Mellon Faculty Seminar Series
The faculty seminar creates a space and time for something that has become all too rare in academia: a convivial discussion of ambitious, forward looking ideas and concepts to shape the future today.
The Mellon Faculty Seminar focuses on intellectual topics related to the history of labor, the evolving workforce, and how forces of the digital age and knowledge work might impact the future of the humanities. The underlying premise of the seminar is that by discussing canonical texts from different disciplines on issues of labor and work will help to understand how the future of labor will radically reshape our society.
Faculty from both Oxford and Emory campuses read, think, and converse freely in order to foster greater faculty engagement, develop new curricula, spark new research and projects which can be pursued in close partnership between the two campuses.
The 2019-2020 Faculty Seminar was led by Deans Elliott and Hicks and engaged 14 faculty participants in six meetings around the theme of Work, Labor, and the Professions. The moderators and participants selected and discussed a range of historical and contemporary texts from multiple fields to explore the themes and the connections of the humanities to the changing global workplace.
To learn more about the topics and readings discussed and view a participant list, please access the seminar syllabus.
Michael A. Elliott, President of Amherst College
Douglas A. Hicks, President of Davidson College
2023-2024 Seminar
Watch this space for more information on the upcoming faculty seminar.
2022-2023 Faculty Seminar
Work and the Humanities in the New Global Economy
In the fourth iteration of the faculty seminar, supported by the Mellon Foundation, seminar participants focused on three key dimensions of the contemporary labor experience from a global perspective: the “Great Resignation” debate, the development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technologies, and recent waves of unionization. The seminar's goals were to foster new intellectual conversations with faculty across disciplines, build community among colleagues on the Oxford and Atlanta campuses, and integrate the reflection on work, labor, and the professions into our scholarship and teaching. Syllabus
2021-2022 Faculty Seminar
A Time for Interdisciplinary Reflection Centered on the Humanities
The 2021-2022 Seminar constitutes the third faculty seminar meeting and is led by Professors Susan Gagliardi (ECAS) and Salmon Shomade (Oxford) During the course of the academic year, the group has been meeting to discuss scholarly and other creative outputs that invite nuanced reflection on the meaning and purpose individuals or groups from different times or different places have realized, are realizing, or might realize through their work, broadly defined. A key aim is to foster interdisciplinary, humanities-centered reflection on the meaning and purpose of work and to inspire fresh ideas for future curricula and research. Reading List
2020-2021 Faculty Seminar
21st Century Labor: The Meanings and Future of Work
The landscape of work today is in profound flux. The 21st century is witnessing a new post-industrial revolution of sorts, with the growth of AI, the outsourcing of skilled, professional work, the evasion of employment protections enabled by tech "disruptors" and "contract" work, as well as the economic, political, and social precarity heightened by the current pandemic and the growing social justice movements against racism. At the same time, long-standing patterns of inequity and exploitation along lines of race, gender, and class remain remarkably stable. How will the future of work unfold and what will its meanings hold for the next generation? What role will the Liberal Arts and Sciences play in this future? These are among the questions posed by the 2020-2021 Mellon Faculty Seminar. Syllabus