What is the Global Ethnic Literatures Seminar?

The deadline for applications for 2008-2009 is January 7, 2008. 

Since Fall 2001 the Department of Comparative Literature has sponsored an initiative to encourage faculty and student interaction on issues of international diversity.

The purpose of the Global Ethnic Literatures Seminar (GELS) is to encourage the study of ethnic literature, art, music, and culture at the global level. Each Fall GELS will support four faculty members and six graduate students in a weekly seminar devoted to their specific interests on global and ethnic issues. Faculty and graduate student fellows are chosen by a college-wide selection committee. Faculty fellows receive a course reduction for the fall term with reimbursement to their home unit and $1,000 in research funding. Graduate students will receive a stipend for the fall term, equivalent to a .50 GSI fraction, a full tuition grant, and GradCare. They will also receive $3,000 in fellowship support during the summer preceding their tenure in GELS. The GELS fellows will be joined over the course of the semester by seven to eight visiting speakers, many of whom will give a second public lecture to the university community. Some of the fellows will teach undergraduate courses in their areas of expertise in the winter term under the auspices of Comparative Literature or offered jointly by Comparative Literature and their home units. The long-term goals of GELS are to provide a meeting place and other resources for the professional development of faculty and graduate students, to expand undergraduate teaching on issues of diversity and globality, and to continue the ongoing contribution of the discipline of comparative literature to the international study of literature, art, music, and culture.

For more information please contact Carrie Baker at (734) 647-6251, mscarrie@umich.edu.