culture – The University Seminars

Cultural Memory

Founded 2007 Seminar Number 717 The University Seminar on Cultural Memory began in 2005 as an interdisciplinary colloquium welcoming graduate students and faculty from Columbia and its neighbors. The Seminar, incepted in 2007, builds upon this already-established community and aims to further develop a vibrant interdisciplinary dialogue on contemporary issues of cultural and collective memory, […]

Modern East Asia: Japan

Founded 1960 Seminar Number 445 The Modern Japan Seminar is concerned with the history, politics, society, and culture of Japan from the late nineteenth century to the present. It emphasizes interdisciplinary dialogue among historians, anthropologists, sociologists, literary critics and other scholars from the New York area institutions. The seminar meets regularly to discuss a paper […]

Sites of Cinema

Founded 2010 Seminar Number 735 “Sites of Cinema” takes a new approach to the question of cinema at the moment when cinema is said to be in decline, even in some accounts said to be facing its “death.” At this moment, when are focused on a convergence of moving image forms into a single delivery […]

Comparative Philosophy

Founded 2007 Seminar Number 721 The Comparative Philosophy Seminar seeks to advance constructive philosophical projects by bringing together scholars with training in diverse areas of Asian (mostly Buddhist) thought and Western Philosophy. Comparison in this context is not employed to loan authority to one set of obscure discoveries by revealing its resonances with the works […]

Modern Greek

Founded 2005 Seminar Number 703 The seminar’s title emphasizes the language—modern Greek—over the metropolitan nation-state, modern Greece. By so doing, the seminar uses the enduring and versatile nature of the language as a symbol for broader themes that, both diachronically and synchronically, depict the tension between sameness and difference, between the continuities and discontinuities that […]

Modern East Asia: China

Founded 1957 Seminar Number 443 This seminar is concerned with the politics, society, culture, and international relations of China from the early nineteenth century to the present. Its broader purpose is to explore the evolution of Chinese civilization over the past century of revolution and rapid social change. Papers—work in progress—are circulated to members and […]

Medieval Studies

Founded 1954 Seminar Number 431 This seminar addresses subjects of common interest to all branches of medieval studies. The seminar particularly encourages interdisciplinary topics and approaches, which will stimulate discussions of issues in the study of medieval culture. One of the great advantages of the seminar is that it brings together representatives of medieval disciplines, […]

Eighteenth-Century European Culture

Founded 1962 Seminar Number 417 This interdisciplinary seminar hosts speakers ranging from established scholars to early-career researchers who present works-in-progress that explore and redefine eighteenth-century European culture. Our interests range from material culture to textual history, national traditions to colonial formations, historicist practice to theoretical investigation, and we therefore seek to query, expand, and innovate […]

The Renaissance

Founded 1945 Seminar Number 407 The Seminar in the Renaissance, founded in 1945 by Paul Oskar Kristeller and John Herman Randall, Jr., hosts presentations of about 50 minutes on various aspects of Renaissance thought (including Renaissance humanism) and its ramifications in the arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature) and the sciences (physical, natural, historical, and […]