Past TASP Topics & Faculty
Past TASP Topics & Faculty
Telluride Association Summer Programs (TASPs), Telluride’s pioneering summer program scholarship programs for high school juniors, ran from 1954 until 2020. After a year’s hiatus due to COVID and for reorganization, they and our Sophomore Seminars were superseded by the new Telluride Association Summer Seminars, to be premiered in 2022.
Over the course of nearly 70 years, TASP transformed the lives of over 3,600 participants from around the world. TASPs were taught at 15 different sites by several hundred different faculty, many of whom cite the experience as a teaching career highlight. Here is a list of the seminar titles and faculty, from the very beginning to our online program in 2020.
2020
2020 summer programs were held online due to the COVID pandemic.
Cornell I: Storytelling Across Genre: Writing for Personal and Political Change
Cornell II: Humor, Comedy, and the Politics of Identity
Maryland: Education and Citizenship
Michigan: Feminist Philosophies of Space, Time, and Evolution: Untimely Politics
2019
Cornell I: Negative Capability in Art and Culture: Romanticism to the Present
Cornell II: Freedom Summer
Maryland: Constructing Gender in Japanese Popular Culture
Michigan: Poetry and Identity
2018
Cornell I: Pleasure and Danger: Bodies in History, Science, Literature, and Philosophy
Cornell II: Facing Fictions
Maryland: Protest Poetics: Art and Performance in Freedom Movements
Michigan: Just Comics
2017
Cornell I: Gods and Heroes of the Celts and Vikings
Cornell II: Say It, Say It Anyway You Can
Michigan I: Thinking About Cities: In Particular, Detroit
Michigan II: Technology and Social Change
2016
Cornell I: Public Poetry in a Digital World
Cornell II: Literatures of the Security State: Privacy, Surveillance, and Modern Culture
Michigan I: Archetype and Contemporary Art
Michigan II: BLACK LIVES MATTER: Race, Gender, and Resistance in Pan African Cinema from Algiers to Ferguson
2015
Cornell I: Thinking About Cities: In Particular, Jerusalem
Cornell II: Mapping Fictions of American Identity: 1840 – 1940
Michigan I: Science Fiction, Technology, and the Human Horizon
Michigan II: Paris and Edinburgh in the Enlightenment: Moral Challenge and the Ethics of Living, Learning, and Being
2014
Cornell I: Music, Dance & Light
Cornell II: Race and the Limits of Law in America
Michigan I: Modernism through Modern Art and Theatre
Michigan II: Identity and Belonging from Primates to Posthumans
2013
Cornell I: Literature Takes on Moral Complexity
Cornell II: Times Square
Michigan I: FOOD
Michigan II: Dark Phrases of Womanhood: Black Feminist Approaches to History and Literature
2012
Cornell I: Literature Takes on Moral Complexity
Cornell II: Democracy and Diversity
Michigan I: The Origin of Species and the Politics of Evolution
Michigan II: Modernism through Modern Art and Theater
2011
Cornell I: Intergenerational Justice
Cornell II: Thinking Girls, Thinking Boys
Michigan I: Freedom, Dialogue, and Polarization
Michigan II: Visions of America from Abroad
2010
Cornell I: Democracy and Diversity
Cornell II: Gods and Heroes of the Celts and Vikings
UT Austin: Changing Minds, Winning Peace: Cultural and Public Diplomacy in Today’s World
2009
Cornell I: Pleasure and Danger: Bodies in History, Science, Literature and Philosophy
Cornell II: Empire of Prisons
University of Michigan: Physics, Philosophy, Fiction
UT Austin: Documenting Reality: Producing and Reading the Literature of Fact
2008
Cornell I: Caribbean Dialogs [.com]
Cornell II: Human Rights, Cultural Rights & Economic Rights: Views from the “Global South”
University of Michigan:The Environment and our Health
UT Austin: The History and Images of Hollywood’s Africa
2007
Cornell I: International Politics on Film.
Cornell II: The Renaissance Made Flesh: Conceptualizing the Early Modern Body.
Michigan: Race, Space, and the American Self.
UT Austin: Science, Technology, and the Responsible Citizen.
WashU-St. Louis Program: Exploring Metropolitan Landscapes: St. Louis as Classroom and Experiment.
2006
Cornell I: Foreign Policy as Subversion.
Cornell II: Voyages to the Otherworld: Medieval Romance and Modern Adaptations.
Michigan: Islam in Practice: Religion, Culture, and Politics.
UT Austin: The Cultures of Writing.
WashU-St. Louis Program: The Ties That Bind: Exploring the Connections and Absorbing the Lessons of the American Civil Rights Movement and the South African Anti-Apartheid Struggle.
2005
Cornell I: Truth in History?
Cornell II: War and Terror: Ethical, Legal, and Historical Perspectives.
Michigan: Music of the Everyday: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Popular Music in the U.S., 1880-Present.
UT Austin: War, Violence, and Story-Making.
WashU-St. Louis Program: The Transformation of Twentieth-Century American Cities.
2004
Cornell I: He Said, She Said: The Battle of the Sexes in Medieval and Renaissance Writing.
Cornell II: Pleasure and Danger: Bodies in History, Science, Literature, and Philosophy.
Michigan: Race, Gender, and Class in American and British History.
UT Austin: The Invention of the Human: The Problem of the Modern Subject.
2003
Cornell I: “Know Thyself”: Pride and Prejudice in Philosophy and Literature.
Cornell II: Fourth World, First Peoples: Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World.
Michigan: Islam in Practice: Religion, Culture, and Politics.
UT Austin: The Mystery of Creativity: On Literature and the Creative Process.
2002
Cornell I: The Literature of Chivalry.
Cornell II: Racism, Power, and Privilege.
Michigan: The American Century, Black Transnationalism, and Civil Rights.
2001
Cornell I: Performing Gender: From Rap Lyrics to Lamentations.
Cornell II: Altered Consciousness: Writing about Poetry and Art.
Michigan: Race, Gender, and Class in American and British History.
Penn State: The Roots, Evolution, Development, and Trajectory of Environmental Policy and Politics.
2000
Cornell I: Myth and Tragedy.
Cornell II: Constitutional Conflicts: American Debates on Liberty, Justice, and Democracy.
Michigan: Us and Them: Perspectives on Crime, Violence, and Madness.
Penn State: Poetic Powers.
1999
Cornell I: Jews, Christians, and Muslims: Scriptures, Interpretive Traditions, and the Cultural Imagination.
Cornell II: Poets, Historians, and Other Liars.
Michigan: People in Movement.
1998
Cornell I: Almost Human: Monstrous Forms and Identity Crises.
Cornell II: Victorian Controversies.
Kenyon: Community, Individuality, Justice: Visions of Utopia and Anti-Utopia.
Michigan: Ethics, Asthetics, and Society.
1997
Cornell I: Imagining Cities.
Cornell II: Varieties of American Dissent, 1670-1990.
Kenyon: Hope Against Despair: The Crisis of Meaning in Contemporary Art, Literature, and Philosophy.
St. John’s: Language and Literature.
1996
Cornell I: Dissident Identities: Representations in Contemporary Anglo-American Cinema and Literature.
Cornell II: Native American Literature and America’s Romance with the West.
Kenyon: The Dilemma of Modernism: Art and Authority in the Modern World.
St. John’s: Understanding Society.
1995
Cornell I: Geography, Literature, and Critical Social Theory.
Cornell II: Gender and War in the Twentieth Century.
Kenyon: Liberal Democracy and the American Character.
St. John’s: Ethics and Society in the Ancient(?) World.
1994
Cornell: Poetry and the Body Politic.
St. John’s: Foundations of Modernity.
1993
Cornell I: Politics of Culture.
Cornell II: Citizen Participation: Images and Reality.
Williams: Gender and Desire.
St. John’s: What is the Family? Literary Images and Philosophical Accounts.
1992
Cornell I: Contemporary Fiction by Women.
Cornell II: Passion and Excess: Sacrifice, Exchange, and Self-Representation.
Williams: Memory and Community.
St. John’s: Certainty and Doubt.
1991
Cornell I: Poetry and Everyday Life.
Cornell II: Language, Society, and Self.
St. John’s: Seeing, Speaking, and Thinking.
Williams: Elitism: Economic and Philosophical Perspectives.
1990
Cornell I: Gender, Race, and Nation: Questions of Identity in Modern Literature and Film.
Cornell II: Difference and Democracy in the United States: Anthropology at the End of the “American Empire.”
Deep Springs: Law, Virtue, and Self-Interest.
St. John’s: Science as Literature, Literature as Science.
Williams: Understanding Other People’s Politics: Philosophy, Social Theory, and the Human Sciences.
1989
Cornell I: The Novel and Society.
Cornell II: The Representation of Difference: A Crisis in Contemporary America.
Deep Springs: Tradition and Autonomy.
Williams: The Psychology of Social Influence: The Individual in Modern Society.
1988
Cornell I: Crossing Cultures and Multiplying Times.
Cornell II: Paradise, the Garden, and City Dreams.
Deep Springs: Law, Literature, and Society: American and American Indian.
Williams: The Great Transformation: The Making of Modern Industrial Society–England and America.
1987
Cornell I: Morality and Persons.
Cornell II: Culture and Miscommunication.
Chicago: The Individual and Community.
Deep Springs: History and Prospects of the Liberal Ideal.
Williams: Public Man, Private Woman.
1986
Cornell I: Cinema and Modernity.
Cornell II: The American Reaction to War in the Twentieth Century.
Chicago: Science and Society: Knowledge, Morals, and Power.
Deep Springs: Democracy and Authority.
Williams: Art and Mystery.
1985
Cornell I: Reading/Writing American Poetry.
Cornell II: American Political Thought: The State and Moral Life.
Deep Springs: Philosophical Perspectives on the Individual and Society.
Williams: The Business of America.
1984
Cornell I: The Novel and Society.
Cornell II: The Public Interest and Factions in American Government.
Deep Springs: Culture and Creativity.
Williams: Technology, the Environment, and Human Society.
1983
Cornell I: Representations in Literature and the Visual Arts.
Cornell II: The American Reaction to War in the Twentieth Century.
Deep Springs: Work and Community.
Williams: From Camelot to Watergate: American Culture, 1960-1974.
1982
Cornell I: Homer, Vergil, and Dante: Cities of the Spirit in the Great Epics.
Cornell II: Social Theory and Historiography: the Case of Modern England.
Deep Springs: Community and Authority.
Williams: Human Thought and Artificial Intelligence.
1981
Cornell I: The Ways of Narrative–From Classical to Modern Fiction.
Cornell II: Peasants: Politics, Permanence, and Protest.
Deep Springs: Science and Human Values.
1980
Cornell I: Reading About a Revolution.
Cornell II: Nature and Culture/Biology and Society.
Deep Springs: The Work Process and Problems of Community and Authority.
Johns Hopkins: American Cities: Decline or Regeneration?
1979
Cornell I: The World Seen: Perception and the Visual Arts.
Cornell II: Liberal Democracy and its Problems.
Deep Springs: Problems of Community and Authority.
Johns Hopkins: American Cities: Decline or Regeneration?
1978
Cornell: Self and Society: Challenges to Liberal Thought.
Deep Springs: The American Political System: Styles of Challenge and Response.
Johns Hopkins: The American City: Issues of Decay or Prosperity?
1977
Cornell I: The Lyric Tradition in Poetry.
Cornell II: Problems of Judging Right and Wrong: Ethical Absolutism and Ethical Relativism.
1976
Cornell I: The Making of Critical Readers.
Cornell II: American Foreign Policy: A Historical Perspective.
1975
Cornell I: The Ancient Art of Subversive Writing.
Cornell II: American Democracy and the American Purpose.
Cremona: Environmental Decision-Making.
1974
Cornell I: Poetry and Wisdom in Shakespeare.
Cornell II: American Foreign Policy as History: The 20th Century.
Cremona: Public Policy and Ecology.
1973
Cornell I: Society and the Novel.
Cornell II: Democracy in America.
Cremona: Public Policy and the Environment.
Deep Springs: The Idea of Community.
1972
Cornell I: The Art of Fiction.
Cornell II: The Impact of the United States on the Third World.
Deep Springs: Community and the American Experience.
1971
Cornell I: The Experience of the Writer.
Cornell II: The Founding of the American Republic.
Deep Springs: The Idea of Community.
1970
Cornell I: The Nature of Violence.
Cornell II: Shakespeare and Modern Drama.
Deep Springs: The Idea of Community.
Hampton: The Legacy of American Slavery.
1969
Cornell I: Politics, Language, and Literature.
Cornell II: Historical Patterns of Scientific Development.
Deep Springs: Poverty and Race in America.
Hampton: From Slavery Toward Freedom: An American Political Problem.
1968
Cornell I: The Genesis of Modern Science.
Cornell II: Drama and the Arts: From the Baroque to Classicism.
Hampton: From Slavery to Freedom: An American Political Problem.
1967
Cornell I: Historical Studies in the Origins of War.
Cornell II: The Reading of Literature.
Hampton: From Slavery to Freedom: An American Political Problem.
1966
Cornell I: The Politics of Protest Since World War II.
Cornell II: Drama: Ancient and Modern.
Hampton: The South in Historical Perspective.
Princeton: Revolutions in Science.
Note: Exact seminar titles do not always exist for the years 1954-65
1965
Cornell I: Religious Experience and Philosophical Inquiry.
Cornell II: American and Roman Civilization in Expansion: A Comparison.
Princeton: Philosophical Conceptions of Liberty.
1964
Cornell I: Literary and Philosophical Aspects of Greek Civilization.
Cornell II: The Experience of Literary and Dramatic Art.
Princeton: Exploring the Bill of Rights.
1963
Cornell I: Exploring Greek Civilization.
Cornell II: The Novel in England and America.
Princeton: Exploring the Bill of Rights.
1962
Cornell I: Form, Method, and Expression: The Arts in Our Time.
Cornell II: Exploring the Bill of Rights.
Stanford: Exploring the Greek Polis.
1961
Cornell: Labor in America.
Stanford: Ethnic Groups and American Life.
1960
Cornell: The Bill of Rights.
Deep Springs: The Character and Goals of the American Economy.
1959
Cornell: The School Segregation Dilemma.
Deep Springs: Individual Liberties in the Nuclear Age.
1958
Cornell: The Bill of Rights.
Deep Springs: Science and Human Values.
1957
Deep Springs: The Impact of Prosperity and Depression on American Democracy.
1956
Cornell: Conflicting Ideals of Communism and Democracy.
1955
Cornell: Theories and Practices of Government in the United States.
1954
Cornell: Emergence of Leadership in a Democratic Society; and Communication of Thought Through Language.