The key thematic focus for the academic years 2009-2011 is "Paucity and Plenty: enactments and expectations." The Thursday Series is a bi-weekly program of seminars, colloquia and lectures with distinguished guests and UM faculty. The theme "Paucity and Plenty" presents an opportunity to explore new approaches to familiar historical questions, widening the terms of abundance and scarcity to encompass an examination of changing forms of material and immaterial production, environmental scarcity and engagement, disasters of famine and drought, and crises of bodies, health and medicine, along with the forms of social inequality and social movements they have produced.
In addition to the Thursday Series, the Institute sponsors and supports additional programming, including a Friday Workshop with the guests of the Thursday Series (see Graduate Workshops and Programs), various graduate student initiatives and other events designed to cultivate critical thinking about historical research and teaching.
