizing the period of 1350-1650. Especially curious are mechanical hands that were illustrated in books and made to fit soldiers returning from war, who had lost limbs.
*From this experience, the apprentice will gain an understanding of how to constitute an archive, how to pursue an investigation of a topic, how to integrate visual and textual sources, and how to do the nuts and bolts of research (collecting, organizing, storing, annotating, and analyzing).
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Neoliberal Sexuality: Limit, Ubitquitous Computing and Neoliberal Reason
Dr. Andrea Righi, Assistant Professor of Italian
[log in to unmask], 529-5932, 207 Irvin Hall
I am currently working on a book-length project titled Neoliberal Sexuality: Limit, Ubiquitous Computing and Neoliberal Reason. This study offers a broadly conceived gender-based critique of recent neoliberal transformations in the political, symbolic, and social domains by looking at the relationship between digital technology and sexuality. Presently, I am working on a chapter, titled “Quantifying the Captive Self,” that discusses the meanings and emotions that self-tracking media users attach to their lived-experience, and the ways in which they represent them through online narratives. 
Under my guidance, the apprentice will assist with the gathering, cataloguing and analyzing of narratives by locative media users that deal with digital representation of selfhood. In particular, the apprentice will: 
1. search online narratives
2. archive them in usable files with brief explanatory annotations so that I will later carry out close readings of the most significant ones3
3. discuss with me the various cases the apprentice discovers along the way.
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Agriculture and Empire in Ancient Neo-Assyria
Dr. Melissa S. Rosenzweig, Assistant Professor of Archaeology
[log in to unmask], 513-529-2374, 111 Irvin
I am seeking a research apprentice to help me manage the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory where I conduct research on ancient plant remains from the Neo-Assyrian empire (ca. 900 – 600 BCE) in the ancient Near East.  In this lab (UPH 056) I analyze the carbonized remains of seeds that have been recovered from several different excavations throughout the Middle East (Turkey, Israel, and Iraqi Kurdistan).  As laboratory manager, the research apprentice will assist me in managing and organizing this archaeobotanical collection.  Responsibilities include:
•	Cataloging and curating the archaeobotanical collection.
•	Keeping track of laboratory supplies and placing orders as need.
•	Assisting with the maintenance of lab equipment.
Prior experience is not required (training will be provided), but a scientific background is helpful, and attention to detail is a must.  This apprenticeship is ideal for a student interested in humanities-based laboratory research, as well a student interested in the study of ancient history or the environment. 
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Mexico, California, and International Drug Control
Sarah Brady Siff, Department of Media, Journalism & Film and Asst. Director of the Humanities Center
[log in to unmask], 529-2186, 260A Bachelor Hall
The project is the revision of my dissertation, “Tough on Dope: Crime and Politics in California’s Drug Wars,” into a book manuscript. The book covers the state-level drug wars from the turn of the 1900s to 1968, with an emphasis on the immediate postwar period. I seek an apprentice with excellent Spanish reading fluency and, ideally, an interest in modern U.S. history. The apprentice will read the relevant portions of my manuscript (about 40 pages) and the entire Spanish-language book Drogas sin Fronteras, noting parts of the book that are germane to my timeline and argument. Using this knowledge, the apprentice will compile a list of relevant State Department records for me to look at during a planned research trip to the National Archive at College Park, Md., in late December. If this trip nets Spanish-language sources and the apprentice has more time, I will also request translation of these sources. In addition, time permitting, I have a handful of letters written in Spanish by Mexican-American residents of Los Angeles in the 1950s, which I would like the apprentice to read and briefly explain.
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Cothurnus in the Snow: Russian Mythological Tragedy and the Emergence of the Lyric Voice
Dr. Zara M. Torlone, Professor of Classics, Affiliate of the  Havighurst Center
[log in to unmask], 529-1488, 108 Irvin Hall
This apprenticeship will contribute to a book to be published by Oxford University Press in the series Classical Presences.  The book, Cothurnus in the Snow: Russian Mythological Tragedy and the Emergence of the Lyric Consciousness, explores how Russian writers’ use of Greco-Roman mythological tragedy contributed to the creation and development of Russian lyric voice and poetic vernacular. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that as Russian national literature started to take shape, the Russian mythological tragedy served not as an imitative tool to provide the new literary canon with legitimacy but also to form and develop the articulated lyric consciousness, a phenomenon in which Russian literary output has few rivals.
Some knowledge of Russian is required for this apprenticeship.  The apprentice will:
1. Help translate significant parts of several mythological tragedies from Russian to English (none of this works have been translated into English previously). The fluent knowledge of Russian is desirable but not necessary since I will do the translation myself and then ask the student to proofread the English translation.
2. Prepare detailed annotated bibliography of the books and articles written on the subject both in Russian (if possible) and English.
3. Locate all the primary sources for the project and find any existing English translations.
Students with interests in literature and cultural studies will benefit from this apprenticeship by developing and honing their research skills and learning how to conduct serious research both online and in the library.