Interdisciplinary Research Seminars

Hall Center seminars are open to interested faculty, staff and graduate students.

If you would like seminar paper password information, email hchseminars@ku.edu. You can sign-up to receive e-mail updates for individual seminars by filling out one of these forms.

Complete seminar schedules are available on the seminar schedule page.

If you are a seminar convener, you can fill out the seminar schedule and budget form here.

For other inquiries, please contact Hall Center Events Specialist April Walton at hchseminars@ku.edu.

Colonialism Seminar

The Colonialism seminar is co-convened by Robert Schwaller (History) and Christine Bourgeois (French, Francophone & Italian Studies).This seminar examines the history and legacy of colonialism in Latin America. Meetings provide an opportunity for a dynamic examination of hemispherical and transatlantic connections across four major themes: identity, territory, religion, and cultural production.

Critical University Studies Seminar

The Critical University Studies Seminar, co-convened by Ben Chappell (American Studies) and Pritha Prasad (English), gathers scholars whose work engages with the ways that universities and academic labor are fully entangled in the social, political, cultural and material formations that they study. Taking academia itself as the focus of inquiry benefits the humanities by developing reflexive and contextualized approaches that enrich the integrity of our intellectual conversations. 

Disability Studies Seminar

The Disability Studies Seminar is co-convened by Ray Mizumura-Pence (American Studies), Sherrie Tucker (American Studies), and Sean Kamperman (English). The Disability Studies Seminar will provide a much-needed forum for scholars to explore and share research on topics relevant to disability within and across the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Scholars within Disability Studies tend to recognize disability in terms of social construction and minority culture.

Gender & Trans* Studies Seminar

The Gender and Trans* Studies Seminar, co-convened by Marta Vicente (History and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies) and Siobhan Kelly (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies), explores gender as both a core concept in humanistic scholarship and a key organizing force in social life. It also examines trans* not only in terms of transgender identities and experiences, but more broadly as an approach to understanding how cultural, social, political, and linguistic systems have historically constructed and enforced hierarchical binaries—such as male/female, straight/queer, and human/non-human—across different times and cultures. At their core, both gender and trans* studies aim to expand humanistic inquiry by situating gender within a wide range of intersecting identities and-culturally and historically-shaped experiences.

Global Africa Seminar

The Global Africa seminar, co-convened by Shawn Alexander (Department of African and African-American Studies), Glenn Adams (Kansas African Studies Center) and Luciano Tosta (Center for Global and International Studies) engages the theme of Global Africa. The Eurocentric knowledge perspectives that dominate global academic production construct African peoples and cultural forms as marginal or peripheral in spatial, temporal, and civilizational terms. The idea of Global Africa challenges these perspectives, positions African (diasporic) peoples and lifeways at the center of global historical, cultural, economic and intellectual processes. It emphasizes the multidirectional circulations of people, ideas, goods, religions, art, and innovations originating from or connected to Africa. 

The Humanities Out Loud: Music, Theater, Literature, and Culture

The Humanities Out Loud Seminar is co-convened by TBD. This seminar provides a forum for research that links music with other forms of cultural production employing the medium of sound, such as the oral performance of literary works. The goal is to explore a conception of the humanities oriented less toward the printed text and more toward performance.

Identity Construction w/in Sports & Media Seminar

The Identity Construction w/in Sports & Media Seminar, co-convened by Steve Bien-Aime (School of Journalism & Mass Communications & Interim Sports Media & Society Concentration Chair) and Patricia Gaston (School of Journalism & Mass Communications), is on “The Intersection of Identity Construction within Sports and Media” in which we explore meaning-making and identity from various perspectives such as history, gender studies, class, race and region.

Medieval & Early Modern Seminar

The Medieval & Early Modern Seminar is co-convened by Sarah Van der Laan (English), and John McEwan (Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities, KU Libraries). The Medieval & Early Modern Seminar meets each semester to discuss original work relating to any aspect of the history, culture, literature, art, or society of any part of the world between c. 400 and c.1800.

Nature & Culture Seminar

The Nature and Culture Seminar is co-convened by TBD (Environmental Studies). Nature is our oldest home and our newest challenge. This seminar brings the perspective of the humanities to bear on past and present environmental issues. It includes research on the changing perception, representation, and valuation of nature in human life, on the reciprocal impact of environmental change on social change, and on the variety of ways we use, consume, manage, and revere the earth. Co-sponsored by Environmental Studies.

Qualitative Methods Seminar

The Qualitative Methods seminar, co-convened by Rachel Schwaller (History; Religious Studies), Tiffany González (History), and Philip Duncan (linguistics; Indigenous Studies), attracts a larger number of faculty from across the disciplines and schools at the University, fostering inter-collegial discussion and collaboration. Qualitative methodologies focus on non-numerical datasets and the creation of new archives outside of often traditional archival sources. Qualitative Methods include oral history recording, focus groups, ethnography, narrative storytelling, and digital humanities which provide ways of merging qualitative and quantitative data sets. The goal of a Qualitative Methodologies seminar is, together, to push boundaries of our methods to find integrative and unique ways of understanding our society, culture, and communities through workshopping and general discussion.