Seminars Community

On March 22, 2025, Susan Boynton, Professor of Music and Director of the University Seminars, was inducted as a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in the Fellows’ Plenary Session during the 100th Annual Meeting of the Academy at Harvard University.

451 | The Study of the New Testament

A symposium discussing Claudia Setzer’s new book, The Progressives’ Bible (2024, Fortress Press), will appear in the spring, 2025 issue of Religious Studies Review.

477 | South Asia

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor in the Humanities and member of The University Seminar on South Asia, was named the 2025 Holberg Prize Laureate. The Holberg is one of the largest international research prizes awarded annually for outstanding research in the humanities, social sciences, law, or theology.

497 | Slavic History and Culture

501 | Israel and Jewish Studies

Elisheva Carlebach, Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society and Chair of The University Seminar on Israel and Jewish Studies has received the Association for Jewish Studies Gender Justice Award for Mentorship.

539 | Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation

Seminar member Olga Gershenson recently published New Israeli Horror: Local Cinema, Global Genre (Rutgers University Press, 2024) with the support of the Warner Fund.

545 | Women and Society

Zehra K. Arat has published her Fall, 2023 Seminar Paper, Presentation, “What’s in a name? Reclaiming Third World feminism for epistemic and transnational justice,” in the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Volume 27, 2025 – Issue 1, pp. 175-200.

Sarah Hoiland has published a new book, “Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women’s Motorcycle Club (Temple University Press, 2025). Portions of this book, which was funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, were workshopped in the University Seminar on Women and Society during the 2020-2021 academic year.

557 | Brazil

Co-Chair Sidney Greenfield spent part of February 2025 in Northeast Brazil continuing his collaboration with Father Rino Bonvini and Neto Witko Pitaguary on a project to help revitalize the Indigenous Pitaguary people. Bonvini and Witko presented aspect of the project at the seminar.

Publications:

• “The Dynamics of Change: Trump’s and Harris’s 2024 Campaigns.” Journey Through New York’s Religion, 12/7/2024.
• “Might There Be an Inextricable Relationship Between Economics and Religion In The Way Countries Like Brazil Were Offered a Path the Modernization and Development? On the Relationship Between Economics, Politics and Religion in the Culture of Modernity.” Anthropologicas (Federal University of Pernambuco Magazine), 3/20/2025.
• “Going to the City of My Dreams (the Second Fulbright Around): Making Friends, Collaborators and a Family of Choice.” Fulbright Chronicles, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2025), 48-54.

Presentations:

• “Exploring Revitalization in Modern Politics – The Dynamics of Change: Trump’s & Harris’s 2024 Campaigns.” at the Columbia University Seminar on Memory and Slavery, 12/12/24.

Catherine Tinker recently published The Age of Climate Change and International Law, Perspectives, reflections and proposals. This book resulted from her U.S. Fulbright scholarship at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Law School  (UFRGS-PPGD) in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Co-chair Vânia Penha-Lopes was one of the speakers in “Global Populisms: Mapping Cross-regional Perspectives,” a panel presentation at Montclair State University (January 30, 2025). She was also featured in Herança Real (Summit Films 2025), a documentary about Afro-Brazilian women in the U.S.

615 | Iranian Studies

Mohsen Ashtiany, Marisa McCrone, and Mahnaz Moazami are co-editors of the forthcoming book Studies in Iranian History and Culture: In Honor of Elton L. Daniel (Brill Publishers).

749 | Studies in Dance

Kathryn Dickason recently published two scholarly articles:

• “The Dance of Musa: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Holy Girl,” Religions 15, no. 12 (2024): 1–30.
• “Pulsatile Choreography: Rhythm, (Dis)Enchantment, and Disimagination in Premodern Dance,” in Phenomenology, New Materialism, and Advances in the Pulsatile Imaginary: Rites of Disimagination, ed. Nicoletta Isar (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature-Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), 89–116.

775 | The Future of Aging Research

Seminar member Daniel W. Belsky, an associate professor of epidemiology in the Columbia Aging Center, was named the 2025 Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research by the American Federation for Aging Research. Dan is recognized with this prize for advancing the development of biomarkers of aging.

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