Past Events
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Feb 1Slow Violence and Environmental Story Telling
Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
2012 Focus on the Humanities Distinguished Faculty Lecture: Rob Nixon Rachel Carson Professor of English, UW–Madison Rob Nixon is the Rachel Carson Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and is the author of London Calling. V. S. Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin (Oxford); Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood. South African …
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Jan 30“As Rust Eats Iron”: Envy in Fourth-Century Athens
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Esther Eidinow Ancient Greek History, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom Solmsen Fellow (2011-2012) In Athens during the fourth century BCE a number of surprising trials took place that have received little scholarly attention: the defendants were all women, the charges against them included asebeia (‘impiety’) and working with pharmaka (‘spells’ or ‘drugs’). …
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Jan 23“Suzdal’ God-daubers,” “Novgorodian quattrocento,” and the Russian Avant-Garde
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Irina Shevelenko Slavic Languages and Literatures, UW–Madison Resident Fellow (2011-2012) At this seminar, I will present one of the case studies from my book-length project Modernism as Archaism: Nationalism and the Quest for a Modernist Aesthetic in Russia. I will explore what is arguably the most prominent example of the modernist “invention …
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Dec 12The Politics of News: Information and Communication in Reformation Diplomacy
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Denice Fett Solmsen Fellow (2011-2012) History, University of North Florida This paper explores the questions and complications of accessing and disseminating information in early modern international negotiations. All states engaged in diplomatic discourse sought to gain access to, control the dissemination of, and utilize information and intelligence in order to succeed in …
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Dec 5Shakespeare’s Second Future
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: J.K. Barret Solmsen Fellow (2011-2012) English, University of Texas at Austin In William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, Jupiter himself hands down a prophetic text to quell concerns about the future. Though this cameo doesn’t actually provide much resolution, it does highlight a central concern in a play notorious for its dizzying profusion of plots. …
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Nov 28We Are the Improved Race: Guatemala, Mestizaje, and the Age of Fascism, 1930-1948
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Julie Gibbings Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellow (2011-2012) History, UW–Madison How do we understand the postcolonial in Latin America? Many scholars have eschewed the use of postcolonial criticism in Latin America on the basis that there is a lack of fit between theoretical perspectives derived from Asia and African experiences of colonialism and interpretations …
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Nov 21Resurrection and Devotional Identities in Sixteenth-Century Europe
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Erin Lambert A.W. Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Fellow (2011-2012) History, UW–Madison The resurrection of the dead, wrote a sixteenth-century German preacher, was the most debated article of the Creed. While Lutherans, for example, described the reassembly of the body, Anabaptists argued that one’s resurrection took place as one became a baptized member of the …
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Nov 14Hapsburg-Ottoman Diplomatic Machinery: Automata and the Türkenvererhrung
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Jessica Keating Solmsen Fellow (2011-2012) Art History, UW–Madison This paper concerns the history of the long-distance circulation of objects in the early modern world. When recounting the history of intercontinental movement of objects scholars of the early modern world have tended view it through the lens of a growing global commercial market …
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Nov 9Venerating the Sage: The Rise and Fall of a Shrine to Confucius
Conrad A. Elvehjem Building, Room L140
2011 Focus on the Humanities Distinguished Faculty Lecture: Julia Murray Professor of Art History and Senior Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities (2009-2011), UW–Madison Recognized throughout the world as a symbol of Chinese civilization, Confucius (551-479 BCE) is venerated as ancient philosopher, statesman, and teacher. Less familiar is his role in a religious …
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Nov 7Re-articulating Political Community: Testimonial Narratives and the Formation of an Audience
University Club, Room 212
Monday Seminar: Marian Halls Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellow (2011-2012) Comparative Literature, UW–Madison How and why do testimonial narratives emerge as a privileged mode of remembering times of political violence or catastrophe? As one point of departure, Dori Laub’s assertion in Felman and Laub’s Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History (1992), that “the …