A Community of Scholars
Seventy-Five Years of The University Seminars at Columbia
Columbia University Press
A Community of Scholars
Seventy-Five Years of The University Seminars at Columbia
Columbia University Press
The Columbia University Seminars, founded in 1945, represent a distinctive experiment in academia. Scholars from different disciplines and institutions, as well as practitioners and other experts, meet once a month through the academic year to study and discuss subjects, sometimes beyond their specialties. Through collegial discussion, participants learn from one another. Today, over ninety seminars are ongoing: some have outlived their founders, while others are just beginning.
A Community of Scholars is a seventy-fifth anniversary celebration of the founding of the University Seminars. It brings together essays by seminar chairs and other leading participants that exemplify the diversity and vibrancy of these proceedings. Their topics are wide-ranging—the evolution of the labor movement, urban life, the politics and culture of Brazil, the Enlightenment, the prospects for world peace—but in each, a commitment to intellectual provocation and shared learning is on full display. An informative introduction explains how the Seminars came into being and why they continue to matter. The volume also features biographical sketches of Frank Tannenbaum, the Latin America scholar and criminologist who founded the Seminars, and his wife, the anthropologist Jane Belo, a close friend of Margaret Mead. Belo and Tannenbaum endowed the Seminars and allowed them to flourish. A remarkable testament to an unparalleled intellectual forum, A Community of Scholars allows readers to share in the eclectic spirit of the Seminars.
A Community of Scholars is a seventy-fifth anniversary celebration of the founding of the University Seminars. It brings together essays by seminar chairs and other leading participants that exemplify the diversity and vibrancy of these proceedings. Their topics are wide-ranging—the evolution of the labor movement, urban life, the politics and culture of Brazil, the Enlightenment, the prospects for world peace—but in each, a commitment to intellectual provocation and shared learning is on full display. An informative introduction explains how the Seminars came into being and why they continue to matter. The volume also features biographical sketches of Frank Tannenbaum, the Latin America scholar and criminologist who founded the Seminars, and his wife, the anthropologist Jane Belo, a close friend of Margaret Mead. Belo and Tannenbaum endowed the Seminars and allowed them to flourish. A remarkable testament to an unparalleled intellectual forum, A Community of Scholars allows readers to share in the eclectic spirit of the Seminars.
For seventy-five years The University Seminars at Columbia have had a powerful, if too often unacknowledged impact on the intellectual life of the city and the nation. Bringing together members from full professors to graduate students and people without an academic affiliation, Seminar meetings have established democratic spaces for the exchange of ideas. Long before interdisciplinarity became a byword in the academy, The Seminars practiced it, uniting individuals from numerous areas of expertise to discuss subjects ranging from the Renaissance to the city, from social-science methods to population biology, from dance to human rights. In short essays relating the history of over a dozen Columbia Seminars, this gem of a book reminds us, at a fraught time for the life of the mind, of the intellectual values so central to social progress and human understanding. Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University
Founded in 1945 by humanities faculty as the world reeled from a war that defeated fascism, the Columbia University Seminars span all areas of knowledge, from social welfare to death to human rights to the study of Brazil, Italy, Japan, and other countries. Today, as illiberal politics spreads, and societies become more polarized, the model of intellectual community and open dialogue they represent is more necessary than ever. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Professor of History and Italian Studies, New York University
The Columbia University Seminars have played a vital role in the intellectual flourishing of hundreds of scholars, with the senior members providing inspiration and guidance for their younger colleagues and the younger ones benefitting from the wisdom of their elders. This was certainly true for me, from “The Political Economy of War and Peace” in the 1970s to the “Full Employment” seminar today. As this volume amply documents, the Seminars are one of the finest experiments ever undertaken at Columbia. Frank Roosevelt, Professor of Economics Emeritus, Sarah Lawrence College
Foreword: The University Seminars at Seventy-Five: An Ongoing Experiment in Continuity with Novelty by Robert E. Pollack
Introduction: Engaged Learning by Alice Newton
A Note to the Reader by Thomas Vinciguerra
1: Thinking Aloud: The Seminar on the Renaissance (#407) by Cynthia M. Pyle and Alan Stewart
2: Critiquing the Enlightenment: The Seminar on Eighteenth-Century European Culture (#417) by Elizabeth Powers
3: Out of Chaos, Order: The Seminar on Content and Methods of the Social Sciences (#411) by Tony Carnes
4: Mirror Images and Parallel Progression: The Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation (#539) by William G. Luhr and Cynthia Lucia
5: Keeping Alive the Dream: The Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare, and Equity (#613) by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and Sheila D. Collins, with Helen Lachs Ginsburg
6: Exploring a Diverse Tropical Colossus: The Seminar on Brazil (#557) by Sidney M. Greenfield
7: “Where Do You Live?”: The Seminar on the City (#459A) by Lisa Keller and Robert Beauregard
8: Fruit Flies and Tomcod: The Seminar in Population Biology (#521) by Kathleen A. Nolan
9: Living Long and Prospering: The Seminar on Aging and Health: Policy, Practice, and Research (#695) by Victoria H. Raveis
10: Speaking About the Unspeakable: The Seminar on Death (#507) by Christina Staudt, Joseph W. Dauben and John M. Kiernan
11: Thinking and Talking About Talking and Thinking: The Seminar on Language and Cognition (#681) by Robert E. Remez
12: Embracing Our Common Humanity: The Seminar on Human Rights (#561) by George Andreopoulos
13: Understanding Conflict: The Seminar on the Problem of Peace (#403) by Catherine Tinker
Appendix 1: Frank Tannenbaum: A Biographical Essay by Joseph Maier and Richard W. Weatherhead
Appendix 2: Jane Belo: First Lady of the University Seminars by Georgina Marrero
Acknowledgments
Author Biographies
List of the Columbia University Seminars, 1945–2019
Index
Introduction: Engaged Learning by Alice Newton
A Note to the Reader by Thomas Vinciguerra
1: Thinking Aloud: The Seminar on the Renaissance (#407) by Cynthia M. Pyle and Alan Stewart
2: Critiquing the Enlightenment: The Seminar on Eighteenth-Century European Culture (#417) by Elizabeth Powers
3: Out of Chaos, Order: The Seminar on Content and Methods of the Social Sciences (#411) by Tony Carnes
4: Mirror Images and Parallel Progression: The Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation (#539) by William G. Luhr and Cynthia Lucia
5: Keeping Alive the Dream: The Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare, and Equity (#613) by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg and Sheila D. Collins, with Helen Lachs Ginsburg
6: Exploring a Diverse Tropical Colossus: The Seminar on Brazil (#557) by Sidney M. Greenfield
7: “Where Do You Live?”: The Seminar on the City (#459A) by Lisa Keller and Robert Beauregard
8: Fruit Flies and Tomcod: The Seminar in Population Biology (#521) by Kathleen A. Nolan
9: Living Long and Prospering: The Seminar on Aging and Health: Policy, Practice, and Research (#695) by Victoria H. Raveis
10: Speaking About the Unspeakable: The Seminar on Death (#507) by Christina Staudt, Joseph W. Dauben and John M. Kiernan
11: Thinking and Talking About Talking and Thinking: The Seminar on Language and Cognition (#681) by Robert E. Remez
12: Embracing Our Common Humanity: The Seminar on Human Rights (#561) by George Andreopoulos
13: Understanding Conflict: The Seminar on the Problem of Peace (#403) by Catherine Tinker
Appendix 1: Frank Tannenbaum: A Biographical Essay by Joseph Maier and Richard W. Weatherhead
Appendix 2: Jane Belo: First Lady of the University Seminars by Georgina Marrero
Acknowledgments
Author Biographies
List of the Columbia University Seminars, 1945–2019
Index