ARTS 301, Winter 2011 - Call for Papers

[James M. Skidmore]

Dear Colleagues in the Faculty of Arts:

 

It is already time to start planning for the Winter 2011 offering of ARTS
301: Studies in the Humanities.   This past term we changed the format of
the course and turned it into a lecture series.  Ten members of our faculty
gave lectures that revolved around the theme “Cultural Encounters /
Encountering Cultures.”  That format worked well – 220 students were
introduced to a number of faculty members who demonstrated their engagement
with ideas and issues, and each of the lectures was well attended by
students and interested members of the university community alike.
Interviews conducted with each of the lecturers were made available as
podcasts to students as well as the general public.  To get an idea of the
how the series was structured, have a look at the ARTS 301 website
(http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301/).

 

The Winter 2011 ARTS 301 lecture series has a new theme, Controversial
Ideas.  Progress in human history has often been marked by the controversies
surrounding the introduction of and debate about new ideas, concepts, or
ways of doing things.  Sometimes these controversies centre on issues that
touch on our fundamental understanding of what it means to be human (e.g.
Galileo’s theories about the universe or Darwin’s theories about evolution),
and sometimes these debates are located within specific academic disciplines
(e.g. the so-called theory wars in literary studies).  By examining
controversies closely, we can better understand how human knowledge is
shaped and altered.

 

Most likely your own work has involved the study of specific controversies
or coming to terms with ideas that for some reason are controversial.  Or
perhaps you’ve been in the middle of a  controversy yourself.  In any case,
if this topic interests you and you’d like to contribute a 45-60-minute
lecture on it, I’d very much like to hear from you.  I think we have an
opportunity here to help a large audience gain insight into the ways in
which ideas are formulated and debated, and how these debates can shape the
direction of academic discourse and/or human society for years afterwards.
And I think you’ll find that lecturing to this group of intelligent upper
year students and community members to be a rewarding experience.  Let me
also point out that although the course is called “Studies in the
Humanities,” I have a liberal view of just what the humanities are.  Just as
my Canada includes Québec (to borrow a phrase from a recent Canadian
controversy), so too do my humanities include the social sciences, the fine
arts, accounting, and anything else that is discussed and studied in our
faculty.

 

If you’d like to propose a lecture for the course, all you need to do is to
send me an e-mail message with a title and short description of the lecture.
I’d appreciate hearing from you by 15 June 2010. You’re also welcome to
nominate colleagues whose work is a natural fit for this series.  Once the
lectures have been selected, I’ll be in touch about choosing readings and
other such housekeeping matters.  The lectures for ARTS 301 take place in
Winter Term on Mondays at 4:30pm.  

 

Please contact me if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions. 

 

Many thanks for your time,

James M. Skidmore, ARTS 301 Coordinator

 

 

James M. Skidmore

Chair, Germanic & Slavic Studies

Faculty of Arts / University of Waterloo

Waterloo, ON  N2L 3G1  CANADA

 

E | skidmore at uwaterloo.ca

T | 519.888.4567, x33687

F | 519.746.5243

W | www.germanicandslavic.uwaterloo.ca

W | www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~skidmore

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://artslist.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/artsannounce/attachments/20100514/bc808896/attachment.html