Mar 01, 2017 College of Humanities Dean to Speak at Library Event

Dianne Harris is Dean of the College of Humanities at the University of Utah, where she is also a Professor in the History Department. She holds a PhD in Architectural History from the University of California, Berkeley. She is particularly well-known for her scholarly contributions to the study of “race and space.” Focusing on the visual, the material, and the spatial, her work consistently seeks answers to questions about the ways representations, objects, and built forms (cities, buildings, landscapes) contribute to the formation of social and cultural histories.

The lecture titled, “Save Everything! Reflections of a Historian on Archives of the Future”, will address questions dealing with the archiving of digital data such as: How has the digital turn changed the ways historians now interact with primary sources? How has the availability of vast quantities of digital data shaped the nature of historical research? What is the future of the archive in the digital era? She will discuss those topics from her perspective as an architectural and urban historian.

“As a historian, I’ve always believed in the central importance of the university library, which is the humanist’s laboratory, and I’m fascinated by the rapidly evolving role played by libraries and librarians in the digital era,” commented Dean Harris. “I’m therefore delighted and honored to be this year’s Aileen H. Clyde Lecturer.”

Dianne Harris currently serves on the boards of the National Humanities Alliance, and the Utah Humanities Council. She will speak at the Marriott Library as part of the Aileen H. Clyde 20^th Century Women’s Legacy Archive Lecture on March 7th at 7:00 p.m. For more information, click here.

Some of her publications include:

• Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race in America. Published, 03/2013.
• Second Suburb: Levittown, Pennsylvania. Published, 01/2010.
• Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision. Published, 01/2007.
• Maybeck’s Landscapes: Drawing in Nature. Published, 01/2005.
• The Nature of Authority: Villa Culture, Landscape, and Representation in Eighteenth-Century Lombardy. Published, 04/2003.
• Villas and Gardens in Early Modern Italy and France. Published, 01/2001.
• (View All)