RCGD Fall 2026 Seminar Series: Global Perspectives on Culture & Health, meets Mondays 3:30 to 5 at ISR Thompson 1430.

Global Perspectives on Culture and Health explores fundamental aspects of human life. Culture facilitates human interaction by providing meaning to lived experience. Accounting for culture in both theories and methods potentially advances the study of health by connecting the macro and micro levels of human experience. Yet, culture should be understood as dynamic and complex. It fundamentally shapes individuals and simultaneously is shaped by individuals. The importance of systematically attending to culture includes topics of values, language, immigration, and society.

Theories and methods that incorporate culture hold great potential for advancing the understanding of health outcomes and health trajectories in various global contexts.

The speakers for this series will focus on various aspects of culture and diverse groups living in the U.S. and across the globe to address the ways in which attending to culture helps clarify and overcome challenges to good health.

The Group Dynamics Seminar series is considered one of the longest running seminar series in the social sciences. It has been running uninterruptedly since it was founded by Kurt Lewin in the 1920’s in Berlin. The seminar series runs every semester on a theme chosen by faculty organizer/s who are affiliated with the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research. A very important feature of this seminar today is its interdisciplinary nature. Recent themes have included political polarization, evolution and human behavior, and cultural psychology.

These events are held Mondays from 3:30 to 5.
In person: ISR Thompson 1430, unless otherwise specified.
Organized by Kristine Ajrouch and Sela Panapasa
Events are not recorded, but as permissions allow, interviews with speakers are later posted to our YouTube playlist.