Open Rapporteur Positions

This interdisciplinary seminar critically engages with aspects of death, dying, disposal and grief. Presentations and discussions explore topics from both academic and clinical perspectives in areas as diverse as medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, religion, law, politics, architecture, and the media. In recent years the seminar has focused on contemporary developments in technology, culture and society. Attendance is maintained at a level that provides members with ample opportunity for active participation.

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This seminar is devoted to developing a better understanding of the region, presenting current research and thinking in disciplines that range from anthropology to economics, history, human rights, political science, religion, literature, and the arts. In addition to scholars affiliated with the academic community, speakers are invited from the private sector, international organizations, and governments. The seminar, whose membership also reflects a broad range of disciplines, offers the framework for a lively exchange of ideas on Latin America, its past, present, and future.

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This seminar covers all aspects of population biology, broadly defined to include ecology, evolution and other aspects of modern organismal biology. It also encompasses studies of animal behavior in the field and laboratory, paleontology, theoretical and experimental biology, genetics and genomics.

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Recently completed field studies and research from primary sources on Brazil constitute the main interest of this seminar. Brazilian, the U.S. and other visiting scholars participate, contributing their interpretations of recent events. Portuguese may be spoken whenever convenient.

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The seminar focuses on the analytical and policy issues related to full employment, social welfare, and equity. These include crossnational perspectives, primarily in other industrialized economies. The purpose is to identify and clarify the more difficult and central intellectual questions which relate to and affect the national commitment and capability to assure full employment, social welfare, and equity over long periods.

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The purpose of these monthly gatherings is to present and promote new research in Iranian studies from pre- Islamic times to the present. The seminar provides an opportunity for scholars and researchers in the greater metropolitan area to meet regularly and exchange views and discuss the topics of their research interests.

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The University Seminar on the Theory and History of Media brings together scholars from the humanities and social sciences to examine emerging concepts in media theory. Media, in this conception, refers to material technologies that (re)produce, store, and transmit information – a conception broad enough that allows us to move from, say, the role of print technologies in early modern Europe, through spirit photography to the emergence of contemporary digital media. We are especially interested in the ways in which technologies shape and are shaped by cultural practices, and social sensibilities, and we consider a historical dimension as central to this effort. There is nothing so powerful in understanding the novelty and dynamism of contemporary media as looking at the introduction of earlier technologies whose technical and social influence was yet to be understood. At the same time, we are also committed to moving beyond the specifics of media in the U.S. to incorporate the different histories and trajectories of media in Europe and elsewhere. Finally, we intend this to be beyond any one disciplinary approach and each year is organized around a specific theme that sets the frame for questions and conversation.

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The seminar series continues the line of research established by Professor of Linguistics William Diver. The aim in this approach, as contrasted with formal linguistics, is to account for observed language use, with authentic text as the main source of data. For grammar, this typically entails hypotheses about linguistic signals and their meanings; for phonology, hypotheses about the relevant phonetic characteristics of phonological units. The roles of communication and a human factor are explicitly acknowledged as supporting the explanations offered. The series was begun in 1968 by Diver for the benefit of graduate students working on doctoral theses under his guidance. Since his death in 1995, the series has continued under the auspices of the Columbia School Linguistic Society, with participants presenting analyses or work in progress. Occasionally, it hosts by invitation presenters doing compatible work outside the Columbia School tradition. Work coming out of the seminar has led to numerous conference presentations and publications.

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Purpose: To collectively explore the pedagogical purpose and best practice approaches to interdisciplinary and global humanities “core” at the level of higher education to meet the challenges of the emerging world. A major challenge to teaching humanities today is how to rethink its pedagogy in such a way that students not only learn about different cultures of the world but learn from them to think critically about the way each of us understand, experience, and broaden our own culture. This Seminar welcomes the participation of faculty and administrators from Columbia and beyond, as well as select invested students, to 1) help frame the kinds of questions that most demand humanity’s collective concern in this new age of interdependence; 2) to identify those classics—including seminal advances in contemporary sciences where advisable—from throughout the world’s traditions that will help bring those concerns into sharpest focus; and 3) to rethink from a fresh perspective the institutional structures and resources by which this new generation of interdisciplinary “core” courses may be most effectively implemented.

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The Seminar on Science and Subjectivity was established in 2018 after a prior period of a few years as a class in the Hovde Seminar series at the Heyman Center. The Seminar continues to follow the format that worked well in that earlier iteration: we all read a book in advance of the session, then we all have something to say about it. In the past we then would all have dinner and continue the conversation. Since Covid we have met by zoom earlier in the day, and then those members who are in the area have come together to continue the discussion over dinner at 6:00 at Faculty House. We have begun to invite authors of our books, and other scholars who are focused on the work we are discussing to join our discussions; regardless, we plan to remain a convivial group of interested and articulate readers willing to delve deeply into the intersection of science and individual subjective experience.

*Note: Aptitude for meeting technologies is a requirement for this position

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The history of Cuba is a highly complex and controversial topic. Beginning in the sixteenth century it has been the locus of repeated encounters between diverse cultures and subcultures. The sixteenth century witnessed devastating contacts between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean. As the Spanish presence expanded in subsequent centuries, so did the role of Cuba as a economic and political linchpin of the Spanish empire. Armadas loaded with goods and riches from the Spanish colonies throughout the hemisphere rendezvoused in Cuba prior to their departure for Spain in an effort to reduce the depredations of European competitors. The increased importation of Africans as slave labor in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries diversified Cuba demographically and culturally even more, as did Cuba’s increasing reception of Haitians, Jamaicans, Mexicans, Chinese, and North Americans, among others. Proximity to the emerging power to the North resulted in increased US influence to the extent that Cuban independence from Spain was circumscribed by the Platt Amendment (1903-34) written into its constitution. This limited Cuban sovereignty and helped feed movements throughout the 20th and 21st centuries to eliminate US influence. This struggle culminated in the 1959 emergence of a revolutionary government that resulted in ongoing tensions between the island and the US. The complexities of Cuban history, including its relationship with the US continues to ensnare the two countries. This University Seminar will focus on the political, economic, social, and cultural issues and complexities of the island, as well as its relationship with the US.

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This seminar is devoted to the medium of comics, across multiple languages and (trans)national cultures. The “comics medium” can refer to many historical forms, which conventionally feature some of the following elements: hand-drawn and hand-colored imagery; hand-written or typographic text; and a sequential narrative composed of several frames, arranged into rows on a larger panel. Research includes familiar forms like comic books or graphic novels, as well as precursors in popular print culture, like serial engravings, caricatures, broadsheets, the Imagerie d’Épinal—and so on. It also touches on early iterations (comics supplements, wordless novels, etc.), popular veins (editorial cartoons, adult comix magazines, and webcomics), and non-fiction forms (graphic memoir, comics journalism, graphic medicine, etc.). Comics are not only central to various national cultures (like manga to Japan or bandes dessinées to Belgium and France) but in the last half century, have increasingly been accepted as a legitimate 9th art. Beyond the works of legendary comics creators like Winsor McCay or Hergé, or the sheer staying power of multimedia conglomerates like Marvel or DC, the artform has achieved its iconic status through the graphic novel. If comics studies have long been an interdisciplinary field—originally housed in art history and popular culture studies—it now reaches comfortably into multiple humanistic fields (like new media studies, language pedagogy, narrative medicine, etc.) and into various subfields (like queer, disability, memory, or Black studies). Columbia University has a long history of supporting, teaching, and legitimizing scholarship in comics studies. Our unparalleled collection of graphic albums, curated by Karen Green since 2005, includes over 19,000 titles in two dozen languages. This seminar envisages future partnerships with publishers, non-profit organizations, and institutions throughout New York City and the tristate area.

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