Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts accepts applications

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts (ISHA) is accepting applications for its spring 2002 semester seminar, "Cultures and Coexistence."

     The semester-long seminar is open to faculty at all levels and in all disciplines.

     Established as a venue for discussion and interaction among faculty, the seminar allows people to exchange ideas on topics of common interest and "renew their intellectual energy and advance their work in a spirit of adventure and collaboration," according to English professor Stephen Clingman, who directs ISHA.

     Clingman said ISHA's selected theme for 2002 is timely, as well as open-ended.
"We're very excited about it as a topic because it seems to resonate with current events but also reaches further to other times and places," he said.

     Clingman asks that potential participants "approach the topic in [their] own way, and as it relates to [their] own interests." Some of the questions that may be covered in the seminar include: What are the problems and complications involved in the co-existence of various cultures, both across and within, national or geographic boundaries? Are there, or have there been, successful models for co-existence? What are the "border crossings" of culture? How does medicine deal with cultural difference?

     The deadline for application is Nov. 30.

     Interested faculty should contact Clingman (clingman@english.umass.edu) or visit the Web site (www.umass.edu/hfa/isha).