Research Seminars

Willson Center Research Seminars support faculty organizing year-long interdisciplinary discussion groups on particular research topics. Seminars bring to campus scholars from other institutions.

Research Seminars for 2012-2013: 

Faculty Seminar on the BookManuscripr

Organizers: Miriam Jacobson (English), Anne Meyers DeVine (Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

This interdisciplinary seminar aims to explore the nature of the book in all its forms, across time and space. The goals are twofold, to pose fundamental questions such as: what makes a book a book, how have cultural attitudes toward books and book making changed, are digital media recuperating or killing print media? And to investigate and analyze the various media that contribute to the production of books such as ink, e-ink, paper, screen, manuscript, print, pixels, binding, and book arts, as well as the production processes themselves.

 

The Georgia Colloquium in 18th-and 19th-Century Literature

Organizers: Roxanne Eberle (English), Chloe Wigston Smith (English)

The Georgia Colloquium in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Literature is a new speaker program that promotes intellectual inquiry across the disciplines and provides a forum for faculty and graduate students within the department, and from regional and national universities, to present recent work.

Lectures:

  • Keith Wilson: “Regionalism and Consciousness: Thomas Hardy’s Imagined Geographies,” Oct. 23
  • Rebecca Stern: ”Reading Geologically: Particulate Matter and the Novel,” Nov. 9
  • Misty Anderson: ”The Scottish Play: Centlivre and The Wonder of Britishness,” Jan. 30
  • Jon Mee: ”Talking Books: Literature’s Conversable World 1760-1830,” March 7

Georgia Workshop on Culture, Power and HistorySociology graphic

Organizers: Pablo Lapegna (Sociology and LACSI), David Smilde (Sociology)

This workshop seeks to provide an interdisciplinary discursive space for social scientific research that sees meaning creation (culture) as central to the way humans create social structure; regards structured inequality (power) as a central aspect of the social world; and focuses on concrete actors and structures as they develop through time (history). The workshop provides a space for faculty and graduate students to keep abreast of new research, as well as a low stakes arena in which they can present new ideas.

 

Religion and Politics in Ancient North AfricaAncient map of North Africa

Organizer: Naomi J. Norman (Classics)

This seminar keeps abreast of the latest scholarship on the political, economic, religious, and cultural aspects of ancient North Africa during Punic and Roman occupation (spanning from the ninth century B.C.E. to the seventh century C.E.).

 

History and Gender WorkshopWorld War II WASPS

Organizers: Jennifer L. Palmer (History), Kathleen Clark (History)

This seminar examines the historical scholarship on gender as a central matter for research within the History Department — one which cuts across temporal and geographic boundaries, and draws together scholars who study topics from ancient Greece to modern-day Mexico. The History and Gender Workshop at UGA will help to foster common interests based on gender, and to draw scholars from diverse fields.

 

Historical Phenomenon of ModernismModernist painting

Organizer: Jed Rasula (English)

This seminar investigates the historical phenomenon of Modernism as it was manifested in literature, music, dance, film, and the visual arts. The seminars in Modernism will involve faculty and students from the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, and the Departments of English, Comparative Literature, Romance Languages, German and Slavic Studies, Theatre and Film Studies, and History.