This group sets out to demystify the digital humanities. From a theoretical vantage, it asks: how do we turn material into data, create accessible archives, and develop digital tools and visualizations? Contact: Sharifa Lookman [email protected] or John White [email protected]

The reading group aims to bring together scholars from different departments to explore the themes addressed in the Effron Center's Asian American Studies (ASA) lecture series. Contact: Sally Yi [email protected]

 

In contemporary caste movements, there is a dissonance between caste and the category of labor. To that end, we will look at scholarship that explores this tension in productive ways and also addresses the caste and labor nexus in hitherto unexplored regions within South Asia, such as the Northeast frontier zones. Further, connected histories of caste that extend beyond South Asia, i.e. in West Africa and North America, will also be examined. Contacts: Muskan Bakhshi [email protected], Rini P. Kujur [email protected], Ainee Farooqu [email protected]

An interdisciplinary reading group on the potential relationship between current epistemological problems in critical theory and computer science.  Contact: Kaya Alpturer [email protected]) 

The discipline of feminist studies has always been dominated by American and European scholarship. Since there has been a rapid expansion of the field, the aim of this group is to focus on scholarship from other regions of the world that cuts across multiple boundaries. Contact: Aaliyia Malik ([email protected])

This biweekly reading group will focus on the relationship between magic and metamorphosis, and their intersections with concepts such as power, gender, love and death. Contacts: Fay Shakey ([email protected]), Olivia May ([email protected]), Mary Kate Guma ([email protected])

What makes the category of the criminal? Does anything exist outside of the criminal? Does the category of the criminal retain any analytic utility in our efforts towards prison and penal abolition? By engaging texts that eschew its usual definitions, our readings and collective deconstruction of the category of the criminal will push the term to its limits, unveiling our own investments in the category, and debating whether its abolition or embrace pushes us closer towards the just world we work to create together.. Contact: William Trlak ([email protected])

Music and movement are intertwined in many cultures and time periods. This reading group will explore this relationship from interdisciplinary perspectives spanning the humanities and social sciences. Contact: Claire Massy-Paoli [email protected]

This reading group explores the intersections between modes of representation and ecological-ecocritical themes, aiming to enrich interdisciplinary dialogues and rethink the ecological conditions of humanity. We invite participants to join us in reflecting on ecological discourses and practices by engaging with diverse and “global” artistic and scholarly works. Contacts: Xiaoyao Guo ([email protected]), Shing-Kwan Chan ([email protected])

This reading group will delve into the enduring and heterochronic authoritarian formations in Latin America, centering on the pivotal role that the military corps have played in shaping the political life of the region, and its tainting across the affects, morals, and sensibilities in the everyday of Latin American societies. Contact: Nicolás Díaz Letelier ([email protected])

This reading group explores the topic of ethics through various traditions, both religious and otherwise. By exploring the theme of universalism, this group provides a space to question how we may ‘think ethically’ in the modern era, where the role of traditional ethical sources is increasingly under scrutiny. Contact: Abdullah Naveed [email protected]

Philosophers have historically played a foundational role in musicology, from theorizing the origins of music to its potential for political liberation. In this reading group, we aim to closely read the central philosophical texts on music to understand their arguments and why they have remained prominent among musicologists and cultural theories. Contact: Gabrielle Hooper ([email protected])