Research and Creative Collaboratives 2006-07
Art as Knowing
The Art as Knowing Collaborative comprises a working group of artists and scholars from across
the arts, sciences, humanities and social sciences engaged in conversation about artistic practice
and ways of knowing. Questions engaging the group include: How does art work as a way of producing,
negotiating, and communicating knowledge? And how is that way of knowing of value across the disciplines
as well as beyond the University? How do art theory and practice help us think about the forms of
creativity, improvisation, visceral pleasure, and non-deliberative thought that inspire and occur in
scholarship in every discipline? How can the arts stimulate new insights into recurrent problematics
in the humanities, sciences and social sciences? And how can such a discussion be sensitive to
cultural difference when the very category of "art" is itself an artifact of Western history? The
conveners for the Art as Knowing Collaborative are Lynn Lukkas (Department of Art, CLA)
and Margaret Werry (Department of Theatre Arts, CLA).
Art, Design, and Social Engagement
The Art, Design, and Social Engagement Collaborative seeks to identify, generate, and promote research, scholarly work, creative work, and teaching that explores the potential for art and design as tools for social change; to promote collaborative interdisciplinary approaches to university-based social engagement; to further the research of participants and the interdisciplinary conversations to which their work contributes; and to identify, generate, and promote university/community partnerships for teaching, internships, creative work, and research. The conveners for the Art, Design, and Social Engagement Collaborative are Christine Baeumler (Department of Art, CLA), and Kristine Miller (Department of Landscape Architecture, CALA).
Asian Film Collaborative
The Asian Film Collaborative considers the historically produced concept of Asian film with an eye toward
the ways in which it has both guided and limited the production and reception of film from Asia through bi-weekly
screenings, workshops, an Asian Film Collaborative website, and panel discussions. The collaborative has organized DocuLens Asia, a forum and film series of Asian documentary films. The convener for the Asian
Film Collaborative is Christine Marran (Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, CLA).
Disability Studies Initiative
Disability Studies is a broadly construed, interdisciplinary line of study and scholarship. Disability Studies explores the complex dynamic of individual, family, social, economic, cultural, and historial phenomenon which converge in the construct of "disability." The purpose of the Disability Studies Initiative Research Collaborative is to develop an interdisciplinary, cross-college set of courses aimed initially at undergraduate education. The convener of the Disability Studies Initiative Collaborative is Patrick McNamara (Department of History, CLA).
Film Collaborative
The Film Collaborative seeks to foster the research and creative work of its members, which is a coalition of scholars, critics, artists, and filmmaking professionals devoted to the appreciation, study, research, and practice of cinema. Its aim is to create an environment within which cinema can be valued and recognized as a strong disciplinary partner, with its own historical paths and techno-artistic know-how. Its members also wish to intervene in the "disciplining" of cinema studies. Traditionally, cinema as a discipline has been divided between production and study; the former is subcategorized into studio and independent films, and the latter structured around divisions between formalism and theoretical approaches, and nationalist and auteurist biases. Their goal is to seek new paths cutting across such entrenchments. The convener for the Film Collaborative is Hisham Bizri (Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, CLA).
Global Sexualities: Transgressing National and Disciplinary Boundaries
The Global Sexualities Research Collaborative comprises an interdisciplinary group committed to breaking new ground in the understanding of sexualities in a comparative and historical perspective. The group is committed to a comparative exploration of the meanings of sexuality, how discourses of gender and sexuality intersect in different ways over space and time, how sexualities function in different cultures and historical eras, and how globalization affects sexual discourses. The collaborative will explore the range of methodologies and theoretical approaches most useful for addressing such problems. While some aspects of sexuality have been heavily theorized, this collaborative wishes to examine theoretical assumptions and explore fresh approaches. The conveners for the Global Sexualities Collaborative are Anna Clark (Department of History, CLA) and Kevin Murphy (Department of History, CLA).
Markets in Time: Capitalism and Power
This collaborative seeks to bring together scholars engaged in conceptualizing and explaining capitalism and its highly variable expressions. The common effort of these scholars is to explore conceptions of capitalism and markets as a constructed set of relationships among people and places, over time and space, in contradistinction to capitalism or markets as pre-given, self-augmenting powers. The conveners for the Markets in Time collaborative are Tracey Deutsch (Department of History, CLA), George Henderson (Department of Geography, CLA), and Karen Ho (Department of Anthropology, CLA).
Science/Nature/Culture
The Science/Nature/Culture Collaborative brings together faculty and graduate students from diverse disciplines
to explore questions such as: 1) how are the new science knowledges and technologies transforming our understanding
of subjectivity and the body? 2) how do new scientific knowledges and technologies challenge our understanding
of nature, culture and politics? And 3) what is the relation between new knowledge and technologies and democratic
institutions and practices? The collaborative is organizing a workshop on Race and Pedagogy in fall 2006. The convener for the Science/Nature/Culture Collaborative is Karen-Sue Taussig
(Department of Anthropology, CLA).
Telling River Stories
The riverfront as margin and center is at the heart of the inquiry of Telling River Stories. This collaborative seeks to explore the ways varying communities of and along the urban riverfront have imagined the river, used it, lived on and with it, as well as the diverse and sometimes contradictory futures envisioned for the river. In the Twin Cities, the Mississippi riverfront was the industrial heart of the urban area in the nineteenth century, yet at the same time was the home for some of the region's most marginal neighborhoods. Later, as industry and commerce retreated, making the river a marginal space, riverfront communities left too, leaving only those who had no other place. Now, as the riverfront becomes home to high-end residential living, new parks, and attractions, it is time to rethink the whole issue of the riverfront as margin and center, and to find ways to tell the stories of the river. The convener for the Telling River Stories Collaborative is Patrick Nunnally (Metropolitan Design Center, CALA).
Theorizing Early Modern Studies (TEMS)
TEMS is a collaborative, interdisciplinary workshop investigating Europe and the wider world during the early
modern period (late sixteenth through early nineteenth centuries). TEMS has three primary endeavors: 1) to undertake
and promote research that moves beyond traditional Liberal Arts themes, methodologies, and disciplinary divisions; 2)
to create conditions promoting truly collaborative research involving the humanities and social sciences; 3) to
further both the research of and field-shaping conversations of participants. The conveners for the TEMS Collaborative are Juliette Cherbuliez (Department of French and Italian, CLA), Michael Gaudio (Department of Art History, CLA), and J. B. Shank (Department of History, CLA).
Using Dialogue to Bridge the Research to Policy Gap: Mr. Smith Goes to Preschool
This collaborative aims to bring together those who conduct research on early childhood and policymakers. These two groups have a unified goal, improving the lives of young children, but different approaches to this goal. The challenge is to develop a means by which both groups can inform each other: researchers making their work more useful to policymakers, and policymakers using this work to inform their decisions. The convener for the Using Dialogue to Bridge the Research to Policy Gap Collaborative is Lesley Craig-Unkefer (Department of Educational Psychology, CEHD).