Center for International Studies

Come to Grinnell, explore the world. The Center for International Studies supports an approach to internationalization that extends across disciplinary areas to foster global awareness in the Grinnell College community. Established in 2000, the Center for International Studies plans, coordinates, and administers ongoing international programs and promotes new opportunities for developing international understanding, knowledge, and experiences for students, faculty, and alumni. The center administers the John R. Heath Professorship, which brings to campus for a semester a distinguished international scholar; coordinates short-term visits by scholars, writers, and other international figures; organizes international faculty development seminars; supports symposia and other events; promotes new curricular initiatives; reviews and develops off-campus study opportunities; and works with the student groups GROWE (Grinnellians Returning from Off-Campus World Experiences) and ISO (International Students Organization) to integrate off-campus study and international experience with the on-campus curriculum. In these and other activities, the center promotes Grinnell's traditional commitment to thinking and acting internationally across languages, cultures, and geographical boundaries.

Center for Prairie Studies

The Center for Prairie Studies at Grinnell College was established in 1999 to increase awareness, appreciation, and understanding of our region. Faculty members associated with the center represent the humanities, sciences, and social studies divisions. The center is committed to helping students, faculty, and members of the community uncover the natural and cultural life of the prairie by offering courses and course components and sponsoring public lectures, symposia, art exhibits, musical and theatrical performances, academic-year and summer student internships, faculty development, field trips, and a variety of publications. The center maintains a close relationship with the College's Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA), a 365-acre field station 11 miles west of Grinnell. The Center for Prairie Studies also collaborates with the Grinnell school system and numerous community and regional organizations in furthering its mission.

Center for the Humanities

The Center for the Humanities at Grinnell College was founded in 2001. The purpose of the center is to draw attention to and support superlative research and teaching in the humanities at Grinnell, to provide Grinnell faculty with an opportunity to be in dialogue with humanities scholars from around the world, to be an ongoing forum for sustained communication between the humanities and academic endeavors in social sciences and sciences at Grinnell, and to provide selected students with the opportunity for intensive intellectual collaborations with faculty. The activities of the center each year focus on a broad theme selected by the center's advisory board in connection with the research interests of the Visiting Professor in the Humanities. Each year, the visiting professor--in residence on campus for the fall semester--offers an upper-level interdisciplinary seminar open to third-year students and seniors and directs a faculty seminar. In addition, he or she will offer a public lecture at the College and will return to Grinnell in the spring semester as keynote speaker at a major humanities symposium devoted to a topic related to the fall's faculty seminar. The visiting professor also works closely with the Ninth Semester Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in the Humanities, selected annually from the preceding year's graduating class to participate in the faculty seminar and undertake a semester-long independent research project.

In fall 2001, Visiting Professor in the Humanities Peter Dews taught a seminar and directed a faculty seminar that explored the question of "Modernity and the Problem of Evil." In fall 2002, Visiting Professor Vyacheslav Ivanov taught a seminar on "Literature and Cinema," and directed a faculty seminar on "Semiotic Approaches to the Total Work of Art." In fall 2003, Visiting Professor Jeffrey T. Nealon taught a seminar on "Language and Cultural Studies," and directed a faculty seminar titled "Post-Postmodern: Globalization, Symbolic Capital, and Resistance." In fall 2004, the center sponsored visits by four Visiting Professors in the Humanities, each of whom taught a three-week module of a seminar on "Feminist Scholarship Today": Kristin Ross, Susan Bordo, Amy Hollywood, and Rosi Braidotti.

In 2005-06, the center organized a number of events around the theme of the New World Disorder, including symposia on "Intolerance," "The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism in the West," and "Religion and Violence," and three-week visits and short courses by Visiting Professors Sander Gilman, Veena Das, and Coco Fusco.

In fall 2006, the center will bring four visiting scholars to campus; Carolyn Dean, Shuen-fu Lin, Janice Radway, and Claire Colebrook, all focusing on the topic of "Pleasure."

The Louise R. Noun Program in Women's Studies

The Louise R. Noun Program in Women's Studies was endowed by the College in 1986. Operating through an endowed chair and interdisciplinary committee of students and faculty, the Noun program has sponsored national symposia, speakers, and events aimed to further understanding of local and global concerns about women, feminisms, and gender relations. The Noun program also initiated faculty colloquia, curricular development grants, a collaborative Feminist Seminar of scholarly readings, and plans for the gender and women's studies concentration.

To introduce the new scholarship on gender and women in the 1980s, Noun sponsored such conferences as Reading and Writing the Female Body, and Rethinking the Family from Multicultural Perspectives, and co-sponsored student conferences such as "Secrets of the Orient: Reconstructing Asia/Asian American Sexuality" and the "Women in Development Symposium."

Over the past decades, prominent international scholars, artists, and writers have visited Grinnell under the sponsorship of the Noun program. They include: Lani Guinier, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Gayatri Spivak, Angela Carter, Catharine Stimpson, Jessica Mitford, Naomi Schor, Florence Howe, Meridel LeSueur, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Harry Brod, Paula Gunn Allen, Ruth Seidel, Darlene Clark Hine, Rev. Walter Ong, Dale Spender, David Halperin, Patricia Hill Collins, Margaret Randall, Ntosake Shange, Tillie Olsen, Trinh T. Minh-ha. and Peggy Whitson.
Since 1992 Noun summer internships have enabled students to work at sites including the Women's
Research Institute, Meijin; GLV (Gay Men and Lesbians Opposing Violence) in Washington, D.C.; the Women's Oral History Project in Monteverde, Costa Rica; The Feminist Majority in Arlington, Va.; and the literacy project at the Midwest Women's Center in Chicago. Each year, Noun's Jeanne Burkle Award, named for a prominent local feminist, honors the senior woman who has contributed significantly to the cause of women.

The Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights

The Rosenfield Program was established in 1979 to honor the Rosenfield family of Des Moines, particularly longtime trustee Joseph Rosenfield '25, who was a leader in promoting responsible and progressive action in public affairs, international relations, and human rights. The program's two purposes are to promote campus discussion of important policy issues and to encourage civic responsibility among students. The program sponsors or co-sponsors four three-day symposia each year. Recent topics have included, "Culture, Politics, and Change in Contemporary Cuba"; "The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in Perspective"; "New Faces in Iowa": "The Challenges and Prospects Created by Recent Immigration"; "Iraqi Culture and the Diaspora"; "Women, Politics, and Leadership for the 21st Century"; and "Water: Conflicts and Trade-offs." In addition, the program sponsors the annual Rosenfield foreign policy lectures and brings to campus a series of speakers and weeklong visitors from the United States and abroad, who address important policy issues from diverse government, academic, and private sector perspectives. The program provides stipends for about 10 students each year to undertake summer internships related to the three areas of focus.