Student Organizing Committee
The Cultural Studies Student Organizing Committee is a student-run group which includes all the students in the program. This organization is independent of the cultural studies program, creating its own programs and seeking its own funding to do so. Click here for an archive of meeting minutes.
Current Officers
- Co-chair: David Arditi
- Co-chair: Randall Cohn
- Treasurer: Sara Mitcho
- Secretary: Nayantara Sheoran
Standing Committee Members
- Committee of the Whole
- Lia Uy-Tioco
- John Woolsey
- Admissions Committee
- Jarrod Waetjen
- Robert Gehl
- Student Matters Committee
- Daniel Anderson
- Faculty Matters Committee
- Jason Morris
- Colloquium Planning Committee
- Richard Otten
- OPEN
- Program Planning Committee
- Michael Lecker
- Michael Goebel
Upcoming Events
Histories of Violence: A Graduate Conference, Oct. 18
The second annual Cultural Studies SOC graduate conference, "Histories of Violence", is scheduled for October 18. We are excited to announce that Robin Wagner-Pacifici will be the keynote speaker for this one day conference. This conference will explore the ways in which violence is manifest in political, social and economic realms, and the various roles violence plays in the relation between these realms in any specific juncture, past or present. It will examine the ways in which violence is theorized, enacted, represented and obscured, and how we come to understand the role of historic violence in the construction of the contemporary cultural conjuncture, as well as how various histories influence the ways in which we relate to and theorize violence today.
500 word abstracts are due before May 1. Graduate students in any discipline are encouraged to apply. Submissions should be sent to Randall Cohn at rcohn@gmu.edu.
Past Events
In the past, the SOC has held graduate conferences (such as The Politics of Cultural Programming ), panels (such as What is the role of a university?), and workshops. The SOC offers CS students the chance to pursue these career-building opportunities.
bell hooks
The Cultural Studies SOC was a sponsor of bell hooks' visit to Mason. Her talk was based on "Democratic Education," a chapter from her book Teaching Community: a Pedagogy of Hope. Click here for more details.
What is the role of the university?: (inter)disciplinary inquiries, March 20, 4:30pm Room D in the Johnson Center
As a continuation of the discussion about how universities are administered and the way that individual faculty members onceive of their role within the university that we began with the Role of the University event last spring, this event was intended to be an open inquiry into the present and future roles of disciplinary and interdisciplinary programs in public universities. This panel included representatives from several of George Mason’s innovative interdisciplinary programs:
Dr. Nance Lucas, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of New Century College; Dr. Zofia Burr , Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies and Director of the Honors Program in General Education; and Dr. Roger Lancaster, Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies and Director of the Cultural Studies Ph.D. Program.
