2009-10 Humanities Seminar
Intellectual Life at Moments of Crisis
The theme of the 2009-10 Humanities Institute seminar is "Intellectual Life at Moments of Crisis." At this moment of national and global crisis and potential transformation, the Humanities Institute's Fellows Seminar will explore the historical and contemporary conceptions, roles, and impacts of intellectual life and intellectual workers in times of political, social, cultural, or economic upheaval. This topic is meant to be broadly interdisciplinary and to invite consideration of intellectual work in the humanities, the arts, and the sciences and of intellectual life lived both within and outside of universities. Specific focal points for the seminar will be determined by the interests and projects of its members and by the distinguished visiting scholars and artists whom they will invite to deliver a public lecture and guest-lead a seminar session. Possible vectors of inquiry, however, may include: revolution in countries, cultures, and thought; the figure of the intellectual in and across different cultures and historical epochs; intellectuals and academic institutions as agents of change and reaction; "elitism," social distinction, and the political economy of higher education; the intellectual and collective identity (race, class, gender, religion); crises of belief and conscience; the life of the mind and crises of the body.