Associate Professor of Religion Margarita Guillory and History of Art and Architecture Professor Daniel Abramson have been named associate directors of the BU Center for the Humanities (BUCH), joining BUCH Director Juliet Floyd, the Bordon Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy, who started in her new role on July 1.
Guillory, who is also a faculty member in the African American & Black Diaspora Studies Program, studies identity construction in Africana esoteric religions, religion and technology, and social scientific approaches to religion, and teaches courses on American religious history, digital religion, and religion and popular culture. Her current project, Africana Religion in the Digital Age, considers how African Americans utilize the Internet, social media, mobile applications, and gaming to forge new ways to express their religious identities. She has a background in chemistry and serves on the Steering Committee for the Center for Innovation in Social Science. “Margarita brings to BUCH a special interest in Digital innovation and culture, and a tremendous breadth of interdisciplinarity and vision,” Floyd said.
Abramson, a professor of American and European Architecture, studies issues of architecture, society, economics, and government, from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, with a specialization in American and European topics, including issues local to Boston and issues of architecture and citizenship in America and beyond. He has served as Director of Architectural Studies since coming to BU in 2016 and is also an affiliated faculty member in the American Studies Program. “Danny brings to BUCH an insight into people, spaces, and the symbolism of our built and ecological environments, as well as wide acquaintance with faculty interested in the humanities at BU.
Professors Guillory and Abramson will join Floyd in implementing the initiatives and vision voiced in the expanded charter for BUCH: to develop leadership in the humanities; to focus on digital humanities and computational thinking in the humanities; and to take up the global nature of humanities in the world. Floyd said that she, Abramson, and Guillory will also build on the successes of Professor Susan Mizruchi, William Arrowsmith Professor in the Humanities, who served as the Director of BUCH for the past seven years.
Floyd and Guillory served as chairs of the committee to expand the BUCH Charter. Abramson served as a member of the committee, as well as on the Task Force on the Humanities, a wide-ranging group of humanities faculty chaired by Professor Carrie Preston that delivered an important 2021 report as part of the Arts & Sciences strategic planning process.
“In a world of uncertainty, ChatGPT, AI, political friction, disinformation, and arguments over fundamental notions of terminology, religion and ethics, people want to discuss what ultimately matters,” Floyd said. “Our view is that the humanities have never been more important and intellectually foundational for all disciplines, and we will be pushing this view as we expand BUCH’s activities.”