Past Event Category: Seminar
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Apr 22Education, Entertainment, and Exploitation: Adventures in Attempting to Promote an Appreciation for the Humanities Among the General Public
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Gregory Aldrete Honorary Fellow (2012-2013) History and Humanistic Studies, UW-Green Bay In an era when a “business model” is dominant in higher education and there are increasing demands by the public and politicians to steer students towards majors that supposedly lead directly to jobs, it is vital for humanists to articulate to …
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Apr 15Practicing Theory: FauHaus and Sensiotics
University Club, Banquet Hall (lower level)
Monday Seminar: Henry Drewal Senior Fellow (2010-2014) Art History; Afro-American Studies, UW–Madison Faisal Abdu’Allah Artist The theory and method called sensiotics, coined in 2003 by Henry Drewal, explores how the senses are engaged in the creation and reception of the arts, and the making of culture. Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and motion continually …
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Apr 8Five Ways to Look at a Corpse: The Dead in Normandy, 1944
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Mary Louise Roberts Senior Fellow (2010-2014) History, UW–Madison We prefer to think of war as producing heroes, not corpses. Perhaps for this reason, military historians have rarely focused on the dead. In the Normandy invasion of 1944, the bodies of American G.I.s were often not visible. This is because, in an effort …
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Apr 1Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Todd W. Reeser Solmsen Fellow (2012-2013) French and Women’s Studies, University of Pittsburgh As fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Humanists read, digested, and translated Plato, they found themselves faced with a fundamental problem. On the one hand, the rebirth of the Ancients implied a “fidelity” to the words and the sense of Greek texts. …
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Mar 18Ideology, Counterpublicity, and the Gay Straight Alliance
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Robert Asen Resident Fellow (2012-2013) Communication Arts, UW–Madison This presentation examines a controversy that arose in West Bend, WI, over the local school board’s resistance to students’ efforts to gain official recognition for a local chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance, a national network of student groups dedicated to creating welcoming environments …
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Mar 11Barbarian Affectivities
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar Mary Agnes Edsall Solmsen Fellow (2012-2013) Independent Scholar Late medieval affective piety was a style of highly emotional devotion to the humanity of Jesus, particularly in his infancy and his death, and to the joys and sorrows of the Virgin Mary. Most accounts of affective piety have located its beginnings in the …
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Mar 4What Not to Wear: Cultus and Elegy in Rome
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Kerry Lefebvre Robert J. Reinhold Dissertation Fellow (2012-2013) Classics, UW–Madison In the fourth book of Propertius’ poetry, we encounter a statue of Vertumnus, who explains to passersby that, given the right clothing and accessories, he can take on any number of identities and occupations, even changing from an elegiac puella (mistress or …
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Feb 25An Invisible Class in a Silent Land. Aristocracy and Settlement Transformation in Atlantic Iberia during Late Antiquity (300-600)
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar Damián Fernández Solmsen Fellow (2012-2013) History, Northern Illinois University This project investigates the transformations of aristocracies during Late Antiquity in an obscure corner of the Roman World: Atlantic Iberia. The project addresses the following question: a powerful and wealthy aristocracy dominated the Iberian Peninsula during the …
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Feb 18Double Meanings: Representing Conjoined Twins
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Ellen Samuels Resident Fellow (2012-2013) Gender & Women’s Studies and English, UW–Madison Double Meanings: Representing Conjoined Twins analyzes cultural representations of conjoined twins in literature, film, media, and popular culture. The guiding principle for this project is to reverse the sensationalism usually attached to public discussions of conjoinment by turning the lens …
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Feb 11The Process of Conversion: A Biography of the Jesuit Relations
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Meridith Beck Sayre Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellow (2012-2013) History of Science, UW–Madison In August of 1632 Father Paul Le Jeune penned the first installment of the Jesuit Relations “from the midst of a forest more than 800 leagues in extent, at Kebec.” The Relations were yearly reports written by members of the Society …