Intellectual life at Carleton thrives when faculty engage with and debate new ideas that infuse both their teaching and their research.The Humanities Center seeks to encourage these integrative connections by sponsoring a Faculty Research Seminar each year. Participants in the multidisciplinary group advance their own research while focusing collectively on a central question or theme. The Seminar culminates in a public forum that extends the work of the group to the entire campus.

Interdisciplinary publications or joint book projects are not the explicit goal of the Faculty Research Seminar, though such work might emerge on occasion. Rather, the Seminar is a locus of exchange and advancement of scholarly inquiry; participants’ work on their own projects will inevitably be strengthened and enhanced by the multidisciplinary focus of the collaborative group. 

The Research Seminar meets throughout the academic year. The Seminar follows a schedule established by the Faculty Fellows, but normally the group meets roughly every two weeks during the year, with a workshop during winter break or the summer. Ideally, the participants each a course related to the theme or will incorporate questions raised by the theme into their own classes during the year. Participants receive a stipend of $2000 (the Seminar Leader $2500), and as well as a book budget of up to $500 per Seminar. In addition to advancing their own research and contributing to the collaborative group, they design (with the administrative help of the Center) and participate in a public forum, which might include a seminar with a visiting scholar, a music, dance or theater production, library exhibits, student/faculty panels, student videos or other multi-media presentations. At the end of the year, each faculty member will write a brief report summarizing the year’s project.

Current Seminars

2008-2009: Contending Truths: The Sites, Forms and Functions of Political Discourse

Bill North, History, Seminar Leader
Barbara Allen, Political Science
Peter Brandon, Demography
Angela Curran, Philosophy
Clara Hardy, Classics
Beth Kisileff, Religion and Comparative Literature
Asuka Sango, Religion

2009-2010: The Philosophy of Place and Space

John Schott, Cinema and Media Studies, Seminar Leader
Deborah Appleman, Educational Studies
Adriana Estill, English and Latin American Studies
David Lefkowitz, Studio Art
Elizabeth McKinsey, English and American Studies
Victoria Morse, History
Michael McNally, Religion
Dana Strand, French and Francophone Studies
Hong Zeng, Asian Languages