This fall, Columbia’s new Institute for Ideas and Imagination welcomed its first cohort of fellows, a group of fifteen eminent scholars, writers, and artists from around the world, to Reid Hall in Paris. The fellows, who have come together for a yearlong residency, include a sound and video artist from Nigeria, a composer from Syria, a philosopher from France, and writers from Malaysia, the UK, India, and China, along with a number of Columbia scholars in the arts, humanities, and sciences.
“By forging a closer bond between scholarship and the creative arts, we are seeking to engage with other ways of thinking about the world and our place in it,” says Mark Mazower, a Columbia historian and the institute’s founding director.
The Institute for Ideas and Imagination, a University-wide initiative, was created to promote intellectual innovation and intercultural dialogue. Based at Columbia’s Reid Hall, which is also home to one of eight Columbia Global Centers, it will host workshops, conferences, and public events.
“The quality of the opening group of fellows gives us enormous hope that this experiment will prove to be seminal,” says President Lee C. Bollinger.
