Culture & Creativity Workshop

Culture and Creativity Workshop 2011-2012

Fridays from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm at The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise & Public Policy

If your research examines the role of meaning or creativity in society, we invite you to join our cross-disciplinary workshop.  The workshop caters to Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students from the social sciences and humanities that are currently engaged in studies of interpretation, cultural practices, and creativity in everyday life. New members are always welcome, but we seek to establish a committed group of scholars willing to attend regularly and actively participate in improving colleagues’ research and writing. In addition, we expect every member of the workshop to present a paper once per academic year.

Every week (with a few deviations) the workshop zeros in on one paper, circulated in advance.  Our focus is on refining works-in-progress: articles under review, conference papers, dissertation chapters, and the like.  Polished or published papers are best reserved for other settings.

Periodically, we’ll mix up the format to keep things fresh.  Once or twice a semester the workshop will bring in scholar from another university to present a working paper.  Additionally, once monthly we’ll have a “show & tell” session in which workshop members pick a cultural object for us to discuss at length.

If you are interested in joining the workshop, please send your email address to our graduate student coordinator at our workshop email, who will add you to our email list.

cultureandcreativity@gmail.com

Additionally, if you are interested in participating and presenting a paper this fall, please contact one of the faculty directors:

Elizabeth Long Lingo: elizabeth.long.lingo@vanderbilt.edu

See our list of previous workshops:

2010

Gregg Horowitz, Philosophy, “Absolute Bodies: The Video Puppets of Tony Oursler”

Steven Tepper and Katherine Everhart, Sociology, “A leg up or a foothold:  Group competition, ontological security and the symbolic politics of television”

Object Lesson: Copyright Criminals, Kembrew McLeod, Communications Studies (University of Iowa)

Sarah Glynn, Sociology, “I am tattooed therefore I am: The importance of client narratives in interactive service encounters”

Elizabeth Long Lingo, Curb Center, “Ain’t got art? Attempts at mobilizing collective action in the performing arts”

Erin Metz McDonnell, Sociology (Northwestern University), “Budgetary Units: A Weberian Approach to Consumption”

Object Lesson: Kampala Flow – East African Hip-Hop from Uganda, Greg Barz, Blair School of Music

Art Reed, Sociology

Terence E. McDonnell, Sociology, “Cultural Entropy: When Instrumental Aesthetics Fail”

Object Lesson: “Live Art: Learning to Cry on Cue,” Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Art

Sammy Shaw, Sociology, “The Old Guard is Dead: Position Taking and Art World Change in Two Mid-Size Cities”

2008-2009

Damian Williams, Sociology, “Stories from Daniel’s Den: Collective Sense-Making in a Homeless Self-Help Group”

Richard Lloyd, Sociology, “On the Barstools of Giants: Place, Aura & Cultural Production”

Steven J. Tepper, Sociology, “Sticks, Stones & Words: Structure of Cultural Conflict”

Claire Sisco King, Communications, “The Man Inside: Trauma, Gender & the Nation in The Brave One”

Jennifer Lena, Sociology, “The Professional Tastes of Music Critics”

Dan Cornfield, Sociology, “Artistic workers and Their American Dreams: A Typology From the Case of Nashville Music Professionals”

Elizabeth Long Lingo, Curb Center, “Nexus Work: Brokerage of Creative Projects”

Bill Ivey, Director of the Curb Center, “President Obama’s Transition Team for cultural agencies: National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services”

Anastasia Curwood, African Diaspora Studies, “Stormy Weather: African-American Marriages Between the Two World Wars”

Heather Hensman Kettrey, Sociology, “Guilty Pleasures: The Role of the Confession in the Missing Discourse of Female Sexual Desire”

Terry McDonnell, Sociology, “Scare Tactics: Cultural Power and Images of Death, Illness, and Health in Ghanaian AIDS Campaigns”

Paul Young, English, Film Studies, “The Red Badge of Futility: Naturalist Landscapes and Early Story Films”

Laura Carpenter, Sociology,”News Media and the Construction of Male Circumcision and Female Genital Cutting as Health-Related Public Problems”

Jonathan Neufeld, Philosophy, “Authoritative performance in law and music”

2007-2008

Brooke Ackerly, Political Science, “Justifying Universal Human Rights”

Jonathan Neufeld, Philosophy, “The Liberal Limits of Legitimate Listening”

Erin Rehel, Sociology, “The Theming of Fitness Facilities in the United States”

John Sloop, Communication Studies, “Making the Cellular Subject”

Bruce Barry, Owen School, “Speechless: The Erosion of Free Speech in the American Workplace”

---