For the last 500 years, the peoples of the Western Hemisphere have shared a common story. Disconnected from regular contact with Europe, Africa and Asia prior to 1492, this vast macro-region has been shaped by distinctive legacies produced by its global entanglements. Sovereignty and Autonomy in the Western Hemisphere, is a two-year initiative aimed at exploring this broad topic that has played an important role in this vast region throughout its history.
Spring 2011 programs focus particularly on the issue of indigeneity. Taking as point of departure similarities and differences in colonial…
Initiatives Archive
Spring 2011-Spring 2012
Fall 2005-Fall 2006
The Center for Advanced Study’s interdisciplinary initiative for academic year 2005-06 examines the workings of networks across the sciences, arts, and humanities. This project draws on scholarship in computer science, humanities, engineering, life sciences, law, organizational sciences and social sciences in order to take an in-depth look at socio-technical networks and theories for self-generating, self-organizing networks. It will undoubtedly reveal many ironies, ambiguities, and contradictions — precisely those shifting areas where we are likely to discover basic human and societal values…
Fall 2002-Spring 2003
This year-long initiative is devoted to faculty research, pedagogy, and student research concerning the University of Illinois.
CAS Resident Associates Nancy Abelmann (Anthropology and East Asian Languages and Cultures) and William Kelleher (Anthropology) led this initiative.
Ethnography of the University of Illinois is now a campus-wide initiative. Read more.
Fall 2004
The aim of this semester-long Center for Advanced Study Initiative is to promote and sustain a meaningful, multifaceted discussion about memory in all its forms, ranging from its moleular mechanisms to its impact on culture and society. Particular emphasis will be placed on issues concerning the fidelity of memory. During the past year, faculty members from engineering, the humanities and the biological and social sciences have been meeting as a reading group hosted by the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. This CAS initiative will expand the scope of the project,…
Fall 2001-Spring 2002
This year-long initiative explores the implications of having sequenced the human genome and of related breakthroughs that will affect many areas of human life, ranging from health and medicine to food production, and which also have serious implications for our future as a species.
Cosponsored by: Beckman Institute, College of Agriculture and Consumer Economics, College of Engineering, College of Law, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, School of Integrative Biology, School of Molecular…