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Among the range of its activities, ISHA hosts
events that will be of interest to a wider audience. Our annual
ISHA Lecture and our Colloquia are free and open to the public at large. Click below for quick links to recent events; or, for previous years, click on Past Events and Activities. • Just War/Reparations Mini-Conference 2003-04 • Speakers and Colloquia 2003-04 •
Reproduction Working Group As part of the Marriage and its Alternatives theme, ISHA invited Mary Lyndon Shanley to give a lecture on May 9th, 2005. Shanley delivered a thought-provoking talk that engaged the argument for replacing marriage with civil unions. Shanley argued that on the one hand, abolishing marriage for individual contracts would enhance the freedom and diversity of family forms. On the other hand, establishing civil unions or domestic partnerships would raise issues of public policy?for instance, whether or not partners share responsibility for a child. The lecture was followed by a lively discussion. Just War/Reparations Mini-Conference 2003-04 On Friday, May 7, 2004, the Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts (ISHA) hosted a one day mini-conference in Room 301 Herter Hall on the campus of the University of Massachusetts. The conference, 'Just War and Reparations: Confronting the Present, Facing the Past,' featured speakers Sohail Hashmi, Bat-Ami Bar On, and John Torpey. 'Just War' and 'Reparations' were the topics of the ISHA seminar for 2003-2004. Fellows from different disciplines and departments at the University of Massachusetts worked collaboratively on their projects during the seminar, and topics ranged from the legal and philosophical underpinnings of concepts of 'just war,' to historical explorations of conflicts in settings as dispersed as Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire and the European conquest of North America, to considerations of reparations in the U.S. and Armenian contexts. Fellows from the ISHA seminar participated in the mini-conference, both formally and informally. Sohail Hashmi is Associate Professor of International
Relations at Mt. Holyoke College. His work focuses on contemporary
Islamic discourse surrounding just war and peace, and his publications
include 'Interpreting the Islamic Ethics of War and Peace' in The
Ethics of War and Peace, edited by Terry Nardin (Princeton University
Press, 1996), and 'But Was It Jihad? Islam and the Ethics of the
Persian Gulf War' in Eagle in the Desert, edited by William Head
and Earl Tilford (Praeger, 1996). His teaching and research interests
lie at the intersection of Western and Islamic political and moral
philosophy, and he has published on such topics as sovereignty,
humanitarian intervention, international society, and the theory
of jihad. His presentation, 'Jihad: Holy War, Just War, or Terrorism?'
is scheduled from 9:30-10:45. Bat-Ami Bar On is Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at SUNY-Binghamton. Her primary theoretical and activist interests are in violence and trauma. She is the author of The Subject of Violence: Arendtean Exercises in Understanding (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). She has edited and co-edited several anthologies, and a special issue of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy on the question of violence. Her most recent work on terrorism and war appears in the British Philosopher's Magazine and the Swedish ORD&BILD. Her presentation, 'Just War in Empire,' is scheduled from 11-12:15. John Torpey is Associate Professor in the Department
of Anthropology and Sociology and the Institute for European Studies
at the University of British Columbia, where he is also Associate
Director of the Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness.
His publications include The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance,
Citizenship, and the State (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and
he has edited Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). He is currently completing a book
titled Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics.
His presentation, 'Atrocious Pasts: Slavery in a Comparative Perspective,'
is scheduled from 2:00-3:45. Speakers and Colloquia 2003-04 Ingrid de Kok: Poetry Reading April 10th, 2004 A reading by the acclaimed South African poet, Ingrid de Kok, whose poems range from the personal, to settings in Italy, to the implications and resonances of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Listening Again for the African Past, Fall 2003 ISHA hosted a roundtable symposium on 'The Contribution of African Historians to African Historiography' on October 23rd, as part of the Five College African Studies Project on 'Listening (Again) For the African Past'. Herter 601, 8 p.m. Working Groups Among its activities, ISHA will sponsor other seminars, or work- or discussion-groups. If you have ideas for such a group or seminar, please contact the Director. Below are the activities currently under way. At the end of the first ISHA seminar on the theme of Reproduction, a number of the members of the seminar expressed their desire to continue to share drafts of work in progress in a similarly interdisciplinary environment. Laetitia La Follette agreed to help organize the continuation of the seminar, which would also include four others from the original ISHA group: Christine Cooper (English), Mari Paredes (Communication), Nina Scott (Spanish and Portuguese) and Patricia Warner (Consumer Studies.) Conversations with colleagues quickly identified two more participants: Elizabeth Krause (Anthropology), who works on the declining birth rate in Italy, and Marla Miller (History), whose work reconstructing the needle trades of late 18th and early 19th century New England has identified the way the current definition of the artisan in Colonial America reproduces 20th century cultural bias. In the first year (2001-2), the new group sponsored six discussions, each focused on a particular paper, all of which fit the Reproduction theme. By the end of the first year, members began to feel that this theme was too restrictive, and that what was really needed, especially for junior faculty, was a more broadly defined writing group. This year (2002-3), the group continues under the nominal direction of La Follette, aided ably by Laura Wright, and includes 4 new assistant professors from the fields of Art History, Classics, History and Theater. Click here for further information on the Reproduction Working Group. Past Events and Activities Click here for more information on Past Events and Activities. |