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Each month, The Stone House Center for Public Humanities interviews a humanities scholar or community member and asks them everything from why they believe the humanities are important to what they're currently binge-watching. We hope that our new blog series, Coffee & Questions, will inspire you, introduce you to a variety of people and fields, as well as create new conversations.

This month's guest is Gisela Dieter, Associate Professor of Spanish at SRU since 2005.  She received her PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of Pittsburgh, PA in 2008 where she also minored in Spanish Linguistics.  Dieter has a Master of Arts in History from Youngstown State University and two Bachelor of Science Degrees from Clarion University of PA in Communications and Business. Born and raised in Panama, Dieter’s fields of expertise, interest and research are Panamanian and Cuban Literature, Women Writers, National Identity, African Diaspora, Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy.  A passion for learning and teaching drives Dieter’s dynamic classroom style where she strives to offer her students valuable information to help them improve their communicative and cultural competence in the Spanish Language aiming at helping students become effective professionals in our diverse and multicultural job market.  

What inspires you in your current position/role?
In a word:  Students.  That is my personal reality: students inspire me.  Teachers often speak of that moment, that almost sacred moment when the light goes on and there are visible sparks in the eyes of learners…well, that is the moment I seek.  I’m not going to lie, it doesn’t happen every single time, but when it does happen…the daily struggles of the profession are suddenly totally worth it.  I know it sounds cliché, but it is true in my experience.  This past spring semester, in my Reading in Spanish, for instance, students demonstrated such a range and depth of analysis that, suddenly, a Monday evening class was something I looked forward to!  And it was not just academic insight, I was able to witness personal growth as well.  There was this moment, while I was walking around one of the small-reading/discussion groups, I overheard the students saying to one another:  “I can’t believe this kind of stuff actually happened here in the States!  Men, I have to read up on this.  I don’t know &%$#@.”  Seeing my students learning about their own reality and culture in a Spanish class, to me, carries immense weight and truly inspires me in my current position as a teacher.

What work experiences (past or present) have been the most educational for you, and why?
Working in the business world for years before becoming a college professor taught me how hard life truly is.  I understand why people outside academia often look at universities as a bubble.  This knowledge helps me guide my students more efficiently and with honesty. They see me as someone who “has been there,” and I value that tremendously.  Working as a volunteer faculty member in the Humanities Ladder Program taught me that regardless of our circumstances, the thirst for learning is always there.  The challenge is to find ways to help those unaware of such thirst to tune into their senses, experience some success, find their passion and ignite their engines to pursue it...to take a sip from that water of knowledge…in other words, finding ways to provide them with a little bit of that proverbial salt, so they realize they are thirsty!

What project(s) are you currently working on?
I have recently applied for a Grant that, if awarded, will allow the Modern Languages and Cultures Department to explore possibilities to establish working relationships abroad, in Panama, my country of origin in a variety of capacities such as service learning, study abroad, teaching English to speakers of other languages and student exchange programs. I am heading to Panama this summer to begin the legwork, hoping to make initial contacts and prepare the way if/when we can begin the actual project.

Why do you believe that the humanities are important to everyone, and not just people in academia?
The humanities are the key to human development.  In this era of communication, when we are all wirelessly connected, the greatest paradox is the reality that we are lonelier than ever before. This is a surprise to many.  However, it is easily understood if we stop and see, our relationships are all mediated. They are not genuine or real. They are “phony,” pun intended. Therefore, they are not truly satisfying.  The human experience is lost in cyberspace. I believe, the humanities are a venue to restore the “awe” factor and dissipate the sense of loss caused by the frantic chase for new tech.

What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you (hobby, skill,interesting story)?
Every time I get this question, the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that, once, a million years ago, I won a beer-drinking-contest against a bunch of people, including several experienced-beer-drinking men. Not my proudest moment…but that has remained my go-to surprising fact about me to this day.

What shows are you currently binge-watching?
I don’t binge-watch shows, per se. I’m a HUGE movie fan, rather than a TV person.  Also, I have two teenage sons, and our “thing” is to watch movies.  So, now, we’ve been binge-watching the entire Marvel Universe, individual super-hero films as well as the Avengers Saga, while at the same time, finishing the Harry Potter series too. 

What is your first thought in the morning and last thought at night?
I’m a spiritual person, so I try to turn my eyes towards heaven as the first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night.

What's a book you've always wanted to read but haven't gotten around to?
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  I finally got them all.  And I have a challenge with my older son to read them this year…not sure if it will happen, but at least I’d like to get started.

What is the funniest thing that has happened to you recently?
I ran into a glass door in front of my older son.  We were staying at a friend’s condo in Florida and we were getting ready to have lunch at the balcony. The a/c was on, so my son closed the sliding door after him, just as he has been taught to do when the air is on, but I didn’t realize it…so…lunch plate in hand, I ran into the stupid door.  It was not funny right away, believe me!  But after I picked up my bruised ego, we had a good laugh at the whole thing.

What is the worst job that you had while working through your degree and what would you tell your past self now?
I worked as a receptionist for an Accountants’ Firm in Panama, and the main part of my job was to guess…yes, guess, to have the super-power to be able to tell whether the owner and CEO of the firm was in the mood to take a phone call or not.  I was not allowed to send any of his calls to voicemail. But I was not allowed to transfer any calls to him either, if he was not in the mood for it/them. And he was always in his office behind close doors. So, needless to say, I didn’t last at that job.  I would tell the 21 year old me…”wait until you get married!”

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Check back next month for more Coffee & Questions. In case you missed our previous interview with Michael Dittman, click HERE.

The humanities are usually seen as a subject, however, the effects of humanities occur in everyday life. Recently in New York City, a Girl Scout Troop was established in a homeless shelter located in Queens known as Troop 6000. The troop will soon expand to 14 other shelters and is expected to serve about 500 girls. Troop 6000 currently has 27 members with growth in sight.

This troop is evidence that the humanities intertwine with our every day lives and how important they are to the people around us. This troop will affect the future of homeless care for younger citizens. They have shown us a way to move forward. They have shown us how the humanities play an important role in our everyday lives. 

To read the full article and learn more, click here​​

​Each month, The Stone House Center for Public Humanities interviews a humanities scholar or community member and asks them everything from why they believe the humanities are important to what they're currently binge-watching. We hope that our new blog series, Coffee & Questions, will inspire you, introduce you to a variety of people and fields, as well as create new conversations.

This month's guest is Michael Dittman, a writer and English Professor who lives in Butler, Pennsylvania.  He’s always looking for the next project that gets him too excited to sleep at night. Sometimes it's writing the next book (He is the author of Jack Kerouac; A Biography, Masterpieces of the Beat Generation, and Small Brutal Incidents), hacking together tumblr projects like Ithagram and Pictsburgh, blogging about arts and culture (He reviews comic art exhibits and scholarship for the International Journal of Comic Arts), or experimenting with lo-fi video and photography. Michael is also a member of our Community Advisory Board. Find him at michaeldittman.com 

​What inspires you in your current position/role?
This semester in a class discussion I started talking about the American Suffragettes’ “Night of Terror” in 1917 to contextualize a piece of literature we were reading.  As I talked about how these women were tortured because they wanted the right to vote, one of my students, an Army vet returning to college after several combat tours, said “Wait?  This was in America?” We had an incredible discussion about the American experience and how it does (or doesn’t) get expressed in literature. In one moment, this man who had several lifetimes of experience fighting for democracy had a completely different world opened to him and he dove right in to try to understand the world of people who had never crossed his mind. Moments like those keep me coming back to the classroom.
 
What work experiences (past or present) have been the most educational for you, and why?
Working as a writing center tutor at Slippery Rock University showed me what I wanted to do and gave me the chance to figure out best strategies for helping other express themselves and their lives.  Working as a roofer taught me that there was no way I could do that sort of work for the rest of my life.

What project(s) are you currently working on? 
​A story map of Stewart O’Nan’s novel Snow Angels.  The book is set in Butler.  When the map is completed, it will collect all the places mentioned in the book and included images of what the places looked like during the time the book is set as compared to today through interactive maps and scenes with rich multimedia content to make connections in the story more clear and to spark a discussion about nostalgia, among other ideas.  As Umberto Eco writes, “Every text, after all, is a lazy machine asking the reader to do some of its work.

Why do you believe that the humanities are important to everyone, and not just people in academia? 
We have made our worlds very small through the technological creation of ideological walled gardens.  Google has convinced us that knowledge and wisdom are the same thing and easily accessible through a click.  Yet, most of life’s deepest experiences can’t be reduced to an algorithm.  The humanities enable us to share lived experiences and create empathy within informed citizens.   
 
What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you (hobby, skill, interesting story)?
I swim and paddleboard competitively – a couple of years ago I was nationally ranked.  The look of doubt in my students’ eyes when they hear this fact out never fails to destroy my ego.
 
What shows are you currently binge-watching?
As a huge comic nerd, I’m embarrassed to say I just finished The Punisher.  I took a long break with Hell on Wheels and so had to start over at the beginning and I just started Babylon Berlin
 
What is your first thought in the morning and last thought at night?
“Why did I stay up so late?” and “Man, I’ve got to go to bed soon.”
 
What's a book you've always wanted to read but haven't gotten around to?
Moby Dick.  Every summer I promise myself that this will be the year and every summer it sits unopened and mocking on my nightstand.
 
What is the funniest thing that has happened to you recently?
While hiking with my wife on a trail a little north of Pittsburgh, we came around a curve to find a youngish couple coming up the hill on the trail towards us.  Completely naked.  We paid each other our “Good mornings” while all of us refused to admit that there was anything unusual happening. 
 
What is the worst job that you had while working through your degree and what would you tell your past self now?
I took care of a colony of capuchin monkeys.  They loathed me and never lost an opportunity to steal my glasses or pull out large chunks of my hair when I was in the enclosure with them.  If I could talk to the 19 year old, I’d tell him, “You think this is bad, wait until we end up at that restaurant.”

Can you describe another aspect of your life or career that is influenced or enriched by the humanities that people would find surprising?
I’m a photo enthusiast.  I eschew digital techniques to instead work with photographic processes that re over 100 years old.  Studying and documenting the human experience through two dimensional images and the interplay between photographer and subject is a profoundly humbling experience with an outcome that is also uncertain.  That uncertainty is key to my art and also to the interaction between humans that is expressed through the humanities.

  
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Check back next month for more Coffee & Questions. In case you missed our previous interview with Cindy Lacom click HERE.

If you want to build a team of innovative problem-solvers, you should value the humanities just as much as the sciences, says entrepreneur Eric Berridge. He shares why tech companies should look beyond STEM graduates for new hires -- and how people with backgrounds in the arts and humanities can bring creativity and insight to technical workplaces.

Check out his informative TED Talk here.

To learn more about the Old Stone House, visit: http://oldstonehousepa.org/about/

Each month, The Stone House Center for Public Humanities interviews a humanities scholar or community member and asks them everything from why they believe the humanities are important to what they're currently binge-watching. We hope that our new blog series, Coffee & Questions, will inspire you, introduce you to a variety of people and fields, as well as create new conversations.

Our guest this month is Cindy Lacom, who has taught at Slippery Rock University for 25 years.  She integrates gender and feminist issues into her teaching and scholarship, and has a deep interest in Disability Studies. She is fascinated by questions about how different bodies are invested with varied meanings as cultural texts (in terms of access to or denial of power, stigma and the "management" of that stigma, how we might change prejudice and bias).  Cindy is also a member of our Community Advisory Board.

What inspires you in your current position/role?
I often say, "I have the best job in the world," and I mean it.  What inspires me?  SRU students, who regularly impress and move me, compel me to think and re-think my positions and ideas.  I am motivated as well by many of my colleagues, who work tirelessly for social justice.  My mom also inspires me because she is so fierce.

What work experiences (past or present) have been the most educational for you, and why?
Teaching is at the center of my life, frankly, and it has informed me in myriad and profound ways.  Though we tend in academe to frame "teaching" and "learning" as classroom activities, I'm reminded daily that both activities occur all around us.  One instance occurred when I was an undergrad.  My Philosophy prof posed this question to us: does philosophy belong in the marketplace or the ivory tower?  A couple nights later, I was playing pool in a really dumpy bar and listened to two men talking about life choices (one man's daughter had just gotten married because she was pregnant). They interrogated the ethics of her choice, the ethics of their judgments, the degree of her individual agency, and the merits and drawbacks of marriage as in institution.  I wrote my paper the next night, and my response was squarely in the "marketplace" box. 

My work for non-profits has also fostered insights and shaped my goals.  I don't think idealism and pragmatism are mutually exclusive, though I probably once did. But what I have learned in an exec board capacity for non-profits is that a mission is almost certainly bound to founder without strategic goals, specific policies, and economic and social sustainability.  Dreams and passion are key, but a vision for social justice change has to supported by practical details to thrive.

Why do you believe that the humanities are important to everyone, and not just people in academia?
I'll use an example from the field of Disability Studies as an example to explore this question. Because the Humanities invite us to consider something like statistics within a historical, philosophical and embodied framework.  Reading Disability Studies scholar Lennard Davis's "Constructing Normalcy" reminds us that statistics is not value-neutral but has been used to produce and maintain norms in everything from BMI to productivity ratings to intellectual measure that contribute to ableist biases that understand disability as "less than."  Because reading feminist philosopher Julie Kristeva allows us to integrate ideas of abjection when we analyze the creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in trying to figure out, "Why might Victor Frankenstein's recoil from his 'child' be so extreme when it first comes to life?  What about the creature marks it as 'monstrous'?" What happens when, in psychology or therapeutic/rehabilitative/medical fields, we use the discourse of "recovery"?  How might that reinforce ableist stereotypes that disabilities is something that needs to be "cured"?  How might scientists benefit from understanding their unconscious bias in research on sexuality?  None of these questions are discipline-specific; all of them have answers which are enriched by a Humanities perspective.

What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you (hobby, skill, interesting story)?
I'm an avid hiker and camp every summer in the mountains of northern California.  

What's a book you've always wanted to read but haven't gotten around to?
Great question.  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

What is the worst job that you had while working through your degree and what would you tell your past self now?
I worked as a telemarketer for two weeks.  it was soul-destroying. I thought I needed the money but we were ripping off vulnerable people in what amounted to a money-making scheme.  I wouldn't have any advice for my past self because I had to work that awful job to decide that I would hopefully never do anything like it again. ​

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Check back next month for more Coffee & Questions. In case you missed our previous interview with Shawn Francis Peters click HERE.