Collaborative Research
The Institute promotes faculty collaboration through a variety of programs and projects:Working Groups
The Institute provides faculty working groups with funding (up to $4,000 per year), meeting space at Knight House, publicity, and organizational support. Such groups design two-year collaborative programs, which may take distinctive shapes but should include at least three public presentations a year and eventually find embodiment in a conference, publication, course, or other appropriate form. Working group proposals may be submitted at any time. In 2007-08, the Institute will sponsor the following groups:Cultural Difference and Democracy
This working group provides an opportunity for the comparative exchange of ideas and the production of new theoretical and empirical knowledge about the complex intertwinings of cultural difference and democracy. Our goals include the development of innovative ways of investigating and understanding the values, beliefs, practices, institutions, processes and relationships that enable and that are enabled by recognizably democratic politics. Among the topics the working group investigates are the relationships between concepts of citizenship and the state, the relationship between subjectivity and political desire, the role of rituals of communication and greeting in the structuring of public debate, the role of cultural legitimacy in the justification of political claims, the value of debate, the role of cultural legitimacy in the justification of political claims, the value of transparency in the dissemination of public information, the deep and complex relationships among economic, cultural and political values, and substantialist versus proceduralist concepts of democracy.More information about Cultural Difference and Democracy
Cultures in Disputed Territory
The purpose of the working group is to continue discussions initiated at the 2004 Annual Humanities Forum concerning concepts of home, land, security, democracy, citizenship, and civil liberties and continued by the working group convened by Dean Jacqueline Royster to respond to two documents, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America and The National Strategy for Homeland Security, representing the official U.S. position regarding national security. This Institute working group is an interdisciplinary initiative that brings together national and international scholars with Ohio State faculty to participate in projects dealing with political boundaries and culture, homeland security and international security, cultures in contention, and responsible citizenshipMore information about Cultures in Disputed Territory
Local Worlds
The "Local Worlds" Working Group has been exploring the intersection of space, culture, and power since it began in Autumn 2007. We've been asking, what is a local domain of practice, and how are they situated in wider structures of meaning and power?We are interested in "local worlds" -- distinct domains of human knowledge and practice -- in their various manifestations through ethnography, historiography, biography, fiction, performance, art, and architecture. These local worlds are manifest in sites as diverse as everyday routines, oral narratives, official documents, images, ritual, etc. The group will consider how to talk about and make sense of local worlds of knowledge and practice and how to think theoretically about human endeavor in a way that yields insightful, empirically grounded scholarship on the ways of being human.
This faculty reading group seeks to build an interdisciplinary discussion at OSU around such questions. We have looked at approaches from cultural anthropology, human geography, linguistics, and the "critical international relations" literature in political science. Future meetings will include looks at particular monographs or other works that elegantly divulge particular local worlds in some fashion. View posted readings.
This group is open to faculty from any department or program; as well as anyone else interested. We welcome both those already engaged in such research, and those merely interested. The interest list includes individuals from over 20 departments in 5 OSU colleges, for example: Geography, English, Comparative Studies, Political Science, Anthropology, Sociology, History, German, French, Spanish, Near Eastern Lang & Cultures, East Asian Lang & Lit, Folklore, Women's Studies, Linguistics, Philosophy, Art History, Music, Education/ Human Ecology, and Social Work.
The format is interdisciplinary mutual engagement, and not a traditional "talk". Our premise is that exciting things happen when interesting intellects gather in a convivial atmosphere. Exquisite desserts, coffee, tea, are always served. For more information, or to be put on the interest email list, please contact Morgan Liu (liu.737@osu.edu) or Joel Wainwright (wainwright.11@osu.edu).
More information about Local Worlds
Lusophone Globalicities
Portuguese is the language of 25 percent of Southern Hemisphere countries and 40 percent of the countries bordering the southern Atlantic rim region, around which eight metropolitan areas use Portuguese. The purpose of the working group is to enhance our understanding of cultural texts and dynamics that have resulted from the centuries-long networks of exchange among and beyond Portuguese-speaking regions in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. We are interested in what this inquiry can teach us about present-day cultural and political realities in the Lusophone world, as well as the role of Lusophone societies in the global milieu. Issues to be explored include domestic and transnational negotiations between “high” and “low” culture and the impact of audiovisual culture (e.g., music, television, cinema) and diverse forms of expressive culture (e.g., folklore and folklife, religious and ritual traditions, festival practices) on contemporary national and global politics, economic systems, and discourses of identity.More information about Lusophone Globalicities
Music as a Biological Imperative
The goal of this working group is to explore the hypothesis that music appreciation is rooted in our genes. If this is true, then various predictions emerge: 1) If music appreciation is encoded in our DNA, vestiges of musical competence should be found in other species; 2) aptitude for music should be found in early humans; 3) infants should show interest and understanding of music that does not involve learning if music is an essential part of our genetic heritage; 4) it should be possible to show how music is processed by the auditory system and explain the physiological reaction of people to music if music did, in fact, influence our survival.More information about Music as a Biological Imperative
Narrative and Cognition Working Group
The aim of this working group is to explore how narrative shapes the experience of time (memory) and space (place) as well as how it informs our holographic capacity to determine our existence within time and space. The working group will grapple with how the mind and its stories inform our capacity to know and make sense of the world. The intersections among cognitive approaches to narrative with those of other approaches, both traditional and emerging, will be considered.More information about Narrative and Cognition Working Group
Literacy Studies@OSU
Led by Harvey J. Graff [English and History], Marcia Farr [Education], Amy Shuman [Folklore and English], Beverly Moss [English], Mollie Blackburn [Education], and Kay Bea Jones [Architecture]The mission of Literacy Studies@OSU is to foster a critical, cross-campus conversation and collaborative investigation into the nature of literacy, bringing together historical, contextual, comparative, and critical perspectives and modes of understanding, from the social and natural sciences to the arts and humanities, education, medicine, and law, stimulating new institutional and intellectual relationships among different disciplinary clusters and their constituents.
Literacy Studies@OSU began as a collaborative faculty working group under the auspices and with the support of the Institute, with programming funds from the College of Humanities, and with institutional assistance from the Department of English.
Literacy Studies@OSU has grown enormously in scope and scale of programs and activities to become a cross-campus presence and is recognized broadly, not only across the huge Ohio State main campus but also nationally and internationally.
