ISHA details seminar plans

wo related seminars - "Just War" and "Reparations" - are being organized for the coming academic year by the Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts. Both are open to faculty in any field, and applications are being accepted through May 9.

     "Next year, for the first time the themes of the fall and spring seminars are linked," said John Kingston, acting director of ISHA. "The 'Just War' concerns just war theory and the pacifist and realist challenges to it. 'Reparations' concerns responses to the aftermath of war, as well as efforts to repair or recompense for the effects of illicit violence."

     The fall seminar also "encompasses efforts to portray war artistically as just or unjust." The seminar could include behavioral scientists, as well as natural scientists with knowledge of military technology and the causes and effects of war in relation to natural resources and the environment, Kingston said.

     Reparations generally refers to just recompense, rather than revenge, and is related to the notion of distributive justice as it pertains to continuing wrong and inequalities, whether sexual, racial or economic.

     "It raises questions about the nature and scope of legal and moral responsibility, issues of our responsibility towards our history and how that responsibility shapes our identity as a people and a nation and our vision of a just future," Kingston said.

     "All of this suggests the possibility of approaching the idea of reparations from a broad range of disciplines ranging from history, sociology, anthropology, law, economics, political science, psychology to the arts, literature and philosophy," he said.

     Each seminar will consist of seven to nine faculty members who take turns presenting research that addresses the seminar's theme.

     Applicants should send a 1-2 page description of the project they would present and a curriculum vita to ISHA. Electronic submission is encouraged (www.umass.edu/hfa/isha). For questions, contact John Kingston (jkingston@linguist.umass.edu or 5-6833).