Syracuse Symposium Course Proposal Form (due 3/3/17)
SYRACUSE SYMPOSIUM COURSE PROPOSAL Open to all Full Time Tenure Line Faculty
Fall 2017 & Spring 2018 proposals due via email () by noon on March 3, 2017
Syracuse Symposium engages wider publics with innovative, interdisciplinary work in the humanities by renowned scholars, artists, authors, and performers.
Syracuse Symposium 2017-2018: BELONGING
At first, BELONGING seems generally positive. It can connote affinity based on close ties or allegiances, feeling comfortable, at ease, accepted, connected. It can signal fitting in, being seen as qualified, following norms, or adhering to boundaries. Psychologically, belonging can refer to a state of well-being, whereas politically it can reference having a rightful place in the polity--the possession of rights and protections, including the right to own property. Yet here, belonging (as a noun) has a history related to material objects, capital wealth, and personal effects, and involves the legal ownership of “movable objects of personal property” including chattel (i.e., persons defined as things/property).
Thus BELONGING is as much about humanity or personhood as its denial: the concept references subjects but also objects, it has a history tied to the boundary between citizens/persons and those excluded, subordinated, enslaved. In terms of structural and political power, as well as interpersonal relations, it can mean to be adjunct to, defined in relation to, even possessed by another. Belonging can thus entail coercive or conditional relations (e.g., silencing, suppressing dissent, erasing differences).
o How can the humanities help imagine/define/portray/engage in belonging differently—without denying this complex history? How can we move toward ways of being and longing (be-longing) not reliant on hierarchy, othering, exclusion, dehumanization, or the denial of rights and protections?
o Howcan belongings (as material objects) be used to tell different stories, break open the archive,unearth suppressed memories, or tell the histories of marginalized communities?
o How have groups claimed not-belonging as a means of resistance, identity, or community—not as an imposition, but as a form of identification, cultural production, or political organizing? How can legacies of un-belonging, exile, exclusion be tapped into to redefine belonging?
1. APPLICANT INFORMATION
Faculty member name(s) [must be full-time tenure line]: Click here to enter text.
Email(s) for above: Click here to enter text.
College(s)/Department(s)/Unit(s): Click here to enter text.
2. Syracuse Symposium COURSE INFORMATION
1. Semester in which the proposed course would be taught (Fall or Spring):
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2. Proposed course title brief description:
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3. Rationale (300 words or less)--Describe how the course connects to the Symposium theme and contributes to the humanities broadly conceived:
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4. How would the (up to) $1,500 in support for the course be used?
(guest speaker, specialized teaching materials, a film screening, etc. – please specify)
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5. Do you intend to request Tolley 304 for class sessions?
(Yes, No, Maybe: capacity = 20, equipped with basic technology)
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6. Please attach your tentative syllabus or course outline.
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