About
Who makes Small Things, who pays for it, and how to get in touch.
The series
Small Things is a live-recorded conversation series from the Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences (HISS) Research Hub at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Each episode, host Matt Price sits down with a faculty member from one of the Hub’s six founding departments and talks about one object. A coin, a photograph, a recipe, a tool, a word: something small enough to hold, chosen because it opens onto a much larger question about culture, history or society.
Recordings happen in front of a live audience on campus, usually over lunch, with pizza. Students are welcome, and the series is meant as a doorway: come for the object, stay to find out what research in the humanities looks like up close, and how to get involved in it.
Episodes are edited and published by UTSC students in paid post-production roles.
The HISS Research Hub
The Hub brings together faculty from six departments at UTSC:
It runs research clusters, whole-group Conversations events, and a talk series across the year. The Hub’s own site is at hiss.utsc.utoronto.ca.
Funding
Small Things is supported by a Research for Inclusive Excellence (RIE) grant from the Office of the Vice-Principal Research and Innovation at UTSC, with additional support from the six founding departments of the HISS Hub. The Hub’s mentoring partnerships are funded by the Mentoring Partnership Fund.
Contact
Questions, guest suggestions, or an object you think deserves an hour: email matt.price@utoronto.ca.
This website
The site is a static site built with Hugo and maintained on GitHub. Colleagues and students add events by editing one Markdown file each; the README explains how.