2010–2011 Seminars
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2010–2011 SEMINARS elow is a listing of the 2010–2011 University Seminars, with their topics and speakers. The seminars are Blisted in order of their Seminar Number, which roughly follows their chronological founding. Some of our seminars are still going strong after more than 60 years; new ones continue to be formed. One seminar was in - augurated last year. Seminars sometimes stop meeting, temporarily or permanently, for practical or intellec - tual reasons. Those that did not meet this past year are listed at the end of this section. Our seminars span a wide range of interests, from contemporary and historical topics in religion, literature, and law, to technical and administrative issues in contemporary society, to area studies, Shakespeare and the sciences. THE PROBLEM OF PEACE (403) Founded: 1945 This seminar is concerned broadly with the maintenance of international peace and security and with the set - tlement of international disputes. It considers specific conflicts and also discusses the contemporary role of the United Nations, multinational peacekeeping, humanitarian efforts, and other measures for the resolution of international conflicts. Chair: Professor Roy Lee Rapporteur: Ms. Tanya O’Carroll MEETINGS 2010–2011 September 14 The Current Situation in Iraq Jehangir Khan, Deputy Director, Middle East and Asia Division, UN Department of Political Affairs October 19 Disarmament Randy Rydell, Senior Political Affairs Officer, UN Office for Disarmament Affairs December 14 Development in Afghanistan Zahur Tanin, Permanent Representative of the UN for Afghanistan March 23 Recent Developments in Tunisia Ambassador Ghazi Jomaa, Permanent Representative of Tunisia to the UN Academic year 2011–2012 Chair: Professor Roy Lee, [email protected] Directory of Seminars, Speakers, and Topics 2010–2011 49 STUDIES IN RELIGION (405) Founded: 1945 The approaches to religion in this seminar range from the philosophical through the anthropological to the historical and comparative. We concern ourselves with religion in all of its manifestations—ancient and mod - ern, primitive and civilized, heretical and orthodox, individual and cosmic. The guiding thread is whatever subjects are uppermost in the minds of those composing the membership at a given time. Since members come from different disciplines as well as different traditions and have a variety of personal orientations, we are as - sured maximum openness and flexibility. Co-Chairs: Professor Raymond F. Bulman, Professor Sidney Greenfield, and Professor Christopher Denny Rapporteur: Mr. Ivan Lupi c´ MEETINGS 2010–2011 October 18 The New York City Religious Census Comes to Manhattan Tony Carnes, Chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Content and Methods in the Social Sciences November 15 Denial and Sacrifice in Kierkegaard Nancy Leonard, Professor of English, Bard College December 13 Mythic Transhumanism: The Apocalyptic Use of Artificial Intelligence Robert Geraci, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College February 7 Beyond Reductionism: Advaita Ved nta and the Neurosciences Stephen Kaplan, Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College April 11 Living Synecdoche: Parts and Wholes in Medieval Devotion Caroline Walker Bynum, University Professor Emerita, Columbia University May 9 Is Religion Responsible for the History of Violence, or an Illusion and a Neurosis? Samuel Slipp, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine June 22 JOINT MEETING WITH THE SEMINAR ON BRAZIL Reinventing Indian-ness: The Case of the Pitaguary of Northeast Brazil Father Ottorino Bonvini and Ms. Natalia de Sousa Martins Academic year 2011–2012 Co-Chairs: Professor Raymond Bulman, [email protected] Professor Sidney Greenfield, [email protected] Professor Christopher Denny, [email protected] 50 Columbia University—The University Seminars THE RENAISSANCE (407) Founded: 1945 This seminar covers all aspects of Renaissance culture, from political and social history to art history, litera - ture, languages classical and vernacular, music, philosophy, religion, science, and learning. The Renaissance is taken to begin about the time of Petrarch and to end—according to the field examined—at various points in the seventeenth century. Later scholars who conceptualized the Renaissance are also discussed. Chair: Professor Elizabeth K. Hill Rapporteur: Mr. Ivan Lupi c´ MEETINGS 2010–2011 September 14 The Roman Inquistion and the Talmud Paul Rose, Professor of European History and Mitrani Professor of Jewish Studies, Pennsylvania State University October 12 The Italian Connection in Mid-Sixteenth-Century Muscovite Architecture: Continuity or Antithesis ? William Brumfield, Professor of Russian, Tulane University November 9 St. John’s Wort and Melancholy in the Age of Paracelsus and the Great Herbals Karen Reeds, Princeton Research Forum and University of Pennsylvania December 14 Shakespeare: “beauties best, proportion” Edward Tayler, Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities Emeritus, Columbia University February 8 Five Chronicles of the Barbieri Murder: or, How to Change Perspective by Addition and Subtraction Monica Calabritto, Hunter College, CUNY March 8 Textual Representation of Brazilian Colonial Towns: Early-Modern Traditions, Genres, and Innovations Christopher Ebert, Brooklyn College, CUNY April 12 “Of future depths”: Futurity in Shakespeare, Donne, and Heaney Heather Dubrow, Reverend John Boyd, S.J. Chair in the Poetic Imagination, Fordham University May 10 Sixteenth-Century Mexican Feather Art, 1500–1700 Diana Fane, Brooklyn Museum Academic year 2011–2012 Chair: Professor Elizabeth K. Hill, [email protected] Directory of Seminars, Speakers, and Topics 2010–2011 51 CONTENT AND METHODS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (411) Founded: 1947 This seminar is concerned with methodology and theory in the social sciences as well as with its substantive results. As a rule, members and sometimes guest speakers present their current research in a manner which enlightens the seminar on various theoretical and methodological advances and helps the researcher to solve his difficulties and formulate a codified view of ongoing research in social sciences. Chair: Mr. Tony Carnes Rapporteurs: Ms. Lisa Kim and Ms. Siwen Fan MEETINGS 2010–2011 THEME : R ENOVATION AND INNOVATION : O LD METHODS : N EW METHODS ; OLD THEORIES : N EW THEORIES September 15 Follow-up to Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants Robert Smith, Associate Professor of Sociology, Immigration Studies, and Public Affairs, Baruch College & CUNY Graduate Center October 13 Among and Against Disposable People: The Marxism of Silence And Gerald Sider, CUNY & Memorial University, Co-Chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Culture, Power, and Boundaries November 10 Culture Trumps Reason: Why Americans were Unable to Behave Rationally and Avoid the Latest Economic Crisis Sidney Greenfield, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Co-Chair of the Columbia University Seminars on Studies in Religion, on Brazil, and on Knowledge, Technology, and Social Systems December 8 Bureaucracy as Sacrament James Mahon, Associate Professor of Sociology, William Paterson University February 9 The Rise of the Postsecular City Tony Carnes, President of the Values Research Institute March 9 Reinventing Themselves, Reinventing Brazil: Feminism, Subjectivity , and Politics Margareth Rago, Professor of History, State University of Campinas, Ruth Cardoso Visiting Professor, Columbia University April 13 The Order of Fashions: Foucault, Society, Pregnancy, and Fashion Ruth P. Rubinstein, Associate Professor of Sociology, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY May 11 PLANNING MEETING Academic year 2011–2012 Chair: Mr. Tony Carnes, [email protected] 52 Columbia University—The University Seminars EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN CULTURE (417) Founded: 1962 Scholars from a variety of disciplines—history, literature, philosophy, political science, music, and art—pres - ent papers from work in progress treating some aspect of eighteenth-century European culture. Special topics of the Seminar in recent years have included a symposium on the 18th-century reception of Classical, Hellenistic, and Late Antique texts (2003) and the intellectual origins of freedom of speech (2007–2008). More recently, the Seminar has co-sponsored, with the Seminar on Early Modern France, a series of roundtables on new directions in eighteenth-century studies under the rubric of “Literature and History in Dialogue.” Past roundtables have been devoted to concepts of authorship (Fall 2010) and science studies (Spring 2011), and the 2011–12 academic year will host events on comparative colonialisms and orientalisms (Fall 2011) and on slav - ery, race, and racial science (Spring 2012). Chair: Professor Al Coppola Rapporteur: Ms. Ariel Rubin MEETINGS 2010–2011 September 23 Seeing Satire at the Salon of 1791 Elizabeth C. Mansfield, Associate Professor of Art History, New York University October 28 Sublime Oddity: Sir Hans Sloane and the Reputation of the Collector in Britain, 1670–1800 Barbara Benedict, Charles A. Dana Professor of English Literature, Trinity College November 18 Jane Barker and the Jacobite Aeneid: Exilius, or the Banish’d Roman (1715) and the Epic of Exile Nicole Horejsi, Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University December 16 John Milton and the Pre-Kantian Sublime in Germany Elizabeth Powers, Independent Scholar January 27 What is it Like to Be a Starling? Jonathan Kramnick, Associate