Graduate Workshops in the Humanities and
the Social Sciences for 2003–04 are described below. Most of these
are ongoing, though the focus may change from year to year. Because new
workshops are established on an annual basis, please see our website (http://cas.uchicago.edu)
for the most current listing along with additional information, including
workshop websites. Generally meetings consist of discussions of papers by
advanced graduate students, University of Chicago faculty, or guest speakers
from other institutions, though this varies according to each workshop’s
objective and focus.
African Studies
This workshop is an interdisciplinary forum for graduate students and
faculty whose work concerns the material and socio-cultural lives of people
of the African continent and its discursively constituted diaspora, presently
and historically. Student participants tend mostly to come from the Anthropology
department, but the workshop also has active members in the fields of
History, Literature, Political Science, Religious Studies, and History
of Culture, and encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration and exchange.
In addition to regular presentations by students, faculty, and invited
guests, the Workshop hosts bi-annual Red Lion Seminars jointly with Northwestern
University’s Program of African studies. Annual conferences hosted
by the Workshop in recent years have resulted in published volumes on
key questions in African Studies..
American Cultures
This workshop explores methodological and pedagogical approaches to the
study of American cultures, engaging a variety of interdisciplinary scholarship
in fields such as history of religion, history of science, gender studies,
and postcolonial theory. Workshop sessions reflect the research interests
of participants and feature presentations by students and faculty from
within and outside the University of Chicago. Last year, we investigated
questions of racial, socioeconomic, and gendered perspectives on identity
formation and literary authority. We also explore sexuality, the body,
and private contexts. These themes have been focal points for discussions
of the multiplicity of American cultures and cultural exchanges within
a transatlantic and transnational context. We also investigate thematic,
methodological, and pedagogical issues across historical periods in American
Studies. Through collaborative discussions and student presentations,
we seek to create a forum for interdisciplinary interaction and interdisciplinary
research projects and to think about the canonical diversity and comparative
approaches that have become critical to the field of American literature.
Ancient Societies
This year the workshop will focus on “Syncretism, Hybridization,
Colonization: The Problem of Cultural Exchange and Cultural Mixing in
Ancient Societies,” in which we will re-examine critically long-standing
concepts such as syncretism and colonization, and also look to theories
stimulated by more recent explorations of colonial and post-colonial cultures
and globalization in order to tackle problems of cultural exchange and
mixing. In addition to providing a forum for presenting work on a range
of areas and problems (e.g., the Hellenistic kingdoms in Egypt and the
Near East; cultures in the Roman empire; ancient Greek and Phoenician
colonization around the Mediterranean basin; wide-ranging territorial
empires such as those of the Assyrians or Persians; religious syncretism),
the workshop will also periodically read and discuss seminal works relating
to the problems described above.
Anthropology of Europe
The workshop explores current research in the anthropology of Europe
and treats ongoing ethnographic fieldwork—local, regional, national,
and transnational—in all areas of Europe. While the workshop focuses
on anthropological approaches, it also draws on insights from history,
sociology, and cultural studies, inviting participants from these and
other disciplines. Presentations range from lectures by visiting Europeanist
anthropologists to discussions of works in progress by Chicago faculty
to papers by students on their field research.
Anthropology of Latin America– (WALA)
This workshop provides a forum for the presentation, discussion, and
critical engagement of anthropological research on Mexico, Central and
South America, and the Caribbean. We seek to complement a traditional
anthropological focus on indigenous populations in the region with a broader
focus that includes: (1) the (dis)integration of indigenous peoples within
(neo)colonial political economies extending from the local to the global;
(2) the lifeways of other groups also subjected to social stratification
etched along historically and culturally specific lines of difference/power;
and (3) transnational movements involving laborers, popular cultures and
commodities, as well as projects and institutions such as “development,”
“democracy,” militaries, corporations, and social movements.
Through presentations and discussions on these and other topics, we hope
to bring together students and faculty from various (inter)disciplinary
perspectives concerned with “Latin America” in order to encourage
creative research endeavors in and on the region.
Art and Politics of East Asia
The Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop is intended as a forum for
students and scholars of diverse fields investigating the development
of leftist culture in East Asia in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution.
In East Asia and elsewhere, writers and artists were innovative in their
work critical of colonialism, capitalism, politics, and the role of art
in a rapidly capitalizing society. They were profoundly influenced by
the revolutionary experimental culture of the Soviet Union. The international
dimension of the movement and the cultural specificity of proletarian
literature in China, Japan, and Korea created historical tensions that
often influenced its reception and critique. Through presentations by
students and scholars, we will discuss and analyze interrelated literary
developments in China, Japan, and Korea as we rethink historical and theoretical
issues including gender, class, aesthetics, literary authority, political
agency, and the role of the intellectual in society.
Asia in the World, the World in Asia
This workshop pursues critical approaches to national, regional, and
transnational practices and identities which treat East Asia as the relevant
unit of analysis. When neo-nationalist voices are increasingly heard around
the globe despite—or perhaps because of—the increasing importance
of globalizing and transnational forces, critical approaches to both the
nation and the region seem especially urgent. Our intellectual approach
will aim to develop meaningful categories of analysis, ones adequate to
what is commonly called globalization. In East Asian Studies, globalization
is still too often a new way of describing the old “modernization
theory,” and “internationalization” leaves the nation critically
undertheorized. For instance, the new interest in historical patterns
among different trading networks in the Indian Ocean contains both the
promise and pitfalls of this approach and merits closer examination. Advanced
graduate students, faculty and guest speakers will present papers. Those
interested in having their papers discussed by the workshop are urged
to submit proposals to the student coordinators for consideration.
Built Environment
The Workshop on the Built Environment will address topics addressing
the built environment, including buildings designed with aesthetic intent,
vernacular buildings, urbanism, and landscape design, as well as how the
built environment engages issues of place (and site-specificity in art
practice), identity and community, and commercial and political practices,
and other media, including literature, photography, and film. It will
facilitate discussion across a broad thematic, temporal, cultural and
geographical range of projects in order to bring together the numerous
graduate students and faculty members interested in questions of the built
environment dispersed among different departments and divisions at the
University of Chicago.
Clinical Ethnography
These workshop meetings provide the opportunity for the faculty and students
involved with the clinical ethnography/clinical psychology program to
meet together to discuss clinical cultural issues. The intellectual ambition
of the group is to understand the influence of cultural meaning and social
structure on the identification, experience and treatment of mental illness
from a psychological anthropology and cultural psychology perspective
while maintaining a commitment to the clinical reality of these struggles.
Colonial Latin American Studies
This interdisciplinary workshop, dedicated to the study of all aspects
of the colonial period in Latin America, acknowledges the distinctiveness
of colonial Latin America within the fields of colonial and postcolonial
studies, as well as the contribution of its study to current debates about
imperialism, colonialism, intercultural contact and exchange, and subaltern
agency and subject formation. Workshops are devoted to the discussion
of pre-circulated papers by advanced graduate students and faculty working
in such diverse fields as Anthropology, Art History, History, Literature,
and Music.
Comparative Politics
Comparative Politics is a broad and methodologically eclectic field.
The common thread running through the research presented in our workshop
is the search for general theoretical propositions and fresh empirical
insights through the comparative study of politics. What explains the
eruption of civil wars (such as in the former Yugoslavia)? Why have some
former communist systems evolved into democracies with substantial patronage
and corruption, whereas other new democracies in the region are relatively
clean? If economic growth encourages democratization, is this because
modern economies are wealthier or because they are more egalitarian? How
can we model collective action problems? These are the sorts of questions
raised by papers presented in our workshop, papers given by Chicago faculty,
faculty from institutions around the country, and by students in various
social science disciplines. Some used statistical techniques to compare
a large number of countries, others used the techniques of oral history
and participant-observation, other comparisons of sub-regional units within
a single national territory. All were theoretically ambitious and empirically
rich.
Contemporary Philosophy
This workshop is a conduit for advanced graduate students in philosophy
and related fields to present work-in-progress on topics relating to contemporary
issues in philosophy. For each session, one student submits a paper, and
another comments upon the paper and leads off discussion. The fields of
interest of the participants include history of philosophy from Early
Modern philosophy through twentieth century Anglo-North American philosophy,
contemporary epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of mind, aesthetics,
political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science,
and feminist philosophy. In addition, the workshop brings in one distinguished
philosopher per year for an extended visit to interact with students.
Recent visitors have included Daniel Dennett, Tyler Burge, Jerry Fodor,
John Perry, Gideon Rosen, J. David Velleman, Elijah Millgram, Robert Brandom,
and Michael Thompson.
Culture, Life Course, and Mental Health
This workshop builds upon and contributes to the reemergence of “cultural
psychology” as the comparative study of the way culture and psyche
are constitutive of one another. It is specifically concerned with the
ways in which the person and her or his mental well-being are defined
and developed in diverse environmental and sociocultural contexts. Presentations
by graduate students, faculty, and occasional outside speakers from anthropology,
psychology, and allied fields will focus on diverse topics in mental health
behavior research, including the cultural constitution of disease, the
temporal patterning of health-related processes within a life-span perspective,
and optimal experience. They also may address positive psychological processes
such as enjoyment, creativity, and wisdom. The workshop encourages participation
from faculty and students in all fields.
Demography
The workshop constitutes an interdisciplinary effort to look at questions
related to population studies, demography, and the economics of aging,
including (but not limited to) such topics as cohabitation, marriage,
divorce, fertility and child rearing, family and life course, household
and living arrangements, contraception, family planning, abortion, migration,
urbanization, immigration, aging, mortality, retirement decisions, gender,
race, ethnicity, labor force, and population and environment. Questions
of statistical and mathematical methodology, data collection, and public
policy are also addressed. Participants are primarily drawn from economics,
sociology, public policy, medicine, and psychology, although other fields
are represented and welcome.
Early Christian Studies
The purpose of this workshop is to provide a venue for students and scholars
of the New Testament, Greco-Roman religions and literatures of the early
Empire, and the early history of Christianity (up through the fourth century)
to present their work for conversation and critique common readings of
notable and neglected primary texts. A general theme for 2003–2004
will be the history of the book in earliest Christianity, including (among
other topics) some engagement with a project underway for the digitization
of the University’s Goodspeed Bible Collection. But this theme is
suggestive rather than restrictive; graduate students and scholars working
are encouraged to present their work on any area of early Christian literary
culture.
Early Modern
This interdisciplinary workshop focuses on every aspect of the early
modern experience, circa 1400–1830. It encompasses the entirety of
the Mediterranean and European worlds as well as their rivals and colonial
possessions. While the workshop’s approach is historical, we actively
encourage participants who work on any aspect of the areas and period
covered. Most sessions discuss precirculated papers presented by graduate
students, faculty, or invited visitors.
East Asia: Society, Politics, and Economy
This workshop focuses on current social science research on East Asia
societies, particularly the People’s Republic of China, Korea, Taiwan,
and Japan. The scope of the workshop is truly interdisciplinary, as we
attract students and faculty from economics, political science, sociology,
international studies, and various other areas. The workshop features
presentations by university faculty members, graduate students, and guest
speakers working on East Asia at other institutions. Graduate students
are especially encouraged to present their thesis and dissertation research.
Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Cultures
During the years 1660–1900, cultural production achieved unprecedented
heterogeneity throughout Britain, its colonial possessions, and Western
Europe. The goal of this interdisciplinary workshop will be to interrogate
the tensions between this diversified production and the unifying narrative
of modernity often imposed on this 240-year span. We will be particularly
interested in questions of periodization: what differentiates the eighteenth
form the nineteenth century? What types of knowledge result when history
is divided into periods? Our concerns will also include the flow of cultural
production across national boundaries; cosmopolitanism; the changing significance
of borders and frontiers as well as space and locale in an area of national
revolutions and colonial expansion. We welcome work—especially by
graduate students—from the fields of literary and cultural studies,
art history, history, and others, on all aspects of this period.
EthNoise!: The Ethnomusicology Workshop
Ethnoise!: The Ethnomusicology Workshop, a forum for interdisciplinary
discourse on music in its cultural context, capitalizes upon the ongoing
work of graduate students in the University and invites innovative scholars
to Chicago. As well as presenting specific research, the workshop sponsors
a number of roundtable discussions on the challenges faced by the music
ethnographer. We welcome submissions from graduate students in all disciplines
and encourage University-wide faculty participation.
Evolutionary Processes in Biology, Language, and Culture
Recent work in evolutionary theory has produced an explosion of interest
in evolutionary models of various cultural entities, institutions, and
processes. Language has been perhaps the most richly studied of these-—surely
fitting, since historical linguistics was an early inspiration for Darwin.
Along with this academic development, sophistication of research on evolution
outside biology has grown, in particular with greater awareness of the
complexity of the mechanisms involved in the process. Scholars have also
come to realize that in their attempts to understand biological and cultural
change, fruitful cross-pollination can occur without sacrificing the autonomy
of their disciplines. Workshop topics range to include the coevolution
of biology and culture, as in industrial agriculture and control of diseases;
an exploration of the similarity of extinctions of species, languages,
and cultures as caused by adverse changes in the ecology of these entities;
transformations of cultural ecology by technological transformations;
and studies of the “tempo and mode” of change in languages and
other cultural entities such as science or religion. The purpose of this
workshop is to involve advanced graduate students in these research agendas.
Formalism
This workshop explores formalist approaches to literary studies. It deals
with a wide variety of formal issues, such as the nature of form, its
relationship to content, and the role of aesthetics in literary analysis.
The history of formalism is always under discussion, from its classical
sources to such twentieth-century schools as New Criticism and the Chicago
School. Regular workshop sessions in which scholars discuss their work
with participants alternate with close-reading sessions, in which participants
hone their close-reading skills with previously assigned texts
Gender and Sexuality Studies
This workshop provides an interdisciplinary forum for the development
of critical perspectives on gender and sexuality. Its primary purpose
is to promote analyses of the ways in which these categories intersect
with other practices, constructs, or systems of domination. In bringing
together work in queer and gender theory, workshop members will build
vocabularies and analytical tools in order to evaluate presentations with
informed perspectives on how gender and sexuality theories inform and
constitute one another. The workshop will serve as a forum for workshopping
both graduate student papers and as-yet unpublished work from scholars
in the field. Graduate student presentations may focus on any area of
gender and sexuality studies—with gender and sexuality understood
as always already embedded in other social practices and categorizations.
Workshop participants will share responsibility for choosing topics and
speakers and for evaluating the effectiveness of the workshop’s interdisciplinary
process. We welcome new and old members to the workshop.
Genes and Social Behavior
Jointly sponsored by the Institute for Mind and Biology and the Committee
on Human Development, this workshop brings together individuals broadly
interested in how genes influence social behavior and how behaviors and
the environment in turn influence genetic survival. Our regular participants
study human and non-human animals, researching paternal behaviors, mate
choice, immunology and endocrinology, kin selection and cognition, among
other topics. Graduate students interested in any area of the biology
of behavior are encouraged to attend this open forum.
History and Philosophy of Science
Jointly sponsored by the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies
of Science (CHSS) and the Fishbein Center for the History of Science and
Medicine, this workshop brings together students and faculty with diverse
interests in the history and philosophy of science. Our regular participants
tend to come from CHSS, the history of science program within the History
Department, and the Philosophy Department. However, we also draw students
and faculty from the Departments of Psychology, Anthropology, Statistics,
several different biology departments, and others. The workshop is open
to all.
History of the Human Sciences
Since 1983 the Fishbein Center Workshop has provided a continuing forum
for graduate students, faculty, and invited guests with research interests
relating to the history of the human sciences. Fortnightly meetings are
normally devoted to the discussion of papers by workshop members and invited
guests, with the papers circulated in advance to encourage serious critical
discussion. The workshop is open to graduate students doing doctoral research
on any aspect of the history of the human sciences, including their relations
with other disciplines and general cultural trends. Students who have
not begun doctoral research, but have a serious long-run interest in the
history of human sciences, are also invited to attend.
Human Rights
As a consequence of the growing relevance attained by human rights, this
topic has become a vital focus for academic research across disciplines.
Responding to a growing need to examine and discuss human rights, the
Human Rights Program has organized a graduate Workshop that provides a
unique space for faculty and students, particularly Ph.D.s but also Masters
and undergraduate students, to engage in discussions on relevant contemporary
human rights issues of academic significance. The Human Rights Program’s
Workshop cross-cuts all academic disciplines and helps the University
of Chicago’s community to promote debates on contemporary human rights
issues of moral and political significance.
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Modern France
This workshop provides a forum for faculty and students from different
departments in the social sciences and the humanities who share a common
interest in France from the mid-seventeenth century to the present. Bringing
together different disciplinary perspectives and research horizons, it
encourages participants to enrich the intellectual and methodological
range of their own work. In the context of this workshop, University faculty
present research in progress, students present dissertation proposals
or chapters, and scholars outside the University present their work. This
year’s topics will reflect the diversity of the group and include
representatives from the fields of history, anthropology, legal history,
literature, art history, sociology, and political science. Participants
from all disciplines are welcome.
Interdisciplinary Christianities
The Workshop will bring together faculty and graduate students from across
the university to develop a comparative conversation on the study of Christianities
in their myriad forms. It is scarcely news that Christianity is a global,
trans-historical phenomenon; recent statistics suggest that fully one
third of the world’s people identify themselves as Christians. In
academia as well, Christianity spans a vast terrain, entering into debates,
among others, on modernity, colonialism, globalization, subjectivity,
language practices and ideologies, and the dynamics of contemporary politics
and social life. It is our premise that much can be gained through a critical,
comparative exploration of how Christianities figure as an object of analysis.
We draw our participants from various fields, including Anthropology,
Linguistic Anthropology, History, Human Development, Sociology, Philosophy,
Classics, and the Divinity School, and welcome scholars working on Christianity
in historical and geographical contexts, ranging from medieval Europe
to colonial Peru to the contemporary U.S. Each quarter will feature at
least one outside speaker, one faculty speaker from the University of
Chicago, and three student speakers.
International Relations– (PIPES)
This workshop’s focus is on international cooperation and conflict,
with attention to both the politics of the world economy and to international
security. Most sessions are devoted to the presentation of research-in-progress
by students, faculty, and outside speakers. Besides participating in these
seminar sessions and helping to schedule them, graduate students act as
formal discussants for most presentations. In addition, students lead
occasional discussions of newly published work in international relations
and international political economy. Topics covered include international
relations theory, international trade and monetary issues, alliances and
the use of force, relations between advanced and developing countries,
and the development of international rules and law.
Late Antiquity and Byzantium
We aim to provide a context a context for the study of all aspects of
the peoples, cultures, histories, and religions of the Late Antique and
Byzantine world, including the Near Eastern and Slavic. We also endeavor
to create a forum for communications about recent archaeological discoveries
in the region.
Latin American History
The Latin American History Workshop is a forum designed to stimulate
discussion of primary questions in and novel approaches to Latin American
history. The general intellectual aim of the workshop is to encourage
the development of wide comparative historical perspectives and the incorporation
of methodologies from a variety of scholarly disciplines in the research
of advanced University of Chicago graduate students in Latin American
History. Presentations have a broad temporal and geographic range, covering
topics from early colonial to contemporary Mexico, Central and South America,
Spain, and the United States.
Mass Culture
The Mass Culture Workshop is devoted to the interdisciplinary investigation
of historical, theoretical, and practical concerns emerging with modern
mass and consumer culture. In past years, the workshop has examined such
topics as global and local cultures, independent television and video,
the star cult, British theories of subculture, gay reception, cinema and
race, fashion, tourism and travel films, and relationships between literary
modernism and mass culture. In addition to workshop participants, guest
speakers frequently meet with the group to discuss work in progress. As
a rule, readings tend to be centered around the current research interests
of workshop participants. Scholars working in areas relevant to the concerns
of the workshop are invited to meet with us.
Medieval Studies
This workshop focuses on the history and culture of the European Middle
Ages (c.500–1500), although it also welcomes participants interested
in areas other than Europe. Its purpose is to foster conversation across
and between the disparate disciplines that make up medieval studies, including
history, art history, musicology, classical and vernacular languages and
literatures, theology, philosophy, linguistics, philology and law. The
workshop welcomes the participation of medievalists from the Newberry
Library and other institutions in the Chicago area. Each quarter it features
one outside speaker, one faculty speaker from the University of Chicago,
and three student speakers.
Middle East History and Theory
The Middle East History and Theory Workshop serves as a forum for University
students and faculty in the humanities and social sciences to discuss
issues related to the history, societies, culture and politics of the
Middle East. Participants discuss methodological and theoretical issues
involved in current research presented by students, faculty, and invited
guests. In the past, graduate student presentations have included dissertation
proposals, works in progress, and discussions of research conducted abroad.
Papers presented have spanned the centuries from before the rise of Islam
to the present, and have covered a wide geographical area. This has resulted
in a mixed and diverse body of attendees.
Modern European History
The Modern European Workshop at the University of Chicago is a forum
for presenting graduate student work from all areas and specializations
in modern and contemporary European history. Its main purpose is to facilitate
discussion on issues related to research and teaching in modern and contemporary
European history, broadly understood. We welcome participants from other
disciplines with a historical interest. Presentations reflect the research
interests of the students and faculty organized in the workshop. Typically,
the participants in the workshop also present their own work. The main
constituency consists of Ph. D. students in the Department of History
specializing in late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian/Soviet,
Central and Eastern European, and French history, but the workshop is
open to all students.
Once and Future Archipelago: Current Trends in Japanese Studies
This workshop aims to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion
of issues relating to Japanese culture, history, literature, religion,
society, and politics, the focus being on the development of research
conducted by advanced graduate students and postdoctorate students as
well as faculty. With an emphasis on developing new and innovative critical
approaches informed by such cross-disciplinary conversation, the workshop
will organize a variety of presentations and discussion sessions exploring
a great number of issues key to the further evolution of the academic
field of Japanese Studies.
Organizations and State Building
This workshop combines political science and sociology by focusing on
organizations and social networks—both the micro-underpinnings of
their construction (identity and exchange) and the macro-consequences
of their aggregation (states and markets). Weekly seminars provide a forum
dedicated for graduate students and faculty members from the University
and other institutions to present and discuss their research. Work presented
at the workshop is methodologically diverse, embracing institutional analysis,
game theory, network analysis, and historical approaches to agent-based
modeling. This academic year we will explore decision-making and organizational
dynamics at the meso-level, the micro-level and the macro-level. The Fall
Quarter 2003 will focus on meso-level questions of organizations and complexity.
The Winter Quarter 2004 will turn towards detailed coverage of bounded
rationality as a model of individual decision making. The Spring Quarter
2004 will focus on institutional reform, and transformation in contemporary
polities, fertile ground for theorizing about macropolitical transformations.
Performance Studies
This workshop seeks to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the burgeoning
interest in performance at the University. While there is an indisputable
interest in questions of performance, a good deal of disputation has accrued
to the object and means of study. During its first year, the workshop
will serve as a forum for this discussion, concentrating on the question
“what is performance studies?” In order to address that question,
the workshop will explore the status of performance in various genres
(e.g., cinema, music, theater, dance, opera) and various disciplines—(e.g.,
anthropology, musicology, classics, cinema/media studies, literary studies).
Philosophy of Mind
The aim of this workshop is to serve as a focal point at the University
for research and discussion in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy
of psychology. We will pursue this aim in three ways: (1) by discussing
important recent texts by such authors as Gareth Evans, John McDowell,
Jerry Foder, and Hilary Putnam; (2) by providing a forum in which graduate
students can present and receive feedback on their own work; and (3) by
hosting a series of presentations by prominent philosophers of mind, psychologists,
and specialists in related fields. Likely topics of conversation include:
the relation between concepts and perceptual experience, self-knowledge,
mental causation, and naturalism.
Poetry and Poetics
Although this workshop is primarily concerned with poetry and poetics
since 1900, we welcome participants who are interested in discussing poetry
and poetics from a wide range of periods and disciplines. Students working
in earlier periods and languages other than English are encouraged to
attend, provided their work remains focused on problems of poetics. We
wish to foster an interdisciplinary perspective that extends across the
humanities and social sciences as well to encourage the presentation of
papers deriving from the discourse of poets about the art, thereby opening
up the methodological range of the workshop. Visitors will include contemporary
poets as well as academic poetry scholars. Graduate students from all
fields who are interested in poetics are encouraged to present works in
progress.
Political Communications and Society
The social and political dimensions of communication animate scholarly
debates across the social sciences and the humanities. The goal of the
workshop is to bundle these interests among students and faculty on campus
and to provide a lively cross-disciplinary forum in which they can be
discussed. Among the topics to be explored are the representational and
generative dimensions of political rhetoric and symbols, the mediation
and dissemination of ideas through mass media channels, the part semiotic
forms and the mass media play in processes of reality construction, the
relationship between socio-historical processes and systems of signification,
the textual and contextual emergence of cultural concepts, and the discursive
practices of everyday life. The workshop will provide a forum for all
scholars on campus whose research focuses on the role of language and
communication, and would allow initiation and support of true interdisciplinary
work. In 2003-2004 we shall invite scholars to present research on a broad
range of themes and regional interests.
Political Economy
The Workshop in Political Economy is organized around rational choice
and game theoretic approaches to the study of politics and economies,
broadly construed. Workshop topics include positive analysis of political,
economic and social behavior, as well as normative models of public choice,
experimental tests and philosophical critiques. We also expect some of
the work presented to focus on empirical and policy applications of political
economy models. Thus the workshop is inherently interdisciplinary—combining
economic methodology with political science questions, and building political
considerations into economic analysis. Workshop sessions will apply these
combinations to a broad range of social science issues and substantive
topics.
Political Psychology
The Political Psychology Workshop focuses on the ways in which scholarship
in psychology informs the study of political behavior and how attributes
of the political world provide useful ways of studying social psychological
phenomena. The Political Psychology Workshop will draw upon a combination
of outside speakers in both psychology and political science, as well
as local faculty and graduate students in those departments.
Political Theory
This workshop is a forum for the critical discussion of new research
in all varieties of political theory and political philosophy, historical
and contemporary (titles of recent presentations may be found on our website).
Presenters include graduate students, faculty from the University and
other local institutions, and prominent visitors. Graduate students also
have the opportunity to serve as discussants for presentations by other
students, faculty, and visitors. The Workshop subscribes to no particular
methodology or political ideology, and welcomes participants from all
departments and disciplines. We seek to create a rigorous but comfortable
space for the development of graduate students’ projects and professional
skills.
Renaissance
The emphasis in our Renaissance workshop will be on cross-disciplinary
studies in various aspects—literary, political, theological—of
English and Continental culture during the Renaissance: political rhetoric,
early modern drama, humanist pedagogy, theological controversy, developments
in book publishing, the literature of overseas exploration, and much more.
Student presentations in the form of essays, dissertation proposals, dissertation
chapters, practice job interview presentations, practice campus visit
talks, are given priority. We will also have a chance to meet with visitors
from other institutions, and to hear from our own faculty.
Reproduction of Race and Racial Ideologies
This interdisciplinary workshop addresses the different processes of
racialization experienced within groups as well as across groups in sites
as diverse as North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the
Asian Pacific, and Europe. This workshop will examine theoretical and
practical considerations of scholarship that highlights the intersection
of race and ethnicity with other identities such as gender, class, sexuality,
and nationality, and interrogates social and identity cleavages within
racialized communities. Fundamentally, the Reproduction of Race and Racial
Ideologies Workshop is committed to engaged scholarship that rejects the
false dichotomy between rigorous intellectual work and community activism.
Rhetoric and Poetics
The Rhetoric and Poetics Workshop is concerned with the literature and
poetry of classical Greece and Rome, considered either in their own terms
or in relation to the literature and poetry of other cultures. It invites
presentation of critical arguments completed or in progress, and from
the broadest possible range of perspectives.
Russian Studies
The Russian Studies Workshop focuses particularly on Russia/Soviet Union
in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (history, politics, society,
and culture) but also includes earlier periods of Russian history and
Eastern Europe.
Science, Technology, Society and the State – (STSS)
In the past 10 years, Science and Technology Studies (STS) has emerged
as a significant and provocative new academic discipline that has expanded
the scope of the sociology, anthropology, and history of knowledge by
interrogating how scientific knowledge is constituted both in and out
of the laboratory setting, often with foreseen and unforeseen consequences.
As the name suggests, this workshop aims to rethink Science and Technology
Studies by exploring the matrices of power relations that link systems
of scientific knowledge to the contemporary nation-state, processes of
globalization, and public and private engineering projects.
Semiotic Approaches
This workshop seeks to advance research based on a semiotic framework.
Presentations will come from a variety of fields including but not limited
to linguistics, psychology, sociology, political science, literary theory,
and anthropology. By not limiting the topic of research by area, period
or discipline, the workshop encourages discussion to center on how to
study social and cultural phenomena as embedded in a meaningful context.
By building on many seminal studies that have used semiotic approaches,
the goal of the workshop is to continue to develop the rigorous analytic
framework that provides the method for clearly defining linkages between
the object of analysis and its context.
Sloan Working Families
The Sloan Working Families Graduate Workshop is designed to provide opportunities
for beginning and advanced graduate students to present empirical research
in the area of work and family. Broadly speaking, the workshop will feature
multi-method research on the following themes as they relate to working
parents and their children: time use, the division of labor, stress and
coping, quality of relationships, and socialization of children. The workshop
will involve students from multiple disciplines, including sociology,
psychology, human development, economics, public policy, and social work.
The work presented at these workshops will be work in progress toward
the goal of completion of a doctoral thesis and/or publication. Students
will critique one another’s work and will receive feedback on their
presentations from faculty members. Participating students will be expected
to present multiple times throughout the academic year, to facilitate
progress and to get students accustomed to presenting research.
Social History
The Social History Workshop addresses issues across a broad thematic,
temporal, and geographical range, primarily in the history of the United
States. Participants include graduate students and faculty in social,
cultural, and intellectual history and other related disciplines. Presentations
by visitors are interspersed with those of students who participate regularly
in the workshop. Presentations frequently include dissertation proposals,
chapters in progress, and overviews of dissertations in progress. Students
on the job market are encouraged to use the workshop to present papers
they have prepared for campus interviews. An occasional session may be
devoted to focused discussion on methodological and theoretical issues
in historical research.
Social Structures and Processes in Urban Space
The social organization of urban space has always held a prominent place
in the social sciences and at the University of Chicago in particular.
This workshop carries on this tradition. Providing an interdisciplinary
forum for faculty and graduate students to present current research, participants
contribute to the development of new understandings of the city and of
social structures and processes within the city. Sponsored by faculty
from the sociology department and the committees on human development
and geographical studies, this workshop hosts a lively and interactive
series of presentations covering such topics as culture, political economy
of place, crime, social organization, globalization, poverty, school leadership,
health care, gentrification, and art in urban settings.
Social Theory
This workshop explores issues in social theory across a variety of disciplines
in the social sciences and humanities. The emphasis is less on developing
social theory than on exploring in a sustained fashion the social theoretical
implications of the participants’ work. Themes to be addressed are
likely to include the relationship between social and cultural transformations;
questions of the public sphere, civil society, and democracy; the relations
between modernist and postmodernist forms of social theory; and conceptual
issues posed by globalization.
Sociology and Cultures of Globalization
The Globalization Workshop, through its meetings, conferences and social
gatherings, will continue to build a strong, multi-disciplinary and international
network of graduate students and faculty who are committed to elaborating
the theoretical and empirical elements embedded in processes of globalization.
The Workshop provides an open and welcoming environment for students to
present their ideas and receive feedback from students and faculty grappling
with the territorial, institutional and imaginary dimensions of global
social processes.
Theory and Practice in South Asia – (TAPSA)
The workshop is designed to keep faculty and graduate students of social
science and humanistic disciplines concerned with South Asia in touch
with new directions in the field by providing interdisciplinary models
of methodological and substantive approaches. The workshop makes a special
point of crossing the boundary between the humanities and social sciences.
The Workshop collaborates with the South Asia Seminar, one dedicated to
graduate student presentations, the other to presentations by in-resident
or visiting scholars and faculty. The South Asia seminar and the TAPSA
Workshop bring together not only scholars from various disciplines, but
make a special point of attracting scholars from South Asia. Their visits
are designed to promote continuing exchanges with recent work on the sub-continent
and to introduce graduate students to future colleagues in South Asia.
Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia
This workshop is focused on the study of material or visual objects from
East Asia (defined broadly to include China, Central Asia, Tibet, Korea,
and Japan, and other regions, depending on student interest). It explores
the possible uses of recent theories of art, history, and material and
visual culture in the study of East Asia. Presentations of studies of
objects and visual materials from a variety of historical periods and
geographical locations within East Asia serve as case studies for the
exploration of such methodological concerns. The workshop consists of
roughly two-thirds student presentations and one-third outside speakers.
Wittgenstein
This Wittgenstein Workshop aims to foster a variety of forms of interdisciplinary
research which take their point of departure from a shared interest in
Wittgenstein’s intellectual achievement. The workshop will seek to
provide a forum in which the following three activities can be pursued
in conjunction with one another: (1) the careful study of Wittgenstein’s
contributions to both philosophy and other disciplines, (2) the discussion
of current research by graduate students with related interests, and (3)
the presentation of work by (and the opportunity for graduate students
to come into contact and discussion with) some of the leading contemporary
scholars at work in these areas.
Please note that the above describes only workshops in the humanities
and social sciences sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in the
Humanities and Social Sciences. It does not, therefore, comprise a complete
list of established workshops at the University of Chicago. In particular,
this list does not include a substantial number of workshops organized
on a long-standing basis in the Department of Economics and in the Graduate
School of Business
This text was last revised on 12/2003
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