The School of Criticism and Theory (SCT) at Cornell is going out with a banquet today at the A.D. White House, and a parting toast is in order. Not only did the six-week summer session draw a record number of international participants, the SCT continued to deliver on its commitment to community outreach, providing several public events a week for the Cornell and Ithaca communities.
Public lectures and seminars were well attended, said Dominick LaCapra, associate director of the SCT and the Bowmar Professor in Human Studies at Cornell.
More than 90 professors and graduate students engaged in this year's program, most riding a schedule comparable to the most intense periods of any school year.
SCT Director Stephen Nichols, a visiting professor at Cornell, and LaCapra both were impressed with the high quality of the SCT pool, which included students from universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Chicago, Michigan, Emory and UCLA.
But of special note was the international community at the SCT this summer. Twenty-six countries were represented, with students and faculty from foreign universities such as: Tartu, Prague, Dundee, Bergen (Norway), McGill, Salford, York, Arhus (Denmark), Huelva (Spain), the Sorbonne, North London, Melbourne, Ottawa, Alberta, Hanan, Lund (Sweden), Western Ontario, Eastern Mediterranean, Simon Bolivar, Pompeu Fabra, Istanbul and Zurich.
In the mix, too, were a number of faculty from Smith College, Ithaca College and Delaware.
Although there was no set theme for the programs -- there never is -- the '99 session coalesced, as political science and social theory merged with literary studies and philosophy. The resulting cohesion created a sense "that the sessions (were) coming together and relating almost as if there was an ongoing dialogue," said Jane Pedersen, associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, who attended several of the public lectures.
LaCapra said that, indeed, "an extended dialogue developed around such problems as the role of nationalism, citizenship and race in relation to other issues and commitments, as well as in relation to the study of literature and thought."
He added that among the issues explored was "the role of interdisciplinarity and the problem of 'translation' between disciplines," as well as between academia and the general public.
Throughout the six-week tour de force, the session emphasized the human element in the humanities with its trademark ambiance of rigorous scholarship and challenging, yet friendly, discourse.
The SCT offers a give and take often lacking in the competitive realm of academia, where intellectual property must be fiercely protected. Guest speakers were accessible and open, ideas were freely exchanged, and relations formed that promise to endure. Dialogues evolved outside the lecture hall and post-lecture receptions, and special events fostered the growth of an intellectual moveable feast. In a summer marked by drought, the SCT session was an invigorating plunge into the fountain of humanistic studies.
The web site for the Society for the Humanities is http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochun/ and the SCT web site is http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochun/sct/.
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