Smith College: Kahn Liberal Arts Institute

By any reasonable measure, this was an enormously successful Kahn Institute. While it will not eventuate in a single, tangible product, such as a book, or a conference, its impact on the research of each of its members is apparent, as is the remarkable esprit de corps developed in the seminar.

In the first session of our fall semester we collectively chose a number of topics that could conceivably fall under the broad umbrella of ‘renaissance’: tradtional versus new forms of knowledge, high versus low culture, tradtion versus modernity, and so on. The idea was that as we encountered dfferent topics and their associated readings each week, we could use items from this list to guide our thinking about both the materials and presentations. This broad framwork was to prove enormously useful for seminar particpants and served to offer a unifying thread through what were very diverse interests and historical and cultural periods in individdual fellow’s thoughts about renaissance.

In the first semester, Paul Alpers was our first guest, a renaissance scholar who gave a provocative lecture entitled “What is at Stake in the Renaissance?” Once the stage was set in this way, we chose to present first: a possible table of contents for our intended book on the Indian renaissance (1857-1947). We had two scholars from India – Arvind Mehrotra and Amit Chaudhuri – each of whom addressed dfferent dimensions of the Indian renaissance. We also had a guest lecture on the Jewish renaissance, as well as student presentations by student fellows Maggie Dodge and Janelle Gatchellian on Spanish-Arabic poetry and on futurist art respectively. The decision to mix faculty and student presentations eartly on set a good tone for discussions for the rest of the year, as students increasinly came to own the sessions and to comfortably voice their opinions alongside faculty.

In the second semester presentations of work in progress by faculty fellows Suleiman Mourad, Frazer Ward, Lois Dubin, Andrea Stone, Naomi Miller and Barbara Kellum drew explicitly on previous presentations and on our developing vocabulary for conceptualizing renaissance in terms of the recovery of imagined pasts as models for futures, and in terms of opportunities for cultural fusion made possible by intercultural contact and fecund interactions between “high” and “low” culture. In domains as diverse as the art and politics of Augustan Rome, the representation of women in17th century England, execution narratives in 18th century United States, Jewish communities in 19th century Europe, Arab awakening in the early 20th century Middle East, and the contemporary art scene these tropes were evident in explanations of a range of social and cultural phenomena. In each discussion, multiple voices were heard, and each of us learned a great deal.

The presentations by student fellows Rachel Johnson on the development of Native American culture in the context of slavery and Dylan Farrell on the contemporary “food renaissance” in the local community were no less successful. Each reflected the discussions of the seminar, and each contributed importantly to it. We are very happy to say that in this Institute, there was no difference between student and faculty fellows regarding the quantity or quality of contribution, regarding the degree to which projects and contributions were taken seriously or regarding the impact of contributions on the projects of other fellows.

We were pleased in this second semester to host a visit by Prof Romita Ray, who offered valuable insights into the colonial Indian context and Prof Anna Munster who addressed the role of new media in the contemporary art renaissance. In each case the public talk was well attended and the seminar discussion was lively and useful.

Final presentations by students at Collaborations in April were marvelous. They were each clear, tight, well-argued and well-informed. And the final performance of music by Billie Holiday by student fellow Anna Hallman was an absolute stunner.

We expect to see a steady stream of publications from faculty fellows crediting the Kahn Institute for ideas and feedback on projects. We know that our own work is progressing rapidly thanks to this institute, and that it is much deeper for the insights we owe our colleagues. We know that we are not alone in this sentiment.