Past Event Category: Seminar
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Feb 22From Regimen to Regime: The Social Meaning of Nutrition, 1840-1910
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Molly Laas William Coleman Dissertation Fellow (2015-2016) History of Science, UW–Madison Are our bodies the sum of our (chemical) parts, or are we more than that, the products of our particular background and culture? This talk delves into the question by examining a debate between chemistry and medicine about how to provision …
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Feb 15Bringers of Light: The Christianisation of Early Medieval Germany under the Carolingians
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar John-Henry Clay Solmsen Fellow (2015-2016) History, Durham University Europe today is often described as ‘Christian’, at least in the cultural sense. But how did it get to be this way? Was the slow tide of Christianity that swamped indigenous European paganism ultimately irresistible, as medieval sources seem to present it? A starting …
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Feb 8Post-Reformation Poetry and the Limits of Consensus: Edmund Spenser in the Context of Habermas and Mouffe
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Victor Lenthe Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellow (2015-2016) English, UW–Madison Contemporary observers of England’s burgeoning late-sixteenth century literary culture believed their country’s emerging canon of vernacular literature might help foster consensus around a collective cultural and political identity. But were they right? My talk relates this literary-historical question to a modern theoretical debate between …
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Feb 1AIDS Knows No Borders: AIDS Activism and the Rhetoric of Immigration
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Karma Chávez Communication Arts, UW–Madison Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Fellow (2015-2016) Scientific conferences are not known for their excitement, but what happens when large numbers of your constituency choose to boycott your meeting? And further, what can transpire when rowdy AIDS activists use your meeting as a stage to air their …
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Jan 25The Secret Animation of Black Music
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Ronald Radano Senior Fellow (2013-2017) African Languages and Literature and Music, UW–Madison For more than 150 years, US black music has stood at the center of the American entertainment industry, frequently proclaimed to be the driving force in popular expression. Why has this been so? Why do so many people think black …
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Dec 14Royal Genealogy, Racial Myths, and National Discourse in Early Modern Britain
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Sara Trevisan Solmsen Fellow (2015-2016) Arts and Humanities, Brunel University London What was the function of royal genealogy in the early modern period? How did royal genealogy engage with debates on the ethnic and political identity of national communities? In Britain, more than in any other early modern European country, royal genealogies …
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Dec 7Magic Lantern Shows and the Early Cinematic Modernity in Colonial Taiwan
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Laura Jo-Han Wen Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellow (2015-2016) East Asian Languages & Literature, UW–Madison What is cinema and where was cinema? How might the ontological inquiries of the cinema be unpacked in a colonial context? Inspired by transmedia archaeology, this talk explores early cinematic modernity through the magic lantern activities in colonial Taiwan. …
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Nov 30Iranian Armenians and Ottoman Catholics in Venice: Extraterritoriality and Diplomacy along the 17th-century Silk Routes
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Ali Humayun Akhtar Kingdon Fellow (2015-2016) History/Middle Eastern Studies, New York University; Religious Studies/Classical and Medieval Studies, Bates College How did pre-modern empires negotiate imperial boundaries while facilitating inter-imperial trade? What was the political place of transimperial diplomat and merchant communities in this trade? This talk highlights the Iranian Armenian community of Esfahan …
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Nov 23Ujamaa Urbanists: Street Archives and City Life in Socialist Tanzania
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Emily Callaci Resident Fellow (2015-2016) History, UW–Madison Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, after the initial euphoria of African national independence and before the era of market liberalization, hundreds of thousands of young East Africans left their rural homes and became the first generation in their families to make lives …
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Nov 16A Tale of Two Fears: Lucretius, Hobbes, and the Political Psychology of Anxiety
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Daniel Kapust Political Science, UW–Madison Resident Fellow (2015-2016) Fear is one of the most salient political emotions. The philosophers Hobbes and Lucretius each considered fear in their writings on civil war. Lucretius argued that the fear of death led to civil war. Although Lucretius deeply influenced Hobbes, Hobbes promoted a fear …