To examine war through a wide range of human and artistic experiences in different cultures and eras, the University of Colorado at Boulder Center For Humanities and the Arts has announced its theme for the 2003-04 academic year will be "War."
"We invite all members of the CU community to join in a broad, interdisciplinary conversation focused on war - and peace," said Jeff Cox, CHA director.
The center will conduct a yearlong faculty and graduate student seminar, host a series of lectures, and hold a spring colloquium in conjunction with the theme.
The center is seeking suggestions from the university community for distinguished visitors who would contribute to an exploration of the war theme. Organizers are hoping to produce a series of five or six speakers, artists or performers, including a CU-Boulder faculty member nominated from the campus community and selected for the series by the center's steering committee. Nominations can be e-mailed to Cox at jeffrey.cox@colorado.edu.
The center hopes to encourage active participation in CHA events and to engage the whole campus in a reflection on the theme of war.Ìý
"For some of those who've lived through the Cold War and now the war on terrorism, it seems the country is caught in a perpetual war, whether hot, cold or covert," Cox said.
"What is the response of the humanities and arts to this pervasiveness of war and the continuation of war by other means? What role do the humanities and arts play in the culture of war? How do they contribute to the practice of peace? These are some of the questions we hope to address," he said.
Technology, strategy, aesthetics, feminist war perspectives, war and religion, war and propaganda, and cultures of combat are among the topics that may be explored.
In addition to the lecture series, four faculty members and four graduate students will be selected as CHA Fellows for 2003-04. The fellows will meet together in a yearlong seminar and will present the results of their work in the spring 2004 colloquium.
Fellows will receive support for their participation in the seminar and colloquium. Funding will allow for a two-course per year release for faculty participants and provide modest research stipends. Graduate students may use their seminar support in a number of different ways. Funding for the seminar is provided by the Office of the Provost and the Graduate School.
Founded in 1997, the Center for Humanities and the Arts works to encourage interdepartmental and cross-campus dialogue, to raise the profile of the arts and humanities in Boulder and to build support for scholarship and creative activity. CHA annually selects a theme around which to organize its central activities.
The center also plays an important role in supporting graduate education, granting about $300,000 in graduate fellowships each year. CHA sends a graduate student to Cornell University's School of Criticism and Theory, hosts a Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellowship in the humanities, and runs an internship program for students seeking employment outside the academy, a program that won a 1999 Innovation Award from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
CHA events are free and open to the public. For more information about the Center for Humanities and the Arts, visit the Web site at: .