The Center fosters, supports, and provides space for topical and thematic Reading Groups, Working Groups, Workshops, and Writing Groups groups for faculty, graduate students and staff. Some groups welcome undergraduate students.
To view upcoming meeting dates, please visit our events calendar.
Most groups welcome new members at any point in the semester- please contact the group coordinator to learn more.
If you are interested in starting a new reading or working group, reach out to us at chr@gmu.edu!
CHR Slavery Studies Reading Group
We are a group of George Mason faculty and students interested in discussing recent publications about slavery from the perspective of diverse disciplines in the humanities. The reading group will meet about once a month and focus on a variety of topics, including cultural transfers, resistance, effective emancipation, contemporary systems of slavery, and the local and global legacies of coerced migrations.
If you are interested in joining the group or would like more information, please contact Jane Hooper (jhooper3@gmu.edu).
CHR Digital Humanities Reading Group
We are a group of George Mason scholars interested in the theory, methodologies, and practices of the digital humanities writ large. From assigning wikipedia entries in class to designing a multi-year research project, the digital humanities is a big tent that encourages new ways of doing humanities research, teaching, and outreach. We will meet once a month to explore digital humanities theories, methods, and projects and discuss teaching and research.
Please contact Amanda Madden (amadden8@gmu.edu) with an expression of interest and to be added to the mailing list.
CHR Queer Studies Reading Group
We are a group of George Mason scholars with broad interests in queer studies, queer theory, and related methodologies. Under the umbrella of the Center for Humanities Research, we gather three times a semester to discuss selected works of queer scholarship. The meetings are meant to be open forums for discussion, debate, and exposure to new ideas and methodologies. A calendar of upcoming meetings is listed on this page.
If you’d like more information about the group, please contact one of the co-coordinators, Jessica Hurley (jhurle@gmu.edu) or Samuel Huneke (shuneke@gmu.edu). If you’d like to join the group and be added to our listserv, please fill out this form.
CHR Technology and Society Reading Group*
We are a monthly discussion composed of George Mason faculty and students. We are open to anyone interested in participating in an eclectic and serious discussion of contemporary problems under the broad rubric of political economy. All events for the 2020-21 academic year will be held by Zoom. Matt Scherer, Steve Pearlstein, and Bassam Haddad are the principal organizers of the southside group. Our emails are on our respective George Mason faculty pages.
Email Matt Scherer (mschere2@gmu.edu) to be added to the mailing list for further details and meeting links.
*This group is currently on pause, but if you're interested in leading it, please let us know!
CHR Space and Place Reading Group*
We are a group of scholars at George Mason interested in theories of space and place and how they impinge on studies of race, class, caste, power, gender, sexuality, cities, globalization, transnationalism, and more. We are reading across disciplines under the wide umbrella of the humanities. We will be meeting once a month, starting in January 2021, in what will be an open forum to discuss, debate, and learn from each other and what we’re reading.
*This group is currently on pause, but if you're interested in leading it, please let us know!
CHR Memory and Difficult Pasts Reading Group
This reading group on memory and difficult pasts takes up the theoretical, methodological, historical and narratological challenges of remembering, commemorating, and attending to in the present, historical atrocity. We gather three times a semester to discuss selected readings. This group is a forum to discuss both published works, and the work-in-progress of members of the reading group. The meetings are meant to be open forums for discussion, debate, and exposure to new ideas and methodologies.
If you’d like more information about the group, please contact the coordinator, Eric Ross (eross8@gmu.edu)
CHR Environmental Justice Reading Group
We are an interdisciplinary group of GMU scholars that meets monthly to discuss readings that fit under the umbrella of environmental justice. We interpret the field broadly, including not only scholarship that self-identifies as environmental justice but also that which is more generally concerned with nature and power. What are the theories of “justice” mobilized by EJ scholars and social movements? With an eye towards exploring the range of different answers to this question, we will begin an orienting survey of major approaches, then we will critically evaluate a different emphasis in the EJ literature each month from October until January. What can we learn about “justice” by analyzing the responses to environmental injustice? From February to May, we will examine the range of different responses to environmental injustice and the theories of change that they enact.
The group is open to all regardless of their existing level of familiarity. We facilitate challenging and, most importantly, constructive conversation. For more information, please email Levi Van Sant or Todd Stafford.
CHR Capitalism Reading Group
We meet once a month to discuss a time-honored or recent work on capitalism. Our interests range from political economy, history and theory, micro-foundations, money, commodity, and modernity to colonial, cultural, environmental, and racial capitalism. Our geographical attractions vary from the Plantation South and the Caribbean to East Africa. We want to read some exciting works and have an engaged discussion.
To join this group, please contact Kylie Musolf (kmusolf@gmu.edu).
CHR Film and Media Studies Reading Group*
The Film and Media Studies reading group is a collective of people interested in exploring classic and cutting-edge texts in this interdisciplinary field. The texts we share speak to core debates in the humanities, and have and will reflect a range of critical and theoretical perspectives, historical eras, and geographical foci.
To be added to this group or attend a meeting, please contact Jessica Scarlata, Hatim El-Hibri, or May Santiago.
*This group is currently on pause, but if you're interested in leading it, please let us know!
CHR Postcolonial/Decolonization Reading Group
The Postcolonial/Decolonization Reading Group sees itself as a community of scholars interested in engaging in conversation on topics pertaining to the history of colonialism, the work of decolonization, forms of empire, imperialism, and neo-colonial experiences. We hope to look at the theoretical, political, economic, and cultural intersections within postcolonial theory and decolonization movements found in texts, media, and the arts and how to apply that knowledge to teaching, scholarship and activism.
If you’d like more information about the group, want to be added to our online forum, or attend a meeting, contact Shauna Rigaud.
CHR Critical Race Theory Group
The CHR Critical Race Theory Group welcomes students, faculty, administrators, and staff from across the university for meaningful, interdisciplinary exchanges on Critical Race Theory and related topics that our members suggest, including racial capitalism, Black Studies, Black radicalism, linguistic racism, race, gender, and labor, and more. Our monthly meetings are a space for learning, sharing, critiquing, and thinking out loud about our interconnected histories and the world around us.
The coordinate for this group is Tianna Cobb- please contact her to join (tcobb3@gmu.edu).
Northern Virginia: Pasts/Presents/Futures
The landscapes (historical, ecological, educational, medical, demographic, technological, memorial, and political) of Northern Virginia are complex and richly layered.
Does your research engage the history, politics, economics, inequalities, immigration patterns, languages, religious communities, or narrative traditions of Northern Virginia?
We are interested in exploring how the landscapes of the present have been shaped by these social, political, economic, and cultural forces, by histories of colonization and racial violence, immigration and innovation, in profound but often obscured ways. Equally, we want to explore how our contemporary landscape opens out toward the future, technologically, economically, ecologically, politically and sociologically.
If you are interested in working on a transdisciplinary project about our region, a project with both an academic and public humanities dimension, please contact one of the co-coordinators, Alison Landsberg (alandsb1@gmu.edu) or Steven A. Harris-Scott (sscott4@gmu.edu).
Modern History Workshop
This is a workshop where we meet to discuss drafts-in-progress. Papers are circulated about a week before the workshop, and the session is devoted to discussion of the draft – there are no formal presentations. All are welcome – it is a chance for faculty and graduate students to discuss the craft of research and writing in a collaborative, informal setting.
Please contact Steven Barnes (sbarnes3@gmu.edu) to join.
Early Americas Workshop
We are a group of George Mason faculty and graduate students who work on Early America, which we generally define as pre-1800 and hemispheric, including North, Central, and South America, although we are happy to define the field more broadly to include more participants. We meet 2-3 times a semester to present our research projects in a casual lunchtime setting that promotes friendly feedback and discussion. These presentations can, but do not have to, include pre-circulated work. We are especially interested in encouraging graduate students to attend and present at the workshop.
For more information contact Joan Bristol.
CHR Faculty Writing Group
This group meets weekly (virtually for the moment) on Fridays from 10 am- 12 pm. Please contact Chris Pizzino (cpizzino@gmu.edu) for details.
CHR Graduate Student Writing Group
CHR invites graduate students interested in meeting regularly to write and/or workshop their dissertations to join a new writing group. Please email Coordinator Spencer Duncan (sduncan6@gmu.edu) to join.