MIDWEST FACULTY SEMINAR
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
5845 SOUTH ELLIS AVENUE • CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60637
TELEPHONE: 773/834-4439 • TELEFAX: 773/834-0493
http://mfs.uchicago.edu
MFS TOPICS 2005-2006
Edward Said, Orientalism – November 3-5, 2005
Since its publication in 1978, Orientalism has been translated into 36 languages. It is often
credited with fundamentally reshaping several disciplines, and almost single-handedly inventing
the field of postcolonial studies. With such far-reaching influence, Orientalism has been lauded
and attacked with equal vehemence: lauded for revising our global map, for introducing new
ways of talking about “other” cultures, and for giving both Western and Arab intellectuals a way
to understand their interdependent histories; attacked for encouraging naïve cultural relativism or
for condemning the very tradition out of which it comes. This seminar will revisit Said’s seminal
text in order to consider its methodology and central aims, the context in which it was written,
and the legacy it has left behind, both inside and outside of the academy.
The Future of Citizenship – January 19-21, 2006
In its post-Enlightenment incarnations, citizenship is usually understood in liberal contractarian
terms to mark a set of relations between an individual and a nation. This seminar will discuss the
history and theory of citizenship in order to consider the place of this concept in a world
characterized by unprecedented economic globalization, international migration, and
marketization. How might we imagine our participation in political communities when the
boundaries of these communities are increasingly unstable? Does “citizenship” remain a useful
way to do this? In order to address this question, this seminar will explore various kinds of
supranational citizenries, international human rights, and watershed moments in the history of the
concept, including eighteenth-century political revolutions and twentieth-century decolonization.
Secularism – February 22-25, 2006
For much of its long history, “secularism” has been defined by what it is not: as the nonecclesiastical, the non-sacred, or the non-religious. The inadequacy of such negative definitions
has become increasingly clear, as Americans of all religious and political affiliations anticipate
the end of “secularism” with dread or with satisfaction, fighting to insure its survival or to speed
its demise. This seminar will ask what the positive content of “secularism” might be: what are the
ideas, beliefs, practices, or values that this term signifies, which so many feel compelled to
defend or decry? How might secularism be understood as one set of beliefs and practices amongst
others, and how might it engage in some kind of dialogue with other beliefs and practices? What
might secularism offer the world, and what are its shortcomings?
Natural Science and Human Values: Co-evolution or Confrontation? – April 27-29, 2006
This seminar will consider the challenge of teaching science in the United States today,
particularly in the context of recent debates about teaching evolution. Rather than treat these
debates as a simple contest between science and religion, the left and the right, this seminar will
use this interdisciplinary setting to explore what is at stake in this controversy. We will look at
how the “intelligent design” argument seeks to redefine science by removing its commitment to
methodological naturalism, and will examine the different understandings of “naturalism” that
inform contemporary scientific and non-scientific culture. We will also discuss questions of
educational accountability and cultural pluralism: how should educators address the divide
between the scientific community and the large majority of Americans who, as polls show, do not
think that evolution is a proven scientific fact?