Forum Features: Dirty Dirt_Transdisciplinary Panel

NB&P: Erin Duncan-O'Neill - Art Against Censorship

The hosts chat with Dr. Duncan-O'Neill about her recent book _Art Against Censorship: Honoré Daumier, Comedy, and Resistance in 19th-Century France_ (2024, Manchester University Press). This book explores how the famous caricaturist Honoré Daumier used comedy and art to resist censorship in 19th-century France, even depicting 17th-century theater scenes during periods of political oppression. _Art Against Censorship_ examines Daumier's career, which included imprisonment for a satirical cartoon, and his use of lithography to create direct and spontaneous political commentary, often lampooning the government and bourgeoisie. Interview by OU Public Humanities Intern Rylie Kennon.

Forum Features: Dirty Dirt_Transdisciplinary Panel

In celebration of the Forum 2025-26 Annual Theme "Dirt," the Arts & Humanities Forum at the University of Oklahoma presents the fourth and final Trandsiciplinary Research Panel exploring "Dirt." This panel is entitled "Dirty Dirt: Thinking with Pollution, Pesticides, Noise, and Gossip." It features the research of OU Faculty Andreea Marculescu (MLLL), Peter Soppelsa (HSTM), Marcela Loría-Salazaar (Meterology), and Paul Feller-Simmons (Music). These panels are designed to gather expertise from across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and STEM. Together our panelists help us consider the many ways in which dirt is used to signal a boundary between the acceptable and unacceptable.

Forum Features: Red Dirt Place-Making_Transdisciplinary Panel

In celebration of the Forum 2025-26 Annual Theme "Dirt," the Arts & Humanities Forum at the University of Oklahoma presents the third of four Transdisciplinary Research Panels. This panel is entitled "Red Dirt Place-Making: Thinking with Community, Home, and Identity." It features the research of OU Faculty Allyson Shortle (Political Science), Rilla Askew (English), Bryan Bloom (Construction Science), Ken Marold (Architecture), and Kalenda Eaton (African and African American Studies). These panels are designed to gather expertise from across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and STEM. Together, our panelists help us consider the many ways in which Dirt (like the Red Dirt of Oklahoma) is tied to ideas about identity and home.

NB&P: Benjamin Alpers - Happy Days

The hosts chat with Dr. Alpers about his recent book _Happy Days: Images of the Pre-Sixties Past in Seventies America (2024, Rutgers University Press).  The 1970's are frequently seen as a watershed period, an era from which sources of 21st-century American culture began to flow. But the 1970's are also seen as a particularly backward-looking time, seen by many critics as morbidly nostalgic for times before the wrenching changes that were associated with the 1960's. _Happy Days_ explores the relationship of the 1970's American culture to the pre-Sixties past through four case studies. Far from mere nostalgia, Americans' diverse reimaginings of the past were a significant part of what made the 1970's so culturally foundational for the decades to come. Interview by Public Humanities Intern Silma Nurfadhilah.

NB&P: Dustin Condren - An Imaginary Cinema

The hosts chat with Dr. Condren about his recent book An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film (2024, Cornell University Press).  Eisenstein directed some of the twentieth century's most important films, from the early classic of montage, Battleship Potemkin, to his late masterpiece, Ivan the Terrible. Alongside these, however, the Soviet filmmaker also toiled over a compelling array of unrealized projects, from ideas that never grew beyond complex, passionate notebook scrawls and sketches to productions that were mounted and shot to some degree of completion without ever being finished. Working from the archival remnants of several of the director's most fascinating unrealized projects, Dr. Condren's book reveals new aspects of Eisenstein's genius, showing the filmmaker in a constant state of process, open to working toward impossible and sometimes utopian ends, and committed to the pursuit of creative and theoretical discovery. Interview by Public Humanities intern Logan Pizzeck.