The 2024 International Festival, commonly known as iFEST, took place in the Taylor Courtyard on October 3rd. It was a beautiful sunny day and over 1,200 attendees from the campus and community came to visit the over 50 displays representing international programs and activities hosted at IU Indianapolis and a few of our community partners.
The History Department was among those present, contributing an interactive display entitled “Where in the World are the Historians?” showcasing the global expertise and backgrounds of our faculty. The display, designed by Sydney Bielefeld in the School of Liberal Arts, featured photographs of 14 history faculty from various regions around the world, each accompanied by a clue about their location. Historians are a globe-trotting group, traveling to do research in archives and libraries worldwide, participating in professional meetings, giving invited talks, and leading study-abroad programs. Attendees had fun guessing where each faculty member’s photo was taken and matching it with pins we placed on a world map to help with their answers. Local celebrities including Jinx and IU Indianapolis Chancellor Latha Ramchand stopped by to play our game!
We had three wonderful student volunteers Avery, Dallas, and Lillian, who assisted with the activity and to discuss our upcoming Spring 2025 course offerings that we advertised via handouts (thank you Beth Lafferty for designing the handouts)! Our Spring 2025 course lineup covers a range of international topics, including the History of Modern France, Reformation Germany, the ancient Near East, the Russian Revolution, Modern Japan, and the Far East. In addition to these international courses, we have an exciting offering of North American-focused courses such as Introduction to Native American History, Indiana History, U. S. Since the Great Depression, The Civil Rights Era, American Environmental History. To cap it all off, we are once again offering our student-acclaimed hands-on “History Lab” course that dives deep into the papers of the world-famous 19th century African American civil rights leader, Frederick Douglass. These papers are an international treasure and the vital work of collecting, editing and publishing them is housed right here at IUI!
In addition to promoting the History Department, we ate well at the International Festival!! Food samples representing Latin American, Asian, and African cuisines were provided by Chartwells. We also enjoyed watching the East Steps dance group, Namaste Indy Dance Crew, and the Lion Dance performed by Kwan Hui and the Indiana Association of Chinese Americans. Other SLA people we happened to sight at the event were Mike Polites, on drums, from the department of Communication Studies, Dr. Edward Curtis, from WLAC, and Dr. Jing Wang, who led an East Asian painting session, also from WLAC.
The History Department’s participation in iFEST is part of its broader commitment to global engagement. Our beautiful photo board is now housed in the History Department office in Cavanaugh Hall 503R. Please stop by to play the guessing game or to chat about our offerings and opportunities in History.
