ISHA 'migrations' seminar
open to junior, senior faculty

By Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts (ISHA) has opened applications for its spring 2002 seminar, "Migrations."

     The biweekly seminar is a forum for discussion and interaction among faculty from different disciplines and colleges to present on and discuss topics of common interest from different perspectives. It is intended to "renew their intellectual energy" and "to advance their work in a spirit of adventure and collaboration.," according to English professor Stephen Clingman, who directs the seminar.

     "It is open to faculty at all levels," Clingman said. "We particularly encourage junior faculty to join us; past experience has shown the value for participants in advancing their research and/or teaching, working on publications, and creating networks and linkages across campus, particularly in fields that concern them."

     ISHA board member, associate professor of Art Laetitia La Follette has been so interested in the value of the seminars for both junior and senior faculty that she has organized an extension of the initial ISHA seminar, "Reproduction," in which a number of junior faculty, as well as their senior colleagues, have been able to use a cross-disciplinary group to sound out their work and exchange ideas loosely gathered around the original theme of the seminar. Now in its fourth semester, La Follette's has seen her spin-off fill two important needs.
     
     "There isn't a forum for junior faculty to share their work in-progress," she said. "And junior faculty generally feel swamped. They can be less willing to join something like this because it doesn't give them release time."

     "They normally feel ... pressured for time," Clingman agreed, "but our experience has been that the seminars have worked well for those who have joined."

     "When they send an article out and get conflicting reader reports back, this group provides a sounding board of colleagues who can provide strategy and mentoring," La Follette said.

     La Follette said the other function of the seminar is that it builds community across disciplines on campus.

     "We wanted to start building community at a more grass-roots level," she said. "The exchange of ideas is why we got into academia. And there was the feeling that we needed to continue these conversations."

     Clingman said that, as in past seminars, the spring 2003 topic is to be understood as broadly as possible.

     "Some migrations are voluntary, others are forced," he said. "Some migrations take place individually, others by or across communities. Some are defined by class, others by race, ethnicity, or gender; many are created by political or economic forces.

     Terrorism migrates. Fashion migrates, language migrates, in metamorphosis over time and space. Art, music, literature are reformulated by and through migration. In migration culture is both preserved and transformed, both for the migrant and host communities."

     Migrations can be human actions, but they also take place in nature, Clingman said.

     "And these offer us a different model, of migration as a form of 'natural necessity,' he said. "Migration takes place at different levels and orders of existence. Diseases migrate, genes migrate, animals and birds migrate. Whereas some migrations change us wholly, others-whether in nature or human society-reinforce longer-term patterns of continuity and stability. The migrations of the internet are virtually instantaneous. Money 'migrates', in its own particular fashion."

     Anyone interested should sent a two page description of him- or herself, including current position, background, and what her or she would like to explore in the seminar to Clingman, c/o College of Humanities and Fine Arts, South College by Friday, Dec. 6. Applicant also should attach any relevant supporting material, including a list of publications, projects, or classes, Clingman said.

     More information on ISHA and the range of its activities is available at www.umass.edu/hfa/isha.