Seminar Overview

Since 1997, the IRW has convened an annual themed seminar which brings together faculty and advanced graduate students from a broad range of departments, disciplines, and schools. One of the features of the seminar over the course of the academic year is the development of deep engagements with the seminar material among the seminar fellows.

In continuation of this practice, this year's IRW interdisciplinary 2008-2009 seminar brings Univeristy faculty, graduate students and IRW Global Scholars together for weekly discussions on one another's work-in-progress. Titled "The Culture of Rights/ The Rights of Culture," the seminar explores the tensions and questions raised by the linkage of "rights" and "culture," and their associated discourses, practices and assumptions.

The seminar meets every Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the IRW Library (second floor, 160 Ryders Lane, Douglass Campus).

Seminar sessions* are open to the public, but guests are urged to request and read the paper to be discussed in advance. Rather than public lectures, the seminar showcases focused conversations about seminar fellows' works-in-progress, addressing an overall theme from a range of disciplinary and methodological perspectives. 

Every Fall, the IRW distributes a call for applications in announcement of the upcoming year's seminar theme to faculty, department chairs, and graduate students on the New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark campuses.  With support from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, up to eight faculty members and five graduate students accepted into the seminar receive teaching release time or research funds/stipends.

ALSO AVAILABLE

* 2008-2009 Seminar Schedule of Discussion available soon.

Frequently Asked Questions about the seminar.

Future Seminar Themes through the academic year 2010-11.

Previous years' seminar rosters, calendars, and project abstracts.