Reading Groups
HRI Reading Group History
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2023–2024
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Chinese Media and Communication
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Qinglin Luan, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Call for scholars interested in (1) organizing reading groups (with topics about digital activism, media platforms, state policy, entertainment, etc.) and (2) managing a Facebook Page "Chinese Media and Communication" (so far, there isn't one dedicated to media and communication research of China). The reading group also serves as a space for potential research collaboration.
Organize & Analyze: Social Movements Reading Group
- Soraya Cipolla, Department of French & Italian
- Chelsea Birchmier, Department of Psychology
- Essam Elkorghli, Department of Education Policy
- Marcos Alarcón-Olivos, History Department
This reading group focuses on global working-class social movements. We will begin with theories of social movements to develop a shared vocabulary, then delve into movement history and analyses of contemporary struggles. We discuss a range of both theoretical and empirical texts alongside cultural expressions of movements via short stories, plays, and poems. We hope our readings and discussions will inform our intellectual development, political education, and praxis.
Interventions: A Memory Studies Reading Group
- Ragini Chakraborty, Comparative and World Literature
- Matthew Fam, Comparative and World Literature
- Ann Xiaoxu Pei, Comparative and World Literature
This reading group focuses on the formation, transmission, and reconfiguration of memories in various forms, especially the ones about major historical events. Some of our readings intend to focus on how we define “Memory Studies” vis-a-vis rethinking its scopes and possibilities based on cultural, social, and historical contexts. We aim to draw interdisciplinary attention to Memory Studies—as a critical and productive lens—for genocide studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, anthropology, political science, environmental humanities and more.
Language in Culture
- Michele Koven, Communication
- Krystal Smalls, Anthropology and Linguistics
We will gather to discuss a combination of contemporary and classic scholarship in the interdisciplinary study of language, discourse, and culture, as well as to share work in progress. Faculty and students from any unit are welcome.
Political Communication Reading Group
- Stewart M. Coles, Department of Communication
- Emily Van Duyn, Department of Communication
- JungHwan Yang, Department of Communication
This group aims to foster a collaborative network among political communication scholars, both intellectually and personally. Political communication is an intricate field, influenced by the evolving political landscape and digital transformation. This interdisciplinary group provides an arena for accessing the latest research, debating key issues, formulating innovative solutions, learning about different perspectives, and tackling challenges. The group will be a relaxing environment where researchers can discuss ongoing projects, seek constructive feedback, and discover potential collaborators.
Reading the Radical Right
- Michael Uhall, Civil and Environmental Engineering
The cultural and political right is having some species of revival, and yet many or even most of its theoretical offerings go unstudied. This research group aims to rectify that by engaging directly and substantively with some of the right's most powerful and idiosyncratic texts. Over the course of fall 2023, the research group will be reading Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political (1932), Ernst Jünger's The Forest Passage (1951), Julius Evola's Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for Aristocrats of the Soul (1961), and Aleksandr Dugin's The Fourth Political Theory (2012). In spring 2024, we will be reading René Guénon's The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), Eric Voegelin's Science, Politics, and Modernity (1968), Paul Gottfried's Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right (2007), and Bronze Age Pervert's bizarre and controversial Bronze Age Mindset (2018).
Theorizing the Carceral State Without Borders
- Grazzia Grimaldi, Department of Anthropology
- Brenda García, Department of Anthropology
This group engages with readings on transnational carceral states across Latin America and the US, through the perspective of black feminist and decolonial scholarship. Starting with the canonical work of abolitionist scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2007), readings will address key questions around the prison industrial complex, prison abolition and punitive populisms, carcerality and racialized gender, law and crime, anti-carceral feminisms, and the securitizing state.
Writing Bodies
- Yvaine Neyhard, English, Center for Writing Studies
“Writing Bodies” is an interdisciplinary collection of scholars interested in better understanding how bodies write and are written. In our informal monthly meetings, we read and discuss work on embodiment, drawing from numerous fields including: rhetoric and writing studies, disability studies, trans* and gender studies, critical race theory, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and education. Though led by graduate students in Writing Studies, Writing Bodies welcomes undergraduates, faculty, and staff to be regular or drop-in collaborators.
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2022–2023
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Alain Badiou's Being and Event Trilogy
- Michael Uhall, Political Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Political Philosophy at Indiana University East
Alain Badiou is one of the most important French philosophers of the past half century. Perennial themes in his work involve explorations of what constitutes events, subjects, and truths. We will be closely reading selected excerpts from his seminal Being and Event (1988/2005), Logics of Worlds (2006/2009), and The Immanence of Truths (2018/2022). Additional readings in the philosophy of mathematics, political theory, or psychoanalysis may be added on as needed basis.
Post-Pandemic Pedagogies
- Alaina Pincus, Assistant Director for Education and Outreach, HRI
- Michelle Awad, Visiting Odyssey Project Advisor and Instructor, HRI
This reading group explores pedagogical adaptations in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath. Readings will address issues such as bandwidth recovery, the student mental-health crisis, and restorative justice as central to innovations in humanities teaching practices. Participants will meet monthly to discuss selected readings.
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2020–2021
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BigTech, Information, and Society
- Nikki Usher, Journalism
Associated Faculty: Cabral Bigman-Galimore, Communication; Anita Chan, iSchool/MACS; Jana Diesner, iSchool; Cara Finnegan, Communication; John Gallagher, English; Ned O’Gorman, Communication; JungHwan Yang, Communication
Associated Students: Jane YeahIn Pyo, ICR; Adrian Wong, ICR; Jingy Gu, ICR
This reading group welcomes those across campus interested in social, political, economic, technical, and cultural questions raised by the rise of big technology and the internet in society, with particular attention to monopolistic platform companies. Through empirical and critical analysis, we aim to form a community for critical internet studies. Key issues include: algorithmic bias and transparency; misinformation; social justice; media and technology policy; incivility and harassment; privacy and surveillance; and hardware and software infrastructure and affordances.Cultural Exchange in a Globalized World: Challenges and Opportunities
- Charles Webster, Germanic Languages and Literatures
This group intends to meet bimonthly to discuss readings, share research, and host workshops to work on decolonizing science and interpret what that means at this institution and beyond. This interdisciplinary pursuit aims to understand and problematize how established power hierarchies shape “modern” Western science and how that in turn influences other facets of society ranging from policyto journalism. Furthermore, this group would provide a space to think about alternatives to the status quo.
The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies
- Claire Baytas, Comparative Literature
- Dilara Caliskan, Anthropology
This multidisciplinary group will meet regularly to discuss readings in the fields of trauma and memory studies as well as our own works-in-progress. Readings will explore several relevant areas including affect theory, neuroscience, media and visual culture, disability studies, transnational and postcolonial populations, as well as the politics of memorialization and cultures of law. We will also organize public events on campus related to our key themes including film screenings, professional panels, and interactive readings.
Social Dynamics of Language Variation and Change
- Anna Maria Escobar, Spanish and Portuguese
- Zsuzsanna Fagyal, French and Italian
Contact between different types of linguistic varieties in oral, written, and digital communication are impacting uses of languages in the process. We draw from linguistics and the social and behavioral sciences to examine the sociopolitical and ideological contexts and modes of language contact to discuss outcomes of language variation and change in multilingual settings. In addition to newly published readings, we continue to focus on hypothesis formation and hands-on methods of data analysis.
The U-C Comics Studies Colloquium
- Mara Thacker, Global Popular Culture Librarian, University Library
- Spencer D. C. Keralis, Digital Humanities Librarian, University Library
Mara Thacker, Global Popular Culture Librarian, University Library
Spencer D. C. Keralis, Digital Humanities Librarian, University Library
The U-C Comics Colloquium was founded in 2019 to bring together scholars, students, librarians, and creators in the Urbana-Champaign area to discuss comics and comics scholarship. A community of aca-fans, the colloquium highlights new trends in comics scholarship, and innovations in comics publishing and delivery. We are committed to exploring topics related to social justice and inclusivity in scholarship and fandom. -
2019–2020
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Black Feminisms and Digital Transformations
- Ruth Nicole Brown Gender & Women’s Studies and Education Policy Studies, Organization and Leadership
- Blair Ebony Smith Art & Design
- Jessica L. Robinson Media and Cinema Studies (Institute for Communications Research)
Following our work, “Doing Digital Wrongly” (2018), we will facilitate a reading group to further explore the nuances of Black Feminisms connections to ideas and manifestations of the “digital”. This group will explore foundations in Black feminisms that signal toward the “digital” to inform ongoing projects such as exhibits, music productions, and public campaigns. Ultimately, this group aims to create and extend dialogue on the digital and its connections to Black Feminisms.
Decolonizing Science: Rethinking and Resituating Questions and Methods
- Sana Saboowala, Integrative Biology
- Ashley Oyirifi, Human Nutrition
This group intends to meet bimonthly to discuss readings, share research, and host workshops to work on decolonizing science and interpret what that means at this institution and beyond. This interdisciplinary pursuit aims to understand and problematize how established power hierarchies shape “modern” Western science and how that in turn influences other facets of society ranging from policyto journalism. Furthermore, this group would provide a space to think about alternatives to the status quo.
The Futurity of Pessimism, the Pessimism of Futurity
- J. David Cisneros, Communication
- Candice M. Jenkins, English
Moments of optimism—few and far between—increasingly seem premised on the sham of conceptions of the future in the popular imaginary. Thus it seems a fruitful moment to talk about the past, the future, and the (im)possibilities for change. This Reading Group will seek to connect and discuss conversations around futurity, optimism, and pessimism across a number of contexts (race, affect, queer studies) and in a number of forms (from scholarship to popular media).
Imagining and Reimagining the University
- Derek Attig, Graduate College
What could a university be? What could it care about? How could it be structured? Who could it be for? Participants in this reading group will come together regularly to creatively explore those questions and more. With a focus on institutional structure and on issues of equity and justice, we will work together to imagine (in ways both fantastical and practical) new possibilities for higher education.
The Language and Society Discussion Group
- Rakesh Bhatt, Linguistics
- Krystal Smalls, Anthropology and Linguistics
- Sarah Clark, Linguistics
The Language and Society Discussion Group (LSD) is a weekly, dynamic discussion forum focused on current topics in Sociolinguistics. Each semester, the group selects and discusses scholarly works concentrated on a specific theme, such as the discursive performance of identity. LSD meetings also offer an opportunity for students to present current individual projects and receive vital feedback. Additionally, LSD organizes the annual Sociolinguistics Symposium (SOSY) at UIUC to showcase exciting and original research in Sociolinguistics.
Pedagogies of Alternative Print
- Kathryn La Barre, School of Information Sciences
- Carol Tilley, School of Information Sciences
To build a community of scholars committed to exploring teaching and learning practices focused on zines, comics, and related alternative print formats. Activities will include collection tours, reading and critique of exemplar materials, and discussions of both published and personal pedagogical approaches.
Premodern Reading Group
- Suzanne Valentine, English-Medieval
- Hilary Gross, English-Early Modern
- Meg Cole, English–18th Century
This reading group, spanning “beginnings” to 1800 under the premodern umbrella, will meet regularly to discuss interdisciplinary provocations regarding concepts of transformation in premodern contexts. Our work together will be structured to build toward a possible conference in the Spring semester, organized through the Premodern Globe Consortium and the Pre-Modern Workshop.
Reza Negarestani’s Intelligence and Spirit
- Michael Uhall, Political Science
We are a geographically disparate and multidisciplinary group, and we will be closely reading Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani’s monograph Intelligence and Spirit (Falmouth: Urbanomic Press, 2018) over the course of 2019–2020. Read more about Intelligence and Spirit on the Urbanomic Press website and Reza Negarestani’s blog Toy Philosophy.
The Role of Study Abroad in Higher Education
- Charles Webster, Germanic Languages and Literatures
This reading group brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to examine the changing role of study abroad within a liberal arts education. Our primary focus is on the extent to which study abroad contributes to the acquisition of cultural competence and language skills. We also explore students’ intellectual, personal, and instrumental motivations. In addition, we discuss demographic trends and how inequities in access to study abroad are being addressed.
Social Dynamics of Language Variation and Change
- Anna Maria Escobar, Spanish and Portuguese
- Zsuzsanna Fagyal, French and Italian
- Gyula Zsombok, French and Italian
Globalization and migration around the world have brought into contact speakers of different linguistic varieties, impacting their written and spoken use of languages in the process. We draw from linguistics and the social and behavioral sciences to examine the social and political contexts of language contact and outcomes of language variation and change in multilingual settings. In addition to newly published readings, this year’s focus will be hypothesis formation and hands-on methods of data analysis.
Sound Studies
- Gabriel Solis, Music, African American Studies, and Anthropology
- Ian Nutting, Music
Interdisciplinary work on sound–including, but not limited to music–as a politically, culturally, socially, and environmentally salient feature of both human and non-human life has coalesced in recent years as sound studies. We plan to address the central question of this literature in a bi- monthly seminar: “how does a shift from an epistemology rooted in the visual to one centered on the sonic change the ways we answer basic questions in the humanities?”
Transgender Studies Reading Group
- Kadin Henningsen, English
- Dilara Caliskan, Anthropology
The Transgender Studies Reading Group is a transdisciplinary group of faculty and graduate students working in the emerging field of Transgender Studies. The group meets regulalry to engage with current scholarship related to transgender experiences, history, literature, and methodologies, and consider how these conversations might inform our own research projects. Readings and themes will be selected by the group based on group interests, and may include circulating/workshopping original scholarship by group participants.
Transmission, Translation, and Directionality in Cultural Exchange (TTDCE)
- JiHyea Hwang, Comparative and World Literature
- Eva Kuras, Comparative and World Literature
“Transmission, Translation, and Directionality in Cultural Exchange (TTDCE)” is an interdisciplinary reading group. The goal of the project is to bring together a broad array of UIUC faculty and graduate students around the central topic of cross-cultural exchange. We aim to problematize the historical and contemporary complexities of the movement of textual, oral/musical, artifact, and other cultural traditions across often vast geographical distances.
- 2018–2019
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The Animal Turn: Critical Dimensions of Engaging the "Non-human Animal" Across Multiple Disciplines
- Jamie Jones, English
- Jane Desmond, Anthropology and Gender and Women's Studies
We invite researchers from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including those whose research considers mass extinction and other problems of the Anthropocene, to address the challenges of the emergent "question of the animal" (following Derrida) in re-defining the scholarly work we do. Recognizing the categories of "human" and "animal" as historically co-constituent, and culturally contingent, we will read together, view films, and share critiques on members' works.
Blackness and Jewishness
- Brett Ashley Kaplan, Director, Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies; Comparative and World Literature
- Dana Rabin, History
From Porgy and Bess to The Beastie Boys, to the complex performances of Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell and Anna Deavere Smith, Jewishness and blackness have exerted mutually powerful influences over each other aesthetically, culturally, and politically. The long history of intersections between blacks and Jews has been at times joyous, and at other times fraught with deep mistrust and betrayal.
Commentary on the Latest Approaches to Syntax and Semantics in Illinois (CLASSI)
- Jonathan E. MacDonald, Linguistics/Spanish & Portuguese
- Aida Talić, Linguistics
In our CLASSI group, we discuss recent approaches to both the syntax and semantics of natural languages, mostly from a formal theoretical perspective. We meet regularly to either discuss recent publications on the topic or to comment on the results of our on our own research.
Cross-cultural Re-understanding of Power Harassment, Title VII and Title IX in Higher Education: Awareness and Actions
- Colleen Murphy, Philosophy and Law
- SHAO Dan, EALC and Gender and Women’s Studies
- Assata Zerai, Sociology
- RAN Hao, Institute of Legal Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
- Kathryn Clancy, Anthropology, Spring 2018
- Kaamilyah Abdullah-Span, ODEA
- Sarah Colomé, Women’s Resources Center
- Danielle Morrison, Title IX Coordinator
- Mira Al Mutairi, ISSS
This reading group will develop into a research project that 1) studies perceptions of gender equity and power harassment among international scholars and students and 2) examines the possibility for legal transplantation of relevant regulations for higher education to China. We will read lawsuits and on campus investigations, administrative guidelines on reporting and investigation procedures, scholarly and media responses to institutional action or non-action, pertinent theories on gender and justice, as well as applicable research methodology. This project is endorsed by Associate Chancellor for Diversity, Dr. Assata Zerai.
Embodying Situated Activity
- Julie Hengst, Speech and Hearing Science
- Bruce Kovanen, English
- Paul Prior, English Director, Center for Writing Studies
- Martha Sherrill, Speech and Hearing Sciences
Studies of language and social practice have often been dis-embodied and un-situated in space, time, and interaction. This is true even for some traditions that otherwise pay close attention to situated activity (e.g., conversational and discourse analyses that focus primarily on linguistic signs, ignoring material/ecological environments). This open reading group will explore multidisciplinary approaches to theorizing the body-in-interaction in material/ecological worlds and to researching and representing embodied situated activity.
Fashion, Style, and Aesthetics
- Courtney Becks, History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library
This reading group will meet three times per semester for discussions that will foster a culture of inquiry around fashion, style, and aesthetics. Our goal is to amplify the fashion studies discourse across the university. Readings will draw on costume, textile, and fashion history; cultural studies; etc. Sharing in-progress scholarship and projects is encouraged! We will organize additional events like film screening and panels, and share bibliographies/ reading lists and other resources. All are welcome.
The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies
- Claire Baytas, Comparative Literature
- Dilara Caliskan, Anthropology
This multidisciplinary group will meet regularly to discuss readings in the fields of trauma and memory studies as well as our own works in progress. Readings will explore several relevant areas including affect theory, neuroscience, media and visual culture, disability studies, transnational and postcolonial populations, as well as the politics of memorialization and cultures of law. We will also organize public on-campus events related to our key themes including film screenings, professional panels, and interactive readings.
The Futurity of Pessimism, the Pessimism of Futurity
- David Cisneros, Communication
- Derrick Spires, English
Moments of optimism—few and far between—increasingly seem premised on the sham of conceptions of the future in the popular imaginary. Thus it seems a fruitful moment to talk about the past, the future, and the (im)possibilities for change. This Reading Group will seek to connect and discuss conversations around futurity, optimism, and pessimism across a number of contexts (race, affect, queer studies) and in a number of forms (from scholarship to popular media).
The Language and Society Discussion Group
- Dr. Rakesh Bhatt, Linguistics
- Dr. Krystal Smalls, Anthropology
- Sarah Clark, Linguistics
The Language and Society Discussion Group (LSD) is a dynamic discussion forum focused on current topics in Sociolinguistics. Each semester, the group concentrates on a specific theme, such as methodology in Sociolinguistics or the intersectionality of race, gender and language. Adhering to the semester’s theme, students select and read scholarly works in order to participate in weekly discussions. LSD meetings also offer an opportunity for students to present current individual projects and receive vital feedback.
LIS and Critical Theory Reading Group
- Jamillah R. Gabriel, School of Information Sciences
- Lettycia Terrones, School of Information Sciences
Reading across disciplines, we will meet to discuss Library & Information Science discourse in conversation with critical theory, emphasizing intersectionality in race and culture. Our goal is to gain precision in engaging theory to explore ideas around reconstructing LIS curricula to address the needs of racially diverse communities throughout MLIS courses, and challenging dominant LIS discourses using critical research methods. Participants are invited to use this forum to explore their research in relation to libraries.
Medieval Studies Reading Group
- Suzanne Valentine, English
- Kathryn O'Toole, English
The Medieval Studies Reading Group brings together Medievalists from departments throughout campus in an effort to learn from each other and talk about our scholarship. The main goal of our reading group is to allow graduate students and faculty to be exposed to new material in an informal setting. We rotate between having graduate students choose texts to discuss and having faculty members do the same.
Recreation, Sport, and Tourism Reading Group
- Liselle Milazzo, Recreation, Sport, and Tourism
- Caitlin Brooks, Recreation, Sport, and Tourism
The goal of this reading group is to share and discuss the current body of literature that exists within the Recreation, Sport, and Tourism field. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding how RST engages with media, events, deviance, and power relations.
Responses to Anthropogenic Climate Change: Observation, Performance, Action
- Ryan Griffis, Art and Design
- Jennifer Monson, Dance
The group will focus on the impact of human action/inaction on ecological and climate systems, and the structural inequities accompanying them. Readings and films will provide theoretical and historical grounding for our query into ways of moving forward artistically and politically, learning from ecological adaptations, grassroots organizing, and anti-racist and queer contexts. We will also take field-trips and create artifacts/movement exercises based on the methods developed by the interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance.
Sex Work Activism
- Chibundo Egwuatu, Anthropology
We will concentrate on media produced on sex work activism, focusing on media produced by sex workers currently. This group is an informal and productive space for discussing identity, futurity, agency, materiality, law, affect, action, and more. Media will include films, articles, blog posts, etc. for critical engagement with varied mediums of discourse and practice. Meetings are open to any with interest, regardless of familiarity, and content will be navigated and compiled collaboratively.
Social Dynamics of Language Variation and Change
- Anna Maria Escobar, Spanish and Portuguese
- Zsuzsanna Fagyal, French and Italian
- Gyula Zsombok, French and Italian
Globalization and migration around the world have brought into contact speakers of different linguistic varieties, impacting their written and oral use of languages in the process. This reading group draws from linguistics and the social and behavioral sciences to examine the social and political contexts of language contact and outcomes of language variation and change in multilingual settings. Besides traditional areas of inquiry, readings feature newly published articles in several subfields of the language sciences.
Technology, Power, and the (Re)production of Social (In)equality
- Qinglin Luan, East Asian Languages and Cultures
- Jingyi Gu, Institute of Communications Research
How do digital technologies change the power dynamics in societies under different political regimes, and thus (re)produce social (in)equality? How can these technologies be accessible to the general public and engage social groups through public knowledge building? Carrying these inquiries, our group aims to explore the relationship between new media, technology, and digital governance in multiple social contexts with an interdisciplinary approach.
Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group
- Kadin Henningsen, English
- Dilara Caliskan, Anthropology
The Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group is a transdisciplinary group of faculty and graduate students working in the emerging field of Transgender Studies. The group meets regularly to engage with current scholarship related to transgender experiences, history, literature, and methodologies, and consider how these conversations might inform our own research projects. Readings and themes will be selected by the group based on group interests and may include circulating/workshopping original scholarship by group participants.
What Can a Psychogeography Do?
- Michael Uhall, Political Science
Psychogeography refers to the heterogeneous, multidisciplinary, and often para-academic field of study in which the relationships between history, landscape, myth, and psychic life get explored and thematized. Accordingly, we will be looking at a wide range of texts by Thomas De Quincy, Charles Baudelaire, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Machen, Walter Benjamin, Alfred Watkins, Guy Debord, Raoul Vaneigem, J. G. Ballard, Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, Alan Moore, Mark Fisher, and Laura Oldfield Ford.
- 2017–2018
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The Animal Turn: Critical Dimensions of Engaging the "Non-human Animal" Across Multiple Disciplines
- Jamie Jones, English
- Jane Desmond, Anthropology and Gender and Women's Studies
We invite researchers from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including those whose research considers mass extinction and other problems of the Anthropocene, to address the challenges of the emergent "question of the animal" (following Derrida) in re-defining the scholarly work we do. Recognizing the categories of "human" and "animal" as historically co-constituent, and culturally contingent, we will read together, view films, and share critiques on members' works.
British Modernities Group -- Stranger Things: The Weird, the Paranormal, and the Problem of Belief
- Patrick Kimutis, English
- Sabrina Lee, English
In its 13th year, the British Modernities Reading Group will focus on the theme “Stranger Things: the Weird, the Paranormal, and the Problem of Belief.” Welcoming scholars of all disciplines, we will read a range of texts, including fiction and critical theory, that deal broadly with issues such as the supernatural, the weird, the post-human, and the monstrous. This reading group will culminate in the annual BMG graduate student conference in the spring of 2018.
The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies
- Naomi Taub, English
- Helen Makhdoumian, English
- Brett Kaplan, Comparative and World Literature
This multidisciplinary group will meet regularly to discuss readings in the fields of trauma and memory studies as well as our own works-in-progress. Readings will explore several relevant areas including affect theory, neuroscience, media and visual culture, disability studies, transnational and postcolonial populations, as well as the politics of memorialization and cultures of law. We will also organize public on-campus events related to our key themes including film screenings, professional panels, and interactive readings.
Genre Theory and Practice in the Twenty-First Century
- Lindsay Rose Russell, English
- Derrick R. Spires, English
“Genre Theory and Practice in the Twenty-First Century” explores the cross-disciplinary concept of genre, focusing in particular on questions of genre creation, criticism, and activism. Where do genres come from and who “gets” to define them? Can genres be changed in light of critical participants seeking to construct a different set of social expectations and interactions? The group’s events will be open to all faculty and students interested in genre studies.
Inclusive Pedagogies
- Clara Bosak-Schroeder, Classics
- Jamie Jones, English
- Esti Ezkerra, Comparative and World Literature
Inclusive pedagogies attend to the diverse cultural backgrounds, identities, and bodies of students to promote a learning environment in which all can flourish. The Inclusive Pedagogies Reading Group provides a monthly forum for instructors and interested students at UIUC to read pedagogical scholarship and discuss our own experiences of teaching and learning.
Intersectionality within the Sciences
- David Stevens, Chemistry
- Aastha Sharma, Chemistry
- Dr. Anna-Maria Marshall, Sociology
Affiliated with the Science Policy Group, this reading group will focus on intersectionality in science education and policy. Introducing readings from critical race theory and feminism, we will examine how the inclusion and exclusion of marginalized groups shapes STEM education and scientific policy-making. Open to both undergraduates and graduate students, participants need no background in social sciences or cultural studies.
Medieval Latin Reading Group
- Kent Navalesi, History
- Michael Brinks, History
This group meets regularly to translate Latin texts from the medieval period (c. 300-1500 CE). Group participants will provide the readings, which can be sources for course work, dissertation research or just for fun. Texts of all genres, geographical areas and religious affiliations are welcome. The purpose of this group, beyond improving participants’ translation skills, is to provide a forum in which medievalists of all departments can socialize and discuss their research.
The Medieval Studies Reading Group
Elizabeth Matresse, English
The Medieval Studies Reading Group aims to expose students to a global perspective of the Middle Ages. Our goal is to give our members the opportunity to interact with materials not typically encountered during coursework. The reading group will meet three times per semester for a discussion guided by a faculty member or a graduate student volunteer.
New Materialism Research Unit II
- Michael Uhall, Political Science
The new materialisms are a family of philosophical and theoretical critiques, engagements, and revisions of the categories of matter and materiality across disciplinary boundaries. Our purpose is to encounter and discuss new materialist readings in an informal, yet rigorous fashion. We will meet between four and six times to read selections from texts by #accelerate, Laboria Cuboniks, Jean Epstein, Mark Fisher, François Laruelle, Reza Negarestani, Gilbert Simondon, Étienne Souriau, Elizabeth A. Wilson, and others.
Prosody Modeling
Chilin Shih, East Asian Lanuages and Cultures / Linguistics
Shuju Shih, Linguistics
Yinglun Sun, LinguisticsProsody modeling is the link between the linguistic analysis of prosody, including tone, accent, intonation, as well as speech rhythm, and applications of language and speech technologies that require the generation of prosody or the differentiation of subtle differences in prosody between groups of speakers. This reading group will focus on multi-disciplinary approaches to prosody modeling, focusing on both fundational literature and state-of-the-art development.
Reading Feyerabend Closely
Michael Uhall, Political Science
We intend to read closely through the major monographs and papers of the philosopher of science Paul K. Feyerabend. In Fall 2017, we’ll start with some early papers and conclude with his most famous monograph, Against Method. During winter break, we’ll read his autobiography Killing Time. In Spring 2018, we’ll turn to Feyerabend's more radical writings, including Conquest of Abundance, Farewell to Reason, and Philosophy of Nature. Humanists, natural scientists, social scientists: all are welcome.
Social Dynamics of Language Variation and Change Seminar/Reading Group
Anna Maria Escobar, Spanish and Portuguese
Zsuzsanna Fagyal, French and Italian
Joseph Roy, School of Literature, Culture, and Linguistics
Gyula Zsombok, French and ItalianThe goal is to discuss the social and linguistic dynamics of how language change takes place in different social scenarios, particularly in dialect contact and in language in contact with indigenous and immigrant languages. Our focus is the rise of linguistic innovations, new norms, and social identities.
Theatre Table Reading Group
- Hilary J. Gross, English
- Jennifer L.S. Scheier, Theatre
- Kelsey N. Fenske, Theatre
- Susan A. Bywaters, Theatre
This reading group will meet monthly to read a theatrical text aloud, followed by an interdisciplinary critical discussion. By reading aloud, we will better access the performative and aural nature of dramatic text, and foster a campus-wide community for the study of theatre transgressing period, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. This year we will be focusing on paradigm shifts in concepts of female subjectivity and/or authorship.
Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group
- Kadin Henningsen, English
- Dilara Caliskan, Anthropology
The Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group is a transdisciplinary group of faculty and graduate students working in the emerging field of Transgender Studies. The group meets monthly to engage with current scholarship related to transgender experiences, history, literature, and methodologies, and consider how these conversations might inform our own research projects.
Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group
- Kadin Henningsen, English
- Dilara Caliskan, Anthropology
The Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group is a transdisciplinary group of faculty and graduate students working in the emerging field of Transgender Studies. The group meets monthly to engage with current scholarship related to transgender experiences, history, literature, and methodologies, and consider how these conversations might inform our own research projects.
Transnational Sexuality Studies
- C. L. Green, History
- Olivia M. Hagedorn, History
This group considers the ways sexuality functions as both subject and mode of analysis as it informs methodological approaches to the study of history in any of its valences. At a nexus of studies of race, gender, and (post)colonialisms, topics include indigeneity, the black radical tradition, histories of the global south, women of color feminisms, and queer readings of history. Depending on members’ interests, readings will draw from history, literature, philosophy, and anthropology.
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2016–2017
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The Animal Turn: Critical Dimensions of Engaging the "Non-human Animal" Across Multiple Disciplines
- Jamie Jones, English
- Jane Desmond, Anthropology and Gender and Women's Studies
We invite researchers from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including those whose research considers mass extinction and other problems of the Anthropocene, to address the challenges of the emergent "question of the animal" (following Derrida) in re-defining the scholarly work we do. Recognizing the categories of "human" and "animal" as historically co-constituent, and culturally contingent, we will read together, view films, and share critiques on members' works.
The Complete Homo Sacer
- Michael Uhall, Political Science
We intend to proceed through Agamben’s Homo Sacer series in the proper order 2016 and 2017. Prospectively, this means meetings on: Homo Sacer in September, State of Exception in October, Stasis in October, Sacrament of Language in November, The Kingdom and the Glory in January, Opus Dei in February, Remnants of Auschwitz in March, The Highest Poverty in April, and The Use of Bodies in May.
Computers and Language Learning Reading Group (CALLReG)
- Randall Sadler, Linguistics
- Judith Pintar Slavic, Languages and Literature
- Aurore Mroz, French and Italian
The purpose of the CLLRG is to provide a cross-disciplinary space to discuss the role and future directions of computers and language learning. The group will discuss research articles, both past and present, connected to learners of any language. "Readings" may also include examinations of various technological innovations that are affecting the way we teach and learn languages. This group may also serve as a place to get feedback on ongoing or future research projects.
A Deleuze and Guatarri Reading Group (Articulating Collaborative Scholarship)
- Ethan Madarieta, Comparative and World Literature
- Alex van Doren, Comparative and World Literature
We will be focusing on Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Throughout the academic year we will also draw upon selections from Intersecting Lives, and Molecular Revolution in Brazil in an exploration of multidisciplinary and collaborative scholarship. We hope this reading group will culminate with the production of a collaborative essay or article based on our collective engagement with Deleuze and Guattari’s aphilosophies and writings.
East European Reading Group
- Maria N. Todorova, History
- Anca Mandru, History
The East European Reading Group is a cross-disciplinary space where faculty and graduate students discuss scholarly work and cultural production from the region, broadly construed as the space between the Baltic and the Aegean seas. Students and faculty members are also able to present their ongoing work and receive feedback from peers hailing from different disciplinary traditions.
The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies Reading Group
- Naomi Taub, English
- Helen Makhdoumian, English
- Michael Rothberg, English
- Brett Kaplan, Comparative Literature
This multidisciplinary group will meet regularly to discuss readings in the fields of trauma and memory studies as well as our own works-in-progress. Readings will explore several relevant areas including affect theory, neuroscience, media and visual culture, disability studies, transnational and postcolonial populations, as well as the politics of memorialization and cultures of law. We will also organize public on-campus events related to our key themes including film screenings, professional panels, and interactive readings.
Greek and Latin Reading Group
- Clayton Schroer, Classics
- Stephen Froedge, Classics
The Greek and Latin Reading Group focuses on a broad reading of ancient texts. Current selections include Greek tragedy and Roman epic. Three weeks of each month will be dedicated to close readings in Greek or Latin. During the fourth meeting of each month we will hold discussions (using texts in translation) on critical theory. We will adapt ancient and modern readings to fit participants' interests.
History of American Education Reading Group
- Dr. Yoon Pak, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
- Dr. James Anderson, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
- Dr. Christopher Span, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
- Francena Turner, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
- Angel Velez, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
- Theopolies Moton III, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
The History of American Education Reading Group seeks to understand the origins and development of American education within the context of American social, political, and intellectual history. We aim to study the methodological and theoretical training in historical research to gain a fuller understanding of policy, philosophical, and contemporary social issues. Activities include monthly reading group meetings, guest lectures by authors (as funds permit), interpretation of primary sources, and understanding the “footnotes” in historical research.
Illinois Ocean Crossing
- Jessica Sciubba, French and Italian
- Elisa Facetti, French and Italian
- Pierpaolo Spagnolo, French and Italian
- Priscilla Charrat, French and Italian
The reading group will meet regularly to explore the Mediterranean as a space marked by the fluid and nomadic networks formed by transnational fluxes of people, goods, and ideas. By looking at the Mediterranean both as a unique space and as a model for similar basins, we seek to discuss the role of culture, history and literature for non-national spaces, characterized by exchanges, migrations, and conflicts that take place outside existing legal frameworks.
Labor & Working-Class History Reading Group
- Zach Sell, History
We meet monthly to discuss our own works-in-progress. Historically, our focus has been on constructions of race and social class in North America, but more recently we have been equally concerned with histories outside of the U.S. Research topics vary widely, from proletarian disruptions of empire to the role of space in activism. We welcome submissions of works-in-progress focused upon labor from any geographic field or time period.
Latin American Visual Culture
- Liz Moreno Chuquen, Spanish and Portuguese
- Gonzalo Pinilla Gomez, Art History
The Latin American Visual Culture reading group aims to explore, study, and discuss recently scholar production in this field. Readings and discussions are designed to start a dialogue about the intersection of art history, literature, politics, popular culture, gender, race, and class, and their impact in cultural and artistic production in Latin America. Depending on member interests, photography, painting, graphic art, street art, etc., we will be discussing these kinds of sources as well.
Middle Eastern Contemporary Texts
- Hebatallah Khalil, Sociology
- Ahmed Alowfi, Sociology
This reading group will build on a blog launched by UIUC students and will aim to discuss the most recent literature and relate it to Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues. Issues like Violence, Social Movements, State Theories, Sovereignty, Political Economy and others. The group has been suggested to several students from the region, and has already met once in Spring 2016.
Medieval Studies Reading Group
- Sarah Sutor, Medieval Studies and English
- Coral Lumbley, Medieval Studies and English
Hosted by Medieval Studies, this reading group will meet monthly to discuss a primary medieval text. Due to the growing importance of the global Middle Ages, the goal of this group is to bring together professors and graduate students from multiple disciplines to learn about medieval works outside their specialty. Selected texts will be announced in advance to allow time to read the text in the original language or translation.
On The Aging of New Arts
- Ralph Lewis, Music Composition and Theory
- David Nguyen, Music Composition and Theory
- William Pearson, Music Composition and Theory
What happens when your new art or music isn’t new anymore? This group will explore the ramifications of the 20th century’s fast-paced invention, reinvention, and exit from numerous stylistic and philosophic vantage points in music, visual art, film, dance and emerging media, as well as the increased presence of new, underserved voices in these arts. This group will discuss theoretical and methodological approaches for parsing these issues and act as an inter-arts hub for participants.
Readings in Critical Technology Studies
- Jodi A. Byrd, English, Gender and Women's Studies, and NCSA
- Ben Grosser, Art+Design and NCSA
Foregrounding technology as an object of study in and of itself, this reading group in Critical Technology Studies seeks to examine how computation, data methods, code and software, platforms and networks reflect societal norms and assumptions about human subjectivity, identity, progress, inclusion, labor, play, and the acquisition and circulation of knowledge. Its core focus is to consider how humans are engineered and disrupted by software and how software is disrupted and engineered by humans.
Revolution Reading Group
- Kristin Romberg, Art and Design (Art History)
- Amy Powell, Krannert Art Museum
This group is a think tank of sorts for an exhibition organized around the theme of revolution, scheduled to open at the Krannert Art Museum in August of 2017 as part of the campus-wide “1917/2017” initiative to examine the significance of the Russian Revolution over the past 100 years. We will think broadly, thematically, and historically about the topic in relation to categories like power, perception, pedagogy, violence, technology, biology, and institutions.
The Social Dynamics of Language Variation and Change
- Bruce Michelson, Spanish and Portuguese
- Zsuzsanna Fagyal, French and Italian
- Joe Roy, School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics
We discuss selected readings and on-going research projects on the social and language-internal aspects of variation and change in state and indigenous minority languages around the world. Our special focus in 2016-17 will be language and dialect contact in urban and rural regional and immigrant communities in Europe and the Americas. Our weekly meetings are very informal and supportive. They encourage student initiatives and allow for opportunities to hear and present work in progress.
SourceLab Working Group
- John Randolph, History
The Performance and Philosophy reading group will rub together Performance Studies, Continental philosophy, and political philosophy in order to read diverse performance sites of being, being-for, being-with, and modes of difference. They will engage philosophical texts by Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Luc Nancy, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and many contemporary scholars of performance studies. The group will meet weekly to unpack the readings that will theoretically underpin a performance symposium they will organize in spring of 2016.
Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group
- Kadin Henningsen, English
- K.R. Roberto, iSchool
- Michael Shetina, English
The Trans/Gender Studies Reading Group is a transdisciplinary group of faculty and graduate students working in the emerging field of Transgender Studies. The group meets monthly to engage with current scholarship related to transgender experiences, history, literature, and methodologies, and consider how these conversations might inform our own research projects. Readings and themes will be selected by the group based on group interests, and may include circulating/workshopping original scholarship by group participants.
Urban Pedagogies
- Tyler Denmead, Art and Design
The goal of this reading group is to think about how and why we might give ourselves permission to live in cities differently. This interdisciplinary reading group will consider books across numerous fields including urban studies, urban planning, critical youth studies, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, and contemporary art. The group will meet monthly to discuss assigned readings. Reading requirements normally will include 1-3 book chapters, which will be provided digitally.
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2015–2016
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African History Reading Group
- Devin Smart, History
This group is designed to provide an opportunity for participants to read classic and recent works in African history. The time periods and themes of the readings have been purposely left open, and they are to be determined by the interests of the participating group members. While our focus will be historical, we strongly encourage people from other departments on campus to join and are open to reading works from related disciplines, such as anthropology, literature, sociology, political science, and linguistics, among others.
British Modernities Group
- Wendy Truran, English
- Valerie O’Brien, English
The British Modernities Group’s 2015-16 theme, “Feeling Real,” will draw on recent scholarship at the intersection of affect theory and literary studies to consider how fictional realities are an experienced phenomenon. Questions we will examine include: What is the relationship between feeling and fiction? What is “real” in fiction? Can imaginative works engender alternative lived realities? In our monthly meetings, we will discuss topics such as emotion, imagination, subjectivity, immersive reading, genre, and embodiment.
Brown and Down
- Gilberto Rosas, Anthropology and Latina/o Studies
- Sandra Ruiz, Latina/o Studies and English
What does it mean to feel Brown? This reading group will explore this and related questions by wrestling with the different theoretical constructions of Brownness in an effort to grapple with Brown subjectivity. The group proposes to place into conversation psychoanalysis and post-structuralist reckonings with subjectivity, as well as related bodies of literature, in order to begin thinking through how Brownness becomes constituted through loss and new potentialities.
Critical Theories of Affect, Emotion, and Sensation
- David Cisneros, Communication and Latina/o Studies
- Renee Trilling, English, Medieval Studies, and Critical Theory
The reading group will consider some of the main theoretical and methodological issues for the critical study of affect/emotion and sensation by revisiting foundational texts and major perspectives in the so-called “affective turn,” including works from queer theory, critical theory, philosophy, and cognitive science. The reading group will also provide a forum for participants to share and discuss work on affect/emotion and sensation that is relevant to their own research interests or disciplinary perspective.
Dynamics of Language Variation and Change
- Anna María Escobar, Spanish and Portuguese
- Zsuzsana Fagyal, French and Italian
We discuss selected readings and on-going research projects on language variation and change from a sociolinguistic perspective. Our focus is language and dialect contact and ideologies and practices of standard and vernacular varieties in indigenous, regional and immigrant minority communities in urban and rural communities around the world. Our weekly meetings are very informal and supportive. They encourage student initiatives and allow for opportunities to hear and present work in progress.
Early Imperial Latin Literature reading group
- Stephen Froedge, Classics
- Clayton Schroer, Classics
This reading group meets weekly to translate/discuss Latin texts published from ca. 50 through 100 CE. The works covered will be of broad scope, ranging from tragedy to historiography. Two volunteers each week will translate around 100 lines for discussion. Knowledge of Latin is recommended, but translations will be provided. Readings will be of interest to members from departments and programs such as Comparative Literature, Medieval Studies, English, Italian, and others.
Early Modern Reading Group
- Elizabeth Tavares, English
- Carla Rosell, English
Focusing on the early modern archive, the EMRG will read a generically-circumscribed set of texts curated to recreate their potential intertextualities and interrogate literary canonicity. Participants meet monthly to discuss one primary and secondary reading’s discussions which culminate in a graduate student conference. The 2015-16 academic year will focus on the popularity for sonnet cycles in England after Dante and Petrarch, and its relationship to what Guido Ruggiero calls Rinascimento or Renaissance poetry in Italy.
East European Reading Group
- Maria N. Todorova, History
- Veneta T. Ivanova, History
The purpose of the EERG is to provide a space for faculty and graduate students from across all disciplines concentrating on the area of Eastern Europe to meet monthly and discuss the most recent scholarly works and cultural production coming from the region. Additionally, the EERG offers students and faculty a venue to present their recent work and to receive feedback from their peers that cuts across disciplinary boundaries.
The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies
- Helen Makhdoumian, English
- Naomi Taub, English
This multidisciplinary group will meet regularly to discuss readings in the fields of trauma and memory studies as well as our own works-in-progress. Readings will explore several relevant areas including affect theory, neuroscience, media and visual culture, disability studies, transnational and postcolonial populations, as well as the politics of memorialization and cultures of law. We will also organize public on-campus events related to our key themes including film screenings, professional panels, and interactive readings.
Gender and Feminisms of the African Diaspora
- Assata Zerai, Sociology and Center for African Studies
- Ruby Mendenhall, Sociology and African-American Studies
- Karen Flynn, Gender and Women’s Studies and African-American Studies
In gender and feminisms of the African Diaspora, we read works in progress. Typical works in progress include: Africana feminisms and their relevance to maternal and child health and water and sanitation technologies in Africa; Black feminisms, former Chicago housing project residents, and activism among women in the Chicago Metro; Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Canadian feminisms, mother-daughter relationships, women and work. We meet twice a month (September-December and February-April) to read and provide comments on colleagues’ work.
History of Medicine/Science
- Leslie Reagan, History
- Rana Hogarth, History
- Kristen Ehrenberger, College of Medicine and History
This is a long-running IPRH reading group of faculty and grad students with interests in medicine and public health drawn from a variety of units. The group watches documentary films and reads articles on subjects of interest to those in the group. Topic selection is largely grad student driven. Topics have of late included end-of-life and medical ethics. The group includes people from history, MSP, ICR and from sociology, anthropology, comparative literature.
Illinois Ocean Crossings
- Jessica Sciubba, French and Italian
- Corey Flack, French and Italian
- Brooke Welling, French and Italian
The Ocean Crossings reading group explores the Mediterranean as a space, marked by the fluidic and nomadic networks formed by transnational fluxes. Our group looks at the Mediterranean both as a unique space and as a model for similar basins, such as the Caribbean and the Korean Strait. We seek to explore the role of culture, history and literature for non-national spaces, characterized by exchanges, migrations and conflicts that take place outside existing legal frameworks.
Labor and Working Class History Reading Group
- Carolina Ortega, History
- Juan I. Mora, History
- James Barrett, History
The group meets monthly to discuss our own works-in-progress and we complement these works with reading recently published works that forward thought provoking approaches to labor history. Our focus has been on constructions of race and social class in North America, but we are equally concerned with histories outside the U.S. We welcome submissions of works-in-progress and suggestions for newly published works from any geographic fields and time periods related to labor and working-class history.
Language Pedagogy
- Florencia Henshaw, Spanish and Portuguese
- Jeeyoung Ahn Ha, East Asian Languages and Cultures
The “Language Pedagogy” reading group creates a forum for faculty and graduate students affiliated with the new Center for Language Instruction and Coordination to advance their knowledge of current trends in foreign language instruction, such as online courses, project-based learning, and assessment practices. Apart from discussing articles and book chapters, participants will exchange ideas and receive feedback on ongoing projects related to language teaching.
Media & Ethnic Studies
- Isabel Molina, Media & Cinema Studies and Latina/o Studies
- Angharad Valdivia, Media & Cinema Studies
The reading group will explore the convergence between Ethnic Studies scholars whose work intersect with Media Studies and Media Studies scholars whose work center on ethnicity and race. The group will meet once per month to read and discuss work that convergence across these interdisciplinary fields. Each semester we will host a speaker to conduct a public lecture and private workshop with participants focused on methodological approaches to interdisciplinary work in Media and Ethnic Studies.
Medieval Latin Reading Group
- Kent E. Navalesi, History
- Michael Brinks, History
This group meets regularly to translate Latin texts from the medieval period (c. 300-1500 CE). Group participants will provide the readings, which can be sources for course work, dissertation research or just for fun. Texts of all genres, geographical areas and religious affiliations are welcome. The purpose of this group, beyond improving participants’ translation skills, is to provide a forum in which medievalists of all departments can socialize and discuss their research.
The Neurosciences and Cultural Response
- Bruce Michelson, English, Campus Honors, Global Studies
- Melissa Littlefield, English, Kinesiology and Community Health
High-profile discoveries, pseudo-discoveries, and other pronouncements from and about the neurosciences are resonating in contemporary life: narrative fiction and film, literary and cultural studies, ethics and the law, 'folk psychology,' and basic assumptions about personal identity and the self. At the opening meeting we will decide together on recent texts we can comfortable handle-- novels, films, memoirs, poetry, recent best-sellers by working scientists, controversies in the press -- to foster discussion about these foundational changes.
Performance and Philosophy
- Sandra Ruiz, Latina/o Studies and English
- Mike Atienza, Anthropology
- Andrew Kaplan, English
- Ethan Madarieta, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Foreign Language and Area Studies, Comparative and World Literature
- John Musser, English, Performance Artist
- Xuxa Rodriguez, Art History
The Performance and Philosophy reading group will rub together Performance Studies, Continental philosophy, and political philosophy in order to read diverse performance sites of being, being-for, being-with, and modes of difference. They will engage philosophical texts by Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Luc Nancy, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and many contemporary scholars of performance studies. The group will meet weekly to unpack the readings that will theoretically underpin a performance symposium they will organize in spring of 2016.
Philosophy of Technology
- Chamee Yang, Institute of Communication Research
- Fabian Prieto, Institute of Communication Research
This reading group will cover some of the canonical texts that provided philosophical foundations of technology studies, including Norbert Wiener, Karl Marx, Heidegger, and Jacques Ellul. We will start with these theoretical classics and finish by addressing the political and ethical critiques to technology following the work of Andrew Feenberg and Judy Wajcman among others. Our group members will have monthly meetings to discuss topics relevant to the readings and/or to their own research interests.
Reading the Digital Humanities
- Megan Senseney, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
We are interested in developing critically grounded perspectives on what it means to do digital humanities work in various institutional contexts. As a starting point, we will examine some prominent pieces that discuss themes related to defining, critiquing, practicing, and teaching digital humanities. We hope to supplement these readings with additional perspectives informed by the interests, scholarship, and work of those who do digital humanities on campus.
Russian Studies Circle (Kruzhok)
- John Randolph, History
- Harriet Murav, Comparative & World Literature
Entering its 20th year, the Russian studies circle at Illinois unites researchers across disciplines to discuss new works or local work in progress, in the field of Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies. It meets once monthly during the academic year.
Time / Image
- Lilya Kaganovsky, Comparative & World Literature, and Slavic Languages and Literatures
- Robert Rushing, Comparative & World Literature, and Slavic Languages and Literatures
- Amy Powell, Krannert Art Museum
The purpose of this reading group is a slow, careful reading of Gilles Deleuze's two seminal volumes, Cinema 1: The Movement Image; and Cinema 2: The Time-Image, in preparation for the upcoming KAM exhibition on the Time/Image in spring 2016. Time / Image explores the deep relationship among cinema, time, and thought in contemporary art. An accompanying screening program will survey critical temporal interventions in film and video.
Youth, Literature, and Culture
- Deborah Stevenson, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
This interdisciplinary group brings together faculty and doctoral students who share a scholarly interest in children’s and young adult literature and media. We bring together scholars from various disciplines (LIS, Education, English, etc.) and institutions (U of I, ISU, EIU, and others) and meet several times per semester to share our research and to discuss recent scholarship on young people, texts, and cultural contexts.
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2014-2015
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The Affective Turn Reading Group
- Brandon Carr, Comparative and World Literature
- Ethan Madarieta, Comparative and World Literature
- Meagan Smith, Comparative and World Literature
Although often misidentified as forming a coherent body of criticism, a number of critical discourses have appeared recently reevaluating in different ways the legacy of Spinoza, Freud and Deleuze with respect to the concept of “affect.” The reading group will meet four times this Fall to clarify and discuss the different trajectories of this so-called “affective turn.”
British Modernities Group
- Michelle M. Martinez, English
- Rebecah Pulsifer, English
The British Modernities Group was established in 2005 to spur discussion in British studies across period boundaries. It discusses recent literary scholarship, workshops group members’ original work, and organizes an annual graduate student conference. Our 2014-15 theme, “Bad Books,” explores critical work on the continuing impact of “low-brow,” pulp, and genre literature. In our monthly meetings we will discuss topics such as production practices, literary "borrowing," and theories of aesthetic valuation in an attempt to reevaluate the significance of so-called "bad" books.
Central Asia and Caucasus Studies Reading Group
- Patryk Reid, History
This interdisciplinary reading group provides students and faculty working on or interested in Central Asia and the Caucasus, regions of growing scholarly interest, with a much-needed forum for sharing knowledge and experiences. We meet every month to discuss scholarly books, articles, and other media on diverse topics pre-selected to meet participants’ needs, as well as works in-progress.
Critical Theories of Affect, Emotion, and Sensation
- J. David Cisneros, Communication and Latina/Latino Studies
- Renée R. Trilling, English, Medieval Studies, and Critical Theory
The humanities are increasingly turning attention to the material and bodily dimensions of experience, which some go so far as to call an “affective turn.” This reading group will consider some of the main theoretical and methodological issues for the critical study of affect and sensation by revisiting foundational texts and perspectives. The group members will also share and discuss work on affect and sensation that is relevant to their own research interests or disciplines.
Digital Pedagogies Reading Group
- Norma I. Scagnoli, eLearning, Business and Education
‘Digital Pedagogies’ aims to discuss innovative methods of teaching and learning with focus on higher education. Conversations will center on new pedagogies and changes in traditional techniques to meet the needs of 21st century virtual learning. The objective of this reading group will be twofold: Bring together the e-learning and digital humanities communities which share similar research objectives; and 2nd) Provide a space to discuss current digital teaching techniques, defining areas for improvement and enhancement.
Dynamics of Language Variation and Change
- Anna María Escobar, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese
- Zsuzsana Fagyal, French
To discuss language variation that leads to change from a socio-historical perspective. We explore the role of language (dialect contact and contact with minority languages –indigenous and immigrant-) in cities and border regions, as centers of linguistic innovation, and their relationship to standards, vernacular varieties and other norms.
Early Modern Reading Group
- Elizabeth Tavares, English
- Carla Rosell, English
Focusing on the early modern archive, the EMRG will read a generically-circumscribed set of texts curated to recreate their potential intertextualities and interrogate literary canonicity. Participants meet monthly to discuss one primary text and secondary readings, generating a conversation to result in a research symposium. The 2014-15 academic year will focus on the repertory of the Lord Admiral's Men to reconstruct what Evelyn Tribble calls a "cognitive ecology” of the early modern English cultural archive.
East European Reading Group (EERG)
- Maria N. Todorova, History
- Veneta T. Ivanova, History
The purpose of the EERG is to provide a space for faculty and graduate students from across all disciplines concentrating on the area of Eastern Europe to meet and discuss the most recent scholarly works and cultural productions coming from the region today. Additionally, the EERG offers students and faculty a venue in which to discuss their recent work and to receive feedback from their peers that cuts across disciplinary boundaries.
Education Technologies and the Digital Americas
- Anita Say Chan, Media & Cinema Studies
- CL Cole, Media and Cinema Studies, Gender & Women's Studies, Sociology, African American Studies
- Nicole A. Cooke, Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences
- Cameron McCarthy, Education and Media and Cinema Studies
From OLPC and Intel’s Classmate to Code.org and MOOCS, new global digital education initiatives have expanded across classrooms in the US and the Americas with the promise of “revolutionizing” digital age education. Launched by US-based engineering and design circles, the rates of expansion and growing investments in such programs often defy critical findings on their pedagogical results, as well as arguments for more balanced approaches. This proposed IPRH Reading Group aims to address the rapidly growing investments in such “Information and Communication Technologies for Education” (ICT4E) programs by bridging multi-disciplinary perspectives from across the Americas. We aim to foster literacies around the global growth of ICT4E programs in culturally, historically, and geographically comparative ways; and to build scholarly resources to balance what often appears to be engineering-centric perspectives that dominate current policy.
Feminisms of the African Diaspora
- Assata Zerai, Sociology and Center for African Studies
- Merle Bowen, Political Science and Center for African Studies
- Karen Flynn, Gender and Women’s Studies and African-American Studies
- Ruby Mendenhall, Sociology and African-American Studies
As the group’s focus is feminisms of the African Diaspora, we will read both published work on this topic and works in progress. The group’s organizers all publish in this area and will contribute works in progress as follows: Zerai-Africana feminisms and their relevance to maternal and child health and water and sanitation technologies in Africa; Mendenhall-Black feminisms and Gautreaux women, former Chicago housing project residents, and activism among women in the Chicago Metro; Bowen-Afro-Brazilian feminisms, Afro-Latin Americans, and land in Brazil; Flynn-Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Canadian feminisms and mother-daughter relationships and women and work. We will meet twice a month from September-December and February-April, alternating between reading and providing comments on colleagues’ work and discussing outside readings. It is our goal to set aside at least one session a month to devote to reading manuscripts in progress.
The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies
- Jessica Young, English
- Priscilla Charrat, French
This multidisciplinary group will meet bimonthly to discuss readings in the fields of trauma and memory studies as well as our own works-in-progress. Readings will explore trauma and memory covering several areas including affect theory, neuroscience, media and visual culture, ecosophy, transnational and postcolonial populations, as well as humanitarianism and cultures of law. We will also hold events associated with the University’s commemoration of the World War I centennial.
Global Indigeneity
- Raquel Escobar, History
- David Horst Lehman, History
We meet monthly to discuss recent scholarship in indigenous studies and our own works-in-progress. We are interested in broad questions that allow us to compare the historical and contemporary experiences of indigenous populations. We take a comparative, interdisciplinary approach to explore these questions, focusing on the ways in which the concept of indigeneity operates in a global context.
The Great War: Transnational Literary Responses
- Claire Barber, English
- Michelle M. Martinez, English
- Heather McLeer, English
- Jeremy Wear, English
This reading group coincides with the centenary of World War I and the campus-wide initiative The Great War: Experiences, Representations, Effects. Participants will meet monthly to discuss fiction, drama, and poetry produced transnationally during the WWI era, as well as current critical responses to these works and literary reinterpretations of WWI.
Labor and Working Class History Reading Group
- Carolina Ortega, History
- James Barrett, History
We meet monthly to discuss our own works-in-progress. The group seeks to complement reading works-in-progress with reading recently published works that forward innovative and thought provoking approaches to labor history. Historically, our focus has been on constructions of race and social class in North America, but more recently we have been equally concerned with histories outside of the U.S. Research topics vary widely, from proletarian disruptions of empire to the role of space in activism. We welcome submissions of works-in-progress and suggestions for newly published works to read from any geographic fields and time periods as it relates to labor and working-class history.
Medicine and Science Reading Group
- Stephanie Rieder, Sociology and College of Medicine
This group is an opportunity for scholars interested in the medical humanities and social sciences to meet and share across disciplines. Members will engage in monthly meetings to discuss recent papers and films within studies of science and medicine, as well as their own research. Past topics have included PTSD and trauma studies, historical perspectives on bodies and nutrition, pharmaceuticals and home remedies, and addiction and dispossession.
Medieval Latin Reading Group
- Kent E. Navalesi, History
- Michael Brinks, History
This group meets regularly to translate Latin texts from the medieval period (c. 300-1500 CE). Group participants will provide the readings, which can be sources for course work, dissertation research or just for fun. Texts of all genres, geographical areas and religious affiliations are welcome. The purpose of this group, beyond improving participants’ translation skills, is to provide a forum in which medievalists of all departments can socialize and discuss their research.”
Neronian and Flavian Latin Poetry Reading Group
- Stephen Froedge, Classics
- Clayton Schroer, Classics
This reading group is dedicated to tracing the development of key genres and themes in the Latin poetry of the first century. Genres covered will range from didactic to tragedy and epic. Our weekly meetings will consist of close readings of ca. 200 lines of text. Latin is not a prerequisite but some knowledge is recommended. We hope students join from departments and programs such as Comparative Literature, Medieval Studies, English, and others.
New Materialisms Research Unit
- Michael Uhall, Political Theory
- Noelle Belanger, Art History
- Brandon Jones, English
The new materialisms are a family of philosophical and theoretical critiques, engagements, and revisions of the categories of matter and materiality across disciplinary boundaries. The purpose of this unit is to encounter and discuss new materialist readings in a congenial, rigorous fashion.
Ocean Crossings
- Jessica Sciubba, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
- Corey Flack, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese
- Federica Di Blasio, Comparative and World Literature
- Daniela Moffa, Comparative and World Literature
- Huihui Tao, Comparative and World Literature
The Ocean Crossings reading group explores the Mediterranean as a space, marked by the fluidic and nomadic networks formed by transnational fluxes. Our group will explore the Mediterranean both as a unique space and as a model for similar basins, such as the Caribbean and the Korean Strait. We want to explore the role of culture, history and literature for non-national spaces, characterized by exchanges, migrations and conflicts that take place outside existing legal frameworks.
Pedagogy in the Humanities
- Julie Laut, History
The “Pedagogy in the Humanities” reading group will meet three times per semester to discuss current scholarship on pedagogy in the higher education humanities classroom with a focus on helping prepare graduate students to develop their teaching philosophies and diversify their instructional approaches. Participants will select readings that focus on issues of race, class, gender, and power in the classroom. We will also discuss practical approaches to classroom methodology, syllabus design, lesson planning, and assessment.
Reading the Digital Humanities Group
- Sveta Stoytcheva, Graduate School of Library & Information Science
- Ira King, Graduate School of Library & Information Science
We are interested in developing critically grounded perspectives on what it means to do digital humanities work in various institutional contexts. As a starting point, we will examine some prominent pieces that discuss themes related to defining, critiquing, practicing, and teaching “digital” humanities. We hope to supplement these readings with additional perspectives informed by the interests, scholarship, and work of those who do digital humanities on campus.
Studying Performance
- Brenda Farnell, Anthropology
- Monica FA W Santos, Anthropology
- Priscilla Tse, Ethnomusicology
This reading group interrogates the notion of “performance” as it is discussed in a variety of scholarly discourses, especially connections and disjunctures between Anthropological approaches and Performance Studies. Taking into account the breadth of performance studies - which range from formal or codified performance genres and spectacles, to everyday social life - the group explores contributions to inter-disciplinarity and ethnographic studies. The group meets monthly and discusses published materials or its members’ works in progress.
Youth, Literature, and Culture
- Deborah Stevenson, Center for Children’s Books, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
This interdisciplinary group brings together faculty and doctoral students who share a scholarly interest in children’s and young adult literature and media. We bring together scholars from various disciplines (LIS, Education, English, etc. ) and institutions (U of I, ISU, EIU, and others) and meet several times per semester to share our research and to discuss recent scholarship on young people, texts, and cultural contexts.
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2013-2014
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African History Reading Group
- Devin Smart, History
This group is centered around readings of both classic works and the newest research on African history. Themes, topics and time periods are open, and will be determined through discussions with participants. While organized around African history, the group is also open to readings drawing from related disciplines of anthropology, literary studies, sociology, political science, and art history.
Animal Pedagogies Reading Group
- Joe Coyle, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
- Thaddeus Andracki, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Animal Pedagogies will explore human-animal relations through the intersection of animal studies and pedagogy. How can the critical lens of animal studies be applied to teaching methods, unsettle existing academic knowledge production, or offer alternative ways of knowing and learning? How can animal studies teach us to dwell in the world as and with other animals? We will read together, go on field trips together, and plan an animal studies symposium.
British Modernities Group
- John Moore, English
- Esther Dettmar, English
The British Modernities Group was established in 2005 to spur critical discussion in British studies across period boundaries. It discusses recent literary scholarship, workshops group members’ original work, and organizes an annual graduate student conference. Our 2013–2014 theme, “Satire & Parody,” explores critical work on these distinct but related comedic modes. In addition to a couple of film screenings, we will meet monthly to discuss topics including pastiche, genre parody, satire/censorship, and parodic performance.
Cultural Heritage Reading Group
- Caroline M. Wisler, Landscape Architecture, CHAMP
This reading group offers an opportunity to engage in an interdisciplinary conversation on the critical study of Cultural Heritage. The aim is to bring together students and faculty who share an interest in heritage studies, but who may be unnecessarily distanced by specializations in diverse fields or regional foci. Readings suggested by group members will guide the direction of the discussion, but problematizing heritage, both tangible and intangible, and the consideration of underlying aspects such as identity, memory, ownership and representation in relation to heritage practices and policies will be central to the group’s exploration. The group will meet bi-monthly through the academic year. Students and faculty interested or involved in the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP) may be particularly interested in joining this group.
Digital Literacies Reading Group
- Melissa Larabee, Center for Writing Studies
- Kaitlin Marks-Dubbs, Center for Writing Studies
Organized around the theme of digital literacies, this reading group invites participants to engage in an interdisciplinary conversation on how digital media have been taken up in fields such as writing studies, art and design, informatics, communication, and rhetorical studies, among others. With digital literacies, we do not signal only competence in the skills necessary to operate a computer. Instead we argue that the ability to read, compose, and communicate electronically has become essential to literate activity.
Dynamics of Language Variation and Change
- Anna María Escobar, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese
- Zsuzsana Fagyal, French
To discuss language variation from a socio-historical perspective. We will explore the role of language (dialect contact and contact with minority languages –indigenous and immigrant-) and the historical role of cities, as centers of linguistic innovation, in the rise of standards, and their relationship to vernacular varieties and other norms. Our weekly meetings are very informal and supportive, and allow for opportunities to hear work in progress.
East European Reading Group (EERG)
- Maria N. Todorova, History
- Zsuzsanna Magdo, History
The purpose of the EERG is to provide a space for faculty and graduate students from across all disciplines concentrating on the area of Eastern Europe to meet and discuss the most recent scholarly works and cultural productions coming from the region today. Additionally, the EERG offers students and faculty a venue in which to discuss their recent work and to receive feedback from their peers that cuts across disciplinary boundaries.
Existentialism and Postcolonialism
- Nancy Blake, Comparative & World Literature
The Existentialism and Postcolonialism reading group will consider the historical and theoretical intersections of these two fields of inquiry. We will also prepare possible papers for the Existentialism and Postcolonialism Conference taking place at UIUC in fall 2014.
Readings will include works by Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Franzt Fanon, Martin Heidegger, Jonathan Judaken, Jean-Paul Sartre, John Edgar Wideman, and Richard Wright.The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies: Challenging the Interpretive and Theoretical Boundaries of the Fields
- Jenelle Davis, Art History
- Jessica Young, English
The theoretical and disciplinary parameters that define trauma and memory studies are continually being expanded and redefined. The goal of the reading group is to employ a multidisciplinary approach to confront where trauma and memory studies are heading in the twenty first century. We envision readings that will explore trauma and memory from several areas including, but not limited to, affect theory, neuroscience, media and visual culture, ecosophy, transnational flows, and cultures of law.
Global Indigeneity
- Raquel Escobar, History
- David Horst Lehman, History
We meet monthly to discuss recent studies on indigenous populations and our own works-in-progress. We are interested in broad questions that allow us to compare the historical and contemporary experiences of indigenous populations. We take a comparative, interdisciplinary approach to explore these questions, focusing on the ways in which the concept of indigeneity operates in a global context.
Inclusions and Exclusions Reading Group
- Kathryn La Barre, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
- Nicole A. Cooke, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Working closely with student collaborators, the group will share, create and refine tools that invite and facilitate constructive discussions of racism and diversity, particularity as related to the higher education landscape. We will discuss interdisciplinary literature, plan events and symposia, evaluate websites, watch videos, critique diversity plans, collaborate on research opportunities and engage in other activities recommended by participants. The group will also have the opportunity to partner with graduate courses being offered at GSLIS.
Inequality in the Aftermath of Natural Disasters
- Monica McDermott, Sociology
- Colleen Murphy, Philosophy and WGGP
Inequalities structure the opportunities available to individuals in a variety of arenas—including health, education, housing, and safety. Natural disasters and their aftermath pose special challenges in communities with high levels of pre-existing inequality.
In this reading group, we seek to bring together scholars whose work and interests span the fields of health, education and legal justice to engage deeply with work on the interaction between and justice implications of inequalities and natural disasters.Labor and Working Class History Reading Group
- John Marquez, History
- James Barrett, History
We meet monthly to discuss our own works-in-progress. Historically, our focus has been on constructions of race and social class in North America, but more recently we have been equally concerned with histories outside of the U.S. Research topics vary widely, from proletarian disruptions of empire to the role of space in activism. We welcome any work relating to class and its intersections with race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, religion, and other categories of analysis.
Medicine & Science Reading Group
- Kristen Ehrenberger, History
- Leslie Reagan, History
The Medicine & Science Reading Group discusses films, articles, and each other’s work in medical humanities and related disciplines. Recent topics have included ¬AIDS in Black America, chronic pain among Native Americans, mental illness and the correctional system, genetics and racism, and the intersection of reproductive rights and disability activism. Members come from a variety of departments in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
Meshing Masculinities
- Jeremy Robinett, Recreation, Sport and Tourism
- Scott Vanidestine, Art and Design
This interdisciplinary reading group seeks to interrogate intersections of social practices recognized as masculinities by integrating traditions and practices of Humanities and Social Sciences. We endeavor to do this through monthly discussions of performances, art exhibits and readings of empirical studies related to masculinities.
New Media, Revisited
- Jungmin Kwon, Institute of Communications Research
This reading group is newly launched. The goal of the group is to explore critical theories and interdisciplinary methodologies for researching new media and related issues. The group will read selected works (both classical and recent) and discuss the materials.
On Craft
- Lindsey Snell, Art + Design
- Jessica Tolbert, Art + Design
This group will explore ideas of craft, craftsmanship, and the figure of the craftsman through discussion of art history, contemporary craft, literature, critical theory, popular culture, and the handmade object. Participants from all backgrounds are encouraged to attend meetings that will occur a few times a month. Readings may include: Thinking Through Craft (Glenn Adamson), Makers: A History of American Studio Craft (Bruce Metcalf), Shop Class as Soul Craft (Matthew Crawford)
Pedagogy in the Humanities
- Julie Laut, History
- Emily Pope-Obeda, History
The “Pedagogy in the Humanities” reading group will meet monthly to discuss current scholarship on pedagogy in the higher education humanities classroom with a focus on helping prepare graduate students develop their teaching philosophies and diversify their instructional approaches. Participants will select readings that focus on issues of race, class, gender, and power in the classroom. We will also discuss practical approaches to classroom methodology, syllabus design, lesson planning, and assessment.
Performance Studies Reading Group: Audiences and Observers
- Michelle Salerno, Theatre
- Peter Davis, Theatre
- Lori Humphrey Newcomb, English
This reading group, inspired by Theatre History and Criticism’s “Landscapes: Performing Space & Culture” conference in April 2013, seeks to facilitate interdisciplinary discussions of and engagements with theorized performance studies. Through five to six meetings per semester, this interdisciplinary group will explore the theoretical foundations of performance studies, and then focus on recent scholarship with its return to questions of audience. To what extent are audiences constitutive of performative events? What is the relationship between observation and participation? What conditions invite audiences to collude in a performative event’s production or disruption of space/place, nationalism/globalism, or ethnicity/gender/sexuality?
Racialized Masculinities
- Richard T. Rodriguez, English and Latino/a Studies
- John Musser, English
- Michael Shetina, English
- Noel Zavala, English
The proposed reading group, “Racialized Masculinities”, will primarily focus on the study of race, gender, and sexuality and how they are bound to the historical particularities of culture and class. The group will meet monthly to discuss the selected reading as well as share member generated work related to the study of racialized masculinities.
Religion and Secularism Reading Group
- Katherine Jo, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
- Michael Zhang, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership
Secularism is usually understood in opposition to religion. Recent scholarship in various fields, however, is challenging the categories of the secular and the religious, problematizing the dichotomies that tend to define them (e.g., reason/faith, rational/irrational, science/superstition, etc.) and articulating overlooked commonalities between and the nuances within each. This monthly reading group invites participants from all disciplines to explore these evolving conceptions of religion and secularism and consider their implications for academia and beyond.
Rhetorical Studies Reading Group
- Rohini Singh, Department of Communication
- Paul McKean, Department of Communication
- Jon Stone, Center for Writing Studies
- Katie Irwin, Department of Communication
The Rhetorical Studies Reading Group is a group of students and faculty from a variety of disciplines and departments who are interested in the history, theory, and criticism of rhetoric. Several times each semester, the group comes together to discuss current research in rhetorical studies and is often joined by guest scholars from campus and around the country.
The Russian Studies Circle (Kruzhok)
- Mark Steinberg, History
- Lilya Kaganovsky, Comparative & World Literature
An interdisciplinary discussion group of faculty and graduate students interested in the study of Russia and the Soviet Union, past and present. Meetings are informal and interactive, devoted to stimulating interdisciplinary engagement with texts that explore theoretical as well as interpretive questions of common interest. We discuss new scholarly work (sometimes with visiting scholars), work-in-progress by members of the group, and film.
Send Lawyers, Guns and Money: Doing Business in a Stateless World?
- Janice Lee Jayes, Linguistics
This reading group will examine transnational businesses who prefer to operate outside existing legal frameworks: Drug Cartels, Human Traffickers, Cyberthieves, Arms Dealers, etc., as well as those who may take advantage of weak international regulation. While providing an overview of different actors, this reading group hopes to highlight similarities in fields often approached through separate areas of scholarship, to historicize this phenomenon and to examine the implications for the increasingly fragile paradigm of State systems.
Spatial Perspectives Walking Group
- Sara Alsum-Wassenaar, Art and Design
- Michael King, Landscape Architecture
This group will engage in dialog about the monthly text while walking in public space. Following the example of the peripatetics, we will traverse a variety of terrains in various weather conditions. Topics of discussion will include walking as a speech-act, walking as a performance of space over time, walking as the actualization of spatial politics, representations of the experience of space and movement in art and cartography, and resistance movement in public space. Readings will include the work of Tim Cresswell, Rebecca Solnit, Mark Rudman, Michel de Certeau, Henry David Thoreau, Gilles Deleuze, and Manuel Castells and we will discuss projects like Center for Urban Pedagogy, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Civic Studio, and Temporary Travel Office.
Sports History Reading Group
- Beth Eby, History
The intention of starting a sports history reading group is to engage students of all disciplines in the growing field of intellectual sport study. The group will feature readings from literature, history, economics, and sociology, to name a few, that all focus on sport in some way. Although most of the readings will aim to ground sports studies through a historical lens, it is imperative to examine sport through various frameworks in order to establish a well-rounded, balanced approach. Race, gender, class, and sexual orientation will be key factors in the selection of the readings.
Third World and Indigenous Feminist Perspectives on Science/Medicine, Technology, and Mathematics
- Rico Kleinstein Chenyek, Institute of Communications Research & Medical Scholars Program
- Rochelle Gutiérrez, Curriculum and Instruction & Latina/Latino Studies
- Christine Noelle Peralta, History
Science and technologies are at play by Indigenous and Third World peoples across the globe but are often misrepresented or not sanctioned. This group is interested in Transnational Feminisms as they intersect and/or interrupt science/medicine, technology, and mathematics. Using our multidisciplinary backgrounds, we seek to develop a community of scholars whose individual and collective work can respond to both the lack of discourse on these societal issues and the interdisciplinary initiatives on campus.
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2005-2006
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Asian American Ethnography
We will explore recent scholarship on ethnography and Asian Americans in terms of theoretical and methodological considerations. Ethnography as a method will be extended beyond anthropological conventions to understand how Ethnic Studies approaches elaborate traditional disciplinary frameworks such as history, literature, politics, and sociology. Our guiding questions will focus on how these works inform understandings of concepts such as race/racism, religion, sexuality, class, ethnicity, diaspora, community, empire, militarism, etc. Hence, how do ethnographies of Asian American communities contribute to anthropological knowledge production? How does ethnography reveal power relationships, and what role does this knowledge play in community based social movements?
Blackness and Belief
This reading group explores five diverse “communities of belief” informing Black intellectual-political thought and action over time: Black Nationalism; Black liberal-integrationism; Black radicalism; Black feminism/womanism; and Black conservatism. The group considers how these traditions ebb and flow in relation to one another, and how sociohistorical contexts condition their specific articulations. While the Black experience in the U.S. nation-state is the point of departure, this reading group also examines how these five tendencies have manifested themselves in African continental and Caribbean contexts, and within the overall “Black Atlantic.”
Comparative Post-Socialist Studies
Post-/late-socialist studies constitute one of the most rapidly growing areas of research and scholarly interest throughout the social sciences. Our reading group seeks to further expand the conceptual framework of post-socialist studies and move toward a more comparative and integrated approach to this field. By challenging conventional area and thematic splits, and by making rigorous comparisons between geographically disparate regions, we endeavor to achieve a broader understanding not only of states and societies experiencing varying post-socialist repercussions, but also of processes such as globalization, ethnicity, nationalism, language, religion, consumerism, popular culture, gender and sexuality.
Comparative Working Class Studies
Is the notion of social class still a viable category of analysis in humanistic research? How does it function in today’s scholarship in relation to other categories of difference and identity? In what sense have the US and other societies been shaped by class? We will consider historical and contemporary investigations of class identity and experience in the United States and elsewhere – at work, in the community, in the household, and in the political realm. Discussions function comparatively across national lines and within societies across boundaries of race, ethnicity, and gender. We will focus mainly on reading and discussing one another’s research.
Communication History
The group will bring into dialog the many different research traditions around historical studies of communication, including but not limited to media history, journalism history, the history of advertising and consumer culture, film history, the history of popular culture, the history of print culture, the history of technology, and the history of the public sphere. In order to explore the convergence of these different fields, we intend to read recently published research, especially work with a programmatic bent, to consider the intersections of these various histories, and to discuss the possibility of identifying a canon that can bring the various histories associated with communication into dialog.
Critical British Studies – “Sovereignty”
“Sovereignty” is a loaded political and philosophical term of increasing relevance to theoretical and empirical work across the humanities, and it is also a crucial concept for an inquiry into the meaning of “Britain” as an historical and geographical notion. This reading group explores British sovereignty within the internal heterogeneity of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, as well as the imperial past and postcolonial present. We will explore sovereignty in four main contexts: state and religious power; “allegiance” and/versus “sovereignty”; internationality and cosmopolitanism; and the sovereignty of the individual versus the multitude.
Critical Studies of South Asia
This reading group approaches the study of South Asia through the lens of gender. Our interest emerges from a joint recognition on the foundational and endlessly productive role of gender in fomenting social change in South Asia. Examining the multi-sited nature of the gendered modernities crafted by the history of colonialism, nationalism and postcoloniality, we further seek to open the study of South Asia to the wider world. The emphasis on gender, and the recognition that area based knowledges are being rapidly re-negotiated in the postcolonial and globalizing present, together provide the bedrock for our interests.
Decolonizing Native American Communities
One of the defining issues for Indigenous (or, American Indian) studies is to interrogate historical and ongoing colonialism and fortify movements for social justice and dignity that unite Indigenous Peoples and their (our) allies. This reading group will feature the scholarship of Indigenous academics who are at the forefront of theorizing self-determination struggles capable of mounting resistance to colonialism. Participants will have opportunities to think through the scholarship and its implications for academic decolonization in order to consider ways of forging links of resistance, dismantling the colonial state, and guaranteeing the right to be recognized as human whatever one's difference.
Design and Emotion
Design emotion is a timely topic with appeal to a broad university coalition. Stakeholders include faculty and students of architecture, engineering, art, life sciences, design, anthropology, advertising, consumer science, psychology, music, philosophy, cognitive psychology, women and minorities and those in business/marketing. Architects are familiar with the term “gateway” to cities and “curb appeal” of homes. Homes without this requisite emotional attraction may only get a drive by glance and negative emotions from perspective buyers. The emotional bond many consumers have with products can be so strong as to defy logic.
Early America and the Atlantic World
Our group provides an interdisciplinary forum for faculty and graduate students that focuses on the history and culture of North America and the Caribbean, c. 1500-1815. The idea of an early modern Atlantic world shapes our intellectual approach to varied studies of colonization and its discontents. The expansion of Europe into the western hemisphere in 1492 initiated a dynamic exchange of people, goods, and ideas that connected even the most peripheral places to expansive networks. Research in comparative empires, old world source cultures, and other themes that bear on Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans in conflict and encounter throughout the broader Atlantic world fit within the purview of our group.
Eastern European Reading Group
The Eastern European Reading Group brings together faculty and graduate students who are engaged in the interdisciplinary study of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. The purpose of our group is to stimulate a dialogue across different departments throughout the campus, including history, sociology, comparative literatures, political science, and Russian and East European studies, among others. Our group explores and debates the latest articles and books in our areas of interest, analyzes the works in-progress of our members (including faculty and graduate students), hosts discussions with visiting scholars, and examines films produced in and about the Eastern European region.
Ethics and Psychology
The intersection of ethics and psychology has become an area of increasing popularity in the past decade or so. This reading group will explore this intersection from diverse approaches. We will read and discuss articles in theoretical ethics and empirical psychology, focusing on questions of moral development, moral responsibility, and the possibility of an “empirical ethics” (and what that might mean). We will welcome grads and faculty from any discipline, particularly philosophy, psychology, and related disciplines
Film, Society, and Power
Acknowledging the cultural prominence of film, our reading group seeks to engage dialogues of power as displayed and performed in particular cinematic narratives. As such, we will watch a series of avant-garde and critical films and pair them with appropriate literatures in an effort to highlight key social issues. The sort of films we are considering might include the work of Wim Wenders, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, and Wong Kar-wai. However, the final selection of films and accompanying texts are to be decided by the group, thus reflecting the varied perspectives of our interdisciplinary orientation.
Globalization and Education in East Asia
As elsewhere, the past decade has seen the rhetoric of internationalization and globalization assumes considerable prominence in education planning and management in East Asian countries, often in ways that are radically different from the United States. This inter-disciplinary reading group, composed of faculty and graduate students, will read widely on the ways in which education systems in East Asia have interpreted the requirements of globalization, and sought to define and defend their role as agents of modernization. It will explore the interplay between internationalist ideals and modernization agenda in interpreting the global dominance of western models of education in East Asia.
Globalizing China
China continues to be one of the most rapidly growing areas of research and scholarly interest within the humanities and social sciences. Employing the lens of various disciplines, we seek to resituate China within the dynamic context of global capitalism and neoliberal governmentality. Comparing China cross-culturally and historically, we aim to provide a theoretically rich and conceptually clear understanding of many issues including globalization, capitalism, nationalism, religion, and gender and sexuality. Through carefully chosen readings and seminars with guest scholars, we strive to create a dynamic and friendly environment on campus for a critical engagement with globalizing China.
History of Education
This bimonthly reading group brings together scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds to critically engage in the meaning of the history of education, broadly conceived. As such, traditional modes of historical inquiry (through the examination of primary and secondary sources) as well as literature and film will be explored. The goal is to broaden and deepen the understandings of the range of scholarship in the history of education, but with a disciplinary focus in history. It will be used as a time for analysis of seminal and new texts, advancement of theoretical arguments, and developing a community of scholars.
The Homogenization of American Culture
After the Civil War, America underwent tremendous changes in both cultural and industrial production and consumption. For the first time people across the nation were reading and working as part of a larger integrated system, a phenomenon that helped create a new national space and thus, a new nationalism. We hope to develop an intellectual framework to examine how the mass production of cultural materials and the expansion of corporate power together homogenized American culture at large. Our investigation would look to reposition theoretical and critical perspectives on nationalism and corporation-controlled consumerism, with an emphasis on late nineteenth century America.
The Iconography of Higher Education
The purpose of this group is to bring together scholars interested in engaging and critiquing the many visual iconographies of higher education: their imagery, rhetoric, and role in shaping historic and contemporary discourses surrounding the purpose/function of higher education in the United States. Potential projects include a historiography of visual representation of higher education in the twentieth century, and an exploration of the visual rhetoric of contemporary representations. We will also bring the results of this (and other) qualitative inquiry into dialogue with quantitative data pursuant to emerging trends in higher education student demographics, retention, and completion.
Intergenerational Conflicts over Resource Allocations
The purpose of this faculty – graduate student reading group is to facilitate a better understanding of the complex moral/ethical, social, and policy issues related to inter-generational conflicts over resource allocation, both domestically and internationally, and most especially in developing nations. Topics to be examined include access to resources, the role of the government and foreign policy, and the distribution of scarce resources among the generations.
Japanese Studies
This reading group will provide an opportunity to enlarge understanding of Japanese history and culture for graduate students who are interested in Japan. We offer the following two programs: classical Japanese reading and contemporary Japanese article reading. The former course focuses on learning how to decipher Japanese classical manuscripts, and the latter one pursues interdisciplinary learning of Japanese study. A participant can choose a proper course according to his or her purpose and level of Japanese language skill.
Jewish Studies Workshop
The Jewish Studies Workshop provides an interdisciplinary forum through which to explore emerging issues in Jewish Studies. Reading materials, usually works-in-progress, are circulated prior to meetings, with the actual event serving as a forum for discussion. In addition to inviting UIUC faculty and graduate students, each semester we invite a number of guests, ranging from key figures in Jewish Studies to exciting junior scholars. This “Renegade Jewish Studies” group reaches out to other departments and units and seeks to open Jewish Studies to scholars across a broad range of interests.
The Korea Workshop
The Korea Workshop is an interdisciplinary group of university constituents with interests in the Koreas. 2005-06 will be our fifth year; previously we devoted our workshop to examination of Korean colonialism, the politics of contemporary culture, transnational Korea, and Korea-Japan comparison. For 2005-06 we will focus on the Koreas in Asia: Structural and Geopolitical Transformations. We will welcome 6 off campus visitors: John Feffer (September 9); Laura Nelson (October 14); Hyun Ok Park (November 4), Bruce Cuming, Samuel Kim, and Katherine Moon Additionally, we look forward to workshop sessions by UIUC students and faculty.
Latina Feminisms
This reading group will explore Latina feminist theories and methods through an interdisciplinary lens ranging across disciplines including literature, sociology, education, communications and anthropology. The reading group will be focusing on germinal Latina feminisms texts, with a focus on discourses of intersecting identities, namely race, ethnicity, class and sexuality and will attempt to situate Latina feminism within larger feminist thought. Works in progress are also welcome for discussion during group meetings.
Law, Economics, and Institutions in East Asia
This reading group will focus on contemporary East Asian political economy, paying special attention to the growing role of law in East Asian economic governance. In capitalist Northeast Asia, there are signs of a shirt away from relational forms of capitalism and developmentalist states towards more formal contracting practices, more transparent regulatory systems, and a greater role for law and courts in economic ordering. Southeast Asian economies have undergone similar reforms. In China, too, law is assuming greater importance in economic life. The group will jointly read a series of materials exploring the causes and consequences of these shifts.
Medicine/Science
This interdisciplinary reading group focuses on the historical and cultural analysis of human health, medicine, and science. We read history, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology and, from time to time, view videos as well. Topics have included AIDS, the worldwide thalidomide disaster, condoms, and end-of-life care. Faculty and graduate student members come from a variety of disciplines, perspectives, and regions of the world. The core group comes from History, the Institute of Communications Research, and the Medical Scholars Program. We welcome those with related interests in other disciplines.
Migration Studies
The Migration Studies Group consists of faculty and graduate students in the humanities and social sciences who work on aspects of human migration. The group meets about eight to ten times a year to read and discuss work in progress by the presenters. The group also invites guest speakers from other campuses on occasion, sometimes in cooperation with other reading groups or programs at the University. The Migration Studies Group continually welcomes new members.
Modern Art Colloquium
The Modern Art Colloquium, founded in as a forum for discussing presentations by faculty and graduate students related to modern art, focuses on 20th century and contemporary art. We meet from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. on the last Monday of the month during term time in room 133 of the Art & Design Building and welcome both occasional and regular participants. The participants have been from across campus, with papers or informal works in progress presented by graduate students and faculty in such fields as Communications, Comparative Literature, History, Landscape Architecture, Romance Languages, Urban Planning, and other programs in addition to Art History and Art Studio Practice.
Museums Writ Large
This reading group considers museums as sites where identities are asserted, contested, and negotiated within dynamic social, political, national, and/or religious contexts. We interrogate the social, historical, and economic conditions that generate the collections housed in museums as well as the architectural frameworks and academic and historical practices deployed for the collection and display of objects and "Others." Potential topics for discussion include: cultural heritage advocacy and management through local museums including their publics and communities; archaeological and historic sites, landscapes, and urban centers as open-air museums; museums and memory; museums and cultural tourism; art museums as a specific form of museum.
New Marxisms
Our group will investigate recent writings in the Marxist tradition and the application of new Marxist thought to scholarly work in the humanities. We will look carefully at Marxist thought that breaks significantly with the canons of “Western Marxism” as established by the works of Lukács, Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, and Althusser. We will also investigate Marx with new eyes in the context of his antecedents, contemporaries, and near-contemporaries; for example, we want to reexamine Marx in the context of Spinoza, Kant, and Bergson. Simultaneously, we intend to consider Marx alongside such recent thinkers as Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze, Grosz, Agamben, and Badiou.
Participatory Media
This reading group will provide therefore a space in which to examine, in a focused manner, the various issues raised by participatory media. It is envisaged that participants will bring not just a variety of academic perspectives, but also their varied experiences of participatory media. We will read texts in the field, our own writings, and related theory in an attempt to aid a theorization of this neglected field of study and enable a deeper understanding of the field. We also envisage hosting a small number of talks by visiting speakers who are producing important academic work in this area.
Performance Studies Working Group
The Performance Studies Working Group (PSWG) seeks to facilitate conversations among faculty and graduate students divided by disciplinary training and/or period of specialization but united by a common interest in the emergent field of performance studies. Encompassing everything from theatre studies, to music and dance, to art, architecture and art history, to sociology and anthropology, to the philosophies of language and space, and beyond, the field of performance studies remains vast and, at times, intimidating in its scope. PSWG thus seeks to provide a forum for exchanging knowledge about performance from across the various disciplines, while tracing the continuing emergence of this field.
Queer Affect
The Queer Affect Reading Group will meet to discuss new works in queerness, affect, and politics. Our goals for the year include developing and discussing our own projects related to queer affect, as well as inviting at least two speakers, and engaging in biweekly discussions of readings.
Queering “Non-West” Histories
Despite important exceptions, queer theory has remained vastly Eurocentric in terms of its most basic assumptions and historical studies of non-normative gender and sexuality, especially in the non-west, have been strikingly resistant to theory. Our reading group interrogates the Eurocentric biases of queer theory, while exploring how and why histories, especially of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, have ignored the advances of, if not been resistant to, queer theory. In fundamental ways, we want to explore whether “queer” operates as a meaningful category outside the western homo/hetero/bisexual trichotomy.
“Radical Orthodoxy” in Christian Theology
The radical orthodoxy tradition argues that a theological sensibility and a sense of the sacred lies at the root of all knowledge work, and that the task of understanding and revitalizing such relationships is part of contemporary scholarship’s project that has yet to be fulfilled. Beginning as an intellectual movement in Great Britain, radical orthodoxy has garnered international, scholarly and popular interest. In radical orthodoxy, thinkers such as Catherine Pickstock, John Milbank, and Graham Ward build upon the thought of those such as Rene Girard, Jacques Derrida, and Alasdair Macintyre, as well as earlier philosophers such as Augustine, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas and Vico.
Resistance and Empire
The Resistance and Empire Reading Group has been concerned with questions of empire, globalization, and transnationalism, especially from the vantage points of post-colonial and ethnic studies, the views of the Other that have been largely left out of these larger discourses. This year we are interested in reading Eric T. Love’s Race Over Empire (2004), Patrick Wolfe’s Settler Colonialism (1999), and Jeremy Suri, Power & Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (2003). We are involved in bringing renowned Yale Law professor Amy Chua to campus in spring 2006, and plan to show several new films.
Russian Studies Circle
The Russian Studies Circle (the “Kruzhok”) is a reading and discussion group of faculty and graduate students interested in the interdisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet Union. The Kruzhok seeks to stimulate engagement across disciplines by bringing together students and faculty from different departments – including history, literature, political science, music, Russian and East European studies, and others – by choosing readings that allow us to engage theoretical as well as interpretive questions in the disciplines and across them. Formats include reading critical new work, discussions with visiting scholars, discussing the work of members of the group, and examining literature and film.
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
What are the ways in which teaching and learning are connected? Through a systematic investigation, we can begin to ask what works, what doesn’t, and why. This interdisciplinary group meets in a forum that provides a rich environment in which to discuss readings, provide feedback for research studies in progress, and develop cross-disciplinary collaborations. As a value for all will be the opportunity to build their knowledge of pedagogy to teach more effectively. In addition, members of this group have presented their SoTL work at national conferences.
The Signifying Body: Dismemberment, Body Parts, and Embodiment
This reading group provides a forum for careful consideration of the cultural products of the medieval period which use the body and its parts as sign and symbol in a variety of interesting ways. Our dynamic discussions of the language of the body and its parts also have allowed entry into the questions of how and why medieval thinkers built signs and symbols. The readings for this discussion group pair medieval texts and images with current critical discussions, including works-in-progress by group members and visiting scholars.
Southern History
The Southern History reading group has met monthly for more than a decade. The group brings together scholars from across disciplines and from various institutions to discuss themes pertinent to the study of the American South. Over the years, the group has discussed a vast assortment of topics, but we usually concentrate on emerging scholarship. Papers range from book chapters by faculty to dissertation proposals by graduate students. This reading group fosters collaborative study and provides opportunities for scholars from different disciplines to share perspectives. We know from experience that the group always has ideas for diverse intellectual discussions.
Syntactic Theory
This reading group on Current Trends in Syntactic Theory will meet to discuss and evaluate recent papers and proposals in the field of linguistics that contribute to a greater understanding of the principles and mechanisms that underlie how the syntax of human language works and what makes it possible. Work within the framework of Noam Chomsky’s Minimalist Program will be a special focus, but alternative perspectives as well as original work by group members will also be considered.
Technology as Language
We plan to examine how technology acts as a process of mediation that shapes human perception and consciousness and how its functional process is associated to that of a language. The selected readings cover the important works of authors in the Canadian tradition of media study including Harold Innis, Walter Ong, Marshall McLuhan, and Neil Postman. Our understanding of history and current societies can be improved by media study, especially with respect to the relationship between communication technology and human civilization. This line of inquiry is especially important to those interested in how media and other technologies shape our way of knowing and their implications in education.
Theorizing the Early Modern
The aim of this reading group is to provide a cross-disciplinary forum for Early Modern scholars on campus. “Early Modernist” encompasses all those working on any aspect of literature, culture, history, and the arts and sciences from 1450-1800 in any area of the globe. We plan on discussing the latest, overarching developments in scholarship on the period, as well as current research interests. Our meetings are structured around broadly conceived themes, beginning with the nation, the family, and the debate about public vs. private sphere.
Trans-East Asian Cinema
This reading group focuses on the interactions among cinemas of China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Hollywood. We will screen films, and read about and discuss issues such as the popularity of Korean cinema, trans-regional co-productions, and the impact of China’s marketization on East Asian national cinema. We seek answers to the following questions: To what extent has the imagination of a unitary East Asian market influenced the style, aesthetics, and visual concepts of East Asian filmmakers? How is trans-East Asian cinema related to trans-Pacific and transnational cinema? What is the relationship between regionalism and transnationalism?
Women and Work in Mexico
This reading group aims to investigate the ways in which feminism in general, but especially in Mexico has left out a large sector of the female population, namely working-class women, and how such exclusion points to the trivialization of issues affecting their lives. In our monthly meetings, we will discuss the significance of the maid and/or nanny in Mexican society as presented in literary works as well as in studies in politics, history, education, and economics. We will examine the ways in which working-class women are oppressed by the upper-class feminists who are otherwise very progressive.
Youth Literature
The Youth Literature Interest Group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of faculty from the Department of English, the College of Education, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and American Indian Studies at UIUC, along with faculty from Illinois State University and Eastern Illinois University. We meet monthly to discuss texts and issues relevant to literature for children and young adults. In addition, we host a research showcase in the fall led by rotating members of the group, and an annual lecture in the spring by a leading scholar in the field; both of these events are open to graduate students and the public.
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2004-2005
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Alphabets and Cultures
A recent book by William Hannas (The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity, Penn, 2003) argues that Chinese characters prevent East Asia from developing technology except via the route of copying from the West. This reading group will explore this surprising hypothesis. In addition to Hannas’ own works, we will examine: neo-Whorfian work that argues that cognitive abilities can be affected by the language one speaks; precursors to Hannas, who claim that the Greek alphabet was critical in the development of Western analytic thought; and whether East Asia really lacks endemic creativity, as Hannas claims.
Anarchical Christianity
Although it is a commonplace in contemporary social theory to point to the stabilizing role served by organized Christianity in the service of state or other dominant social projects, often overlooked are the marginal Christian movements, dating back to at least the 4th century, which resist this sort of politicoreligious synthesis. The goal of this group will be to come to an understanding of the historical and theological conditions which give rise to these activist or anti-state Christianities—and to assess the possibility for a truly “anarchical” Christianity today.
Citizenship, Education, and the Globalizing World
This group will meet twice monthly and examine changing notions of citizenship and education in the context of globalization. We hope to investigate how globalization affects our notions of citizenship and to examine how people are educated about citizenship; discuss how education fits into the current discussion of globalization; consider how formal and informal education enforces particular kinds of citizenship; look at how beliefs about citizenship are reflective of transnational economies, as evidenced by formal educational opportunities; and provide a workshop space for scholars to share projects-in-progress with those doing related work in different disciplines.
Comparative Queer Studies
We will consider the interdisciplinary and theoretical stakes of recent scholarship on sexualities, races, and nations, moving this work outside of institutional divisions that often tend to isolate such scholarship within particular national or disciplinary frameworks. Because we have no formal queer studies program at UIUC, the reading group will provide a space for sustained conversation about the directions of this emerging field. We will be especially interested in asking questions about the existing asymmetries in the field and areas in need of further research. Which formations of queer critique and theories of racialization are specific to particular national and cultural contexts? Which analyses of race and sexuality do or do not translate easily or innocently across historical periods or national contexts?
The Criminal Justice System
In the criminal justice system, actors have discretion to make decisions about arrest, prosecution, and plea bargains that affect the freedom of individuals suspected of crime. While that discretion is largely hidden from public view, those decisions are crucial to evaluating the fairness of the criminal justice system. Drawing on history, sociology, political science, and law, this reading group will examine the factors shaping this discretion, particularly structural factors, such as race, class, and gender, legal doctrines, and the psychological predispositions of the actors. In addition, we will include research that places the criminal justice system in a particular legal and political context.
Critical Research Collaborative
The mission of the Critical Research Collaborative (CRC) is to critically investigate the realms of pedagogy and social agency. Members of CRC are dedicated to the practice of scholarship that interrogates multiple aspects of schooling and leads to the development of informed positions in contemporary educational issues. Our goal is to facilitate the development of critical research projects amongst university students, professors, classroom teachers, and community members. Equally important is our desire to identify and develop educational relationships, resources and materials for critical reflection, analysis, and action.
Cultural Economies
This reading group will bring rethink historical and historiographical relationships between culture and the economy. We will examine the culture of capitalism, from its emergence to the present. How was the discipline of political economy tied to other emerging cultural formations, i.e., nation, empire, gender, and race? What happens if we consider production, consumption and exchange simultaneously as products of and producers of culture? Readings will span national boundaries and chronologies, challenging the paradigms of modern vs. pre-modern and West vs. non-West at the heart of current understandings of economic growth and cultural change. In addition to reading published material, we will sponsor visiting speakers and read members’ work-in-progress.
Cyberstudies
This reading group will dissect the meaning and ideologies that are formulated based on the notion of “cyberspace” in an interdisciplinary context. Technologies that surround cyberspace are constantly changing, making the study of cyberspace a continuous process. The readings will cover a cross section of ideologies, new and innovative research disciplines, and other related scholarship. Cyberspace studies is unique in that it filters into almost any field within the humanities. This allows for breadth and depth when studying cyberspace. Space and time are continuous and fluid when it comes to cyberspace. The need to examine its effects is a consistent academic endeavor.
Design and Emotion
The purpose of this reading group is to foster collaborative study on the topic of design emotion, to challenge and inspire participants and to inform the public. A series learning node lecture and panel discussions will be held during the year to explore design and emotion from the vantage points of architecture, industrial design, anthropology, engineering, marketing, and consumer science. The design of products and environments will be considered from instinctive, behavioral, and reflective perspectives. Presenters will be invited to write a one-page statement on the topic of design emotion to stimulate discussion and provide resource guides for participants.
Differences Among Workers
Many of the recent troubles inflicting American and international business and industry are functions of basic qualitative and humanistic issues. This reading group will explore underlying ethical concerns in the workplace within a context of difference and diversity, by examining and discussing those issues as functions of basic differences among workers – differences in skills, backgrounds, outlooks, and approaches. Readings will be taken primarily from western and non-western literature, philosophy, and history; ethics and diversity officers from significant corporate and/or non-profit organizations will also be invited to make guest presentations.
Disciplinary Difference
Disciplinary Difference is a reading group examining interdisciplinary itself, which will necessarily encourage participants to examine their own disciplines, and hopefully foster working relationships amongst us. Meeting monthly to discuss a primary text (a film clip, document, short story, poem, image…) in connection with theoretical writing, we will bring our own “disciplined” approaches to the table. We will consider how the tools and perspectives of other disciplines can benefit our own work; and while each meeting will focus on a specific topic, we will continually scrutinize the meanings, challenges, and benefits of working across and between disciplines.
Early America and the Atlantic World
Our mission is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for faculty and graduate students that focuses on the history and culture of North America and the Caribbean, ca.1500-1815. The idea of an early modern Atlantic world shapes our intellectual approach to varied studies of colonization and its discontents. The expansion of Europe into the western hemisphere in 1492 initiated a dynamic exchange of people, goods, and ideas that connected even the most peripheral places to expansive networks. Research in comparative empires, old world source cultures, and other themes that bear on Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans in conflict and encounter throughout the broader Atlantic world fit within the purview of our group.
English and Intercultural Communication
The worldwide spread of English and the development of its varieties have profound implications for intercultural communication where English operates as a lingua franca. Our reading group will explore how different varieties of English came into existence in terms of history, communicative needs, identity, and language contact/learning. We will also address common misconceptions about English language change and variation, accent stereotypes, and accent discrimination from the perspectives of Critical Sociolinguistics, Critical Pedagogy and other communication theories. By doing so, we intend to understand what components and/or principles are needed to develop appropriate intercultural communicative competence in the use of English.
The German Colloquium
This long-standing study group organized by scholars of German history and literature will, in the coming year, read works in progress; discuss graduate student dissertation proposals and dissertation chapters; read recent and controversial essays in German history and culture; discuss new novels and films; and host visiting scholars, including Omer Bartov (Brown) and Pieter Judson (Swarthmore), whose works we will discuss in common.
Health and Medicine
This reading group aims to foster an intellectual milieu for discussing issues and concerns related to health and medicine. These discussions will be based on multidisciplinary, multi-theoretical and multicultural perspectives. This reading group will provide a forum in which faculty and graduate students from a variety of humanistic, social scientific, and health care disciplines can exchange and explore salient health concerns and their connection to modern social and critical theories and literary traditions. By collectively engaging in discussions of the selected readings, individuals with ideas and experiences to share will find a forum for interaction outside the traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Inter-Generational Conflicts over Resource Allocations
The purpose of this faculty – graduate student reading group is to facilitate a better understanding of the complex moral/ethical, social, and policy issues related to inter-generational conflicts over resource allocation. All persons contend a moral and just claim on resources but there are just not enough resources to go around, so the question then turns to what is the state’s compelling interest and how does government adjudicate conflicting, albeit morally based, claims? Topics of discussion during the year will include access to resources, the role of the government, government responsibilities and priorities, and the public distribution of resources.
Jewish Studies Workshop
The Jewish Studies Workshop provides an interdisciplinary forum through which to explore emerging issues in Jewish Studies. Reading materials, usually works-in-progress, are circulated prior to meetings, with the actual event serving as a forum for discussion. In addition to inviting UIUC faculty and graduate students, each semester we invite a number of guests, ranging from key figures in Jewish Studies to exciting junior scholars. This “Renegade Jewish Studies” group reaches out to other departments and units and seeks to open Jewish Studies to scholars across a broad range of interests.
The Korea Workshop
The 2004-05 Korea Workshop will devote its sessions to the comparison of Japan and South Korea. Sessions will be organized around areas of existing campus faculty and graduate student strength and some sessions will feature off campus scholars of Japan and South Korea. Although not yet finalized, possible sessions include comparative consideration of education reform, class, the culture industry, the self, Christianity, consumption, and the presence of the U.S. military. We meet on Fridays from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., typically once or twice monthly.
Latina Feminism
This reading group will explore Latina feminist theories and methods through an interdisciplinary lens ranging across disciplines including literature, sociology, communications and anthropology. The reading group will be focusing on seminal Latina feminism texts, with a focus on discourses of intersecting identities, namely race, ethnicity, class and sexuality and will attempt to situate Latina feminism within larger feminist thought. Works in progress are also welcome for discussion during group meetings.
Medicine/Science
This interdisciplinary reading group focuses on the historical and cultural analysis of human health, medicine, and science. We read history, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology and, from time to time, view videos as well. Topics have included AIDS, the worldwide thalidomide disaster, condoms, and end-of-life care. Faculty and graduate student members come from a variety of disciplines, perspectives, and regions of the world. The core group comes from History, the Institute of Communications Research, and the Medical Scholars Program. We welcome those with related interests in other disciplines.
Migration Studies
The Migration Studies Group reads and discusses work in progress by graduate students and faculty who study human migration and its effects from all perspectives. Areas of discussion include the conflict between assertions of state-sponsored nationalism and nationhood on the one hand, and the interests of local and ethnic communities on the other; and the methodological tension between the applied work by geographers, urban planners, architects and ethnographers about specific immigrant communities and the more general cultural and political conclusions and theories that can be drawn from such site-specific work.
Modern Art Colloquium
The Modern Art Colloquium was founded in the fall of 1998, as a forum for discussing presentations by faculty and graduate students related to modern art. We have focused on the 20th century and contemporary art, but occasionally also looked at earlier topics. Increasingly the participants have been from across campus, with papers or informal “works in progress” presented by graduate students and faculty in such fields as romance languages, history, communications, comparative literature, urban planning, landscape architecture, and other programs in addition to art history and art studio practice.
Museums Writ Large, Part II
This reading group considers museums as sites where identities are asserted/contest/negotiated within a dynamic social, political, national, and/or religious context, and interrogates the social, historical, and economic conditions that generated the collections housed in museums as well as the architectural frameworks and anthropological and art historical practices deployed for the collection and display of objects and "Others." Topics will include: traffic in material culture (art and antiquities) under war and non-war conditions; blockbuster exhibits and the changing nature of museums and their publics; museum architecture; Art museums; Anthropology museums; Ethnic museums; Living history museums; Event-commemorating museums.
New Marxisms
Our group will investigate recent writings in the Marxist tradition and the application of new Marxist thought to scholarly work in the humanities. We will look carefully at Marxist thought that breaks significantly with the canons of “Western Marxism” as established by the works of Lukács, Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, and Althusser. We will also investigate Marx with new eyes in the context of his antecedents, contemporaries, and near-contemporaries; for example, we want to re-examine Marx in the context of Spinoza, Kant, and Bergson. Simultaneously, we intend to consider Marx alongside such recent thinkers as Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze, Grosz, Agamben, and Badiou.
Participatory Media
Participatory media are those media in which the public participate in production and management. Examples include community radio and public access television, weblogs and 'zines. This reading group will provide a space in which to examine, in a focused manner, the various issues raised by participatory media. It is envisaged that participants will bring not just a variety of academic perspectives, but also their experiences of participatory media. We will read texts in the field, our own writings, and related theory in an attempt to aid a theorization and enable a deeper understanding of the field.
Performance Studies Working Group
The Performance Studies Working Group (PSWG) seeks to facilitate conversations among faculty and graduate students divided by disciplinary training and/or period of specialization but united by a common interest in the emergent field of performance studies. Encompassing everything from theatre studies, to music and dance, to art history, to sociology, to anthropology, to the philosophy of language, and beyond, the field of performance studies remains vast and, at times, intimidating in its scope, requiring a master key to all the various models and methodologies developed in its name. PSWG thus seeks to provide a forum for exchanging knowledge about performance from across the various disciplines, while tracing the continuing emergence of this field.
Practice
This monthly reading group aims to explore concepts of practice as they have emerged across various disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, science studies, education research, and literary theory. There is a growing trend to view practice, not as the polar opposite of “theory,” but rather as a collection of activities, motivations, situations, and contexts. Our group will begin with seminal works on practice (in the writings of authors like Bourdieu, de Certeau, and Bakhtin), but we want to move quickly into an interdisciplinary dialogue about different approaches to the study of practice in professional communities and in everyday life.
Psychoanalysis and the Humanities
This reading group explores primarily Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and its relation to the humanities. In addition to the meetings, once a moth the participants will select a movie that articulates some of the texts under study for consideration and discussion. The general aim is to encourage scholars from different fields and frameworks to discuss the construction of the psychoanalytic discourse, and to question its relationship to the crisis of subjectivity in contemporary culture. Participants are highly encouraged to present their own works, which might be published in the journal Aesthethika.
“Radical Orthodoxy” in Christian Theology
The group, open to UIUC faculty, graduate students, and community members, will study poststructuralist Christian theology initiated by Graham Ward, Catherine Pickstock and John Milbank. Radical orthodoxy is mapping a theological sensibility and a sense of the sacred into all knowledge work. It engages the ideas of Levinas, Derrida, Foucault, and others while drawing on Augustine, and Aquinas. We expect the group will study John Milbank’s Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon (Routledge, 2003); Jacques Derrida’s Given Time I: Counterfeit Money (U of Chicago, 1992); and Conor Cunningham’s A Geneology of Nihilism: Philosophies of Nothing and the Difference of Theology (Routledge, 2002).
Resistance and Empire
We are attempting to understand the rapidly changing terrain of American Empire (and the analogies that have been made to British and other previous imperial projects). At the same time, we continue to pose the following questions: How do we avoid the homogenization or the cultural stereotyping of the colonized and those living under imperial rule? What spaces have been created for the questioning of empire "from below"? How do we understand the heterogeneous voices, languages, and perspectives of the subjects of Empire and truly engage in (and represent) a dialogue that goes beyond the self-reproducing and self-referential discourse of imperial war (counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism), neocolonial administration, "free markets," and claims of emancipation?
Russian Studies Circle
The Russian Studies Circle (the “Kruzhok”) is a reading and discussion group of faculty and graduate students interested in the interdisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet Union. The Kruzhok seeks to stimulate engagement across disciplines by bringing together students and faculty from different departments – including history, literature, political science, music, Russian and East European studies, and others – by choosing readings that allow us to engage theoretical as well as interpretive questions in the disciplines and across them. Formats include reading critical new work, discussions with visiting scholars, discussing the work of members of the group, and examining literature and film.
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
What are the ways in which teaching and learning are connected? Through a systematic investigation, we can begin to ask what works, what doesn't, and why. This interdisciplinary group, which started last year, meets twice monthly in a forum that provides a rich environment in which to discuss readings, provide feedback for research studies in progress, and develop cross-disciplinary collaborations. It is anticipated that a series of white papers could be published.
The Signifying Body
This reading group provides a forum for careful consideration of the cultural products of the medieval period which use the body and its parts as sign and symbol in a variety of interesting ways. Our discussion of the language of the body and its parts also allows entry into the questions of how and why medieval thinkers built signs and symbols. The readings for this discussion group will pair medieval texts and images with current critical discussions, including works-in-progress by group members.
Southern History
The Southern History reading group has met monthly for more than a decade. The group brings together scholars from across disciplines and from various institutions to discuss themes pertinent to the study of the American South. Over the years, the group has discussed a vast assortment of topics, but we usually concentrate on emerging scholarship. Papers range from book chapters by faculty to dissertation proposals by graduate students. This reading group fosters collaborative study and provides opportunities for scholars from different disciplines to share perspectives. We know from experience that the group always has ideas for diverse intellectual discussions.
Technology as Language
We plan to examine how technology acts as a process of mediation that shapes perception and consciousness and how its functional process is associated to that of a language. Readings include works of Vygotsky, Ong, McLuhan, Carey, and Bowers. This line of inquiry is especially important to those interested in the general areas of learning and teaching. The reading group serves as a learning community for those who desire to move beyond a common sense or naive epistemology of technology and acquire a deeper understanding about its nature, and in turn contemplate how such knowledge can inform the nexus of our conceptualizations of language, communication and pedagogy.
Walking as Knowing
Despite its ubiquity in the everyday, walking is an activity obscured by its own unexamined and practical functionality. Rarely is walking considered as a distinct mode of acting, knowing, and making. As its necessity diminishes and its applications rarefy, the potential of walking as a critical, creative, and subversive tool seems only to grow. We will examine this potential through study and practice of walking's role in the growing body of work about creation, definition, and experience of place.