Rifkind Seminar
The Rikfind Center Arts & Humanities Faculty Seminar was created by Mikhal Dekel, Emily Greble, and Andras Kisery in 2014. The goal of the Interdisciplinary Rifkind Faculty Seminar is to enhance scholarly life on campus; create a greater sense of community among the faculty; expose students to the breadth of their professors’ research and creative activities; raise the public profile of research in the Humanities and Arts at CCNY; encourage interdisciplinary collaboration; and develop new research opportunities for Humanities and Arts faculty.
Seminar topics are broadly defined so as to attract the greatest number of participants from within the Division of the Humanities and the Arts. 10-12 faculty members of all ranks and specializations participate in the year-long seminar. They read a shared group of texts, meet with guest speakers, and present their own works in progress.
The seminar leader is a full-time research-active faculty member who is selected in rotation from all departments in Humanities and the Arts. He or she collaborates with the following year’s leader to develop the upcoming theme and jointly select the subsequent year’s participants.
Rifkind Room Photos by Jeanette Huang
The seminar invites one or more speakers whose work is central to the given year’s topic. Speakers join the seminar for a meeting, and usually also give a public lecture to the larger college community. Guests speakers have included Stanley Fish, Timothy Snider, Tara Zahra, Akram Khater, Jesse Printz, among others.
The Rifkind Center posts its theme for the following year around April 1st. After the theme has been announced, interested faculty submit a short bio and a 1-2 page proposal in which they describe their current research or creative project and how the seminar might enhance it.