From June 17 to July 27, those attending the School of Criticism and Theory (SCT) on campus will explore debates in literary studies, political theory, religion, queer studies, postcolonialism and philosophy; examine the role of intellectual and cultural movements; and reassess theoretical approaches that have emerged over the last 50 years.

Every year since 1976, SCT's six-week summer program has given faculty members and advanced graduate students in the humanities and social sciences a chance to work with pre-eminent figures in critical thought."Without the usual departmental or professional pressures and without an ulterior goal like a seminar paper or a published article, no one defers the real moment of engagement," explains graduate student Ingrid Diran, a 2012-13 Mellon graduate fellow at the Society for the Humanities, who attended SCT in 2011. "Everything starts and, to an unusual extent, works itself out in the seminars, lectures and colloquia themselves, as well as in the conversations taking place in-between. In this way, SCT gives you a model for a totally different 'life of the mind,' one where you are necessarily as attentive to the emergence of questions as to the elaboration of answers."

Amanda Anderson, director of SCT, says that this year "we have a great lineup of seminars and public lectures, addressing a compelling range of topics including religion and belief, affect and the passions, political practices at times of dramatic historical change, and questions of form and artistic expression. It promises to be a very stimulating session."

SCT attracts participants from all over the world: 28 percent of this year's 90 participants are from outside the United States; attendees will come from 65 institutions of higher learning.

"What I find most unique about SCT is the resulting readiness, evident in both students and faculty, to change the way we experience learning," says Diran. "I look forward to the continual challenge of rising to the bar SCT sets for intellectual life."

The program includes four six-week seminars; this year's offerings are "Philosophy of the Passions, Rhetorics of Affect" (John Brenkman, CUNY Graduate Center/Baruch College); "Feminisms and Postcolonialities" (Ania Loomba, University of Pennsylvania); "Queer Technics" (Amy Villarejo, Cornell); and "Miracles, Events, Effects" (Hent de Vries, Johns Hopkins University).

Participants can also attend four one-week mini-seminars, which this year consist of "Affects of the Commons" (Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago); "Reason and Unreason, Life and Unlife" (Ray Brassier, American University of Beirut); "Stimmung of Latency: Cultural Moods after 1945" (Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University) and "Before the Revolution" (Rei Terada, University of California, Irvine).

Among the dozen public lectures offered during SCT are "Sebald and the Narration of Trauma" presented by Dominick LaCapra, Cornell's Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies, June 20; "On Television: Duration, Endurance, Ethereality," presented by Villarejo, chair of Cornell's Department of Theatre, Film and Dance and professor of film and feminist, gender and sexuality studies, July 9; "Disappearing History: Scenes of Trauma in the Theater of Human Rights (A Reading of Ariel Dorfman's "Death and the Maiden")" presented by Cathy Caruth, Cornell's Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, July 23; and "The Language of Lyric" presented by Jonathan Culler, Cornell's Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, July 24. All lectures are at 4 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.

Linda B. Glaser is staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.