Return to Humanities Calendar Archives
| Monday, May 12 | |
| 3:30 PM | Recasting Asia America Talk "Urban Sexualities, Asian Racialization and the Critique of Historicism," Mary Lui (American Studies, Yale University) and Nayan Shah (History, University of California, San Diego). Part of the year-long Recasting Asia America lecture series, sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities. 3:30 PM, Communications 226. |
| 3:30 PM | South Africa Lecture "Making Home in the New South Africa: Housing, Subsidies, and Moral Communities," Fiona Ross (Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town, South Africa). The talk on home examines the effects of the South African state's housing policy on long-time residents of an informal settlement in Cape Town. It traces the ways in which individuals reconstitute family and consolidate community in a time of considerable change and examines some of the debates about home and respectability that accompanied the move to formal houses. Sponsored by the International Studies Program, Jackson School of International Studies; the Law, Societies, and Justice Program; and the Departments of Anthopology, Women Studies, and Comparative History of Ideas. 3:30-5:00 pm, Denny 401. |
| 4:00 PM | History of Science Colloquia "Seven Modes of Alienation in the Century of Quantum Mechanics, Jim Evans. Refreshments and conversation begin at 3:30 pm. 4 pm, Smith 306. |
| 7:00 PM | Jewish Studies Lecture "The 'Four Worlds' and the Popularization of Kabala," Prof. Chava Weissler (Lehigh University). Part of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Lecture Series, on "Spirituality in America: the Jewish Renewal Movement." This lecture will explore the complex relationship of Renewal interpretations of Kabbalah to classical forms of Jewish mysticism through a case study of the teaching of the Four Worlds. In classical Kabbalah, the Four Worlds described the structure of the cosmos, as it was emanated from the Godhead down through angelic realms to this material, corrupt world. Later, the Four Worlds became identified as well with states of meditation, and stages of the liturgy, as the mystic strove to leave this world behind, and ascend through ever purer and holier worlds, eventually cleaving to Divinity itself. Jewish Renewal took this liturgical/meditative aspect of the teaching, especially as found in hasidic sources, and "psychologized" it, understanding the worlds as aspects of human existence, and stressing their correspondence with the Sabbath morning service. In the process, Renewal transforms the meaning of the Four Worlds from a teaching about our distance from a transcendent Godhead to an expression of the immanence of the divine in the physical world. 7:30 PM, Kane Hall 220. Free and open to the public. |
| Tuesday, May 13 | |
| 10:00 AM | Digital Media Lectures "Mapping Issue Networks on the Web: Methods, Techniques, Claims," Richard Rogers (Media Studies, University of Amsterdam). Rogers is a recurrent visiting professor in the philosophy and social study of science at the University of Vienna. He also directs the govcom.org foundation, Based in Amsterdam. His areas of expertise include information politics and issue networks online. Sponsored by the Digital Media Working Group, the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, and the Center for American Politics and Public Policy. 10:00-11:30 am, Allen Auditorium, Allen Library. |
| 12:30 PM | Digital Media Lecture "Discussion of technical aspects of Web analysis," Richard Rogers (Media Studies, University of Amsterdam). Rogers is a recurrent visiting professor in the philosophy and social study of science at the University of Vienna. He also directs the govcom.org foundation, based in Amsterdam. His areas of expertise include information politics and issue networks online. Sponsored by the Digital Media Working Group, the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, and the Center for American Politics and Public Policy. 12:30-1:30, 1st floor of Communication Building, across from CMU 120. |
| 2:00 PM | Digital Media Lecture "The News from Genoa: The Web Issue Index of Civil Society," Richard Rogers (Media Studies, University of Amsterdam). Rogers is a recurrent visiting professor in the philosophy and social study of science at the University of Vienna. He also directs the govcom.org foundation, based in Amsterdam. His areas of expertise include information politics and issue networks online. Free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Digital Media Working Group, the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, and the Center for American Politics and Public Policy. 2-3 pm, Smith 40. |
| 3:30 PM | Philosophy Colloquia Genoveva Marti (London School of Economics & Universitat de Barcelona). Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy. 3:30 pm, Savery Hall, Room 239. |
| 7:00 PM | Danz and Walker Ames Lecture "Andalusi Moorings: Competing Tropes of Jewish Culture in Muslim Spain," Ross Brann (Chair, Department of Near Eastern Studies and Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies, Cornell University). How did the Andalusi Jews' sense of connection to what they called Safarad exist in creative rivalry with their pious devotion to the Land of Israel, a place most of them never saw except through the lens of their sacred texts? And more particularly, how do the geographical imagination and literary imagination inflect these competing tropes in Andalusi-Jewish culture? Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Langauges and Civilization, Departments of History, Comparative Literature, Comparative Religion, and French and Italian Studies. 7:00 pm, Kane 110. Free and open to the public. |
| 7:00 PM | Russian, East European, and Central "What Happened to the U.S./Russian Partnership?" Professor Stephen Hanson (Director, Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies -REECAS- Center, University of Washington). President Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call George W. Bush in the wake of the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil of September 11, 2001. Now he has broken with the U.S. over the war in Iraq, calling it "illegal" and a geopolitical "mistake." Stephen Hanson will explore the reasons for this seemingly puzzling reversal in U.S.-Russian relations. Parking available nearby at Henry Cogswell College. Sponsored by the REECAS Center/JSIS (UW); Henry Cogswell College. RSVP (limited seating): 425-258-3351. 7:00 pm, Monte Cristo Hotel, 1507 Wall Street, Everett, WA. |
| 7:00 PM | Round Table Discussion "Beyond Baghdad: Global Perspectives," Professor David M. Bachman (International Studies), a specialist on Chinese domestic politics, political economy, foreign policy, and Sino-American relations; Professor John T. S. Keeler (Political Science), a specialist on European politics and transatlantic relations; Assistant Professor Arzoo Osanloo (Anthropology and Law, Societies and Justice), a specialist in the relationship of the state, human rights, and the formation of identity in the Muslim Middle East; and Assistant Professor Mary Callahan (International Studies), a specialist on democratization, military, and Southeast Asian politics. For further information contact: readme@u.washington.edu. This even is free and open to the public. 7:00 pm, Kane Hall 110. |
| 11:00 PM | South Africa Lecture "Bearing Witness: Women and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa," Fiona Ross (Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town, South Africa). This talk on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) examines the work of the Commission in relations to women's experiences of suffering and political activism. Suggesting that women's experiences of harm are often couched in elusive ways, it poses questions about the ways in which human rights discourses are put to work in assessing suffering. Sponsored by the International Studies Program, Jackson School of International Studies; the Law, Societies, and Justice Program; and the Departments of Anthropology, Women Studies, and Comparative History of Ideas. 11:00-12:30, Thomson 317. |
| Wednesday, May 14 | |
| 3:30 PM | REECAS Event "Income Inequality and Poverty in Ukraine 1991-2001: A Review," Dr. Nazar Kholod. Kholod is a political economist with the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Ukraine and is also an IREX (International Research and Exchanges) scholar at UW this spring. In 2000, he successfully defended his PhD dissertation at Ivan Franko on the Ukrainian government's regulation of income distribution, and is now Assistant Professor of Economics. His talk will be on the changes in inequality and poverty in Ukraine that were brought about by market reforms. He will also examine the changes in the income policy triggered by market reforms and the deep recession of the mid 1990s. Sponsored by the REECAS Center/Jackson School of International Studies. 3:30-5:00 pm, Thomson Hall Room 317. |
| 7:00 PM | German Film Series "Die Ehe der Maria Braun / The Marriage of Maria Braun" (Fassbinder, 1978) Maria Braun believes her husband Hermann has died in the war, and begins an affair with a black American G.I., Bill. But Hermann returns to discover them in bed. The drama continues to unfold through romantic liaison and rise to economic power until the climactic end. Fassbinder writes: "This film I've made, which seems to speak in favor of the institution of marriage, in fact deals with how odious, hypocritical and destructive marriage really is. I want the audience to break with these rituals - the terminal point of a bourgeois lifestyle." A part of Fassbinder's "BRD Trilogy", the film also chronicles the historial moment of Adenauer's era and Germany's post war economic miracle, as well as Germany's winning of the World Cup. German Film Series, sponsored by the UW Department of Germanics. All films in German with English Subtitles. Full schedule and updates available at: http://staff.washington.edu/jstoff/film.html. Wednesdays, 7 pm, Savery 239. |
| Thursday, May 15 | |
| 12:30 PM | Central Asian Studies Lecture "The Uzbek Poet and Writer Gafur Gulom (1903-1964): A Contribution to the 100th Anniversary of His Birthday," Professor Ilse D. Cirtautas. Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilization and the Central Asian Studies Group. 12:30-1:30 pm, Denny Hall Room 215. |
| 3:30 PM | Religious Conflict Colloquium "Jews and Muslims in Confluence and Conflict," Prof. Ross Brann (Cornell University). This lecture examines the intimate historical conversation between Jews and Muslims and Judaism and Islam during the latter's classical age. In particular the talk treats the cultural transformation of the Jews and Judaism under Islam and offers some reflections on the contemporary significance of the historical record. Ross Brann is Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies at Cornell University where he is also completing his third term as Chair of the Department Near Eastern Studies. He is the author of The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain ([Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992] awarded the National Jewish Book Award in the category of Sephardic Studies) and Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Muslims and Jews in Islamic Spain (Princeton University Press, 2002). For the latter project Brann received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania. Brann is also the editor of three volumes and author of many essays on medieval Hebrew and Arabic literature and the cultural intersection of Judaism and Islam. At Cornell where he has taught since 1986, Ross has also served as Director of the Religious Studies Program. In 1996, he received the Stephen and Margery Russell Award for Distinguished Teaching from the College of Arts and Sciences. Sponsored by the Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, History, French and Italian Studies, and Comparative Literature, and by the Programs on Comparative Religion, and Jewish Studies of the Jackson School of International Studies. 3:30 pm, Communications Building 202. |
| 3:30 PM | China Studies Lecture "Patrolling the Revolution: Miltias and State-building in Modern China," Elizabeth Perry (Henry Rosovosky Professor of Government, Harvard University). Perry is a graduate of William Smith College, and received her MA from the University of Washington and PhD from the University of Michigan. From 1999-2002, she directed the Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard. A Guggenheim recipient and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Perry is the author or editor of more than a dozen books on Chinese politics, including "Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor," which won the Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association. The talk will drawn on a forthcoming book which traces the evolution of revolutionary militias in China from their origins in the 1920s to the present. The fate of revolutionary militias, Perry suggests, serves as a window on changing state-society relations - not only in contemporary China, but in other post-revolutionary countries as well. Sponsored by China Studies Program, Jackson School. For more information, contact (206) 543-4391. 3:30-5:00, Communications 226. |
| 3:30 PM | Middle East Studies Lecture "Gender and Empire in the Ottoman Cartoon Space, 1908-1914," Palmira Brummett (History, University of Tennessee-Knoxville). Sponsored by the Middle East Center, Jackson School of International Studies. 3:30-5:00 pm, Allen Library Auditorium. |
| 7:00 PM | REECAS Lecture "The Splendors of St. Petersburg, Russia's 'Window on the West': An Illustrated Presentation," Professor Daniel C. Waugh. This lavishly illustrated evocation of the significance and artistic splendors of Russia's imperial capital celebrates the 300th anniversary of its founding on May 16, 1703. View the city through the eyes and words of eighteenth and nineteenth century artists and writers. Experience the ambience of one of the great imperial cpitals interpreted through the photographic lens: illuminated facades on moonlit nights, the wrought iron tracery along misty canals, Golden Autumn in palace parks, and the gilded exuberance of the private chambers of the Romanovs. A Harvard Ph.D., Professor Waugh has been teaching about Russia at UW since 1972 in the Department of History, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. He brings to this presentation the experience of living in St. Petersburg for two years, a particular interest in the history of early modern Russia, and substantial accomplishments as a photographer. Sponsored by the REECAS Center/Jackson School of International Studies. 7:00 pm, Henry Auditorium. |
| 7:00 PM | Book Reading and Conversation "Oryx and Crake" reading and conversation, Margaret Atwood. The distinguished author, recipient of the 2000 Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin, talks about her compelling new novel, a prescient and all too likely scenario of our planet, left devastated in the wake of ecological and scientific disaster. The Wall Street Journal says, "There's a steely quality to Ms. Atwood's writing that's a bit scary, but also exhilarating: no one gets away with anything." And from the Houston Chronicle: "Atwood takes many trends which exist today and stretches them to their logical and chilling conclusions." Ticket Required - tickets available April 15 at all UW bookstores. Sponsored by the Canadian Studies Center, Jackson School of International Studies, and the University Book Store. 7:00 pm, Kane Hall 130. |
| 7:30 PM | Middle East Lecture "Beyond Jews Versus Arabs: New Music of Israel," Benjamin Brinner (Music, University of California at Berkeley). Sponsored by the Middle East Center, mecuw@u.washington.edu of the Jackson School of International Studies and the Ethnomusicology Office of the School of Music. 7:30 pm, Music Building Room 213. |
| 8:00 PM | Andrew Markus Memorial Lecture "With Kindness at Heart, a Song on the Tongue, and Gold and Steel in Hand: Religion, Power, and Ideology in the Mahabharata, the Great Epic of India," Professor James L. Fitzgerald (Department of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee). This is the 2003 Andrew Markus Memorial Lecture, presented by the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures. 8:00 pm, Walker-Ames Room, Kane Hall. |
| Friday, May 16 | |
| 1:30 PM | Germanics Lecture "Claiming the Public Sphere: The Construction of a Political Public in Early Modern Germany," Sabine Lang (DAAD Visiting Professor, Political and Social Science, Freie Universitat, Berlin). This talk traces the emergence of a political public sphere as a narrative of contested claims by the old monarchist powers, a modernizing state bureaucracy and democratically oriented political activists. Refreshments will be served. Sponsored by the Department of Germanics. 1:30 pm, William H. Rey Library, Denny Hall 308. |
| 2:30 PM | Modern Girl Lecture "The Frondeuse: Making the Modern Girl French," Mary Louise Roberts (History, University of Wisconsin-Madison). Sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities. For more information, please see http://depts.washington.edu/its/moderngirl.htm. 2:30-5:00 pm, Communications Building 226. |
| 3:00 PM | Thinking Sex Workshop "Sex and Ethnography: Dubbing Culture," Tom Boellstorff (Anthropology, University of California-Irvine). Tom Boellstorff's paper suggests that while there has been increasing interest in sexualities (particularly non-normative sexualities) as transnational objects of study, we have few theoretical frameworks with which to understand the "globalization" of sexuality. In it, he draws upon his ethnographic and activist work with gay Indonesians with two goals: to better understand their sexual lifeworlds, and to develop a more robust theory for the translocation of sexual subject-positions. Ethnographically, he will focus upon the role of "globalizing" mass media in gay Indonesian lives. Key among the theoretical issues he will raise is the possibility of non-threatening and non-antagonistic relationships to processes of cultural globalization, and also the non-linear relationship between globalizing processes and class (in other words, that lower-class persons are not necessarily less "globalized" than elites). Part of the series, "Thinking Sex in Transnational Times," sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities. For more information, visit www.uwch.org/thinkingsex, or, to register for the workshop, call the Center at (206) 543-3920. 3:00 pm, Communications 206. |
| 7:00 PM | Polish History Lecture "Towards the Total Art," Rafal Olbinski (School of Visual Art, New York). This illustrated lecture will focus on artistic challenges and dilemmas of a 21st century artist. Olbinski is a graphic and stage designer and a painter. Educated in Poland, for the last 15 years Olbinski has been associated with the famous School of Visual Art in New York. His surrealist illustrations have graced the pages of Time, Newsweek, The New Yorkerand Der Spiegel. Opera fans will recognize posters that he has created for opera houses around the world. According to art critic Matthew Gurwitsch, "He has shown an uncanny knack for capturing the essence of works by Mozart or Verdi or Janacek with the same startling precision that moves his covers off the newsstands." It has been said that his artwork is rich in poetic humor and that he has the gift of drawing the viewer into another world. Those interested in high art and popular illustrations will be equally at home at his talk, as Olbinski has blurred the line between these two diverse art forms. Besides a section devoted to his opera works, it will feature theatre, movie, exhibition and festival posters, as well as art commissioned by commercial companies and the City of New York. Reception to follow. Sponsors: Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, Polish Home Association, Simpson Center for the Humanities, College of Arts & Sciences Exchange Program. For information, please contact the Slavic Department, (206) 543-6848. 7 pm, Walker Ames Room, Kane Hall. |
| Saturday, May 17 | |
| 8:30 AM | Nicholas Poppe Sympsosium The Fifteenth Annual Nicholas Poppe Symposium on Inner/Central Asian Studies. This one-day symposium will include presentations from students and faculty pertaining to Inner and Central Asia. Organized by the UW Central Asian Studies Group (subgroups: Uzbek Circle and Kazakh and Kirghiz Studies Group). Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization and the REECAS (Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies) and Middle East Studies Programs of the Jackson School of International Studies. Questions, contact Ilse Cirtautas at (206) 543-9963 or icirt@u.washington.edu. Denny Hall Rooms 215 and 215A. |