Flying University of Transnational Humanities (FUTH) is an annual summer school and year-round online forum for researchers and graduate students interested in the transnational paradigm of humanistic inquiry.

FUTH takes its name and immediate inspiration from Poland’s Flying University, an underground institution which offered an alternative education outside the remit of state control and government censorship. FUTH is particularly concerned with developing critical understandings that are resistant to the ideological and ideational hegemony of the nation-state and the epistemological and hermeneutic conventions that support it. This does not mean that FUTH seeks to dispense with the ‘national’ and construct a reified ‘transnational’ to replace it or to foster ‘transnationalism’ as an ideological alternative to ‘nationalism’. FUTH aims to free our imaginations from the regime of the nation-state and to offer new ways of thinking about the political, social and cultural order of the world, both past and present.

The Flying University of Transnational Humanities is accordingly,

- trans-cultural: FUTH will not only critically examine the production and dissemination of (trans-) national knowledge and culture, but also problematize imagined geographies of the ‘East’ and the ‘West.’ In so doing, we will explore times, places, and subjects as fluid and hybrid, rather than as confined and constrained by geopolitical or cultural boundaries.

- trans-disciplinary: FUTH seeks to comprehend the complex nature of various trans-cultural issues and employ trans-disciplinary approaches. To that end, FUTH is open to scholars, educators, researchers and students from all academic specializations.

- trans-institutional: FUTH is an intellectual network, founded and run by a global consortium of scholars, departments, and institutions. With the support of this network, we hope to facilitate trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary collaborations.

PROGRAM

The Flying University of Transnational Humanities is ‘in session’ once per year for one week, and will normally be held during summer vacation. The host site changes on an annual or bi-annual basis and rotates between partner institutions. FUTH online runs year-round: through its dedicated website, a permanent online space will be provided for interactive discussions. All institutions, departments, and scholars are welcome to participate both offline and online.

Each year, FUTH will have a different cross-disciplinary theme around which the sessions will be organized. Renowned scholars from partner and other institutions will be invited to share their ideas in lectures and discussions. The FUTH steering and advisory committees, in conjunction with faculty members of partner institutions and other specialists, will prepare lecture syllabi and reading lists. Student participants are expected to study the readings in advance of each lecture and seminar discussion. A selected number of participants will also have an opportunity to present their ongoing research. All lectures, seminars and presentations will be held in English, in principle, while the possibility of translingual practices will be explored.

For the initial three years (2010–2012), the overarching theme of FUTH is ‘borders’. There have been numerous studies on how borders are constructed, negotiated, and policed and how they are simultaneously transgressed, challenged, and renegotiated. Borders are no longer seen simply as physical divisions but also as discursive practices and cultural institutions. However, the multiplicity and hybridity of borders (e.g., national, ethnic, cultural, geographical, gender, political, economic, etc.), as well as their transnational scalability (e.g., local, national, supranational, global, etc.), has yet to be intensively investigated.

The 2nd FUTH will take place at the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, June 25-29, 2011. Under the subheading of ‘Border-crossing Self’, we hope to gather diverse research and knowledge on border-related (cross-border or bordering) issues such as migration, ethnicity, language, citizenship and gender and open up a forum for discussions on the (un)making of the trans/national self.

APPLICATION

We are actively seeking grad students and recent PhDs to apply to the 2nd Flying University of Transnational Humanities.

Eligibility: Graduate students as well as recent PhDs are welcome to participate.

To apply: Please fill out and send as attachment via email the application form on our website http://www.rich.ac/eng/fly/apply.php?pageNum=5&subNum=3um=3 to hk.transnational@gmail.com.

Registration fee: There is no registration fee.

Accommodation and travel: Accommodation will be provided for all participants. However, participants are expected to arrange their own funding for travel and daily living expenses. After a review by the FUTH organizing committee of the academic statement and the presentation proposal, partial travel grants may be awarded to a limited number of applicants who are not able to raise the necessary funds.

Presentation: Qualified graduate students and recent PhDs may give a presentation on their ongoing research in a graduate session where lecturers will participate as commentators. Those interested in presenting their research in a graduate session should apply with their curriculum vitae, academic statement and an abstract of their proposed presentation. All applications are subject to review by the FUTH organizing committee.

Deadline: The deadline for applications is April 14, 2011.

Website: http://rich.ac/eng/fly/introduction.php?pageNum=5&subNum=1um=1

Contact: hk.transnational@gmail.com