Seminar on Public Scholarship

A number of faculty at Emory have engaged in public scholarship—intellectual work that crosses the boundary between the academic community at Emory and the various communities the university seeks to work with or serve – sometimes in both directions. Yet in our busy academic lives, we have very little time to reflect on our experiences of this work and skills that it demands of us. Continuing the legacy of the former Center for the Study of Public Scholarship (CSPS), in the academic year of 2010-2011 the CFDE will sponsor a seminar on this kind of public effort. Participants will present their own case studies on the history, value, and challenges of their work beyond the university. We will focus in particular on the models we bring to such work and think through how to define and evaluate it in a University context. What problems of translation and communication are involved? How can we acknowledge the shared nature of knowledge production in work with communities? What is specialized knowledge and how does it differ from “lay” knowledge in our various fields? Where do we fit in the continuum between “translation” and production? Is there a single “right” model? What are the benefits to producing such knowledge– for the public, as well as for our own work and for our university that hosts us? What are the real risks involved? What are the consequences and of NOT doing such public work? How might such knowledge change the university-public relationship in positive ways? Are there different issues entailed by doing such work in international and domestic settings? How do issues of class, culture, gender and “race” come into play in work with and on the public?

The seminar will be led by Ivan Karp, Cory Kratz, and Laurie Patton in the academic year of 2010-2011.