Invitation to CAHSS Colloquium Series

The five Research Centers in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences are collaborating to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations among faculty, staff, and students to build intellectual community within and beyond individual research interests and curricula offerings. Each year the Center Directors will select a theme as the focus for a year-long colloquium series. The topic for AY 2022-2023 is resilience.

Resilience is the ability of an entity – a person, an institution, a technology, a community, a natural environment – to anticipate, respond to, and recover from adverse conditions. The concept of resilience generally has a positive connotation, but it has also been criticized for placing on individuals and communities the burden to adapt to adverse and potentially unjust contexts. Adapting to adverse conditions may not necessarily improve them, so what is the relationship between resilience, resistance and social change?

The Center Directors will organize an interdisciplinary panel discussion to mark the opening of the colloquium. We invite departments, programs, and faculty to host additional events about resilience in AY 2022-2023, such as guest lectures, research seminars, workshops, or field trips. Events might explore several questions, including the analytical value of the concept of resilience to specific fields of study, different conceptualizations of resilience, critiques to conventional thinking on resilience, and the pedagogy of resilience. Faculty should also consider exploring the theme of resilience in their fall classes and encourage students to participate in colloquium events.

We recommend that events be intentionally interdisciplinary. Departments and programs are encouraged to co-organize events with opportunities for scholars from different disciplines to compare their perspectives and envision potential collaboration. To discuss or submit an idea for the colloquium program, please use this form. The Centers will provide funds for the partial support of a limited number of proposals.