CrossingTheLines
Original programming. Public conversations. Provocative ideas.
CrossingTheLines provides opportunities for invited guests from a spectrum of fields to engage on crucial contemporary topics with the Pratt community, students and faculty. Through lectures, panel discussions, talks, and innovative formats, CrossingTheLines explores various themes, including interdisciplinarity itself, often in partnership with other Pratt departments, schools and divisions. Reflections on what it means to practice across disciplines and to be involved in cutting edge research that generates new disciplines are inherent parts of the CrossingTheLines exchanges.
State(s) Of The Discipline(s)
State(s) of the Discipline(s) will be an ongoing exploration of the status and future of various creative fields, how the constantly shifting landscape of knowledge-production affects teaching, learning and research in higher education settings, and society in general.
StaDis will consist of:
programs that will be flexible and fluid in terms of formatting: panel discussions, round-tables and round-rugs, manifestos, performances, dialogues and conversations;
a short occasional publication.
The content of StaDis will always be around notions of inter/trans/post/neo disciplinarity. From historical perspectives to theoretical ones, from creative practice to pragmatic questions and policies at institutions, this ‘container’ will allow an ongoing, rigorous, nuanced, expansive engagement with, and interrogation of, notions of disciplinarity and their institutional framings. The durational aspect of this project is also in tune with what we deem most impactful and relevant when it comes to engaging with disciplinarity—a perpetual questioning, an unfurling that nourishes practice and theory, rather than any one attempt at an exhaustive manual.
New World Lit Lab
The Fuse Nexus for Interdisciplinary and Individualized Learning is launching a new initiative fostering deep dives into what Amir Parsa calls the New World Literature, a new paradigm for literary creative practice. The New World Lit Lab will open up this research and practice to engage members of Pratt’s community of scholars practitioners, as well as invited scholars and artists outside Pratt to engage with the thematics, the theses, and the thrusts developed, advanced and put into action in Parsa’s New World Lit. The ‘Lab’ is meant to foment, discuss and provoce debates and invites work done across disciplines that engage with the central tenets and problematics raised in the New World Lit realm.
FUSE Fellow
The Fuse Fellows programs hosts one scholar/artist/academic researcher whose work is directly related to interdisciplinary and integrative learning. The Fellow will have conducted original research, been active in professional associations and have experience in teaching. Fuse Fellows are invited to share their work (research and practice) with various groups within the Pratt community, and conduct workshops around integrative learning, especially with the PIC facaulty. Prof. Nancy Budwig was the inaugural Fuse Fellow.
Dr. Budwig received a B.A. from Vassar College in 1979 and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. She has been at Clark since that time. Dr. Budwig served in Clark’s Academic Administration in 2002- 2016 as Associate Provost as well as Dean of Graduate Studies and Dean of Research. She currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
FUSE Salons
Fuse Salons provide opportunities for the Pratt community and beyond to engage in informal exploration of cross-departmental study, and provide opportunities to share information with students, faculty, and the Pratt community around interdisciplinary curricular offerings. Fuse Salons are different in scale—small groups or town halls—and can take place in a host of locations—from studios to student residence halls to museums in the city.