As Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, I can’t wave a magic wand and make our teachers charismatic and our students passionately curious. Fortunately, I don’t have to. They’re already that. What I can do is help nurture the conditions that allow them to flourish.
Spring 2023
Ghosts in the Machine: Digital forensics and the race against the technological clock
Jacques Derrida, the famous philosopher, thought the advent of digital word processing meant the end of the draft. Thorsten Ries and a team of researchers are proving him wrong — and pushing the boundaries of digital forensics in the humanities.
The Oracle of the Enlightenment
How did one of the 18th century’s greatest students of Rome become its foremost voice for balance and moderation in the construction of the modern state?
A Classics Podcast Gets Greek Greats Onto Your Phone
The idea for Deborah Beck’s podcast burst forth from her head like the goddess Athena from the head of Zeus. That moment of inspiration has turned into three seasons and counting of “Musings in Greek Literature,” a podcast on classical Greek texts hosted by Beck and a rotating cast of her advanced undergraduate students.
The McCrackenaissance
A few things to know about Elizabeth McCracken: She’s hilarious on Twitter. She likes to spend her mornings swimming in Austin’s Barton Springs Pool. She’s not wild about the term “autofiction,” and her new book, “The Hero of This Book,” is definitely a novel, not a memoir.
The End of the Line: “Endlings” and what their stories tell us about the planet, its inhabitants, and ourselves
Here is the basic anatomy of a story: there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. But what can stories tell us about “endlings,” the last known individuals of their kinds?
Laws of the Lands: Exploring the World’s Constitutions
There are almost two hundred countries with constitutions currently in existence, and their contents vary considerably. The Comparative Constitutions Project has been documenting and analyzing them for almost two decades, creating a set of resources for scholars and non-scholars along the way.
The Science of Teaching Science: A UT Austin-Thinkery Partnership is building better science education for kids and communities
Cristine Legare studies how children learn and how to make informal learning exhibits more engaging and impactful for people of all ages.
How the Right Words Could Improve Policing
Could a simple sentence build trust and foster better communication between police officers and the communities they serve?
Bloody History, Historical Recovery
In The Injustice Never Leaves You, published in 2018 by Harvard University Press, historian and MacArthur “genius” fellow Monica Martinez documents the disturbing history of anti-Mexican violence during a period of rapid growth and economic transformation for the Lone Star State.
May my child become like Toyin!
![[Monday 12:57 PM] Oppenheimer, Daniel J Pencil drawing by Adeoye Hassan, from a reference photo by Michael Efionayi. Courtesy of Toyin Falola.](https://lifeandletters.la.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TF-pencil-art-scaled-e1674856516773-475x320.jpg)
College of Liberal Arts alumnus Vik Bahl talks to his mentor, African and African Diaspora Studies professor Toyin Falola, about Falola’s globe-spanning career as a scholar of African and a building of the discipline of African Studies.
Bringing the Liberal Arts to Texas Prisons
The Texas Prison Education Initiative offers college-credit courses to incarcerated students in the Austin area. The courses, which span subjects from physics to philosophy, are taught by volunteer instructors and offered at no cost to students. Since it began in 2018, the program has served some 230 students in over 400 classes. But there’s still far more demand than they can meet.
This is the Work: Nine Things to Know About Amira Rose Davis
An assistant professor of sociology, Davis specializes in 20th-century American history with an emphasis on race, gender, sports, and politics. But there’s a lot more you should know about her.
Signs of Community
Deborah White and Michael Wynne see themselves and the ASL program they are building at UT Austin as about more than just language. They are a bridge between the Deaf and hearing communities. Their identity as part of the Deaf community is integral to the way that they teach American Sign Language, which is just as much about understanding Deaf culture as it is about vocabulary, syntax, and grammar.
Black Health Matters
Christy Erving has taught about the sociology of health in general for several years, but it was the realities of life during COVID that steered her to design her new course, “Black Health Matters,” specifically focused on the health of Black Americans. It debuts this fall.