2018 Working Group Activities
Funded Pre-Endowment Period Events by Cluster
Philosophy/Critical Theory (PHI)
This cluster is well-established across the Corridor, with regard to Philosophy as a discipline, and open to cross-disciplinary work in philosophical studies and critical theory more broadly.
SPAWN/Creighton Club (PHI1)
August 13, 2018: SPAWN: Ancient Greek Psychology Early and Late, Syracuse University
SPAWN is the Syracuse Philosophy Annual Workshop. Bringing faculty and graduate students from across the Corridor and around the world to Syracuse University for three days, the main speakers for the conference (aside from the keynote) are junior members of the profession, with comments by established professors.
Graduate Student Travel Exchange (PHI4)
Spring & Fall 2018: Graduate Student Corridor Exchange, Corridor-Wide
Each year several of graduate students take courses or attend events at other Corridor institutions, especially Cornell and Rochester.
Society for the Study of Bio-political Futures (PHI6)
November 15, 2018: The Last Aviary: Papers from the Society for the Study of Biopolitical Futures--A Roundtable Discussion, Syracuse University
This event will officially close the research group, which began in spring 2013. The founding of the Society for the Study of Biopolitical Futures in 2012 was inspired—very loosely—by the establishment and activities of the College of Sociology between 1937-1939. The College took as its “precise object of contemplative activity,” according to the collective statement by its members [biopoliticalfutures.net] “the name of Sacred Sociology, implying the study of all manifestations of social existence where the active presence of the sacred is clear, determining the coincidence between the fundamental obsessive tendencies of individual psychology and the principal structures that govern social organization and are in command of its revolutions.” When the SSBF began, if any name could have served to replace the sociological and anthropological notion of the “sacred,” it was “biopower” and the “biopolitical.” In another sense, the concepts of “biopower” and the “biopolitical” have also functioned, during the Society’s existence, as “theoretical stocks” in the reproduction and circulation of academic discourse and new investment strategies defined both in symbolic terms and in terms of the creation of new subjects of “human capital.” Here, at the “official” demise of the SSBF (four years overdue, we might add), have we witnessed a “selling off” of the biopolitical, or quite the contrary? How has canonical biopolitical thought been renovated and rejuvenated since the Society’s inception to address issues and questions—of “life,” the “living,” and “biopower”—that political thought itself brought into focus in its first iteration?
Ancient Philosophy (PHI7)
October 19-20, 2018: Friendship in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Union College
This is an international workshop that is hosted by different institutions all over the world, engaging in a close reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. The workshop focuses on just a few chapters each year. This year the workshop will be held at Union College where we will discuss Aristotle's account of friendship in the first seven chapters of Book VIII. We have seven speakers, who will provide a brief analysis of each chapter as well as three speakers who will present papers examining Aristotle's account of friendship more broadly. Each presentation will be followed by a lively roundtable discussion.
Italian Philosophy (PHI11)
March 23-25, 2018: Society of Italian Philosophers, Rochester
The Society for Italian Philosophy held its 2nd Annual International Conference with keynote speakers Simona Forti (Universita del Piemonte Orientale) and Gianni Vattimo (Universita di Torino).
September 21, 2018: Organizational Meeting, University of Rochester
This will be an organizational meeting to plan future activities and our spring symposium.
Linguistics (LIN)
Well-established before the CNY Humanities Corridor began, collaboration among Linguistics faculty has increased, strengthening their ties across campuses and developing new working groups. They have gathered semi-annually in workshops and were the first cluster to establish programming around a distinguished research collaborator.
Syntax-Semantics Interface (LIN4)
October 5-7, 2018: Conference in Theoretical Linguistics, North East Linguistics Society, Cornell University
The North East Linguistics Society is one of the two most prestigious formal linguistics conferences in North America. Held annually, it rotates between universities in the Northeast and Canada. Cornell will be hosting NELS for the third time in 2018 in collaboration with the Linguistics departments at Rochester and Syracuse. The conference usually attracts 200~300 attendees.
November 16, 2018: Phonological Words in the Syntax and in the Lexicon, Syracuse University
A public lecture on the phonology--syntax and phonology--lexicon interface, especially with respect to prepositions in Russian, with Maria Gouskova (New York University).
Visual Arts and Cultures (VAC)
These working groups have attracted faculty from various departments and disciplines in the Corridor across the fields of Visual Studies and Art History. The cluster also includes the public humanities and architecture working groups.
New Approaches to Scholarship & Pedagogy in Ottoman and Turkish Architecture (VAC1)
November 14, 2018: Fall Workshop, University of Rochester
Sarah Neel Smith and Pinar Uner Yilmaz will give a panel on the history of art institutions and exhibitions in Turkey during the mid and late 20th century.
Visual Studies (VAC3)
March 22-23, 2018: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Archiving Film History, Syracuse University
This event brought archivists from Cineteca Ritrovato (the Italian film archive in Bologna) and some of their prints. There was a screening of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America with a Q&A as well as a screening of rare silent prints. The event allowed for an extensive conversation about film archives, preservation, and history.
Asian Humanities in Global Context (VAC19)
October 22, 2018: Region as Method: Affective Media Geographies, Cornell University
Thomas Lamarre (Professor of East Asian Studies, McGill University) will give a lecture about the rise of what has been called 'new television' or 'media regionalism' in East Asia.
Connecting Art Histories Across the Americas (VAC20)
August 31, 2018: Writing Workshop #1, Cornell University
This is a Writing Workshop to discuss pre-circulated works in progress for working group participants.
December 7, 2018: Writing Workshop #2, Cornell University
This is a Writing Workshop to discuss pre-circulated works in progress for working group participants.
Crossing Cultures through Film (VAC21)
November 13, 2018: Cultural Analysis of the Film, The Namesake, Syracuse University
Professor Mridula Mascarenhas (California State University, Monterey Bay) will lecture on cross-cultural aspects of the film, The Namesake.
Mediterranean Music and Performance (VAC22)
September 18, 2018: Planning Meeting #1, Le Moyne College
This working group will hold its initial meeting to plan for future events, lectures, and performances connected to the countries linked to the Mediterranean region. Drawing on the historical and cultural influences of the region, this group will explore the diversity and interconnectivity of these countries and artistic expressions.
October 2, 2018: Planning Meeting #2, Le Moyne College
This working group held a second planning meeting to prepare for their spring event and to prepare future events before the next CFP deadline.
Modernist Geographies (VAC23)
September 14, 2018: Planning Meeting, Syracuse University
A planning meeting to determine the invited guest for a future workshop and to coordinate a teaching exchange for Spring 2019.
November 30, 2018: Fall Research Workshop, Syracuse University
This will be a seminar led by Pedro Rabelo Erber (Cornell University).
New Readings: Bodies in Latin American Visual Arts and Culture (VAC24)
October 6, 2018: New Readings: Bodies in Latin American Visual Arts and Culture, Syracuse University
This is a one-day writing and discussion workshop with presenters sharing their book chapters to the audience. After the presentations, three facilitators will give critical feedback to the authors so as to help with their books' publications.
Musicology/Performance Studies (MP, previously MMH)
In an area full of very active performers, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists this cluster of Corridor funding has encouraged collaborative research and performance.
Teaching Exchange (MMH17)
October 17, 2018: Teaching Exchange #1, University of Rochester
Syracuse University Professor Sarah Fuchs Sampson will participate in an Eastman graduate seminar, presenting her research on recording opera in Paris and leading students in discussion and listening.
November 11, 2018: Teaching Exchange #3, Cornell University
Orit Hilewicz (Eastman School of Music) will give a guest lecture on Polaris.
November 28, 2018: Teaching Exchange #2: Marina Rosenfeld's "Deathstar," University of Rochester
Benjamin Piekut (Associate Professor of Music, Cornell University) discusses Marina Rosenfeld's experimental exhibit/sound installation "Deathstar." Inspired by unrealized research at Bell Labs, Rosenfeld co-opted Portikus Gallery (Frankfurt) as a site of continuous simultaneous recording and playback. Indeterminacy in this system is the inability of the apparatus to fully grapple with the quantity and complexity of the signal that is continuously collected, translated, and redistributed through a set of shotgun microphones, an interface and four speakers. Part echo chamber, part unruly machine, the Deathstar ultimately achieved a kind of legibility through another recursive gesture, the conversion of its collected sound back into musical notation, which was performed in a 5-hour performance by pianist Marino Formenti. In that sense, sound was neither an abstraction nor a means to an end, but rather a material condition connected to the formation of music.
Improvisation in Theory and Practice (MMH18)
October 24-26, 2018: Fall Festival: Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative (EROI), University of Rochester
This event will focus on exploring organ sound in composed and improvised music.
December 14, 2018: Study Day on Pedagogical Applications of Historical Improvisation, Cornell University
An event for faculty and grad students to discuss best practices for implementing the study of historical improvisation into music history and theory courses.
Performance/History (MMH22)
April 20, 2018: Mini-seminar with Wah Guan Lim, Colgate University
This mini-seminar focused on transnational Chinese performance with Wah Guan Lim (Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, Bard College). Prof. Lim’s work examines the political and artistic resonances of recent Chinese theater productions, considering particularly the importance of language and geopolitics in the generation of identity.
November 7, 2018: "Slough Media," a seminar with Rebecca Schneider, Colgate University
Rebecca Schneider (Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, Brown University) is a performance and media theorist, whose publications include Performing Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment (Routledge, 2011) and The Explicit Body in Performance (Routledge, 1997). Her forthcoming essay, "Slough Media," considers the entanglement of media and the body in deep time, questioning the binaries of ephemerality and endurance, obsolescence and persistence. Seminar participants will read a pre-circulated draft of "Slough Media" and discuss the essay with Professor Schneider.
November 16-18, 2018: Fall Writing Retreat, Cornell University
This weekend-long retreat will be a flexible writing workshop incorporating peer review and support for participants writing projects in excerpt form.
South Asian Media and Performance Cultures (MP1)
September 14, 2018: Planning Meeting with Eastman Museum, University of Rochester
This is an organizational meeting with the curators of the George Eastman Museum.
October 5, 2018: Writing Retreat and Workshop 1, Hamilton College
The working group will host a writing retreat and follow-up conversation to the last event, which was a meeting with George Eastman museum staff.
November 30, 2018: Writing Retreat and Workshop 2, University of Rochester
The group will hold a writing retreat and organizational meeting in preparation for the Spring 2019 agenda.
Digital Humanities (DH)
This cluster has identified common interests on all campuses in digital theory and culture; computing for literary and historical research; as well as artistic explorations in music, architecture, and art.
Global Digital Humanities (DH3)
September 21, 2018: Kick off and brainstorming, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
The group held a meeting to plan events for 2018-19 and to establish a new leadership structure.
October 26, 2018: Open Space New Media Documentary: A Toolkit for Theory and Practice, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Patricia Zimmerman (Ithaca College) will discuss her recent work on open space new media documentary before giving a public lecture and screening.
Digital Humanities in Practice (DH9)
November 30, 2018: Building Sekuru's Stories: Sound Design for Academic Podcasting and Audio Documentary, University of Rochester
Through Sekuru's Stories, a digital monograph by Jennifer Kyker (University of Rochester) about Zimbabwean musician Sekuru Tute Chigamba, this workshop will focus on how to conceive of and build long-form digital projects.
Reconstruction, Structural Analysis, and Conservation of Ancient Monuments in Coastal Ghana (DH10)
November 7, 2018: History and Archaeology in Cape Verde: The Rise of a Global World, University of Rochester
The Republic of Cape Verde comprises ten volcanic islands located 600 km west of Senegal coast discovered in 1460. Their geographical location made them the most suitable place for the Portuguese crown to establish a settlement from where explore the African coast. The archaeological excavations at the Royal Fortress of San Felipe and at the Convent of San Francisco and elsewhere have served to highlight the outstanding past of Ribeira Grande, currently Cidade Velha, showing its intense links with Europe, Asia, Africa and America during the 15th and 18th centuries.
Literature, Language, Culture (LLC)
This cluster was proposed on the basis of shared strengths and faculty resources in languages and literatures across the Corridor, including faculty from regional liberal arts colleges and universities. Existing working groups include those collaborating on Victorian, 18th Century, and Early Modern periods and others working within ethnic studies and international literature.
Incarceration and Decarceration (LLC5)
October 17, 2018: "Tip of the Spear: Revolutionary Organizing and Counterinsurgency in New York State Prisons," University of Rochester
In this talk, Orisanmi Burton analyzes the prison as a form of counterinsurgency warfare. He traces how, beginning in the early 1970s, the massive growth and development of the New York State prison system has occurred in response to revolutionary, anti-racist organizing inside and outside prison walls. Burton provides a critical theoretical framework for understanding prisons as war and for apprehending the ways in which contemporary prison protocols are designed to prevent radical political consciousness, outside solidarity, and struggle.
October 24, 2018: "Looking Out and Looking In: Prison Communities Through the Prism of Film," University of Rochester
Cinema has long served both to offer inmates glimpses of a changing world beyond prison walls and to give non-incarcerated audiences access to an often-mythologized and marginalized institution. Using New York's Auburn and Sing Sing prisons as case studies, this talk examines how the history of film provides an entry point to the complex history of the relations between prisons and their local and regional communities, a history that adds immeasurably to our understanding of the legacy of mass incarceration.
Nineteenth Century Studies (LLC6)
April 6-7, 2018: Habits of Reading, Habits of Sympathy, lecture by Professor Melissa Shields-Jenkins, Syracuse University
Professor Jenkins gave a talk about book lists and self-education in the early 20th century, as the Victorian Canon was getting finalized. She also gave a pedagogy seminar based on her essay, “Global Victorians,” forthcoming in edited collection Victorian Literature in the 21st Century: A Guide to Pedagogy. Professor Jenkins also participated in our faculty works-in-progress workshop.
Inclusion/Exclusion in the Modern Middle East (LLC7)
March 23, 2018: Gender as a Mode of Inclusion and Exclusion, Syracuse University
A research and writing workshop for participants in our interdisciplinary working group. This group of faculty and graduate students is interested in exploring the relation between language, culture, and modernity across the Middle East. Planned/invited speakers: Nazanin Shahrokni (Syracuse University), Mary Youssef (Binghamton University), Discussant: Carol Fadda (Syracuse University).
April 20, 2018: Experiences of Place, Syracuse University
Planned/invited speakers: Timur Hammond (Geography, Syracuse University), Ziad Fahmy (Near Eastern Studies, Cornell), Discussant: Howard Eissenstadt (History, St Lawrence University).
Sound & Media (LLC10)
October 26-27, 2018: Sound and Media Fall Writing Retreat, Syracuse University
In this overnight retreat, working group faculty are invited to spend time writing and discussing their latest work with other participants.
Perspectives on Europe from the Periphery (LLC11)
December 11, 2018: Fall Organizational and Planning Meeting, Syracuse University
Members of the working group will update each other on ongoing research and discuss the future trajectory of the working group.
LELACS/Global Literatures and Cultures (LLC12)
October 8-11, 2018: A Conversation with Filmmaker Carlos Rossini, various events at Syracuse University, University of Rochester, Colgate University, and Cornell University
Argentine/Mexican filmmaker Carlos Rossini will visit four Corridor campuses in Central New York to converse about his work with members of the community. Film screenings may also accompany his talks.
Spanish Poetics (LLC13)
April 3-4, 2018: Reimagining a Feminist Poetics with Aurora Luque and Sara Torres, Syracuse University
Poets Sara Torres and Aurora Luque presented a poetry recital with cellist accompaniment by Pamela Davenport titled “Contemporary Spanish Poetry and Performance.” A Spanish language lecture and round table discussion was also held, entitled “Herencia poetica feminista en España” [Feminist Poetical Legacy in Spain].
October 15-16, 2018: Fall Symposium: Visual and Verbal Poetry, Syracuse University & Le Moyne College
Poets Francisco Diaz de Castro and Miriam Reyes will talk about their poetic and visual work in two round tables at Syracuse University and will do a poetry reading at Le Moyne College.
LALAAB: Latin American Literature and Arts Across Borders (LLC20)
September 18, 2018: Tango and Borges, Bartlett Theatre, Coxe Hall, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Tango and Borges is a song and storytelling performance with Milton Loayza and Uptown Tango duo, based on Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges's writings.
September 25, 2018: Tango and Borges: A Concert with Dialogue, 6:45-9pm, Goldstein Auditorium, Syracuse University
This bilingual (Spanish/English) performance will combine literature, music, and dance to introduce the audience to one of Argentina's most popular writers and to the country's most exciting genre of music and dance.
Gender and Sexuality Writing Collective (LLC21)
March 1, 2018: Gender & Sexuality Writing Collective, University of Rochester
The Writing Collective will provide a lively platform for graduate students to workshop a paper with fellow graduate students and faculty from multiple institutions. The aim of the collective is to create an intimate space for emerging scholars of gender and sexuality to share their work with a focus on preparing the paper for publication. This event is intended as an opportunity for graduate students to consider issues pertaining to gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability. Participants will engage with one another in interdisciplinary discussions led by established scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, whose experience and outstanding research in their respective fields will benefit and help shape the papers.
November 2, 2018: Gender and Sexuality Writing Collective Workshop, University of Rochester
The writing collective will provide a lively platform for graduate students to workshop a paper with fellow graduate students and faculty from multiple institutions. The aim of the collective is to create an intimate space for emerging scholars of gender and sexuality to share their work with a focus on preparing the paper for publication. This event is intended as an opportunity for graduate students to consider issues pertaining to gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability.
Historical Studies (HS)
This new cluster supports historical inquiry across the humanities, fostering research within history as a discipline and across disciplinary contexts. To cultivate mutual exchange and scholarly collaboration, the cluster welcomes scholars working within and across regional, cultural, and national boundaries, drawing on comparative, transnational, or global perspectives, and those working in historical studies using interdisciplinary and/or thematic approaches.
Scientific Norms and the Concept of the Normal (HS1)
October 11, 2018: Carla Nappi Lecture: "Prepositional Bodies: Translating Corporeal Normality Across Early Modern Eurasia," 5-7pm, 114 Bird Library, Syracuse University
Professor Nappi will deliver a lecture drawing from her current research for an audience of students and faculty interested in the histories of science and medicine, translation studies, early modern Eurasia and in global early modernity more generally.
October 12, 2018: Carla Nappi Workshop: "The Open Humanities: Voicing Generous Spaces in Academia," 2-4pm, Romance Studies Lounge, Cornell University
Professor Nappi will hold a workshop on public audiences for academic work that will reflect on ways in which the scholarly voice can serve as a technology for inhabiting an artistic practice.
Slow Historical Studies (HS2)
November 3, 2018: Slow Historical Studies--Crafting Approaches, Syracuse University
This meeting will focus on establishing a core group for future meetings/activities, as well as beginning conversations and discussions on what slow approaches to history and archaeology are and the potential of slow theoretical, ethical and methodological approaches to the past. This meeting will set a scholarly foundation for discussions of the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) 2019 conference (theme: Slow Archaeology) hosted by the Department of Anthropology in May 2019.
December 1, 2018: Slow Historical Studies Meeting 2, Cornell University
This workshop aims to draw together scholars from different disciplines and universities to discuss "slow" approaches to archaeological research and consider their ethical goals, political potentials, and possible consequences.
Urban Humanities (HS3)
October 16, 2018: A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture, Syracuse University
Chang Jiat-Hwee (National University of Singapore) will give a lecture exploring the history of tropical architecture as a series of colonial and post-colonial socio-cultural and political constructions.
Archives and Media (AM)
This cluster aims to supplement archival research in any of the other cluster areas and to support research in new media as well as issues of preservation and exchange of historical media archives.
For 2018, there are no active Archives and Media working groups.
The Distinguished Visiting Collaborator program further enhances liberal arts education in the region by bringing prominent external scholars from various fields in the humanities for brief residencies during which they give public lectures, lead small seminars and symposia, and meet with students.
Mellon Collaborator (MC1)
October 22-23, 2018: "Authority and Utility in Spinoza: From Epicureanism to Neoliberalism?," Cornell University and Syracuse University
Dimitris Vardoulakis of Western Sydney University will visit Cornell University on Monday, Oct. 22 and deliver a lecture in the Society of the Humanities in conjunction with the PHI6 working group. He will also deliver a lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at Syracuse University.