This Spring, the Program in American Studies launches The American Studies Collaboratory — Col(LAB)—a site for a new kind of intellectual engagement, where critical thinking and collaboration converge to nurture connections and discoveries at the edges of our research practice.
The AMS Col(LAB) gathers faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students, as well as artists, community organizers, and media makers, for a series of theme-focused, experimental collaborations designed as partnerships between thinkers and practitioners and seeks to bring curiosity, play, and invention back to our collective intellectual pursuits.
Col(LAB) will encourage a horizontal process of shared inquiry that returns researchers to the spirit of open inquiry, the very spirit that drew them to become scholars. In turn, students will be exposed to the work of practiced researchers and will engage in the process of shaping future inquiry.
On May 2-4, the inaugural investigation titled Col(LAB) 1.0 – “Food Matters: Risk and Privilege” will explore the tension and interdependence between risk and privilege when it comes to our food systems and food culture at the multiple and intersecting levels of production, consumption, sustainability, and human choice/constraint. Drawing from scholars, students, and local practitioners from the humanities, the social sciences, the sciences, and the community, Col(LAB) 1.0 presents an occasion for exploring the entangled issues of health, class, culture, innovation, and ecology.
In partnership with CST StudioLab and Campus Dining’s Princeton Food and Agricultural Initiative, Col(LAB) 1.0 will consist of three serial components/”happenings”, on campus and off, that will take place over the course of three days.
For more information, please visit the Col(LAB) page on the American Studies website.
