Past Events
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Mar 30Unfixed: How the Women of Glenwood Changed American IQ, and Why We Don’t Know It
Helen C. White Hall, Room 7191
2017 Gender Studies and the Humanities Lecture Susan Schweik UC Berkeley, English “Dull Babies Made Normal By Feeble-Minded Girls’ Care: Increase of as Much as 40 Points in IQ Reported,” a science magazine headline trumpeted in 1939, describing an experiment led by psychologist Harold Skeels in which orphanage toddlers were transferred to the State …
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Mar 27Building the Caliphate: Construction, Destruction, and Sectarian Identity in Fatimid Architecture (909-1031)
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar Jennifer Pruitt Resident Fellow (2016-2017) Art History, UW–Madison The Ismaili Shi’i Fatimid dynasty is most famous for founding the city of Cairo in 969. Generally considered a golden age of multicultural tolerance, the Fatimid era witnessed an efflorescence of art and architecture and relatively peaceful coexistence between the religious communities in their …
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Mar 13A View from the Choir: Sharing Sacred Space in Pluriconfessional Convents in Early Modern Germany
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer History, Western Kentucky University Solmsen Fellow (2016-2017) Differences between religious groups coexisting in the same nation remain one of the thorniest sources of controversy and violence in many regions of the world. The vital role of women in creating means of transmitting religious identity and arbitrating differences has …
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Mar 10Histories of the Present: Postimperial Asia in the World
Pyle Center
2017 Burdick-Vary Symposium Organized by Louise Young How has the history of imperialism and colonialism brought us to the current conjuncture? This symposium brings together specialists from different fields to rethink possibilities for a critical history of the East Asian present within the larger context of the postimperial world. We plan morning and afternoon sessions …
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Mar 10Mount Athos in Context
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building, Room L140
Symposium on the occasion of the Art History exhibition: “Holy Mountain: Icons from Mount Athos and Photographs by Frank Horlbeck”: Welcome and Introductory Remarks 9:00-9:15 Dean Karl Scholz Bp. Demetrios of Mokissos 9:15-9:45 Thomas Dale Historical Perspectives on Mount Athos and Byzantine Monasticism 9:45-10:30 Leonora Neville 10:30-11:15 Alice-Mary Talbot 11:30-12:45 Lunch Break Stillness on the …
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Mar 6Weaponizing Identity: Doxing as Cultural Practice and Political Tool
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Andrew Zolides Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellow (2016-2017) Communication Arts, UW–Madison Doxing – the publicizing of private, identifying information about an individual without consent – is a fascinating cultural practice that has emerged in our digital culture. Relating to issues of surveillance, whistle-blowing, and battles over political ideologies, this talk presents doxing as a …
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Mar 3New Illuminations: Art-NATURE-History
Pyle Center, Room 313
2017 Burdick-Vary Symposium In conjunction with: “Martha Glowacki’s Natural History, Observations and Reflections” (Chazen Museum of Art) “Natural History : Natural Philosophy: An Exhibit in Special Collections” (Memorial Library, Room 984) This symposium brings together contributors to a newly burgeoning mode of work that sits at—and defies—the boundaries between scholarly research and creative art …
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Feb 27Anishinaabewaki and the “mixed bloods, belonging to the Chippewas of Lake Superior”
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar Larry Nesper Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Fellow (2016-2017) Anthropology, UW–Madison This project began as an effort to problematize the legal permitting process by muddying up the chain of title to the Penokees of northern Wisconsin where Gogebic Taconite was proposing to build the largest open-pit iron mine in North America in 2014. …
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Feb 22Rethinking Empire in the Twentieth Century: Lessons from Imperial and Post-Imperial Japan
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building, Room L140
2017 Focus on the Humanities Distinguished Faculty Lecture: Louise Young Professor of Japanese History, UW–Madison Japan built a wartime empire in Asia in the 1930s, and after losing that empire in 1945 created trading imperium under the American cold war umbrella. What are the lessons that imperial Japan can teach us about the global …
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Feb 20Networks of Shared Imagination: Medieval Legends and the Construction of History
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Samantha Herrick Solmsen Fellow (2016-2017) History, Syracuse University What can we learn about the past from sources long dismissed as worthless? Medieval legends recount a version of early Christian history starkly at odds with reality. They also repeat each other again and again. For these reasons, they have been branded as unreliable …