Syracuse Humanities :: Initiatives

Major Research INITIATIVES and Annual Workshops

In addition to organizing and presenting each year the major arts and lecture calendar for the College of Arts & Sciences, Syracuse Symposium ™, and administering the Andrew W. Mellon CNY Humanities Corridor, The SU Humanities Center is responsible for a number of annual research initiatives and major programs. The research initiatives of the SU Humanities Center are organized into three overarching categories:

A multi-layered program of faculty seminars, visiting faculty “Mini-Seminars,” and more collaborative faculty-graduate student research workshops organized around the thematic or topic priority by Syracuse Symposium and selected each year by the Faculty Advisory Board. In 2010, the SU Humanities Center will organize its research and programmatic activities around the theme of “Conflict: On Peace and War,” which has been determined by Syracuse Symposium and the HC-Faculty Advisory Board. This initiative will include lectures and exhibits associated with Syracuse Symposium, but also dedicated faculty-graduate student research workshops, Humanities mini-seminars offered by visiting scholars, and an array of Humanities Seminars cross-listed with other departments and programs at SU. (Stayed tuned for further information and call for proposals regarding this program, which will soon appear on the SU Humanities Center web-site.)
Through its annual program of Dissertation Fellowships and Faculty Research Awards, the SU Humanities Center supports individual faculty and graduate student research across the University, including the Maxwell School and the College of Visual and Performing Arts. This year (2009-2010), graduate students from the College of Arts & Sciences and Visual & Performing Arts have been awarded a one-year fellowship affiliated with the SU Humanities in order to complete their dissertation or creative project; faculty from the College of Arts & Sciences and the Maxwell School have been granted course relief in the spring semester, 2010, to pursue individual research projects leading publication, or creative exhibition. Similar programs will be offered for the 2010-2011 academic year and will be announced in the spring.
The SU Humanities is also affiliated with several multi-year projects either supported by external funding (apart from the Mellon CNY Humanities Corridor), or by the Chancellor’s Leadership Award. Currently, these research projects and working groups include:

TRANSDISCIPLINARY MEDIA STUDIO [TdMS]: Envisioning, designing, and constructing the MEDIA|SPACE of the Future, Chancellor's Leadership Project Award (2009) The Transdisciplinary Media Studio (TdMS) is a new type of design studio that uses digital media to foster multi-directional teaching and research collaborations among partners from different disciplines. The TdMS will bring together participants from the university and its broader community to conduct research and teaching that explore the new design practices emerging from this technology-inspired convergence. Principals: Gregg Lambert, Dean's Professor of the Humanities and Founding Director of the Humanities Center; Mark Linder, Associate Professor of Architecture and Chair of Graduate Programs; Brian Lonsway, Associate Professor of Architecture; Jonathan Massey, Associate Professor of Architecture and Undergraduate Program Chair.

PERPETUAL PEACE (Spring 2010-Spring 2012): is a two-year collaborative initiative centered around Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (1795), developed by the SU Humanities Center and Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation, with partners at the Austrian Consulate, UNIC, the UN, and International Peace Institute (IPI). The Perpetual Peace initiative revisits and encourages a critical rewriting of Immanuel Kant’s provocative essay for 21st century international conflict. Its aim is to encourage philosophical and conceptual thinking about urgent matters of war and peace, their discourse, terms of debate, and implications.

GRADUATE FORUM ON PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP: The Humanities Center and Imagining America have established a new annual program of support for Graduate Students engaging in public scholarship at Syracuse University, Cornell University, and the University of Rochester. The Graduate Forum on Public Scholarship is designed to give graduate students a voice and opportunity to dialogue about some of the following issues: graduate students’ experiences with engaged scholarship; how this mode of research is evolving within and across various academic disciplines; lessons learned from path-breaking faculty who have successfully engaged in this mode of research in the context of academic institutions; the role of supportive networks in making this research possible; institutional obstacles to publically engaged research, etc. This initiative is sponsored by the Mellon CNY Humanities Corridor and PAGE at Imagining America and generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. All graduate students with an emphasis on public scholarship in their research are eligible. For program information, please see Kevin Bott, PAGE and Corri Zoli, SU Humanities Center.

Workshops and Practicum

Additionally, the following workshops and practicum series will be offered regularly for SU Graduate Students and Faculty:

HUMANITIES CENTER PRACTICUM FOR NEW FACULTY AND ADVANCED GRADUATE STUDENTS: Beginning in 2010 the SU Humanities Center is designing a series of “practicum” specifically designed to help new faculty and advanced graduate students proactively engage with pressing issues relevant for their professional development and advancement in the interdisciplinary humanities. Topics for 2010 include: “How to Transform a Dissertation into a Book.”
INTERDISCIPLINARY HUMANITIES DISSERTATION WRITING GROUPS: The SU Humanities Center and the Graduate School Professional Development Programs at Syracuse University have established an annual program of support in the Humanities Center for Interdisciplinary Humanities Dissertation Writing Groups. Any doctoral student in good standing whose work has an interdisciplinary humanities component may join this dissertation writing group. The Program provide funding support for several Writing Groups to convene monthly throughout the Fall and Spring semesters and summer (voluntary) to share drafts of dissertation chapters, to provide substantive feedback to each other’s work, and to discuss successful writing strategies. An opening reception, refreshments at meetings, some photocopying costs, and a small stipend for participation will also be included. Writing Groups will be eligible to use several rooms available at the Humanities Center at the Tolley Humanities Building for meeting space. Organizational meetings to convene individual Writing Groups, each with an interdisciplinary and broad thematic focus, are held at the beginning of each semester, facilitated by Derina Samuel and Corri Zoli. While Writing Groups will determine much of their own working processes, at the opening meeting Writing Groups and facilitators discuss establishing Writing Groups according to various common themes, a format for doctoral student participation, how to be a productive participant in the group by providing constructive feedback, and how to get the most out of using the Writing Group to support and complete dissertation writing. The Program also has a regular assessment component.