Past Events
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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 7Democracy in Black: Identity Politics in a Post-Soul Era
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building, Room L140
2013 Nellie Y. McKay Lecture: Eddie Glaude, Jr. William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies, Department of Religion, and Chair, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University In his lecture, Glaude explores how “whiteness” continues to distort American democracy, disfiguring our precious ideals into unsightly and dangerous justification for ugly practices …
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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 13Ecological Imperialism Revisited: Entanglements of Disease, Commerce, and Knowledge in a Global World
Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
2013 Focus on the Humanities Distinguished Faculty Lecture: Gregg Mitman Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History of Science, Medical History, and Environmental Studies, UW–Madison Forty years ago, in The Columbian Exchange, and a few years later, in Plagues and Peoples, Alfred Crosby and William McNeill advanced grand historical narratives on a global …
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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 …
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Feb 4“I are citizens of the Halles”: Forging Citizenship in the Marketplace during the French Revolution
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Katie Jarvis European History, UW–Madison Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellow (2012-2013) Historians, political scientists, and philosophers rightly emphasize how the French Revolution created a foundation for democracy in Europe. However, some scholars point to the Revolution’s potentially dark underbelly – the revolutionaries legally cast citizenship as male by denying women the right …
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Jan 28Propaganda 1776
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Russ Castronovo Resident Fellow (2012-2013) Dorothy Draheim Professor of English and American Studies, UW–Madison Long a pejorative word since its associations with the flag-waving and jingoism surrounding U.S. participation in World War I, “propaganda” would hardly seem a useful concept for understanding democracy. After all, spreading false information, manipulating facts, and other …