Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and led by Professors Karen Miller and Naomi Stubbs, these two year-long seminars address themes related to war, and will bring together Liberal Arts faculty with a view to developing their curricula in conversation with one another and in relation to readings and visiting speakers addressing these topics.

In the first year of this seminars (2017-2018), participants will consider questions surrounding perceptions of war and the relationship between technology and war. Faculty will examine how war has been understood, focusing first on the philosophical questions that war evokes, and then on how evolving technologies of war shift these perceptions. In the first semester, we will consider interdisciplinary theories of war and explore the relationship between human nature and military conflict, we will examine how technological shifts have transformed war’s cultural and political meanings. The seminar will be supplemented by discussions with Chris Hedges (Pulitzer Prize winning journalist) and Dr. Lisa Stampnitzky (Department of Politics, Sheffield University).

In the second yearlong seminar (2018-2019) we will address war and conflict, honing in on the aftermaths and memories of war, especially among Americans. We will pay particular attention to how veterans and refugees have lived their lives and been represented, and consider contestations over how war has been remembered by visiting and discussing physical sites of memorialization. Americanist Dr. John Kinder (History, and Gender and Women’s Studies, Oklahoma State University) and Performance Studies scholar Dr. Rebecca Schneider (Professor of Theatre Arts, Brown University) will join as visiting speakers.

Eligibility: This seminar is open to full and part-time faculty members in the Liberal Arts. Preference will be given to those teaching clusters and/or LIB200. Faculty may participate in one or both seminars.

Inquiries: Naomi Stubbs (nstubbs@lagcc.cuny.edu, x5680), Karen Miller (kamiller@lagcc.cuny.edu x6016) or Ros Orgel (roslyno@lagcc.cuny.edu, x5448)