[spectre] (fwd) Risk: Fellowships at Cornell Society for the Humanities

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Timothy Murray <tcm1 at CORNELL.EDU>
Date:         Sat, 30 Jul 2011 12:29:46 -0400
Subject: Risk: Fellowships at Cornell Society for the Humanities


Please Circulate

CORNELL SOCIETY FOR THE HUMANITIES FELLOWSHIPS 2012-2013

Timothy Murray, Director of the Society for the Humanities, is 
pleased to announce the 2012-2013 research focal theme: "Risk @ 
Humanities." Six to eight Fellows will be appointed.


Senior Scholars in Residence:
William Leiss
Scientist, McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, 
University of Ottawa, and Professor emeritus, School of Policy 
Studies, Queen's University
Michael Warner
Seymour H. Knox Professor of English, Yale University


RISK @ Humanities
The Society for the Humanities calls for scholarly reflections on 
risk.  We seek interdisciplinary projects that reflect on historical, 
theoretical, and global understandings of risk as a concept and a 
reality that lies at the heart of the humanities and the arts. The 
Society wishes to open the question of how risk shapes the humanities 
and how the humanities might dialogue with broader biological, 
ecological, economic, and technological approaches to risk.
We invite considerations of how risk might be inherent to the 
humanities.  Scholars could reflect on the relation of accident, 
danger, and uncertainty in cross-historical letters and arts.  How 
might risk lie at the heart of ritual and religion / legislation and 
government / letters and art?  Some scholars might consider the 
philosophy and anthropology of probability and chance or even the 
history or theory of gaming.  How do scholarly and artistic practices 
that cut across and against boundaries depend on and profit from risk?

Questions of geographies and environments at risk raise adjacent 
considerations of travel, politics, and transgression.  What is the 
relation of the humanities and the arts to "risk society," "writers 
at risk," or "risk territory"?  From risky behavior and risky 
thinking to risk in sexuality or the risk of torture, from questions 
of terror to threats of surveillance, from the transgression of 
creative production to the mixtures of cultures, peoples, and 
religions, risk @ humanities sits on unstable terrain.  What might it 
mean to research the humanities in relation to economic collapse, 
environmental degradation, immunological threat, or military 
incursion?
Artistic form and practice themselves also contribute to an ongoing 
understanding of risk.  How might experiments in new media, 
performance, film, literature, music, art, and architecture 
articulate aesthetic interventions across the topography of risk? 
Might new electronic and digital networks, mobilities, and artistic 
projects threaten or empower the arts? Are indigenous or traditional 
practices at risk in the age of global communication and exchange? 
These questions are meant to suggest, not delimit, possible 
approaches to the focal theme.

Scholars are encouraged to investigate ideas, instances, and 
inferences of risk across geographies, historical periods, 
disciplinary boundaries, and social contexts. The Society for the 
Humanities welcomes applications from scholars and practitioners who 
are interested in investigating this topic from the broadest variety 
of international and disciplinary perspectives.

The David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future co-sponsors one 
fellowship to support scholarly work addressing risk as it relates to 
energy, the environment or economic development.


Fellowships
Fellows include scholars from other universities and members of the 
Cornell faculty released from regular duties. The fellowships are 
held for one academic year. Each Society Fellow will receive $45,000. 
Applicants living outside North America are eligible for an 
additional $2,000 to assist with travel costs.

Fellows spend their time in research and writing, participate in the 
weekly Fellows Seminar, and offer one seminar related to their 
research. The seminars are generally informal, related to the 
Fellow's research, and open to graduate students, suitably qualified 
undergraduates, and faculty members. Fellows are encouraged to 
explore topics they would not normally teach and, in general, to 
experiment freely with both the content and the method of their 
courses.


Qualifications
Fellows should be working on topics related to the year's theme. 
Their approach to the humanities should be broad enough to appeal to 
students and scholars in several humanistic disciplines.

Applicants must have received the Ph.D. degree before January 1, 
2011. The Society for the Humanities will not consider applications 
from scholars who received the Ph.D. after this date. Applicants must 
also have one or more years of teaching experience, which may include 
teaching as a graduate student.


Application Procedures
The procedures for application can be found at our website:

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/society_fellowships.html


The Society for the Humanities
The Society for the Humanities was established at Cornell University 
in 1966 to support research and teaching in the humanities. It is 
intended to be at once a research institute, a stimulus to 
educational innovation, and a continuing society of scholars.  The 
Society and its Fellows have fostered path-breaking interdisciplinary 
dialogue and theoretical reflection on the humanities at large.

-- 
Timothy Murray
Director, Society for the Humanities
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/
Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
A. D. White House
27 East Avenue
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853