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News Release

Last modified: Tuesday, October 7, 2008

IU Institute for Advanced Study announces 2008-09 New Knowledge Seminars

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 7, 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study has awarded funding for the inaugural New Knowledge Seminars. The 2008-09 seminars include multidisciplinary studies of aging, gender and obesity.

New Knowledge Seminars allow teams of scholars from different disciplines to study particular topics by bringing leading scholars and researchers to campus to meet with their respective groups. The awards are designed to help IU faculty members nurture ideas and research agendas.

"The seminar awards for 2008-09 truly reflect the rich diversity of faculty expertise and inquiry on the Bloomington campus," said John Bodnar, director of the Institute for Advanced Study and Chancellor's Professor of history at Indiana University Bloomington. "I expect that this support from the Institute for Advanced Study will enhance the prospect for greater levels of external funding for these outstanding scholars."

2008-09 seminars are:

• "The Effects of Aging on Multimodal Processing of Auditory, Visual and Tactile Information." IU scholars engaged in the seminar are: Larry Humes, Tom Busey and Diane Kewley-Port from the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, James Craig from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Christopher Clark from the School of Optometry. The seminar will look at the integration of sensory information across the senses of hearing, vision and touch and how aging affects the processing of such multimodal information. For information, contact Humes at humes@indiana.edu.
• "Gender and Citizenship in the Post-Cold War World." Scholars leading the seminar are: Maria Bucur in the Department of History and Sarah Phillips in the Department of Anthropology. The seminar, which includes faculty from seven disciplines, will bring scholars from several nations to IU to look at institutional and cultural shifts that have reshaped the relationship between citizenship and gender since the end of the Cold War. For information, contact Bucur at mbucur@indiana.edu.
• "Obesity through the Lens of Science: Cognitive, Behavioral and Economic Approaches to Childhood and Adolescent Obesity." The conveners are: Alyce Fly from the Department of Applied Health Science, Gerhard Glomm and Rusty Tchernis from the Department of Economics, and Peter Todd from the Cognitive Science Program and Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. The seminar, which included a Sept. 4-5 symposium featuring experts from six institutions, examines the causes of the obesity epidemic with special attention to childhood and adolescent obesity. For information, contact Glomm at gglomm@indiana.edu.

New Knowledge Seminars are designed to foster multidisciplinary perspectives and scholarly collaboration that will lead to new perspectives and innovative ways of thinking, and that may attract substantial external support. Seminars meet over the course of a year, allowing participants to work toward perfecting their research design and conceptual ideas and drafting proposals aimed for long-term support. Funding for the seminars ranges from $7,500 to $10,000.

The Institute for Advanced Study is Indiana University's leading center for the pursuit of new knowledge and new directions in all fields of study; it fosters intellectual exchanges that are primarily collaborative and interdisciplinary. For more information, contact the institute at 812-855-3658 or Director John Bodnar at bodnar@indiana.edu.

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