Research and Creative Collaboratives 2007-08
Atlantic Worlds: Art and Globalization from Columbus to NAFTA
The Atlantic Worlds collaborative addresses the topic of globalization and visual culture in the Atlantic world. From slavery and the slave trade to race politics and free trade, from first contact and exchange with indigenous cultures to the current role of the indigenous within the global art market, from the formation of empire to the emergence of the modern nation state, the Atlantic has served as a space for globalization. The collaborative will organize a conference on visual culture and globalization within the Atlantic world, held in conjunction with a spring 2008 interdisciplinary graduate seminar on the same topic. The conveners of the Atlantic Worlds collaborative are Michael Gaudio and Jane Blocker (Department of Art History, CLA).
Creating Culturally Informed Trauma Research: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Most psychological research on trauma is based on Western samples and Western conceptions of trauma and mental health, but there is increasing recognition of the limits of this approach. A small but growing body of research indicates that individuals from non-Western cultures have different notions of what is traumatic, experience different types of post-trauma symptoms, use different coping behaviors, and ascribe different meanings to traumatic events. This collaborative brings together scholars from across the University community to thing about how to move beyond Western conceptions of trauma, to better understand the role of culture in psychological responsies to traumatic life events, and to conduct culturally informed trauma research. The convener of the Creating Culturally Informed Trauma Research collaborative is Patricia Frazier (Department of Psychology, 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. Film Collaborative members contribute to the University's E-Center for Film. The conveners for the Film Collaborative are Rembert Hüser (Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch, CLA), Siobhan Craig (Department of English, CLA), and Christine Marran (Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, CLA).
Research Collaborative on Global Sexualities: Methodologies and Spaces
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 explores 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 and Kevin Murphy (Department of History, CLA).
Mapping the Determinants of Health and Behavior: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Dietary Behavior
The health and well-being of people—and the societies to which they belong—rest on a complex set of relations that connect biological, psychological, social, cultural, and environmental systems, but to date efforts to promote health and alleviate disease have focused primarily on the operations of a single system or level of analysis. There is emerging consensus among both researchers and practitioners that future innovations in efforts to improve dietary behavior critically depend on the development of new models that capture the interdependencies among the biological, psychological, and environmental systems that regulate people’s health and health practices. The formation of a multidisciplinary research collaborative is a critical first step toward the design of innovative multi-level models that will facilitate the development of an evidence base that can guide new approaches to improving people’s dietary practices and, in turn, improve their health. The collaborative’s conveners are Alexander Rothman (Department of Psychology, CLA) and Simone French (Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, AHC).
Performance and Social Justice Collaborative: Pipaashaa, extreme thirst
The Performance and Social Justice Collaborative is a research-creative collaborative mobilizing the intersection between social justice work and performance. The collaborative will create Pipaashaa, extreme thirst, a project exploring the impact of environmental degradation in the lives of communities of color across the divides of North and South. Realized through the artistic labor of twenty-five women artists of color, this project seeks to locate women’s bodies as an important site marking the devastation as well as resistance to these phenomena, and to suggest the transformative potential of performance. The collaborative works in cooperation with Ananya Dance Theatre and its conveners are Ananya Chatterjea (Department of Theater Arts and Dance, CLA), Omese'eke Natasha Tinsley (Department of English, CLA), and Richa Nagar (Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, CLA).
The Poetix Collaborative
The Poetix Collaborative is dedicated to the cross-cultural study of poetics and poetry and to performing poetic works for campus and non-campus communities alike. Foremost among its multiple aims is to encourage scholarly exchanges on poetics across disciplinary divides and institutions, to make poetry more visible, viable, and embodied, and to establish links with locally, nationally, and globally practicing poets and poetics scholars. The collaborative is convened by Maria Damon (Department of English, CLA), and Cristophe Wall-Romana (Department of French and Italian, CLA).
Reconfiguring Rhetorical Studies: Crossing Boundaries
The Reconfiguring Rhetorical Studies Collaborative investigates the intersections in rhetorical studies across the disciplines of communication studies and composition. Its ongoing tasks are to undertake and promote research that moves beyond the departmental and disciplinary divisions that fragment the rhetorical tradition through presentation and collaborative review, to engage cutting-edge research in rhetoric by scholars outside the Duluth campus, and to create conditions promoting undergraduate and graduate research projects which take advantage of the full scope of the rhetorical tradition. The conveners are David Beard, Kenneth Marunowski (Both of the Writing Studies Program, UM-Duluth), David Gore, Michael Pfau , Elizabeth Nelson, and Mark Huglen (all from the Department of Communication, UM-Duluth).
Social Networks Collaborative: Strengthening Human Relationships across Space and Time
How can human behavior and social relationships be better facilitated and structured by modern technologies, especially in academic settings such as the University of Minnesota? The Social Networks Collaborative convenes an interdisciplinary group of scholars and leaders trying to resolve these questions in their own disciplines, including education, sociology, media studies, rhetoric, and architecture. The collaborative is working to define a research-based framework for the design and development of an online social network architecture intended to strengthen undergraduates’ retention, educational attainment, and community engagement. The collaborative’s conveners are Christine Greenhow (Digital Media Center, OIT), Lee Anderson (School of Architecture, (CD), Joan Hughes (Department of Curriculum and Instruction, CEHD), Nora Paul (School of Journalism and Mass Communication, CLA), Loren Terveen (Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IT), and Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch (Department of Rhetoric, CFANS).
Telling River Stories
The riverfront as margin and center is at the heart of the inquiry of the Telling River Stories Collaborative. 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. Its members share an interest in and commitment to better understanding the changing nature and meaning of the urban Mississippi River. The convener for the Telling River Stories Collaborative is Patrick Nunnally (Metropolitan Design Center, CD).