Dunia na Nchi Moja: Tanzania and the World
This conference will explore the relationship between a space defined as the modern nation-state of Tanzania and the relationship between the local and the global in historical context. Papers in the workshop will range from the time long before the existence of ideas about the space named Tanzania, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, German East Africa, Mrima, or Zanj – to the present, when Ujamaa and Bongo Flava (Tanzanian hip-hop) have global currency. This conference is organized by Kerry Ward (history).
October 27-29, 2011
Consciousness, Intentionality, and Phenomenality
Professor Charles Siewert, a distinguished philosopher of mind and recent recipient of an endowed chair in Philosophy at Rice, is author of The Significance of Consciousness (Princeton University Press, 1998). This seminal book on the philosophical and conceptual understanding of phenomenally conscious experience and its relationship to the intentionality of the mental shapes this conference and its goals. The conference will convene the world's leading scholars on this topic in order to share research that reflects the state of the art and to set the agenda for future work. The past several decades have witnessed a tremendous amount of research by philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists on the nature of the mind. Mental phenomena such as thoughts, beliefs, desires, actions, sensations, perceptions, memories, and experiences form our ideas of ourselves as subjects and as human beings. Three concepts are at the core of our current philosophical understanding of the mental: (i) intentionality, (ii) consciousness, and (iii) phenomenality (or the phenomenal). This conference aims to build a collective strategy to tackle remaining questions on these topics and to identify the most appropriate methodologies and argumentative strategies, and is organized by Steve Crowell (Chair of the Department of Philosophy).
November 11-12, 2011
The Weimar Republic has long been regarded, historically as well as theoretically, as a test case for the possibilities and limits of constitutional democracy. While most assessments of the Weimar Republic have understandably focused on the disintegration of democratic structures in Germany and the rise of the Nazi Party, the proposed workshop will address the early phase of the Weimar Republic, examining the transition from an authoritarian nation-state to what has been one of the most liberal democracies in twentieth-century Europe. Bringing together experts from the U.S., Germany, the UK, and Ireland, the workshop will investigate the political and cultural effects of this transition as well as the legal framework within which this transition occurred. This conference is organized by Peter Caldwell (history) and Christian Emden (German studies).
All talks will be held in the Founder's Room in Lovett Hall. Click here for parking instructions and a campus map.
Friday, March 9, 2012
This symposium will aim to gain a richer, more accurate understanding of the situation in the profession and at Rice. The discussion will focus on understanding the factors that contribute to the underrepresentation of women in philosophy, both through causes unique to the field and those common across academia. There will also be an aim to discuss ways forward, in teaching, mentoring, hiring, and on the career path beyond appointment. This symposium is organized by the philosophy department.
March 30-31, 2012
Sports Writing and the Writing of Sport: The Rice International Sports Colloquium
This colloquium seeks to place the analysis of sports writing firmly at the center of the emerging discipline of sports studies. The study of sports writing calls for an interdisciplinary team with a strong anchor in literary studies and cultural analysis, and this will build on the firm foundations of a preliminary, international event held at the University of Cambridge in 2010. This conference is organized by Alexander Regier (English).
April 20, 2012
This conference undertakes a comparative history of the French and Haitian Revolutions in the effort to uncover potentially new and exciting connections and affinities between these two movements, but also better throw into relief the political, social and cultural distinctiveness of each revolutionary episode. This conference is organized by Kenneth Loiselle (HRC External Faculty Fellow 2011-12 and Department of History at Trinity University).
May 4-5, 2012
Renaissance Posthumanism explores the connections between the cultures of early modern Europe and current work in the posthumanities. The project will culminate in a symposium followed by an edited collection that will bring together scholars of national and international renown to address the intersection of early modern literary, cultural, and historical studies and notions of the human as viewed through the lens of recent work referred to under the rubric of "the posthuman." Did Renaissance humanism in fact produces the vision of the human against which much posthumanism militates. How might emerging theories of “the posthumanities,” which tend to emphasize highly contemporary forms of media and technology with little reference to their longer histories, benefit from incorporating the tangle of humans, animals, environment, and machines that comprises Renaissance humanism?
May 18-19, 2012
This interdisciplinary project within the humanities began with the recognition of faculty strengths in eighteenth- and nineteenth- century studies across departments and geographic specializations. It also responds to the increasing globalization of these historical fields, which have been enriched by attention to relations among nation states and national cultures.
December 2012
Dis/Locating Culture II: Narratives and Epistemologies of Displacement
The colloquium is a continuation of the 2011 Dis/Locating Culture conference at Rice, in which scholars explored the notion of knowledge and displacement. The conference examines representative cultural artifacts (literary, artistic, theoretical) in order to explore the repositioning of knowledge and aesthetics that grew out of colonial experiences and evolved into contemporary transcultural reterritorializations of linguistic practices, genres, and traditions. Focusing on Asia, Brazil, and the Middle East, the conference will further reflect on displacement, migration, and relation. These three invite us to think about culture beyond national and disciplinary boundaries; they also force a reflection that displaces Eurocentric paradigms of knowledge, opening a rich, multidimensional map through which to challenge unequal power relations within the Global South. This conference is organized by Bernard Aresu (French studies) and Luis Duno-Gottberg (Hispanic studies).
April 2013
New Directions in Anthropology
A collaboration between the Departments of Anthropology at Rice and the University of Texas, New Directions in Anthropology will represent the overlapping strengths and questions of the two departments and new directions in the field at large. Specifically, students and faculty from the two universities will study experts and expertise, the study of Latin America and the US-Mexico border, and the study of aesthetics, media, and genre. This conference also offers an important opportunity for conversations on graduate student professionalization, undergraduate advising, and graduate student advising and pedagogy. This conference is organized by Professor Eugenia Georges and graduate students Marcel LaFlamme and Ian Lowrie.
Click here to see a list of past conferences
