Founded 2015 Seminar Number 777 This seminar seeks to bring together scholars in the fields and subfields that have been touched by a growing interest in the emotional or affective experience, whether understood as embodied or incorporeal, emotional or impersonal, quantifiable or escaping measurement. This inter/multidisciplinary seminar on affect will incorporate a wide range of […]
Read MoreComparative 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 […]
Read MoreLiterary Theory
Founded 2005 Seminar Number 711 This seminar has had a long and distinguished history at Columbia. Originally called Theory of Literature (469), it was revived under its current title in 2006 with a view to pursuing the relations between literature, philosophy, and the politics that pervades our cultural production and its study. For some time […]
Read MoreLanguage and Cognition
Founded 2000 Seminar Number 681 What can the study of language contribute to our understanding of human nature? This question motivates research spanning many intellectual constituencies, for its range exceeds the scope of any one of the core disciplines. The technical study of language has developed across anthropology, electrical engineering, linguistics, neurology, philosophy, psychology, and […]
Read MoreEthics, Moral Education, and Society
Founded 1983 Seminar Number 585 This seminar, made up of theoreticians, researchers, and educators, examines the themes of ethics, moral education, and society in a genuinely interdisciplinary fashion, covering such topics as moral motivation, moral development, moral education, and moral theory. Membership is drawn from the fields of psychology, philosophy, sociology, education, political theory, and […]
Read MoreThe History and Philosophy of Science
Founded 1973 Seminar Number 533 This seminar is devoted to exploring substantive as well as methodological issues in the history and philosophy of science. Science is construed broadly and the issues considered range from epistemic and historiographic questions to issues of relevance and accountability. Topics include the presuppositions and practice of a range of life […]
Read MoreStudies in Political and Social Thought
Founded 1968 Seminar Number 427 The current diversity and vitality of the field of political theory is reflected in the wide-ranging interests of the seminar. In recent years this seminar has explored a broad spectrum of topics and modes of discourse, including methodological analyses in historiography and the philosophy of social science, specific historical and […]
Read MoreStudies in Religion
Founded 1945 Seminar Number 405 The approaches to religion in this seminar range from the philosophical through the anthropological to the historical and comparative. We concern ourselves with religion in all of its manifestations—ancient and modern, primitive and civilized, heretical and orthodox, individual and cosmic. The guiding thread is whatever subjects are uppermost in the […]
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