An amazing two weeks at Spannocchia Castle in Tuscany featured three internationally renowned visiting faculty. David Driskell lectured on his life as an artist-philosopher; Adrienne Childs gave a talk on the historical image of blacks in Florence and Venice; and Santiago Zabala, Italian philosopher and cultural critic, spoke on philosophy and capitalism.
At this year's Venice Biennale, IDSVA hosted world-leading philosophers John Rajchman and Giovanna Borradori. Rajchman's presentation was titled "Xu Bing's Phoenix Project ... and what it tells us about contemporary art." Borradori spoke on the globalization of art.
In Berlin the acclaimed British philosopher Howard Caygill lectured on terrorism and the media.
In Istanbul IDSVA founder George Smith gave seminars on Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul, Memories and the City.
In late July third-year students gathered at Brown University for Dissertation Orientation with Core Faculty and a methods seminar with IDSVA Visiting Faculty member Paul Armstrong, former dean of Brown. As one student put it, the seminars with Paul Armstrong and dissertation topic workshops added up to "nothing short of inspiring."