The new two-week School of Criticism and Theory mini-session for undergraduates will run this coming summer from June 7-18 on the Cornell campus in Ithaca.
Here is the intellectual structure:
- Undergraduate participants will meet 3 times/week in small groups to read works of theory by our three seminar leaders (Denise Ferreira da Silva, Fred Moten, and McKenzie Wark). These discussions will be led by a graduate student or assistant professor.
- Each undergraduate will be matched with a research mentor who shares their scholarly interests and will help them, one-on-one, with whatever specific challenges each one is facing, from developing research questions and exploring archives to entering into scholarly debates. The expectation is that this relationship will continue through the summer (and beyond, if both are willing!).
- There will be 2-3 workshops designed for undergraduates, such as: "how to lead an intellectual and theoretical life without going to graduate school” and "how to integrate theory into research projects."
- Undergraduates will be expected to attend public lectures and discussions by the seminar leaders.
- They will have opportunities to meet with the seminar leaders for a lunch or dinner.
Here are the logistics:
- The home institution will support their undergraduates with funding. If the student has their own funding, that is fine too, but it is up to the home institution to ensure that tuition and accommodation will be covered. We have no financial aid for undergraduates.
- Tuition for the 2-week session will be $2000.
- Accommodation: rooms on campus will be available at $1255 for the two weeks (students are welcome to arrange their own accommodations, if they prefer.)
- Sponsoring institutions will run their own selection processes and choose 1-2 applicants each. You are the ones who know your students best. We imagine that rising seniors getting ready to write a senior thesis will be the best fit, but there might be a sophomore who is excited and ready to go. Whoever you think will get a lot out of the program is great by us. There won’t be an expectation of prior knowledge of theory.
- Please let us know soon how many students you plant to send us because we have 20 rooms booked on campus. (We can take more than 20 students if they are willing to arrange their own housing, but we’ll need to juggle supply and demand, especially the first year, when we don’t know who will want to come!).
- We have set a deadline for applications to home institutions of March 19, 2027. We’d want the names of your selected students by April 5.