NEWS RELEASE
November 18, 2011
UMass Amherst Professor Nicholas McBride Depicts Art as Intellectualism in Upcoming Lecture
AMHERST, Mass. - Nicholas McBride, associate professor of journalism, concludes this semester's Commonwealth Honors College Faculty Lecture Series with his talk "Art as Intellectualism" on Tuesday, November 29, at 6:30 p.m. in the Campus Center Auditoriumat the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In college classrooms across the nation, students study the philosophies and teachings of known intellectuals such as Plato and Gandhi. McBride, who teaches a section of the course "Ideas that Changed the World," offers viewpoints that differ from the standard in this public lecture "Art as Intellectualism."
McBride's talk shows how a boxer, a jazz singer, and a graffiti artist all represent intellectual work. Using multimedia, McBride presents the talents of Muhammad Ali, Billie Holiday and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
"These are not your usual suspects," he admits, but they all demonstrate that people can be intellectuals even if society doesn't view them as such.
"If we expanded our definition of what it means to be smart—to be intellectual—we'd be doing society a favor," he says, by promoting the arts as a form of intellectualism. He contends, "It's necessary for students and anyone who has been formally educated to consider what constitutes intellectual contribution."
Nicholas McBride has been teaching journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since 1990. His courses include newswriting, the philosophy of journalism, community journalism, journalism ethics and covering race. He has been a reporter for the Springfield Daily News, Washington Post, Afro-American, and Christian Science Monitor (Washington Bureau). He has served as a fellow at the Center for Teaching and as a Community Service Fellow. In 2005, McBride was awarded the university's Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of his outstanding teaching accomplishments.
Commonwealth Honors College introduced its Faculty Lecture Series during the spring 2011 semester in recognition of university faculty who have made significant contributions to research or creative activity. Through lectures that highlight academic excellence and scholarship, these faculty share their ideas and insight with honors students in sessions open to the campus community.
Many of the talks in the faculty lecture series relate to themes in "Ideas that Changed the World," the Honors Seminar in which honors students examine books and other works that have profoundly shaped the world we live in. The texts in this class and the related faculty lectures are meant to be exemplary for students who have the potential themselves to achieve outstanding things.
This lecture concludes the Honors Faculty Lecture Series for the fall 2011 semester. It will resume in 2012.
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