New Fellowship Opportunity For Arts Practitioner / Writer

The Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa) and the Stanford Humanities Center intend to offer one residential fellowship at Stanford for academic year 2008-09 to a practitioner who is also a writer, scholar, or critic pursuing a research project in the arts. This fellow will be the first in a pilot fellowship program bringing together the humanities and arts in a research and creative environment on the Stanford campus.

The fellowship recipient will be in residence at the Stanford Humanities Center and will be part of an intellectual community of about 25 fellows working on projects in history, literature, philosophy, and other humanities fields. The fellow will be affiliated with one of the three SiCa centers: the Center for Arts, Science and Technology; the Center for Global Arts; or the Center for Humanities and the Arts.

Eligibility: Applicants must demonstrate professional accomplishment as arts practitioners and as critics or scholars and must have received a relevant terminal degree (usually MFA or PhD) in or before September 2005. Fellowships will be awarded on the basis of a scholarly or critical project in the arts and not on the basis of art production.

For important information about the fellowship program, full eligibility requirements, and application information, go to: http://sica.stanford.edu/fellowship.html

For more information about the Stanford Humanities Center and the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts go to http://shc.stanford.edu and http://sica.stanford.edu.

Applicants will be notified of the competition results by the end of May 2008.

Mary Dakin
Associate Director, SiCa
Stanford University
Wallenberg Hall
Stanford, CA 94305
Email: sica@stanford.edu
Visit the website at http://sica.stanford.edu

Freeman Japan Studies Workshop – Honolulu

FREEMAN INSTITUTE FOR INFUSING JAPAN STUDIES INTO THE UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM, HONOLULU, HAWAII    MAY 18 – JUNE 6, 2008
Application deadline:  February 1

The Japan Studies Association, with a generous grant from the Freeman Foundation, will conduct a 3 week intensive workshop on Japan for faculty and administrators from two and four-year colleges and universities. The workshop is for individuals who have little or no prior academic background on Japan and who wish to begin incorporating Japan Studies into their courses. The program is open to faculty in the humanities, social sciences, business or education. Administrators and librarians are also eligible to apply.

The workshop will cover a wide variety of topics relating to Japan, including history, politics, literature, business, and the arts. Its primary purpose is to introduce faculty and administrators into all aspects of Japanese society so that they can return to their institutions and begin incorporating Japan Studies into their courses.  It will have multiple instructors, primarily drawn from the University of Hawaii, but also including noted scholars from other universities.

The workshop will be held at Tokai University in Honolulu, Hawaii. Tokai is located about a ten- minute walk from Waikiki. Participants will be expected to arrive at Tokai on Sunday, May 18th by 6:00 PM for opening ceremonies. The obligatory closing banquet is Friday evening, June 6th. Participants must check out of Tokai by Saturday, June 7th, unless other arrangements are made with the Tokai staff. Due to the intensive nature of the program, participants are not allowed to bring spouses or domestic partners.

There will be only 20 participants selected for the Freeman Fellowships. Each participant will receive up to $600 to cover roundtrip airfare to Hawaii. Single rooms, some meals and a stipend will be provided.  Each college or university is required to pay a $500 Program Fee for its participant. This fee must be paid by May 1st.  Completed applications are due electronically by February 1st. Successful candidates will be notified by February 15th.   Application forms and a sample schedule may be found at the JSA website: http://www.japanstudies.org/freemaninfo.htm

If you have any questions address them to Dr. Joseph L. Overton, President of the JSA at: overton@hawaii.edu

Altered States: 2nd Annual Critical Studies Graduate Student Conference

University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts – March 28-29, 2008                  Los Angeles, CA

The graduate students in the Critical Studies Division in the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts seek submissions from graduate students on the theme of “altered states.” In this conference we will address the issue of “altered states,” which we understand to encompass questions of how visual media and visual culture can serve to represent and open up possibilities for expanded experience. What are the consequences of transgressing boundaries — political, social, technological, and mental? How can media, broadly understood, provide routes for subjects to break free of the ideologies that constrain their perception? What forces seek to constrain such expansion? What are the potential costs associated with altered states?

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

* politics of alternative performances, exhibition spaces and practices
* exile and immigrant cinemas, and the politics of transnational cinema
* the legacies and continuances of the psychedelic movement
* “mainstream” or hegemonic responses to the counterculture
* drug culture or political economies of the war on drugs
* ghosting, haunting, and representations of the paranormal
* discourses of hybridity, cloning, and bioengineering in the media
* critical histories of mental illness and asylums
* the mobilization of media and the atomization of the viewer
* paracinema or exploitation cinemas and non-normative spectatorship

We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations from a wide variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches. To apply, send an abstract (up to 300 words) and a brief biographical sketch (up to 100 words) by January
21, 2008 to zeroforconduct@live.com.

Reading: Douglas Noel Adams

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this already happened,” (Douglas Noel Adams: Quoteworld.org).