Student Seminars
Designed and run by students, Student Seminars explore topics through an interdisciplinary and collaborative lens.
Each spring, students are invited to propose a seminar to take place the following year in either the following fall or spring semester on a topic of their choosing. They are supported by a faculty advisor who helps in the development of the seminar curriculum and structure. Proposals may include site visits or inviting guest speakers to campus. Once accepted and approved, the Center issues a call for participation to all students and selects participants with a diversity of disciplinary perspectives and experiences. These not-for-credit seminars typically meet four to five times, and all books, materials, trips, and refreshments are funded by the Center.
Seminar participants are considered Undergraduate Humanities Fellows and eligible for a $150 stipend at the conclusion of the seminar to purchase other texts or materials related to the seminar once the final report is submitted.
New for 2023-24: This year, the Center is considering proposals that both work within the format of past student seminars, as well as proposals for seminars that take a different form and experiment with new ways of gathering and learning together. Possible formats could include:
- A series of trips to archives, museums, galleries, and other cultural organizations that explore a common theme
- Film screenings organized on- and off-campus that explore a common theme
- And many other possibilities!
Seminars can receive up to $2000 to support these trips, speakers, and creative elements. Students are asked to submit a preliminary budget as part of their applications.
To discuss your idea, contact Hurford Center Program Manager hjung1 [at] haverford.edu (Kelly Jung) to set up a meeting.
Propose a Seminar
Deadline: March 21, 2025
Open to rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors from all majors.
Be sure to read the Seminar Leader Guidelines, as well as look at past seminar syllabi to help in writing your own.
Join a Seminar
Deadline (for spring 2025): November 20, 2024
Open to rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors from all majors.
Review an example of a strong student seminar application.
Fall 2025 Seminar
Deadline to Apply: Friday, May 5, 2024
Still from Cholita (1995), directed by Michelle Mills, featuring Vaginal Davis with a band.
Exploring Minoritized Strategies of Thriving Through Contemporary Art and Performance
Seminar Leader: Umika Pathak ’25
Faculty Advisor: Lindsay Reckson, English
In George Chauncey’s Gay New York, he explores the equal importance of examining the mainstream gay political movement and what he calls the “everyday strategies of resistance” that he argues gay men employed to thrive in a violent world throughout the 20th century. This seminar seeks to broaden and deepen Chauncey’s theorizing of the forms of everyday resistance to other marginalized communities by turning to Black and Brown art and performance from the late 20th century into our contemporary moment to become intimate with other strategies of resistance. We will look at how marginalized strategies of “thrival” rather than survival can be located in art and what kind of radical possibilities of identity formation or destruction exist within each form of art or performance.
This seminar will prioritize the phenomenological experience of the selected contemporary art and performances with the purpose of discovering and locating these strategies of thriving in practice rather than solely through theoretical frames. The areas of inquiry are intentionally a hodge podge as minoritarian expression often looks this way. The seminar will form a community of thinkers who will engage in various trips and events to deeply study and experience these modes of expression that are both historic and contemporary.
The stakes:
- How are the forms of art and performance explored in this seminar uniquely minoritarian modes of expression? How do they lend themselves to identity formation or destruction?
- What does the experience of these forms of art tell us about minority strategies of thriving? How do they exhibit or not exhibit these strategies? What are these strategies? How are they employed?
- How might we compare contemporary and historic marginalized art forms and how do they relate to evolving strategies of thriving in a world that is unstable in its hostility towards marginalized communities?
This seminar will be of interest to anyone who has an interest in contemporary art and performance as well as their potential relationships to the survival and thrival of minoritarian groups. Those who are interested in disciplines including but not limited to: English, Visual Studies, Art History, Anthropology, Religion, History, and Sociology may find particular connection to their coursework or personal study in these fields..
Schedule:
- Gathering 1: Black Feminist Liberatory Practice and Poetry
- Gathering 2: Ball Culture at the End of the 20th Century
- Gathering 3: Danspace Project Dance Performance, NYPL Archives visit
- Gathering 4: Vox Populi Annual Musical Showcase
- Gathering 5: Bob and Barb’s Thursday Drag Performance
- Gathering 6: Debrief and Wrap Up
Questions: upathak [at] haverford.edu
Seminar Leader Guidelines
- All student seminar leaders will meet with HCAH Program Manager Kelly Jung prior to the start of the seminar. They will work with leader(s) and participants to set a schedule of meetings and review responsibilities and processes.
- Groups should be composed of leader(s) plus six or seven students from a variety of disciplines.
- All seminar participants will meet as a group at least four times during the semester. Full participation is essential. Student seminar leader(s) will work with their peers at the beginning of the semester to create a schedule of meetings.
- The faculty advisor will assist seminar members in choosing reading materials and organizing a speaker event if so desired. The advisor will also serve as an engaged mentor throughout the process and can attend a planning meeting one of the seminar meetings during the fall semester.
- After the reading list is finalized, the Center will purchase and send the texts to students.
- Participants will provide a final assessment of the seminar experience in a form determined by the group.
- All books/materials/refreshments will be funded by the Hurford Center.
- Each student receives a $150 stipend to purchase books or materials broadly related to the seminar topic once the report has been turned in to the Center.
- The Center may also fund a visiting speaker who will address both the seminar group and the campus as a whole.
Purchasing and Procurement
Once a seminar proposal has been approved, the student leader will provide a detailed budget request. They will then work with the Program Manager to request materials related to the seminar and manage the seminar budget over the summer preceding the seminar.
Food/Refreshments
The Center will provide up to $25 per meeting for food. Leader(s) should save receipts for the duration of the Seminar, and submit them to Hurford Center Financial Administrator Assistant Kerry Nelson in VCAM 104 as soon as possible.
Speaker
The Center can support a visiting speaker to campus in the fall semester the seminar takes place. It is recommended but not required that the student leader works closely with a faculty advisor to develop a list of potential speakers and assure that the invited guests understand the character of this visit.
Reports & Undergraduate Fellow Book Allowance
Each Undergraduate Fellow receives an individual $150 stipend for books and materials related to the seminar topic once their report has been turned in.