Past MFS Topics

• 2006-2007

  • John Rawls' A Theory of Justice– March 1-3, 2007
  • Contemporary China– January 18-20, 2007
  • Hurricane Katrina and Contemporary America– November 2-4, 2006

• 2005-2006

  • Edward Said, Orientalism – November 3-5, 2005
  • The Future of Citizenship– January 19-21, 2006
  • Secularism –February 22-25, 2006
  • Natural Science and Human Values: Co-evolution or Confrontation?– April 27-29, 2006

• 2004-2005

  • Relating to Animals –October 14-16
  • Modern Islam –January 20-22, 2005
  • The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (1962) -Jurgen Habermas -March 3-5, 2005
  • Global Warming -April 28-30, 2005

• 2003-2004

  • Richard Wright's Native Son -October 23-25, 2003
  • Human Rights in the Academy -January 29-31, 2004
  • Rhetorics of Religious Nationalism -March 4-6, 2004
  • World Hunger: Causes and Consequences -April 29-May1, 2004

• 2002-2003

  • Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species -October 24-26, 2002
  • Violence in the Public Sphere -January 23-25, 2003
  • Modernism and the Cultures of Modernity -February 27 - March 1, 2003
  • The City -April 3-5, 2003

• 2001-2002

  • Diasporas/Diasporic Cultures
  • Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism -January 17-19, 2002
  • Resolving the Environmental Crisis -February 21-23, 2002
  • Media Aesthetics -April 25-27 2002

• 2000-2001

  • Jane Austen in Her Time and Ours -January 11-13, 2001
  • Genetic Research and the Future of Medicine -February 1-3, 2001
  • Computer Cultures -March 1-3, 2001
  • Capital Punishment and the Limits of Ethics -April 26-28, 2001

• 1999-2000

  • Politics, rights and Representation -October 14-17, 1999
  • Shakespeare in Film- January 20-22, 2000
  • Locating the Global
  • New Cosmologies

• 1998-1999

  • Toni Morrison's Beloved- October 29-31, 1998
  • The History of Culture at the Present Time- February 4-6, 1999
  • Relocating Human Rights- February 25-27, 1999
  • Evolution in Biology and Culture- April 19-May 1, 1999

• 1997-1998

  • Rationality, Quasi-Rationality and Rational Choice Theory- November 6-8, 1997
  • Cinematic Representations of History- January 29-31, 1998
  • John Dewey's Democracy and Education- February 26-28, 2998
  • Gender, Biology and Embodiment- April 30-May 2, 1998

• 1996-1997

  • Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex- November 21-23, 1996
  • Transformation of Work- January 23-25, 1997
  • Big Science/Small Science- February 27-March 1, 1997
  • Memory, History and Experience- April 24-26, 1997

• 1995-1996

  • The Rise of the Right- November 16-18, 1995
  • Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth- January 25-27, 1996
  • On Taste- March 7-9, 1996
  • The Mind and the Brain- April 25-27, 1996

• 1994-1995

  • D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation- December 1-3, 1994
  • Critiquing Objectivity- January 12-14, 1995
  • The Historical Novel: Nationality, Ethnicity and Global Cultures- February 23-25, 1995
  • Cultural Pluralism and Deliberative Democracy- April 20-22, 1995

• 1993-1994

  • Logics of Public Display: Fairs, Museums and Spectacles- October 21-23, 1993
  • Reflections on Chaos Theory Across the Disciplines- January 27-29, 1994
  • Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice- March 10-12, 1994
  • Law and Social Change- April 7-9, 1994

• 1992-1993

  • The Cultural Work of American Sport- October 29-31, 1992
  • W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk- January 21-23, 1993
  • Professionalism and its Discontents- March 11-13, 1993
  • In the Margins of Culture- May 6-8, 1993

• 1991-1992

  • Visualization and its Perception- October 1991
  • Nationalisms, Old and New- January 1992
  • The Fate of Liberal Education- February 1992
  • Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality

• 1990- 1991

  • Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, A Retrospective- November, 1990
  • The Future of Europe- February 1991
  • The Middle East and Islamic World in Historical and Contemporary Context- March 1991
  • Transformations in American Public Art- May, 1991

• 1989-1990

  • Feminism and the Female Subject- October, 1989
  • Fundamentalisms: East and West- January, 1990
  • What's the Story?- March, 1990
  • The Power of Language- April, 1990

• 1988-1989

  • The Body as Social Text- October, 1988
  • More's Utopia- January, 1989
  • Talking Movies: Film and its Interpretation- March, 1989
  • Liberalism and its Critics- April. 1989

• 1987-1988

  • Social Science Jeremiads and the Culture of Scholarship- February, 1988
  • The Constitution- March 1988
  • Language Study in Liberal Education- April, 1988
  • Self and its Representations- May, 1988

• 1986-1987

  • Tocqueville's Democracy in America
  • The Discourse of Gender- March, 1987
  • Familiar Devices and the Study of Civilizations- June, 1987

• 1985-1986

  • Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations- October, 1985
  • Politics and Markets in Comparative Perspective- March, 1986
  • Modernization: Retrospect and Prospect

• 1984-1985

  • Critical Issues in the History of the Human Sciences- November, 1984
  • Uncertain Paradigms: Modes of Knowing in the Sciences and Social Sciences- April, 1985
  • Criticism and the Problem of Representation- May, 1985

• 1983-1984

  • On Pluralism- September, 1983
  • What is a Classic?- Januar, 1984
  • Moral Reasoning and the Bases of Commitment- March, 1984
  • Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams- May, 1984

• 1982-1983

  • Developmental Theory, Critical thinking and Liberal Learning- September, 1982
  • Integrating Women into Scholarship- November, 1982
  • Vergil's Aeneid: A Critical Retrospective- March, 1983
  • Interpreting Non-Western Cultures- May, 1983

• 1981-1982

  • Sartre and Biography- October, 1981
  • Dante's The Divine Comedy- February, 1982
  • Interpretation and Creation- April, 1982
  • On Scientific Literacy- June, 1982

• 1980-1981

  • Thinking about Thinking- November, 1980
  • The Confessions of St. Augustine
  • Revolution- April, 1981

• 1979-1980

  • Narrative- October, 1979
  • Homer's The Odyssey- March, 1980
  • Spain: 1980- April, 1980
  • The Islamic Revival- May, 1980

• 1978-1979

  • Baroque- October, 1978
  • Evolution- March, 1979
  • Machiavelli's The Prince- April, 1979
  • Choice and Choosing- August, 1979

• 1977-1978

  • Quantitative Modes of Inquiry- November, 1977
  • Metaphor- February, 1978
  • The Brain and the Mind- March, 1978
  • Utopias- May, 1978

• 1976-1977

  • Culture- December, 1976
  • Nature- January, 1977
  • Myth- February, 1977
  • Technology- March, 1977
  • Communication- May, 1977
  • Platos Protagoras- July, 1977

• 1975-1976

  • Good Reasons- December, 1975
  • History as an Intellectual Problem- February, 1976
  • Islam in the Contemporary Middle East- May, 1976
  • Language- August, 1976

• 1973-1974

  • The Humanist and the Artist- December, 1973

• 1972-1973

  • The Problems of Non-Western Civilizations- February, 1973

• 1971-1972

  • Humanistic Inquiry: History, Philosophy and Literature- January, 1972