We had a very productive meeting of Center for Theory last week, attended by
faculty and grad students.  It really helped me clarify my thinking about
what role the CfT can play at UTA, and beyond.  I'd like the Center, once
capitalized appropriately, to do at least 4 things-award graduate
fellowships in order to recruit national grad students to UTA for work in
theory; recruit grad students and help nurture intellectual culture at UTA
by designing a state-of-the-art Web page, which can double as a virtual
newsletter; launch a speakers series, coupled with informal theory
presentations by local faculty and grad students, that will enrich the
intellectual culture of this place; provide faculty with summer research
money.  To do these and other things, we obviously need money.  Richard
Cole, Dean of Liberal Arts, has graciously agreed to get us started.
Richard is providing Web-design money for this year, and money with which to
start a speakers series for next yr.  I hope that we can bring both Doug
Kellner and Tim Luke to campus for presentations and discussions next fall
and/or spring.  And I have already contacted Zizek to see if he might be
interested in making a visit.  Many other excellent names were suggested at
last week's meeting and we should seriously pursue some of them, esp if we
can identify people who are already traveling to the area for other reasons.

In the meantime, the fiscal crisis of U.S. higher education requires us to
seek some outstanding funding for all this.  I have made a tentative inquiry
that could conceivably lead to funds with which to endow the center.  I'd
like to see $100K a year flow into the Center for these various purposes.
That, of course, will require a substantially bigger endowment.  But the DFW
area is full of Internet-related firms which could conceivably become
interested in making the CfT a significant site of research on the impact of
the Internet on society and culture.

I'll call one more meeting later this semester and discuss progress on the
Web page, whose re-design will be spearheaded by Robert Leston of our
English Dept, and discuss the outlines of an outside speakers series for
next yr, as well as a series that will showcase work-in-progress by local
talent.

Ben