The Cornell campus hosts a group of serious critical thinkers each summer at the School of Criticism and Theory (SCT) during an intensive six-week seminar that returns for its 30th session June 18 through July 28.

Graduate students, professors and pre-eminent theorists come from all over the world to attend, drawn by the opportunity to engage in critical discourse and apply critical theory to their own work and to explore cultural trends and ideologies.

Founded in 1976 at the University of California and now in its 10th year at Cornell, SCT is a rare interdisciplinary experience for professors and advanced graduate students, from fields including architecture, film studies, comparative literature, history and theater.

"Over the years, the quality of the participants has been quite amazing, and I think they learn as much from one another as from the faculty," Dominick LaCapra, SCT director and Bowmar Professor of Humanistic Studies at Cornell, said last year.

The SCT guest faculty and their seminars planned for 2006 are:

• Amanda Anderson, Johns Hopkins University, on "Literary Theory/Political Theory."
• Houston Baker, Duke University, on "Black Intellectuals."
• Eric Santner, University of Chicago, on "On Creaturely Life."
• Ella Shohat and Robert Stam of New York University, on "Traveling Debates in Translation: Eurocentrism, Multiculturalism and Postcoloniality."

Additional faculty members offering mini-seminars of one or two weeks include:

• Alain Badiou, École Normale Supérieure: "Towards a New Concept of the Relation Between Philosophy and Nonphilosophy."
• Judith Butler, University of California-Berkeley: "Violence and Critique."
• Geoffrey Hartman, Yale University: "Poetry and Divinity in Contest."
• Stephen G. Nichols, Johns Hopkins University: "Spectacles of Counterrevolution: France in 1804 and 1824."
• Haiping Yan, University of California-Los Angeles and East China University, Shanghai: "On Theatricality."

All visiting faculty members also take part in a free public lecture series. The 2005 summer seminar attracted 92 participants from 24 countries, including Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Poland and Hong Kong.

Some participants have part of the $2,500 tuition funded by their home institutions, including approximately 40 SCT-affiliated schools. Cornell also provides some scholarship support.

A prospectus and application form is available from the School of Criticism and Theory, A.D. White House, 27 East Ave., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, or by contacting Lisa Patti at ldp3@cornell.edu.