Humanities Center Funds 16 Workshops for 2012-13

The Humanities Center is pleased to announce that it will fund 16 Theodore and Frances Geballe Workshop Research Workshops for 2012-13. Of the 16 workshops, 8 are new for this year.

The workshops cover a broad range of topics, including Equality of Educational Opportunity, Cognition & Language, and Visualizing Complexity and Uncertainty, which focuses on the digital humanities. Chosen by an interdisciplinary Stanford faculty committee, the workshops aim to bring together faculty members and graduate students in cross-disciplinary dialogue. Many workshop meetings are open to the public and will be posted on the calendar as soon as information is available.

Cities Unbound
The 21st century is undoubtedly the urban century, when the majority of human beings will, for the first time in history, live and work within cities. This workshop looks at the challenge that non-Western urban areas pose to our understanding of institutional, economic and cultural dynamics in cities. It seeks to redefine contemporary humanistic theory by examining these new urban landscapes.

Cognition & Language
Language plays a central role in the coordinated activity that forms our culture and is crucial to much of the abstract thought necessary in science and the arts. But how does language work? How does it interact with the other cognitive processes that shape the human experience? This workshop provides a platform for diverse approaches to the study of the same central question among linguists, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and computer scientists.

Equality of Educational Opportunity
Over 90% of Americans believe that equality of opportunity is absolutely essential as an American ideal. But while this ideal is widely adhered to, its very meaning is deeply contested. The core goal of this workshop is to refine our understanding of the relationship between ideals of equality—especially equality of opportunity—and the public provision of education.

Ethics and Politics, Ancient and Modern
Marta Sutton Weeks Research Workshop
Scholars involved in the study of ancient ethical and political philosophy come together with those working on contemporary political theory in this workshop. Using both empirical political science and historical methods, the group considers, among other topics, the relationship between arguments about justice and systems of law, as well as authority, legitimacy, and obedience in the development of government.

Ethnic Minorities, Religious Communities, Rights, and Democracy in the Modern Middle East and Central Asia
Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop
The conceptual focal point of this workshop is the minoritization of religious and ethnic communities and the uneven trajectory of their rights in both more and less democratic states of the 20th- and 21st-century Middle East and Central Asia. The group encourages comparative and transnational research among the different cultural and political zones of the region, as well between the region and its close neighbors with important structural similarities, like the Mughal Empire, British India, and modern south Asia.

French Culture
The French Culture workshop brings together participants from a wide range of disciplines to examine questions relevant to French culture and society from the modern period (1650 to the present). Topics of discussion include political and intellectual history, imperialism and colonialism, nationalism and national identity, immigration and minorities, gender, and francophonie.

Graphic Narrative Project
Humanities Center Fellows Research Workshop
From centuries-old Japanese woodblock prints and political cartoons to manga, superhero serials, comics journalism and webcomics—pictures and words have been brought together by visionary artists who saw the potential to tell stories of human civilization in ways not possible via text or image alone. The Graphic Narrative Project looks at the many manifestations of this medium.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consciousness
The subjective characters of our sensations—colors, tastes, pain—are immediately apparent to us. However, explaining consciousness has proved to be exquisitely difficult for both neuroscientists and philosophers. This workshop will tackle the nature of conscious experience in three case studies: the problem of qualia, consciousness and literature, and zombies in philosophy, literature, film and/or science.

Interdisciplinary Working Group in Critical Theory
The Interdisciplinary Working Group in Critical Theory will draw together faculty and graduate students from across the humanities and qualitative social sciences to address current theoretical debates by reading and discussing texts that both define and disrupt disciplinary thinking. Each quarter will have a thematic focus: network theory in autumn, visual literacy in winter, humanist empiricisms in spring.

Language, Information, and Techné
This workshop explores the diverse technological and technical conditions of mediation that bring language into being. How can we bring language back in to information technology? How do different devices and modes of inscription bring out different social forms? The goal is to build new vocabularies to reclaim language’s originary materiality and technicity, as well as its cultural and historical specificity.

Recombinations: Art, Medicine, Bioscience
This workshop brings together faculty and students interested in exploring the interstices of the arts, medicine, humanities, and bioscience. Participants come from a diversity of fields, including medical anthropology, classics, English, music, drama, philosophy, and psychology to develop connections, courses, and further programs in an interdisciplinary mode. The Stanford Arts Initiative is a co-sponsor.

Representing Time in Historiography, Ancient and Modern
This workshop will explore ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of time and the ways that these informed early modern and Enlightenment historiography and chronography. The focus will be the rhetoric (both verbal and nonverbal) by which historians engaged time in writing and visual art, simultaneously representing it and allowing it to be understood in distinct ways.

Science and Technology in the Postcolonial World
In studies ranging from micro-level laboratory ethnographies to analyses of the shifting geopolitics of science, from histories of science in early modern colonialism to theoretical approaches to technology today, this workshop will be a venue for scholars to discuss broad comparative questions that seek to understand the history and culture of science in terms of global power relationships.

Spatial Legacies: Urbanism, Movement, and Identity
Blokker Research Workshop
By focusing on a variety of geographic and historical dimensions, the workshop introduces archaeology and its unique perspective on materiality, landscape, and environment into wider discussion. Topics are global and range from the origins of cities in ancient China to the material culture of colonial exchange to the politics of revitalizing Los Angeles’ historic center.

Theoretical Perspectives of the Middle Ages
Gathering scholars from different disciplines and area studies, this workshop looks at various representations and theories of the global medieval past, and seeks to define their current relevance. In its discussions of such topics as crusade literature, phenomenology and the digitalization of archives, or revisiting the Annales School's interdisciplinarism, the group advances new research methods that, rather than preserve old paradigms of disciplines, envision novel ways of doing medieval studies from a practical and theoretical perspective.

Visualizing Complexity and Uncertainty: Exploring Humanistic Approaches to Graphic Representation
This workshop brings together humanists engaged in visualization projects with experts from the fields of geography, cartography, communication design, the visual arts, and computer science to look at visual techniques as scholarly method. Using specific projects as case studies, the workshop will look for ways to convey the complexity and nuance of humanistic modes of inquiry.

Dissertation Writing Group to Continue in 2012-13

The Stanford Humanities Center will sponsor a Dissertation Writing Group in 2012-13.

This program fosters intensive and supportive exchange across humanistic fields for those in the final stages of dissertation writing. Graduate students from a variety of humanities departments present and discuss their work in a multidisciplinary context. Students whose projects cut across a number of fields may find this forum especially helpful to their scholarship.

Eligibility
Stanford graduate students from humanities departments who have advanced to the chapter-writing phase of the dissertation.

Commitment
Meetings will be held at the Humanities Center from 4 to 6 pm on Thursdays every other week. Eligible students may sign up to participate during one of three quarters (autumn, winter, or spring) and must agree to attend all meetings held during that quarter (5 meetings total). Participation will be limited to a maximum of 10 students per quarter.

Format
Up to two participants will pre-circulate a chapter or portion of a chapter (no more than 35 pages) by Friday of the week preceding each meeting. The group will read these chapters in advance. Each chapter will receive approximately 45 minutes of structured feedback and constructive critique. A short portion of each meeting will be devoted to general concerns of the group.

Guests
Participants may invite advisors, committee members, and other interested parties to read pre-circulated chapters and attend the meeting at which they present.

Facilitation
The Associate Director of the Humanities Center will run the workshop.

Sign up now!

Workshop Applications Now Open

The Humanities Center invites proposals for 2012-13 Workshops. The workshops bring together groups of Stanford faculty and advanced graduate students, as well as visiting scholars and those at other local institutions, to present their current research and otherwise explore topics of common intellectual concern. Workshops meet at least 3 times a quarter.

Accepted proposals will be awarded up to $8500 for the academic year.

Apply online now.

Humanities Center Funds 16 Workshops for 2011-12

The Humanities Center is pleased to announce that it will fund 16 Theodore and Frances Geballe Workshop Research Workshops for 2011-12. Of the 16 workshops, 6 are new for this year.

The workshops cover a broad range of topics, including “Verbal and Visual Literacies of Ancient Rome,” “Cognition & Language,” and “Visualizing Complexity and Uncertainty,” which focuses on the digital humanities. Chosen by an interdisciplinary Stanford faculty committee, the workshops aim to bring together faculty members and graduate students in cross-disciplinary dialogue. Many workshop meetings are open to the public and will be posted on the calendar as soon as information is available.

View the workshops for 2011-12. Formal descriptions and faculty and graduate student coordinator information will be posted mid-July, 2011.

Humanities Center to Pilot a Dissertation Writing Group in 2011-12

The Humanities Center is seeking graduate students to join a pilot program of a dissertation writing group.

This program is meant to foster intensive and supportive exchange across humanistic fields for those in the final stages of dissertation writing. Graduate students from a variety of humanities departments will be able to present and discuss their work in a multidisciplinary context, and faculty fellows in residence at the Humanities Center will participate in workshop meetings as mentors in their areas of expertise. Students whose projects cut across a number of fields may find this forum especially helpful to their scholarship.

Eligibility

Stanford graduate students from humanities departments who have advanced to the chapter-writing phase of the dissertation.

Commitment

Meetings will be held in the Baker Room of the Humanities Center from 4 to 6 pm on Thursdays every other week.

Eligible students may sign up to participate during one of three quarters (autumn, winter, or spring).

You must agree to attend all meetings held during that quarter (5 meetings total).

Participation will be limited to a maximum of 10 students per quarter.

Format

Up to two participants will pre-circulate a chapter or portion of a chapter (no more than 35 pages) by Friday of the week preceding each meeting.

The group will read these chapters in advance.

Each chapter will receive approximately 45 minutes of structured feedback and constructive critique.

A short portion of each meeting will be devoted to general concerns of the group.

Guests

Participants may invite advisors, committee members, and other interested parties to read pre-circulated chapters and attend the meeting at which they present.

Facilitation

The Associate Director of the Humanities Center will run the workshop. Since this is a pilot program, the facilitator will adjust the format to the needs of the group.

Refreshments will be provided in abundance.

Sign up here.

Deadline is June 6, 2011.

Questions? Contact Katja Zelljadt.

Other Resources: Hume Writing Center

2010-11 Geballe Research Workshops

The Stanford Humanities Center is pleased to announce that fifteen research workshops have been selected for 2010-11. The Theodore and Frances Geballe Research Workshops bring together groups of approximately 100 Stanford faculty and over 200 advanced graduate students, as well as visiting scholars and those at other local institutions to present their current research and otherwise explore topics of common intellectual concern. Workshops meet regularly (at least three times a quarter) during the academic year.

Archaeology Today
Faculty Coordinators: Lynn Meskell (Anthropology), Jennifer Trimble (Classics)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Adam Nazaroff (Anthropology), Claudia Liuzza (Anthropology)

Capitalism’s Crises
Faculty Coordinator: Sylvia Yanagisako (Anthropology)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Ramah McKay (Anthropology), Hannah Appel (Anthropology)

Environmental Norms, Institutions, and Policy
Blokker Research Workshop
Faculty Coordinator: Debra Satz (Philosophy and Ethics in Society)
Graduate Student Coordinator: Rachael Garrett (Environment and Resources)

Ethics and Politics, Ancient and Modern
Marta Sutton Weeks Research Workshop
Faculty Coordinators: Chris Bobonich (Philosophy and Classics), Josh Ober (Classics, Political Science, and Philosophy)
Graduate Student Coordinator: Ben Miller (Philosophy)

French Culture Workshop
Faculty Coordinators: Dan Edelstein (French), J.P. Daughton (History)
Graduate Student Coordinator: Melanie Conroy (French and Italian)

Global Justice
Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop
Faculty Coordinator: Joshua Cohen (Political Science, Philosophy, and Law)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Ruth Kricheli (Political Science), Rob Barlow (Political Science)

Graphic Narrative
Faculty Coordinators: Andrea Lunsford (English), Scott Bukatman (Art, Art History, Film and Media)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Angela Becerra Vidergar (Comparative Literature), Haerin Shin (Comparative Literature), Mark Vega (English)

The Literary Public Intellectual
Faculty Coordinators: Russell Berman (Comparative Literature) and Saikat Majumdar (English)
Graduate Student Coordinator: Nikil Saval (English)

Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Humanities Center Fellows Research Workshop
Faculty Coordinators: Laura Stokes (History), Bissera Pentcheva (Art and Art History)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Erin Lichtenstein (History), Chris Kark (Iberian & Latin American Cultures), Marco Aresu (Italian Literature)

Mythos & Logos: Religion and Rationality in the Humanities
Claire and John Radway Research Workshop
Faculty Coordinators: Brent Sockness (Religious Studies), Nadeem Hussain (Philosophy)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Peter Woodford (Religious Studies), Noreen Khawaja (Religious Studies)

Republic of Letters
Faculty Coordinators: Caroline Winterer (History), Paula Findlen (History)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Marcelo Aranda (History), Biliana Kassabova (French)

Seminar on Enlightenment and Revolution
Research Workshop in Honor of John Bender
Faculty Coordinators: Blair Hoxby (English), Heather Hadlock (Music)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Stephen Osadetz (English), Jenna Sutton (English)

TransAmerican Studies Working Group
Faculty Coordinators: Ramon Saldivar (English and Comparative Literature), Roland Greene (English and Comparative Literature)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Guadalupe Carrillo (English), Jennifer Harford Vargas (English), Cristina Jimenez (English)

Working Group on the Novel
Marta Sutton Weeks Research Workshop
Faculty Coordinator: Nancy Ruttenburg (English)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Sarah Allison (English), Mike Benveniste (English), Joseph Shapiro (English)

Workshop in Poetics
Faculty Coordinator: Roland Greene (English and Comparative Literature)
Graduate Student Coordinators: Kathryn Hume (English), Noam Pines (Comparative Literature)