Initiatives Archive
Fall 2017-Spring 2019
Improvisers Exchange is a two-year initiative deeply investigating the field of music improvisation. This multifaceted program features performance and engagement residencies by leading artists representative of a wide spectrum of the practice, initiates a new performance course on improvisation for students, and promotes scholarly discourse through lectures and panel discussions. This ambitious project will introduce our campus and community to leading artists practicing non-idiomatic approaches to the music, others rooted in jazz and avant-jazz heritages, and master improvisers…
Fall 2009-Spring 2010
Traditionally, science and technology have had a national character, but with the growth of international, global, and transnational exchanges, scientific and technological interactions have transformed in the recent past. This initiative will examine the ways technoscience–or the confluence of scientific practices and technological artifacts–influences and affects human identity, cultural knowledge, and democratic action. This focus will explore historical, contemporary, and emerging interpretations of technoscience as a means to understanding connections between science,…
Fall 2010-Spring 2011
Press release
This new initiative explores how animals are central to human understandings and experiences of the world and to the development of concepts and beliefs about what it means to be human.
Steering Committee:
Jane Desmond (chair, Anthropology)
Chip Burkhardt (History)
Amy Fischer (ACES)
Eric Freyfogle (Law)
Paul Garber (Anthropology)
Laurie Hogin (Art & Design)
Janice Juraska (Psychology)
Mark Mitchell (Veterinary Medicine)
Jennifer Monson (Dance)
Robert Pahre (Political Science)
Gene Robinson (Entomology)
Spencer Schaffner (English)
Eleonora Stoppino (Spanish, Italian &…
Fall 2017-Fall 2018
This initiative continues the dialogue developed by Professors Higgins and Pinkert in the IPRH Research Cluster Public Humanities. They will address a series of questions of critical relevance to public universities and the role they play in public life:
How do changes in public universities reflect transformations in higher education and in contemporary life?
How can public universities reconnect with, or even help reconstitute, their publics?
What special role do the humanities and the arts play, and how must they grow in order to play this role in the re-constitution of public higher…
Fall 2006-Spring 2007
Destructive hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods and tsunamis have occurred throughout human history often causing vastly more loss of life and disruption of human activities than events orchestrated by terrorists. Natural disasters will keep on occurring, but their effects are increasingly amplified by the presence and policies of humans. Stealth mega-disasters, caused almost solely by humans, are new phenomena that affect the future of civilization itself. These natural and stealth mega-disasters will become increasingly devastating socially and economically because the…