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Posted: Tuesday, October 23, 2003 New CRCs at Trent University - Backgrounder Prof. James Conolly
His research involves examining and making a geo-spatial analysis of the colonization, settlement, and spread of early farming communities in the Aegean Islands. The research contributes to the cultural-historical context of Mediterranean pre-history and to the human social sciences. Islands provide archaeologists with rich datasets for the exploration of themes in population history and mobility, behavioural ecology, and cultural evolution. Recent research indicating that island communities established networks of immediate and distant social interaction present fresh challenges to the study of human history. The Aegean Islands may have hosted the earliest farming communities and state societies in Europe. The focus of Dr. Conolly's research as the Canada Research Chair in Archaeological Studies is to model the complex social and environmental variables related to the colonization and settlement of the Aegean Islands. Using an innovative, interdisciplinary approach and addressing wider themes — such as human mobility, colonization, population, and settlement dynamics — he hopes to make a major contribution to the cultural-historical context of Mediterranean pre-history and to the human social sciences. Prof. Conolly’s Canada Research Chair will enable him to take a leadership role in Trent’s M.A. graduate program in Anthropology and extend Trent’s anthropological research focus to the Mediterranean. It will also help him to contribute to a graduate curriculum, supervise graduate students, and spearhead the development of a Ph.D. component of the graduate program. Finally, the Chair will assist in the expansion of Trent’s use of GIS and quantitative modelling as research tools. Marrie Mumford Prof.
Marrie Mumford is a contributor to award-winning film, theatre, and
music organizations, projects, and committees
including the
Sundance Institute, the Dreamspeakers Festival, and the
Canadian Aboriginal
Music Awards Committee. She is the recipient of the James
Buller Award for
the Advancement of Aboriginal Theatre. Under the guidance of Prof. Marrie Mumford, one of the functions of Trent’s new performance space housed in the First People’s House will be to serve as a laboratory to investigate Aboriginal stories and performance traditions. The framework for Prof. Mumford’s innovative living research involves transposing discoveries into original work. Using performance practice as a form of analysis, the creative process is exposed, and Aboriginal imaginations are nurtured in a respectful environment. An actor, director and producer of award-winning Aboriginal works, Prof. Mumford will unite a community of learners and artists at this international centre of creativity. Invited artists will present their work, and an archive of their material will serve as an invaluable research resource. The resulting partnerships, networks, and symposia will spread awareness among the international community. In developing a graduate curriculum, supervising students, and working with faculty from other research areas, Prof. Mumford believes that this program will lay the foundation for an Aboriginal performance component within our graduate programs. Prof. Davide Panagia
As the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies, Prof. Panagia will further develop a three part research program: Part I is entitled Festivals of Freedom: Renaissance Republicanism and Popular Festive Forms and investigates Renaissance festivals, which played key roles in the development of republican ideals of freedom. Part II is entitled Democratic Affect: On Thomas Hobbes’ Theory of Laughter, which studies the importance of laughter in political writings. Part III is entitled Composing One’s Self: David Hume In/Around Democratic Culture and focuses on David Hume’s techniques for developing character. In this three-part approach, each theorist’s "image of political thought" is examined, revealing new standards for appraising ideas, and to determine the legitimacy of political claims. Dr. Panagia also draws from other influences, including media, literature, semiotics, communications, politics, cultural theory, philosophy, the history of science, religion, and the sociology of culture. In addition, Prof. Panagia will work with graduate students, and help to develop a multi-media research lab dedicated to collaborative research, and to found the Canadian Association of Theory and Criticism to showcase Canadian research in cultural theory and criticism. |
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Prof.
Conolly, who comes to Trent from University College London, UK, is
the author of numerous major works, a participant in the Çatalhöyük
Research Project in Turkey, an external reviewer for the Council
for British Research, as well as a GIS/IT consultant for the British
School
at Athens and the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara.
Prof. Panagia, who
is coming to Trent from Postdoctoral Fellowships at Johns Hopkins University
and at
the University of Toronto,
was a Rhodes
Scholar at Oxford University and the recipient
of awards and fellowships in the areas of teaching,
political
science, social
theory, and
historical inquiry from Johns Hopkins University,
Cornell University, the University
of Manitoba, and The Charles S. Singleton Center
in Italy.