From its founding in 1989 through 2008, the Center hosted an all-star academic lineup of humanist scholars in its flagship program: the Distinguished Visiting Faculty Fellowships. For almost 20 years, the program invited eminent professors to host quarter-long faculty seminars on a topic of their choosing. Faculty guests and research agendas included Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on institutional humanities pedagogy, Marxism and de-colonialism; Stanley Fish, on “Foundations Without Deity: The Structure and Dilemma of Liberal Thought”; Martha Nussbaum on the emotions; Toby Miller on “Cultural Citizenship”; and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg on “Nationalism and Colonialism,” among others.

In addition to the formal faculty seminar, visiting fellows met with graduate students, attended Center events and developed a wide range of contacts across the college. Many UCR faculty who participated in the seminars report the experience as one of the most formative and memorable in their careers. The program was closed in 2008 due to budget cuts related to the financial recession.

If you participated in a seminar, we would love to hear from you!

Distinguished Faculty in Residence at CIS

Years Name Affiliation (at that time) Topic
2007-08 Anne McClintock & Rob Nixon UW Madison Short campus visit with lecture & readings
2006-07 Rosi Braidotti Utrecht University Three-week visit with workshops & public lectures: “The Future of the Humanist Past; or, Becoming Ethical”; “Toward the Posthuman”; “Neo-Humanism Revisited”
2003-04 Leo R Chavez UC Irvine National Borders, Globalization and the “New” World Threats; Transnationals, Immigrants and Their Offspring
2002-03 Toby Miller NYU Cultural Citizenship
2001-02 Lisa Lowe UC San Diego Contradictions of “modernity” as a political philosophical episteme, a framework for the narration of the human subject in historical time, and a medium of westernization
2000-01 Howard Brody Michigan St Univ The Evidence-Based Bedside Manner
1999-00 Diedre McCloskey Univ Illinois, Chicago Bourgeoise virtue, the market economy underlying virtue
1997-98 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Univ Michigan Nationalism and Colonialism: Contesting Subjects
1994-95 Stanley Fish UNC Chapel Hill Foundations Without Deity: The Structure and Dilemma of Liberal Thought
1993-94 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Columbia Relationship between institutional humanities pedagogy and work outside the academy, with special focus on Marxism in a changing global polity (de-colonialism)
1992-93 Martha Nussbaum Brown “the emotions”
1991-92 Murray Krieger UC Irvine The Semiotic Desire for the ‘Natural Sign’ in Art and Culture: Illusion or Delusion or Recognition and Rejection