What is the spark that drives professors' research? How do those looking to continue their research long after initial curiosity has subsided, push through? These questions and more were at the forefront of The Curiosity Initiative’s, “What If? Talks” with professors Nicholas Bartlett and Nathan Gorelick who spoke on March 4.
The two, introduced by Melissa Wright, executive director of the Center for Engaged Pedagogy, spoke about their research topics to a full room of intrigued faculty, staff, and students.
“This initiative is really about centering our internal, amazing faculty voices,” said Wright. “Let’s focus on the work that our faculty are doing.”
The ultimate goal of The Curiosity Initiative’s “What If? Talks” is to create engaging forums to share field-specific curiosities. The lectures allow Barnard students to learn from faculty about their research and what led them to a path of discovery and the twists and turns along the way. These lectures are part of The Curiosity Initiative, a multi-year series of public talks and communities of practice designed to explore the conditions that shape people’s desire to know, learn, and explore with one another.
“We often see in academia the finished products…but less often the process that goes along with that,” said Wright. “The goal of this series is to pull back the curtain on that process.”
The talks emphasized that research is rarely predetermined. Instead, it is an opportunity that comes about through chance and openness.
“What if…your research subjects find you?”
Nicholas Bartlett is an anthropologist of China, with training in medical anthropology and psychoanalysis. He is an assistant professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures.
During his discussion, Bartlett emphasized the importance of remaining open-minded, allowing for research opportunities to flow naturally. He explored the personal and unpredictable nature of fieldwork, emphasizing that meaningful opportunities and discoveries often emerge when researchers are least prepared.
“What if…the Haitian Revolution invented psychoanalysis?”
Nathan Gorelick teaches in the English department and for the First-Year Experience program. His areas of expertise include British and Continental Literature from the Restoration through Romanticism, Enlightenment philosophy and ideology, literary theory, and clinical and critical psychoanalysis.
Gorelick’s presentation traced the historical roots of psychoanalysis, most specifically the phenomenon of mesmerism.
“This research began through an experience of astonishment,” said Gorelick.