TOWNSENDCENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES UC BERKELEY September/October 2008
Conference on African and Afro-Carribean Performance, see p.21
Upcoming EVENTS
17 David Simon, writer and creator of “The Wire”
18 Una’s Lecture: Quentin Skinner
Depth of Field Film + Video 23 Seymor Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Series, see p.27 Townsend Newsletter
The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities September/October 2008 at the University of California, Berkeley
STAFF
DIRECTOR Anthony J. Cascardi, Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Rhetoric TABLE OF CONTENTS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Teresa Stojkov 3 Welcome! FACULTY DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS Anthony J. Cascardi, Director of the Celeste Langan, Associate Professor of English Townsend Center FINANCIAL MANAGER Joshua Levenson 5 What Makes Culture Black? OFFICE AND EVENTS ASSISTANT Bryan Wagner, Assistant Professor, English Julie Van Scoy 7 Digital Humanities Notebook WEB AND COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST Angela Veomett 8 Program News FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS COORDINATOR Rachel Mullis
FACULTY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Daniel Boyarin, Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric 16 Calendar of Campus Events Janet Broughton, Philosophy, and Dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities (ex officio) Judith Butler, Rhetoric and Comparative Literature 31 Exhibits T.J. Clark, History of Art Susanna Elm, History and Program in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology Charles Faulhaber, Spanish and Portuguese and Director, The Bancroft Library Marian Feldman, Near Eastern Studies Catherine Gallagher, English Percy Hintzen, African American Studies TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES George Lakoff, Linguistics University of California 220 Stephens Hall, MC 2340 Anthony Long, Classics, Philosophy, and Rhetoric Berkeley, CA 94720-2340 Donald McQuade, English TEL.: 510/643-9670 Paul Rabinow, Anthropology FAX: 510/643-5284 Kaja Silverman, Rhetoric and Program in Film Studies EMAIL: [email protected] WEB: http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu Marc Treib, Architecture Michael Watts, Geography
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 Welcome!
On September 5, 2008, the Townsend Center will officially versity of Cambridge economist Anthony Lawson will begin the academic year with our annual reception for hold a Townsend-sponsored residency in the philosophy faculty, fellows, and friends. Please join us for wine and department. Professor Lawson, the academic leader of hors d’oeuvres, music, and conversation at 7 p.m. on the the School of Critical Realism in the Methodology of terrace of Stephens Hall! Economics, will deliver a lecture at the Center in late September. In October the Forum on the Humanities and the Public World and Cal Performances will co-sponsor a talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. In Spring 2009 we will host Tzvetan Todorov (“Memory, a Remedy for Evil”) and South African artist William Kentridge, who will be appointed Avenali Chair in the Humanities.
We continue the second year of our Project on Disciplin- ary Innovation: Course Threads, funded by the Mellon Foundation. The first “threads” were inaugurated last spring by groups working on “Cities, Historical and Mod- ern,” led by Professors Olga Matich and Jesus Rodriguez- Velasco, and on “Cultures in Transit,” led by Professors Charles Briggs and Deniz Gokturk. An overview of aims and goals of the “Course Threads” project is available on the Townsend Center website. We are encouraging We are looking forward to a year of new programs and faculty proposals for new interdisciplinary “threads,” with events in addition to our ongoing activities. Some of our funding available for spring, 2009. major events will follow soon after the September recep- This year we will introduce a major new effort to stimu- tion. Author, journalist, and television writer-producer late collaborative interdisciplinary research and teaching: Dave Simon of the HBO series “The Wire” will speak the Collaborative Research Seminars. By arrangement on “The Audacity of Despair” on September 10 as part with the Divisions of Arts and Humanities and Social of the Center’s Forum on the Humanities and the Public Sciences, Berkeley faculty will now be able to propose World. The very following week Professor Quentin Skin- and participate in teaching collaborative graduate semi- ner of Cambridge University and Queen Mary College, nars under the auspices of the Townsend Center. Our London, will deliver this year’s Una’s lecture, entitled immediate goals are to take advantage of the breadth “The Genealogy of Liberty.” Also in September, Uni-
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 3 WELCOME!
of high-level faculty expertise at Berkeley in order to ad- images drawn from works in our Depth of Field video se- dress large, cross-disciplinary topics; to expose advanced ries, now in the curatorial hands of graduate student Kris graduate students to forms of Photo by Paul Schiraldi/HBO Fallon (film studies). collaboration not usually found We also begin the year with within the humanities or social three new appointments to sciences; to stimulate the devel- the Townsend Center Faculty opment of new areas of research; Advisory Committee: Profes- and to open paths of inquiry sors Daniel Boyarin (Rhetoric about questions that are simply and Near Eastern Studies), too large to be confined within Kaja Silverman (Rhetoric and disciplinary boundaries. More Film Studies), and Michael detailed information is available Watts (Geography). We also on page 8 of this issue of the welcome three new members to Newsletter and on the Townsend the Townsend Center staff: Julie Center website. Van Scoy (front office and events Through December, 2008, the assistant), Rachel Mullis walls in the Center will display (fellowships coordinator) and “Vanishing (Portraits) the col- Angela Veomett (web and laboration of photographer communications specialist). Stephen Sharnoff and Professor Finally, a word of thanks: to of French Suzanne Guerlac: the Dean of Arts and Humanities exhibit interlaces texts on time Janet Broughton for her and memory with photographic ongoing enthusiasm about the images of memorial portraits Center’s activities and for her from the cemeteries of Southern institutional support; and to France. Neuroscience graduate Associate Director Teresa student and painter Julie Opper- Stojkov and to Financial man will concurrently exhibit Manager Josh Levenson, who “Portals” a collection of small wa- worked tirelessly over the tercolor paintings. In these paint- summer to get ready for the new ings, Julie borrows imagery from academic year. textile patterns, wallpaper designs, I look forward to seeing you all and other decorative arts, creating and wish you the best for the a collage of these elements that coming academic year. draws the viewer into an imagi- native world of colors, patterns Cheers! and shapes. In addition, the lobby Anthony J. Cascardi, Director monitor at the Center will display
4 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 What Makes Culture Black?
by Bryan Wagner
Maybe the greatest challenge in writing about black formula from the eve of decolonization, we might say that vernacular aesthetics is remembering that Africa and its blackness indicates a situation where you are anonymous diaspora are much older than blackness. Blackness does to yourself. Reduced to what would seem its essential not come from Africa. Rather, Africa and its diaspora trait, blackness is a kind of invisibility. become black at a particular stage in their history.
It sounds a little strange to put it this way, but the truth of this description is widely acknowledged. Blackness is an adjunct to racial slavery. No doubt, we will continue to discuss and disagree about the factors that made black- ness imaginable as well as the pacing of their influence. That process is quite complex, mixing legal doctrine from ancient slave systems with customs from the history of enslavement between Christians and Muslims to produce a new amalgam that would become foundational to the modern world. Blackness is a modern condition that cannot be conceptualized apart from the epochal changes in travel, trade, communication, consumption, industry, technology, taxation, labor, warfare, finance, insurance, government, bureaucracy, science, religion, and philoso- phy that were together made possible by the European systems of colonial slavery.
Due to this complexity, we will likely never be able to say Alan Lomax, Prisoner with guitar, at compound no. 1, with certainty whether blackness starts before or during Angola, Louisiana the sugar revolution, or consequently whether slavery fol- Taken seriously, these facts about blackness are enough lows from racism or racism follows from slavery. We can to make problems for anyone who wants to talk about say, however, what blackness indicates: existence without blackness as founding a tradition. Conceptualized not as a standing in the modern world system. To be black is shared culture but as the condition of statelessness, black- to exist in exchange without being a party to exchange. ness would seem to deny the perspective that is necessary Being black means belonging to a state that is organized to communicate a tradition. To speak as black, to assert in part by its ignorance of your perspective—a state blackness as a perspective in the world, or to argue the that does not, that cannot, know your mind. Adapting a existence of the black world is to deny the one feature by
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 5 What Makes culture black?
which blackness is known. For this reason, it is impos- book charts an alternative history for the black tradition sible to speak as black without putting yourself into an by interpreting these foundational myths against their unavoidable tension with the condition you would claim. grain. In my argument, the songs and stories that are Speaking as black can mitigate your condition, or make conventionally framed by these myths as evidence for you into an exception or credit to your condition, but it cultural continuity are understood instead as encoding cannot allow you to represent your condition, as speak- the creative activity of self-predication, an activity that is ing is enough to make you unrepresentative. You can be necessarily engaged with the ontology of natural rights. clean, articulate, and also black, but to be all these things By taking seriously the emergence of black tradition from at once is to admit to a life scored by its division (or its the condition of statelessness, we can learn a lot about the doubleness). songs and stories that were preserved by cultural col- From Somerset v. Stewart (1772), there comes a line lectors like Handy and the Lomaxes: why, for instance, of thought that denies these facts on the grounds that certain recognizable speaking positions are assumed individuals are audible to one another in nature before (criminal, beggar, outcast) when the tradition stoops there is a law to intercede between them. The politics to dramatize its own perspective, or why the topos of in this line is often communicated as a chiasmus about warfare appears across the tradition in the service of a persons made into slaves and slaves made into persons, critique of law, or why the grain of the black voice is often a trope whose limitation lies in the fact that it takes for suggested, even inside its own tradition, to approximate granted a term (“person”) that is unevenly intelligible in noise. Contrary to the notion that the perspective in the the natural rights lineage that determines what blackness black tradition is foreclosed by the ethnographic norms means. By returning to that lineage, and in particular to that condition our knowledge of its history, I am argu- the symbolic scene where the enemy combatant is made ing that it is possible to represent its contours by tracking into the slave, I believe that it is possible to think harder its engagement with the legal idiom of natural rights, and better about the predicament of the ex-slave, without an idiom that is largely designated “police” when it is recourse to the consolation of transcendence. assimilated by Anglo-American jurisprudence in the eighteenth century. The law of police does not supply I have just completed a book that addresses this predica- evidence for uninterrupted contact, or scenes where we ment by reconsidering some of the foundational myths can see the torch being passed, but it does offer cues that that have been crucial to the documentation of the are sufficient to lead us back through accumulated layers black vernacular tradition. In thinking again about W. of anthropological description to points where we can ob- C. Handy hearing the blues on a train platform in Mis- serve the black tradition explicitly invoking the historical sissippi, Buddy Bolden experiencing the drumming at language of natural rights as an index to its own formal Congo Square, and John Lomax bringing his wax cylin- development. der recorder into the southern penitentiary, my aim is not to propose a canon or to suggest that these cases are Bryan Wagner is an assistant professor in the English Department representative in the sense that many have presumed. On and a former Townsend Center Fellow (2007-2008). His forthcoming book is Disturbing the Peace: Black Culture and the the contrary, I am hoping for something like the oppo- Police Power after Slavery. site: to name the blackness in the black tradition without recourse to the myths that have made it possible up to this time to portray the tradition as cultural property. My
6 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 Digital Humanities Notebook
Project BAMBOO is a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary liberal arts colleges to research universities), professional effort that brings researchers in the arts and humanities backgrounds (faculty, librarians, researchers, I.T. leaders, together with computer scientists, information scien- and technical specialists), and regions. Along with the tists, librarians, and campus information technologists Dean of Arts and Humanities, the Townsend Center has a to tackle the question: How can we advance arts and place through its Director on the joint Berkeley-Chicago humanities research through the development of shared BAMBOO Leadership Council. Discussions are under- technology services? way to conduct a BAMBOO pilot project at the Townsend Center in conjunction with our own Why call this “Bamboo?” In the natu- creation of a “virtual research labora- ral world, bamboo is a highly flexible tory” for humanists at Berkeley. organic material that serves multiple purposes: it can live as a single stalk Findings from all the BAMBOO on a desk or grow into renewable workshops and pilot projects will forests; be used for constructing inform planning, development, and buildings or decorating them; serve implementation of new digital tools as hardwood for floors or be made for humanists. As was the case with into material as supple as cloth; it is JStor and ArtStor, though across a far configurable, sustainable, and reli- broader range, the BAMBOO project able. Project BAMBOO aims to make leaders intend to create services with digital technology as flexible, versatile which any faculty member, scholar, or and sustainable for humanists. researcher can use and reuse content, resources, and applications, no matter With major funding from the Andrew where they may reside, what their Mellon Foundation, a group of hu- particular field of interest, or what local support may manists, computer scientists, IT professionals, and librar- be available to them. The final outcome of the planning ians from U.C. Berkeley and the University of Chicago phase, projected for roughly a year from now, will be a are leading an 18-month planning and community design detailed argument and blueprint for the BAMBOO imple- project to map out scholarly practices and common tech- mentation program. nology challenges across the humanities, and to discover where a coordinated, cross-disciplinary development To find out more, to comment on Project BAMBOO, or effort may best foster academic innovation. Broad input to read the proposal in full, please visit into the BAMBOO planning is being drawn from individ- http://projectbamboo.org uals who represent a diverse range of institutions (small
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 7 Program News
graduate students in the third year of study or beyond, to form a total seminar of approximately 18 participants, faculty and students combined. Departments whose fac- ulty will teach the seminars will count participation as the equivalent of one gradate level course. (They may do this by assigning the faculty member to a 298, 299, or other suitable course number, according to departmental and divisional policies.) Student enrollments will be appor- tioned to the departments of participating faculty, or to their home departments in the case that their department is not represented among the faculty.
Announcing the Collaborative Research Seminars Each pair of conveners will receive an award of $10,000 to Sponsored by the Townsend center for the Humanities be used for the development of course materials, teach- The Townsend Center for the Humanities announces a ing assistance (e.g. GSR or work-study help), intellectual new series of Collaborative Research Seminars for faculty enrichments (e.g. visiting speakers), or in any other way and graduate students in the humanities and related that is consistent with the aims of the research seminar disciplines. The seminars are designed to direct Berke- and with University policies. A budget will be requested ley’s unique intellectual resources toward large, cross- prior to the launch of the seminar. The Townsend Center disciplinary topics, and to encourage collaborative work will schedule and host the meetings of the seminar and among faculty and advanced graduate students. Ex- will provide basic web support for the group, including amples of topics that might meet these goals are “Hemi- administration of a dedicated course website that can spheric Identities,” “Time and Experience,” “Biology and later be expanded. Politics,” and “Cultural Production.” Proposals for the 2009-2010 year will be accepted in A Collaborative Research Seminar may be proposed by November 2008. Please visit our web site for application any two Berkeley faculty members representing differ- guidelines and deadlines. ent departments. At least one of the two conveners must be from a department within the Division of Arts and Townsend Fellows 2008-2009 Humanities; the other may come from any department or school at Berkeley. The seminars themselves will be The Townsend Fellows group is the longest-running of all team-taught on a larger scale, by a group of 6 faculty, the Center’s programs. The program supports the re- including the 2 conveners. Enrollment will be open to search of assistant professors and graduate students who
8 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 are at the dissertation stage. Throughout the year, the fel- Combining legal and social history, her project “Marriage lows meet weekly for discussions and peer review of their as Punishment: The Intersection of Criminal Law and research in progress. Family Law” looks closely at sexual practices legitimized by family law as the entry to marriage. To reinforce the The group is made up of three assistant professors and social norms underlying these practices, criminal law seven graduate students. In 2008-2009, we also count prohibited bigamy, incest, sodomy, and other acts deemed on the participation of five senior faculty and a Museum a threat to marriage. In turn, marriage served as a defense Fellow. against specific sex crimes. As Murray explains, family Assistant Professor of English Kathleen Donegan is using and criminal codes worked together to “protect marriage literature to correct a one-sided view of early U.S. his- as the licensed site of sexual activity and to characterize tory as either an Anglo-American triumph or a Native sexual relationships outside of marriage as non-norma- American tragedy. Her book project, “Seasons of Misery: tive, deviant, and socially destructive.” Catastrophe and the Writing of Settlement in Colonial In “Mobile Republics: Postnational Itineraries of Au- America,” examines the focus on suffering in texts issuing thorship between India and the Caribbean,” Assistant from the first English settlements in North America and Professor of English Gautam Premnath aims to redirect the Caribbean. English settlers of the Roanoke, Jame- how postcolonial literary criticism construes the author’s stown, and Plymouth colonies reported highly traumatic relationship to state power. He focuses on the influential experiences, as confirmed in accounts by bonded ser- body of work produced by contemporary Indian writers vants, African slaves, and Native Americans. The English working in English, highlighting their often tense rela- accounts documented more than personal suffering. In tionship with received narratives of Indian nationalism, Donegan’s view they also gave settlers a way to confront and showing how their positions and attitudes invoke and legitimize the violence that permeated their lives, ideologies of authorship generated in Indian diasporic and thus made it easier to bear by proving their capac- writing. Focusing on one especially significant diasporic ity to survive. Their tales of misery contrast sharply with context, he shows how Indo-Trinidadian writers of the reports of debauchery during the English conquest of 1950s and 60s cultivate distinct forms of critical detach- Barbados that Donegan also examines. ment from ascendant Caribbean nationalism, and traces how these eventually come to authorize a new postna- tionalist dispensation in Indian writing. At the core of the project is an account of how V.S. Naipaul’s exilic mode of authorship is adopted and recirculated by Indian writers like Amitav Ghosh. But Premnath also discerns a “coun- ternational” tendency in Trinidadian writers like Sam Selvon and Indians like Arundhati Roy, which has the The research of Assistant Professor of Law Melissa Mur- potential to renew and reinvent national agendas in both ray sheds light on a powerful controversy in the United India and the Caribbean. States today: the legal definition of marriage. Murray is Elizabeth Gand is writing the first comprehensive study investigating how marriage has influenced the criminal of one of America’s greatest living photographers. Gand’s justice system, and how criminal law has dictated the dissertation in Art History, “Wild Child: Helen Levitt’s patterns of intimate life in the U.S. since the 19th century.
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 9 Photographs and Films,” explores Helen Levitt’s depiction the close of the so-called “American Century,” a period of working class life in her native New York, particularly between the Spanish American War and the Vietnam War her images of children at when the United States enjoyed a reputation for freedom. play. Levitt’s fascination Haynes focuses on the French New Wave, New German with children—for which cinema, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope experiment she first gained recognition in the 1980s. By way of contrast, he considers how New in 1943—reflected a trend Taiwanese directors re-imagined French cinema in the shared by many contempo- 1980s and 90s just as Western European filmmakers had raries in the 1930s. In 1938, re-imagined American cinema in previous decades. the United States Congress Jack Jackson grapples with one of the most pressing passed the Fair Labor Stan- questions in American politics over the past eight years: dards Act to prohibit child What constitutes lawful action? His dissertation, “Critical labor, and the anti-war Legal Theory Against Dark Times,” examines the thin line movement published pho- separating law and politics today. Combining his doctoral tographs of children killed in air raids as well as drawings training in Political Science with his prior experience by young war survivors to mobilize public opinion against as an attorney, Jackson challenges ideological discourse Germany’s expanding Third Reich and Spain’s Civil War. (both Right and Left) that reduces law to a “crude and Gand relates Levitt’s concern for the vulnerability of chil- simple” politics. Such rhetoric denies differences in the dren to such public displays of lost innocence. By situat- order and magnitude of political acts whether they are ing Levitt in this way, Gand offers insight not only into lawful or not, and can grant a semblance of legality to one artist’s development, but also into the affective history anti-constitutional of childhood in the United States. powers. At the According to Jonathan Haynes, Western Europe looked same time Jackson to American cinema to reinvent itself following the devas- criticizes the view tation of World War II. Haynes’s dissertation in Rhetoric/ that the law should Film Studies, “A History of Water: The Cinema in the be entirely distinct Mid-Atlantic, 1958–1983,” conceives of this relationship from politics, instead as a “mid-Atlantic object” that aided cultural exchange arguing for a blurred rather than cultural imperialism. “The cinema was a distinction between place,” Haynes writes, “where them. His argument Europe looked at America rests on analysis of looking at Europe. For exam- a new phenomenon that he calls “law that is not a law ple, François Truffaut’s writings but also not lawless.” His examples include Bush v. Gore about Hitchcock … helped (which was not supposed to set a precedent), the doctrine to re-establish Paris as the of unilateralism in the invasion of Iraq, the “due-process ‘cultural capital of the world’.” procedures” of Guantanamo Bay, the “legal interpreta- The relationship declined in tions” of torture, and the congressional “law” in the Terri the 1970s in tandem with Schiavo case.
10 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 Linking politics with literature, Cody Marrs (English) ect, however, is not to analyze economic trends, but to examines the relationship between temporal experi- consider how narrative patterns shape social content. In ence and the formation of the United States between the contemporary novels and films, for example, she identi- Revolution and Reconstruction. His dissertation, “Ameri- fies structural devices (like foreshadowing) that enrich the can Velocities: Capital, Slavery, and the Chronopolitics way the future can be conceived. of Early U.S. Literature,” compares disparate concepts of Robert Raddock introduces politics to the study of time in works by European American writers of the Revo- India’s spiritual roots. His dissertation in Southeast Asian lution, African American narrators of slavery, Transcen- Studies, “How to Read like a Renunciant: Shankarac- dentalists, and post-Civil War poetry by Walt Whitman arya’s Commentary on the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad,” and Herman Melville. Probing the politics of time, Marrs reevaluates the reception of the oldest Sanskrit text semi- challenges the accepted notion that nationhood depended nal to Hinduism. Compiled in the 5th century BCE, the on a standardized concept of time in print culture. Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad was interpreted in a radical Instead, Marrs identifies several disparate temporalities manner in the 9th century by Shankaracarya, the most in the texts he studies. He attributes these differences to famous exponent of Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Shan- political and social factors, particularly contradictions kara urged the male Brahman reader to renounce village caused by regional differences, capitalism, slavery, and life and go into the forest to contemplate the oneness of racial segregation. the self and world spirit. Shankara’s message, Raddock ex- Using economics to support cultural analysis, on the oth- plains, has made him into an icon of Hinduism and India er hand, is Annie McClanahan’s dissertation in English, in the sense he is seen as “world-renouncing, apolitical, “Salto Mortale: Narrative, Speculation, and the Chance and idealist.” Raddock revises this image by pointing out of the Future.” McClanahan’s title references Marx’s salto the existentialist and political content of Shankara’s com- mortale or “fatal leap,” which describes the risk between mentary, arguing that he shares with ancient Roman and a commodity’s potential and actual value in the market- Greek philosophers (especially Socrates) the view that place. McClanahan combines her literary training with philosophical discourse cannot be divorced from philoso- historic and current market theory in order to theorize phy as a way of life. the relationship between narrative form and the future. By combining research on maps, religion, and sexuality, Central to her argument are the pivotal changes that have Karl Whittington seeks to rescue Opicino de Canistris occurred from his marginalization as the “psychotic artist” of the across the Italian Middle Ages. Whittington’s dissertation in Art world since History, “The Body-Worlds of Opicino de Canistris, 1989, and Artist and Visionary (1296–ca. 1354),” presents the first notions art-historical study of Opicino’s works in over seventy of history years. In his triple role as artist, cleric, and scribe, Opicino developed combined expertise in drawing maps (mappaemundi and during the Cold War and since 9/11. She attributes the portolan sea-charts) with personal visions of God that he rampant concern today to predict the future—especially attributed to divine revelation. His art depicts fantastical in speculative finance and political ideology—to the bodies, which Whittington calls “body-worlds,” that serve acceleration of capitalism. The purpose of her proj- as topographical maps. Endowed with racial, moral, and
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 11 gender identities (male, female, dual the formation of modern Jewish identity. He has pub- sexed, or androgynous), these body- lished numerous articles on these issues in addition to the worlds convey both real and mystical books Medicine and the German Jews: A History (2001). or religious meanings. Whittington He recently completed a new volume , The Jews: A His- argues that Opicino’s portolan charts tory, of which he was the general editor and author of the also contributed to the development section on the modern Jewish experience. He is currently of linear perspective, though they at work on a new study, provisionally titled, Orientalism depict light from God’s point of view and the Jews in the Age of Emancipation. rather than the human eye.
Lucinda Barnes, Chief Curator and Director of Programs and Collections, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, did graduate work at USC on the develop- ment and evolution of Constructivism, from its incep- tion in Russia in the early 20th century to its propaga- tion throughout Europe and the US between WWI and WWII. Her BAM/PFA exhibition Measure of Time ex- A member of the Philosophy Department since 1988, plored some of these themes, extending her investigation Professor Hannah Ginsborg holds a Ph.D. in philosophy to later 20th century art as well as works involving new from Harvard (1989). Her research focuses on Kant and and experimental media. In addition, Barnes has orga- issues in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of nized a wide range of exhibitions focusing on the strength mind. Her publications include The Role of Taste in Kant’s and scope of Berkeley Art Museum collections, including Theory of Cognition (1990) and her forthcoming The Turning Corners (an exhibition focusing on aspects of Normativity of Nature: Essay on Kant’s Critique of Judg- innovation and experimentation); Near and Far (look- ment (Oxford UP). The latter will present a selection of ing at world art of the nineteenth century); The Subject is her numerous articles on Kant’s aesthetic theory, philoso- Art: 1400-1800; Fast Forward (an exhibition highlighting phy of biology, and theory of judgment. Recently she has recent acquisitions), and Hans Hofmann: The UC Berkeley written about the content of perceptual experience, the Art Museum Collection, which is touring nationally and question of whether experiences can be reasons for belief, internationally. rule-following, and the ontology of concepts.
Assistant Professor Kinch Hoekstra is a political theorist in the Department of Political Science and the Jurispru- Senior Fellows dence and Social Policy Program of the Law School. He John M. Efron is the Koret Professor of Jewish History recently joined the Berkeley faculty from the University and Director of the Institute for European Studies. He of Oxford where he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1998 earned a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in and subsequently worked as Lecturer in Philosophy and 1991 and taught at Indiana University for ten years before Fellow and Tutor in Ancient and Modern Philosophy. joining Berkeley’s History Department in 2001. A special- His research focuses on the history of political thought ist in the cultural history of German Jewry, his work has up to 1700. He has published many articles on Thomas largely focused on the relationship between medicine and Hobbes, including analyses of his conceptions of philoso-
12 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 phy, prophecy, natural law, tyranny, democracy, mixed ern France (2005) prepared her to reconstruct a famous government, political obligation, and the rationality of equestrian ballet that was performed for the engagement obedience to the law. He has two books forthcoming from of Louis XIII in 1612. Her book won the Lewis Lockwood Oxford University Press: Thomas Hobbes and the Creation Award from the American Musicological Society, and the of Order (2009) and a two-volume critical edition of Hob- ballet received its modern premiere under her direction at bes’s translation of and commentary on Thucydides. the Berkeley Festival of Early Music in 2000. Also a bas- soon player, Van Orden has performed in concerts across A leader both in university administration and the study North America and Europe and has over forty CDs to her of American popular culture, Professor Donald Mc- credit. Quade has authored and edited many books on writing, American literature and advertising. He served as the General Editor of The Harper American Literature as Associate Professor Fellowships 2008-2009 well as co-wrote the popular textbook Seeing & Writing (2000), which focuses on shifts in writing and research The Associate Professor Fellowships enable three associ- methods in contemporary education — as well as on ate professors to devote the spring term to a research the interface between written and visual culture. Mc- project of their choosing. Each applicant is also asked to Quade has held several senior leadership positions on propose a counterpart researcher—in any department, campus since joining the English Department in1986. discipline, or school other than the applicant’s own—with Most recently he served as vice chancellor for University whom he or she would value regular conversation. The Relations for eight years before returning to teaching applicant and counterpart may or may not have worked and research in spring 2008. He is currently at work on together previously. The Associate Professor Fellows meet a new edition of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Principles of during the spring semester of the fellowship year. Within Scientific Management as well as on a book entitled The three years of the completion of the grant, it is expected Culture of Efficiency, which assesses the impact of Taylor’s that the Fellow will teach an undergraduate course related principles on twentieth-century American culture. to the project (an interdisciplinary seminar or a junior seminar) or propose another kind of learning opportunity Professor Kate van Orden joined Berkeley’s Music for undergraduates. Department in 1996. A specialist in cultural history, she has published many articles and book chapters on French Kristin Hanson, English vernacular culture and the Renaissance chanson. Cur- Project: An Art that Nature Makes: A Linguistic Perspec- rently Editor-in-Chief (2008–10) of the Journal of the tive on Meter in English American Musicological Society, she previously edited the Susan Maslan, French volume Music and the Cultures Project: Citizen-Human: A Genealogy of the Subject of of Print (2000). Human Rights in France, 1640-1795 The research for Paula Varsano, East Asian Language and Cultures her other book Music, Disci- Project: Coming to Our Senses: Locating the Subject in pline, and Arms Traditional Poetry and Poetics in Early Mod-
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 13 Departmental Resident Fellows 2008-2009 Anthony Lawson currently holds the position of Univer- sity Reader in Economics at the University of Funded by the Avenali Endowment, the Departmental Cambridge, England, and is Adjunct Professor in Eco- Residencies are intended to support month-long visits nomics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He by scholars, writers, and artists, and others with whom is the academic leader of the School of Critical Realism Berkeley faculty and students might not otherwise have in the Methodology of Economics, which has established direct or sustained contact. Resident Fellows in the past itself as one of the most influential movements in con- have included distinguished scholars from other institu- temporary philosophy of the social sciences. Professor tions, writers, journalists, musicians, and visual artists. Lawson will be hosted by the Philosophy department in September 2008.
Andrija Dimitrijevic, scholar, filmmaker and editor, is Vice Dean of Film Studies at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts Discovery Fellows 2008-2011 in Belgrade, Serbia. An expert in film editing, he has ed- ited over 30 fiction, documentary and experimental films, The Mellon Discovery Fellowship program brings to- both for TV and cinema. He has directed over 15 films gether graduate students from a variety of disciplines at and has produced and supervised the film productions of the early stages of their careers in the belief that it is im- over 60 film students. He will be hosted by the Film Stud- portant and valuable to encourage collaborative exchange ies department while at Berkeley in September. from the very beginning of graduate study. Funded by the Townsend Center and the Andrew W. Mellon Foun- dation, the program supports seven entering graduate Wang Hui teaches in the students in the humanities and related fields for their first Department of Chinese three years of graduate work at Berkeley. Language and Literature, The Center, along with Discovery Program Director Tsinghua University, Celeste Langan (English), would like to welcome the fol- Beijing. His research lowing students to Berkeley and to the Mellon Discovery focus is on contemporary program: Chinese literature and thinking. He was the executive editor of the magazine Dushu from May 1996 to July Rae Erin Dachille, Buddhist Studies 2007. Foreign Policy named him as one of the top 100 Lisa Eberle, Ancient History and Mediterranean Archae- public intellectuals in the world in May 2008. Wang Hui ology was an outspoken participant in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, for which he was sent to compulsory “re- Alice Goff, History education” in a poor inland province. He will be hosted Kathryn Heard, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Pro- by the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures gram in March-Aril, 2009. Heather Law, Anthropology
Godfrey Plata, Theater, Dance and Performance Studies
14 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 Strategic Working Group with other modes of knowledge production and exchange over the Internet suggests how deeply corporations, The Strategic Working Groups program provides both states, and NGOs are influenced by their readings of aca- humanities faculty and faculty working in humanities- demic writing. The central questions for study are: How related fields with a framework for thinking about can we replace established boundary-work practices that curricular innovations that grow out of new research ar- promote the illusion of autonomy between disciplines and eas. The program encourages selected groups to translate between “the academy” and “the real world” with inti- their work into courses, programs, and other concrete mate understandings of unequal exchanges of knowledge and ongoing activities that involve faculty and students at between social domains, thereby generating new ways all levels. of enabling scholars to handle the complexities of the The Strategic Working Group Cultural Forms in Transit twenty-first century? is convened by Charles Briggs (Anthropology) and Den- iz Göktürk (German and Film Studies), who describe the central premise of the project as follows: Working Groups
“In a world that is transnationally connected through The Center is pleased to support eleven new Townsend migration, markets, and media, our intellectual maps, cul- Working Groups in 2008-2009. Working Groups bring tural policies, and academic departmentalization still rely together faculty and graduate students from various fields heavily on categories and labels of identification—defined and departments with shared research interests. For in- not in terms of interdependence but territorial fixation, formation about a specific group, visit our website. national origin, and “authentic” heritage. Recent critiques Group on Modern Southeast Asia suggest that our attempts to think beyond national bor- ders and fixed social domains have been shaped by naïve Legal Theory Reading Group notions of global and local, of flow and circulation, and Marxism in the Third World of how cultural forms are produced, owned, and valued. Modernism and Culture When sites of production, translation, and reception are dispersed world wide, each shaped by global/local Orientalism assemblages of language, interest, and capital, how do Play Studies we adequately document the complex ways that objects, practices, capital, and bodies circulate between them?” Reading Medieval Theology
The Strategic Working Group on Cultural Forms in Tran- Socialism and Sexualities sit will meet in Fall 2008 and will bring into conversa- Urban Peripheries: South-South Dialogues tion researchers who are studying shifting and emerging objects. Their goal, however, is not to compare notes but German Idealism to collaboratively discover new ways of thinking beyond Memory and Identity in the Ancient World efforts to “update” concepts and scholarly practices. The problem goes beyond disjunctures between the pace of change in the world and the snail-like pace of “academic time.” The digitization of scholarly writing and its fusion
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 15 Photo by Paul Schiraldi/HBO WEDNESDAY, SEpTEMBER 3
c 56th Annual Noon Concert Series: Beethoven String Quartet MUSIC 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall First noon concert of the series, now in its 56th year: Beethoven, String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2. performed by April Paik, violin, Melisa Lin, violin, Garrett McLean, viola, Ting Chin, cello Event Contact: 510-642-4864
L Public Sociology/Public Anthropology - Is there a Difference? Anthropology Lecture Series in Public Anthropology ANTHROPOLOGY 5pm | Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall Michael Burawoy, Dept of Sociology, former President, American Sociology Association September 10 David Simon: “The Wire: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 The Audacity of Despair” L Lunch Poems Kick-off Forum on the Humanities and the Public World LUNCH POEMS 12:10pm | Morrison Library, 101 Doe Page 17 Library Hosted by Robert Hass and university librarian Thomas C. Leonard, the kickoff features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and HIGHLIGHTS reading a favorite poem.
L Holloway Poetry Readings ENGLISH 6:30pm | 315 Wheeler Hall, Maude Fife Room August 28-December 31 Featuring C.S. Giscombe, Robert Hass, Lyn Hejinian, Geoffrey G. O’Brien and John Vanishing (Portraits) Shoptaw. Townsend Center Exhibit
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SATurday, SEPTEMBER 6 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
L The Art of Sustainability Series: Design CS ISUS X: Tenth Conference of the and Performance International Society for Utilitarian Studies L David Simon, “The Wire: The Audacity of UC BERKELEY EXTENSION Kadish Center for Morality, Law, and Public Despair” Affairs 10am | 95 Third Street, San Francisco townsend center for the humanities 9am-5:30pm | Clark Kerr Campus Ryan Stroupe, Pacific Energy Center 5pm | Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall Conference Center, 2601 Warring Street, Event Contact: 510-642-4111 David Simon is a Baltimore-based author, Berkeley journalist and writer-producer of television ISUS X comprises a conference program c Angela Gheorghiu, soprano, with specializing in criminal justice and urban of 4 plenaries, 39 panels and over 120 San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Marco issues. Most recently, David Simon is the presenters offering original research Armiliato, conductor creator, executive producer and head writer on all aspects of utilitarian moral and CAL PERFORMANCES of the critically acclaimed original HBO political theory, and the development of series “The Wire.” 7:30pm | Zellerbach Hall utilitarianism and its connections with David Simon is Writer-in-Residence at the [email protected] other speculative traditions. Graduate School of Journalism. Co-Sponsor: Berkeley Law School Event Contact: 510-643-9670 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 E Center for Race and Gender Fourth Annual Open House L This Voice which Is Not One: Amy Center for Race and Gender Winehouse and the Ballad of Sonic Blue(s) face Culture 4pm | 691 Barrows Hall Theater, dance & performance studies Come and learn about the Center for 5pm | Durham Studio Theater Race and Gender’s programs and events, including bi-weekly forums featuring Daphne A. Brooks, Princeton University forward-looking research. Event Contact: 510-643-8488 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 L Considering Anthropophagy in Tibet c Contemporary Piano: 56th Annual Noon L Under Oath: The Anthropologist as Center for buddhist studies Concert Series Witness on the Guatamalan Genocide at the 5pm | IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Department of music National Court in Madrid, Spain Fulton St., 6th Floor Anthropology Lecture Series in Public Anthropology 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall Frances Garrett, University of Toronto ANTHROPOLOGY Michael Seth Orland performs works by L 5pm | Kroeber Hall, 221 Gifford Room Holloway Poetry Readings Morton Feldman and Professor Beatriz Manz, Ethnic Studies ENGLISH Alban Berg. Department at UC Berkeley 6:30pm | 315 Wheeler Hall, Maude Fife Event Contact: 510- Room 642-4864 Featuring Tom Pickard, British poet
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
CS ISUS X: Tenth Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies Kadish Center for Morality, Law, and Public Affairs 9am-5:30pm | Clark Kerr Campus Conference Center, 2601 Warring Street, Berkeley See Thursday Sep. 11th listing for details.
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 17 CS Workshop on Using Film Clips in CS Places at the Table: Asian Women Artists monday, SEPTEMBER 15 Language Teaching and Gender Dynamics BERKELEY LANGUAGE CENTER Center for Korean Studies CS The Eli Katz Memorial Conference on 3pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall 9am-5pm | Berkeley Art Museum, Yiddish - Yiddish & The Symphony of Nations Mark Kaiser, Associate Director of Berkeley Museum Theater Jewish Studies Language Center At a time of dynamic changes in Asia, 9am - 5pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall Places at the Table: Asian Women Artists A two-day conference featuring reflections L Artist’s Talk: Mayumi Oda and Gender Dynamics explores issues facing on the 1908 Czernowitz Yiddish institute of east asian studies Asian women artists, both those who find Conference 100 years later. Evening 5:30pm | IEAS Conference Room, 6th their inspiration established traditions, and concerts at the BRJCC. Floor, 2223 Fulton Street, Berkeley women participating in the international Co-Sponsors: The Institute of European network of contemporary art. Artist Mayumi Oda, trained in Japan and Studies, The Joseph and Eda Pell active for many years in the Bay area, will Endowment for Holocaust Studies, The Rena and Mark Hauser & Solomon Family lead a walk-through of “Goddesses,” an sunday, september 14 exhibition of her work on display in the Endowment for Holocaust Studies IEAS Gallery. c A Memorial Event for Jorge Liderman Co-Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Department of music Center for Buddhist Studies 2pm | Hertz Concert Hall Program will include Music by Jorge P Unknown Pleasures: The Films of Jia Liderman: Tropes V (Jackie Chew, piano), Zhangke Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Tiempo Viejo (Florian Conzetti, percussion), Aires de Sefarad (Duo 46: Various times | Pacific Film Archive Matt Gould, guitar & Beth Ilana, violin), Theater Antigone Furiosa (film clip), Swirling Ongoing event: September 12 - October 24 Streams (Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players) L Una’s Lecture: Quentin Skinner: A Event Contact: 510-642-4864 Saturday, SEPTEMBER 13 Genealogy of Liberty
L Art, Censorship, and Politics CS ISUS X: Tenth Conference of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive International Society for Utilitarian Studies Kadish Center for Morality, Law, and Public 3pm | Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Affairs Film Archive 9am-5:30pm | Clark Kerr Campus Orville Schell and Uli Sigg in conversation Conference Center, 2601 Warring Street, Berkeley See Thursday Sep. 11th listing for details.
townsend center for the humanities 7:30 pm | Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall | Follow-up panel discussion: September 16 | 4-6pm | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall The Townsend Center welcomes Quentin Event Key Skinner, Distinguished Visiting Professor in c concerts
E exhibitions the Humanities at Queen Mary, University
P performances of London and Regius Professor of Modern CS conferences and symposia History at the University of Cambridge. L lectures, colloquia and readings Event Contact: 510-643-9670
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 L The Mystery of Guantanamo Bay L Compassionate Leadership Jefferson Memorial Lecture religion, politics and globalization program CS The Eli Katz Memorial Conference on graduate council 7pm | International House, Chevron Yiddish - Yiddish & The Symphony of Nations 4:10pm | Lipman Room, 8th Floor Auditorium Jewish Studies Barrows Hall A public conversation featuring her Majesty 9am - 5pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall Linda Greenhouse is renowned for her Queen Noor of Jordan, Rabbi Irwin Kula, Evening concerts at the BRJCC. contributions to journalism over the past and the Sakyong of Tibet. See Monday Sep. 15th listing for details. three decades. Her lecture will be presented Event Contact: 510-642-7747 in conjunction with Constitution Day. Co-Sponsors: The National Jewish Center L The Art of Sustainability Series: Seeing the for Learning and Leadership, Institute of L Land: Two Contemporary Napa Landscapes In Honor of Fadime: Murder and Shame International Studies, International and UC BERKELEY EXTENSION Anthropology Lecture Series in Public Anthropology Area Studies (IAS), International House, ANTHROPOLOGY 5pm | 95 Third Street, San Francisco Shambhala Center 5pm | Kroeber Hall, 221 Event Contact: 510-642-4111 Gifford Room L ATC Series: Art and Discipline Professor Unni Wikan, the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium of CS Panel Discussion:Una’s Lecture: Quentin the Berkeley Center for New Media University of Oslo Skinner 7:30pm | Berkeley Art Museum Theater Townsend Center for the humanities Steve Kurtz, Artist, Critical Art Ensemble, 4pm | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall Buffalo, NY Shannon Stimson, Political Science thursday, SEPTEMBER 18 Susan Maslan, French Sunday, SEPTEMBER 21 Moderated by Anthony J. Cascardi, L Adventures in Racialization: Current Townsend Center Director Projects in Immigration and Critical Race c Theory Rudolf Buchbinder, piano Center for Race and Gender CAL PERFORMANCES WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 4pm | 691 Barrows Hall 3pm | Hertz Concert Hall c Graduate Performers: 56th Annual Noon Angela Harris, Professor, Boalt Hall Faculty [email protected] Concert Series of Law; Leti Volpp, Professor, Boalt Hall L Department of music Faculty of Law China’s Emerging Art Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall L Story Hour Kickoff 3pm | Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Ethnomusicologists Marié Abe and Allan story hour Film Archive Mugishagwe and composer Nils Bultmann. 5pm | 190 Doe Library A three-way conversation featuring Hou Event Contact: 510-642-4864 Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Hanru, Jane DeBevoise, and Ou Ning screenwriter, columnist and short story L Cultural Anthropology and National writer Michael Chabon Security: Human Terrain Mapping religion, politics and globalization program & institute of international studies 4pm | 223 Moses Hall Montgomery McFate, Defense Department
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 19 Monday, SEPTEMBER 22 tuesday, SEPTEMBER 23 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
L In Conversation: Uli Sigg and Wen-hsin L Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace c Art Song: 56th Annual Noon Yeh religion, politics and globalization program & institute of international studies Concert Series institute of east asian studies 2pm | Martin Luther King Jr. Student Department of music 4pm | IEAS Conference Room, 6th Floor, Union, Tilden Room 2223 Fulton Street, Berkeley 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall Speakers Daniel Kurtzer, Former U.S. Uli Sigg, the collector behind Mahjong at Angela Arnold, soprano; Jeffrey Sykes, ambassador to Israel and Egypt; S. Daniel the Berkeley Art Museum, witnessed much piano. Songs by Wolf, Chausson, Debussy, Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy of China’s evolution from the Cultural Richard Strauss and American composers Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Revolution to the dynamic culture of today. William Grant Still, Margaret Bonds and Public and International Affairs, Princeton In conversation with Wen-hsin Yeh, UCB Kirke Mechem University; Scott Lasensky, Senior Research History Professor specializing in Modern Event Contact: 510-642-4864 Associate and Middle East Expert, United Chinese History, Sigg will discuss the States Institute of Peace history that unfolded before him. L Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Analysis Co-Sponsors: UC Berkeley Art Museum E Karl Kasten Retrospective and the Berkeley of Advanced Marginality and Pacific Film Archive, Center for School 1930 - 1950 Anthropology Lecture Series in Public Anthropology Chinese Studies Department of Art Practice ANTHROPOLOGY
P Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars Ongoing exhibition: September 23 - October 2pm | Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall 18, Tuesday - Saturday 12-4PM Depth of Field Film + Video Series Loïc Wacquant, Townsend Center for the humanities Opening reception 4pm | Worth Ryder Sociology Department 7pm | 220 Stephens Hall, Geballe Room Gallery, 116 Kroeber Hall at UC Berkeley Refugee All Stars follows a group of Karl Kasten’s retrospective exhibition musicians living in a refugee camp in Sierra will present a wide array of paintings and Leone as they come together to form an artworks created by this very influential impromptu touring group, composing artist and educator. The works in the songs that reflect the experiences of exhibition will cover Kasten’s nearly 70 year refugees in the camps. The film offers relationship with the University and will an impressive blend of performance and feature works created by former colleagues reportage as it follows the group on its and students alike. thursday, SEPTEMBER 25 journey. Event Contact: 510-334-2776 Event Contact 510-643-9670 L Ai Weiwei and Uli Sigg Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive 12pm | Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Ai Weiwei will join collector and former Swiss ambassador to China Uli Sigg to comment informally on wide-ranging issues pertaining to art and contemporary China.
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L America Between the Wars: From 11/9 P Mark Morris Dance Group: Romeo & Ju- L A Brief History of the Universe of Foreign to 9/11 liet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, with Berkeley Language Education: or, Dirty Little Secrets institute of international studies Symphony Orchestra berkeley language center 12:30pm | 223 Moses Hall CAL PERFORMANCES 3pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall Professor James Goldgeier, George 8pm | Zellerbach Hall Peter Patrikis, Director Winston Churchill Washington University; Derek Chollet, The West Coast premiere of Mark Morris’s Foundation Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Romeo & Juliet. Security L Key Notes: Mark Morris Dance Group, [email protected] Event Contact: 510-642-7747 Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare cal Performances L James Fallows on China and the United FRiday, September 26 5pm | Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine States Cal Performances director Robert Cole and institute of international studies CS Conference on African and Afro- Prof. Richard Taruskin of the Department 4pm | Barrows Hall, Lipman Room, 8th Caribbean Performance of Music discuss Mark Morris’s new work Floor Theater, Dance and Performance Studies based on Prokofiev’s original music and the James Fallows, National Correspondent, Event information at www.berkeleytdps.org original story concept by Soviet dramatist Sergei Radlov. The Atlantic Monthly The conference brings together scholars Event Contact: 510-642-7747 from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and P Mark Morris Dance Group: Romeo & Ju- Co-Sponsors: Institute of East Asian the US to examine how African and Afro- liet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, with Berkeley Studies, Institute of Governmental Studies, Caribbean performance cultures are being Symphony Orchestra International House, Osher Lifelong re-imagined. Featured speakers include Learning Program Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Gerard Aching, Pauline CAL PERFORMANCES Malefane and Tejumola Olaniyan. 8pm | Zellerbach Hall L The Art of Sustainability Series: The Eco- Event Contact: 510-643-6965 See Thursday Sep. 25th listing for details. Art of Lita Albuquerque CS UC BERKELEY EXTENSION Orienting Istanbul: The Cultural Capital of Europe? 5pm | 95 Third Street, San Francisco Center for Middle Eastern Studies Lita Albuquerque is an internationally renowned installation and environmental See Thursday Sep. 25th listing for details. artist investigating the development of a Today’s events include: visual language that translates the vastness Architectures of Exclusion of time and space to a human scale. Spaces of Nostalgia Event Contact: 510-642-4111 Nostalgic Modernity For more information please visit: CS Orienting Istanbul: The Cultural Capital of www.ced.berkeley.edu/istanbulconference Europe?`
Center for Middle Eastern Studies This 3-day conference brings new sociological research on technologies of government, carried out in several disciplines together with humanistic studies on the production and consumption of culture through the fields of literature, art, and film. Today’s events include: The Sound of Istanbul For more information please visit: www.ced.berkeley.edu/istanbulconference
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 21 Saturday, SEPTEMBER 27 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBEr 1
CS Conference on African and Afro- CS Conference on African and Afro- c Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht: 56th An- Caribbean Performance Caribbean Performance nual Noon Concert Series Theater, Dance and Performance Studies Theater, Dance and Performance Studies event information at www.berkeleytdps.org event information at www.berkeleytdps.org Department of music See Friday Sep. 26th listing for details. See Friday Sep. 26th listing for details. 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall Event Contact: 510-643-6965 Event Contact: 510-643-6965 Arnold Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”), Op. 4. April Paik L The Art of Sustainability Series: & Jessica Ling, violin; Kristine Pacheco & Overcoming Inertia with Green Design Tovah Keynton, viola; Kevin Yu & Diana UC BERKELEY EXTENSION Lee, cello 10am | 95 Third Street, San Francisco Event Contact: 510-642-4864 Event Contact: 510-642-4111 L Alexander McCall Smith cal performances P Anime Masters & Masterpieces: Grave of 8pm | Zellerbach Hall the Fireflies center for japanese studies Cal Performances presents Scottish author 2pm | Pacific Film Archive Theater c Mark Morris Dance Group: Romeo & Ju- Alexander McCall Smith, a modern- liet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, with Berkeley day P.G. Wodehouse and the creator of With an academic roundtable moderated by Symphony Orchestra the “utterly charming and compulsively UC Berkeley professor, Dan O’Neill. CAL PERFORMANCES readable” (Newsweek) Precious Ramotswe series. 3pm | Zellerbach Hall P Mark Morris Dance Group: Romeo & Ju- liet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, with Berkeley See Thursday Sep. 25th listing for details. Symphony Orchestra Thursday, October 2 CAL PERFORMANCES tuesday, September 30 L Race and Space: Residential Location and 8pm | Zellerbach Hall Labor Market Outcomes L Colorlust: The Other’s Bones, Flesh and Blood See Thursday Sep. 25th listing for details. Center for Race and Gender gender & women’s studies 4pm | 691 Barrows Hall CS Orienting Istanbul: The Cultural Capital of 4pm | 190 Barrows Hall Steven Raphael, Professor of Public Europe? Trinh Minh-ha, Professor, Gender & Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy; Center for Middle Eastern Studies Women’s Studies and Rhetoric John Quigley, Professor, Department of See Thursday Sep. 25th listing for details. Co-Sponsors: Beatrice Bain Research Economics Today’s events include: Group, Center for the Study of Sexual The Cinematic City Cultures L Thinking about Religion, Belief and Politics Art in the City L Ai Weiwei and Jeff Kelley Foerster Lectures on the Immortality of the Soul Cultures of Spectacle Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive graduate council Future(s) of the City 4pm | Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific 4:10pm | Alumni House, Toll Room For more information please visit: Film Archive Talal Asad, Professor of Anthropology at www.ced.berkeley.edu/istanbulconference Ai Weiwei and critic and curator Jeff Kelley the City University of New York Graduate will discuss a range of issues pertaining to Center, is a socio-cultural anthropologist, Chinese contemporary art, including the renowned for his contributions and Event Key history and condition of artistic freedom in research on the phenomenon of religion c concerts China today. and secularism, and the religious revival in E exhibitions the Middle East. P performances Co-Sponsor: Institute of East Asian Studies CS conferences and symposia L lectures, colloquia and readings
22 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 calendar of events
L Lunch Poems Presents Ilya Kaminsky P Taxi to the Dark Side tuesday, october 7 LUNCH POEMS ucb human rights center 12:10pm | Morrison Library, 101 Doe 4pm | 220 Stephens Hall, Geballe Room Library Academy Award winning film, “Taxi to Born in Odessa, Ilya Kaminsky immigrated the Dark Side” offers an in-depth look at to the United States in 1993 when his the torture practices of the United States L Seymour Hersh: Journalism and Human family was granted asylum by the American in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Rights government. Kaminsky teaches comparative Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in townsend center for the humanities literature, poetry and literary translation at Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in San Diego State University. 2002. Free screening. 8pm | Zellerbach Hall Co-Sponsor: Townsend Center for the One of the most influential and acclaimed L No Laughing Matter Humanities investigative reporters of the past 50 years, Sather Classical Lectures Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour classics department Hersh commands respect for his ongoing 8:10pm | 315 Wheeler Hall, Maude Fife Room and incisive examinations of the abuse of Professor Mary Beard, Cambridge Univer- power in the name of national security. sity, presents a series of lectures under the Presented in cooperation with Cal theme of “Roman Laughter.” Peformances.
Saturday, october 4
CS Berkeley Workshop on Affix Ordering department of linguistics 9am-6pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall A workshop on the complexity of affix ordering in specific languages/language monday, october 6 families, empirical challenges for current L ”Taxi to the Dark theories, and unified explanations for the Side,” and the US War range of cross-linguistic affix ordering on Terror patterns attested to date. ucb human rights center 4pm | 315 Wheeler sunday, october 5 Hall, Maude Fife Room CS Berkeley Workshop on Affix Ordering Film director Alex Gibney, Academy department of linguistics Award-winning producer of “Taxi to wednesday, october 8 9am-6pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall the Dark Side,” will speak on the US war See Saturday Oct. 4th listing for details. on terror, in conversation with Lowell c New Choral Music: 56th Annual Noon Bergman, UCB School of Journalism. Concert Series
c Richard Goode, piano Co-Sponsor: Townsend Center for the Department of music Humanities CAL PERFORMANCES 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall 3pm | Zellerbach Hall New choral music by Berkeley composers Hailed for music-making of unrivaled including Robin Estrada, Cindy Cox and emotional power, depth, and expression, Jean Ahn and performed by visiting chorus pianist Richard Goode returns with a Ateneo Chamber Singers (Phillipines). program of works by Bach and Chopin. Event Contact: 510-642-4864 [email protected]
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 23 L Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of L Story Hour in the Library friday, october 10 Medical Experimentation on Black Americans story hour from Colonial Times to the Present Day 5pm | 190 Doe Library L Druid Theatre Company Anthropology Lecture Series in Public Anthropology Authors Clark Blaise and Bharati cal performances ANTHROPOLOGY Mukherjee. 6pm | Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St, 5pm | Kroeber Hall, 221 Gifford Room Berkeley In Medical Apartheid, Harriet A. c Cesaria Evora, singer Maureen Hughes, Druid Theatre Company Washington traces the history of medical Casting Director and Charlotte McIver, experimentation on African-Americans a doctoral candidate in Theater, Dance from antebellum operating rooms to and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, crowded public schools in present day discuss the only complete staging of all Boston and Baltimore. John Millington Synge’s works.
P Druid Theatre Company: Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World” and “The Shadow of the Glen” cal performances cal performances 8pm | Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St, 8pm | Zellerbach Hall Berkeley The reigning queen of world music returns See Wednesday Oct. 8th listing for details. P Druid Theatre Company: Synge’s “The for a rewarding evening of Cape Verde Playboy of the Western World” and “The morna music. Shadow of the Glen” c Cesaria Evora, singer cal performances [email protected] cal performances 8pm | Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St, P Druid Theatre Company: Synge’s “The 8pm | Zellerbach Hall Berkeley Playboy of the Western World” and “The See Thursday Oct. 9th listing for details. Making its Bay Area debut, the Druid Shadow of the Glen” Theatre Company brings a double bill of cal performances P Measure for Measure: by William Irish playwright John Millington Synge’s 8pm | Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St, Shakespeare masterpieces. Berkeley Theater, Dance and Performance Studies Co-Sponsors: Berkeley Repertory Theater See Wednesday Oct. 8th listing for details. 8pm | Zellerbach Playhouse What happens when government rule L thursday, october 9 The Funny Side of Cicero is driven by religious and social mores? Sather Classical Lectures Measure for Measure resonates as loudly classics department today as when Shakespeare asked that L Paranoid Empire: Spectors from 8:10pm | 2040 Valley Life Sciences Building question over 400 years ago. Directed by Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib Beatrice Bain Research Group Professor Mary Beard, Cambridge Peter Glazer. University, presents a series of lectures 4pm | 315 Wheeler Hall, Maude Fife Room Event Contact: 510-642-8827 under the theme of “Roman Laughter.” Anne McClintock, University of Wisconsin- Madison. c University Symphony Orchestra: Brahms Co-Sponsors: Dept of English, Gender & Symphony
Women’s Studies, Center for the Study of department of music Sexual Cultures 8pm | Hertz Concert Hall Event Key The University Symphony Orchestra c concerts
E exhibitions performs Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. P performances Event Contact: 510-642-4864 CS conferences and symposia L lectures, colloquia and readings
24 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 calendar of events
saturday, october 11 c University Symphony Orchestra: Brahms tuesday, october 14 Symphony
CS L Engaging Aging Through the Humanities department of music Berkeley Writers at Work with Robert UC Berkeley Resource Center on Aging; UC Reich Berkeley Center for Medicine, the Humanities 8pm | Hertz Concert Hall College Writing Programs and Law See Friday Oct. 10th listing for details. 12pm | Morrison Library 101 Main Library 9am - 5:30pm | 220 Stephens Hall, Geballe Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich, Room sunday, october 12 former Secretary of Labor, is the author of This conference will look at aging and old 11 books including Locked in the Cabinet age through the various lenses of the arts and Supercapitalism. Professor Reich will L Japanese Literature on the Global Stage: and humanities. read from his works, be interviewed about The Murakami Symposium For more information, visit: his writing process, and take questions on center for japanese studies http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~aging/ writing from the audience. 10am | Alumni House, Toll Room Event Contact: 510-642-0875 L Haruki Murakami Including Jay Rubin, Harvard Univ., cal performances Rebecca Suter, Univ. of Sydney, Matthew P Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky 8pm | Zellerbach Hall Strecher, Winona State Univ., and Stephen Theatre Japan’s leading novelist, writer and Snyder, Middlebury College. Moderated by cal performances translator, Haruki Murakami reads from his UC Berkeley professor, Alan Tansman. 8pm | Zellerbach Hall work and discusses his writing processes. Co-Sponsors: Dept. of East Asian The historic Kirov Ballet of the Mariinsky [email protected] Languages and Cultures and the Townsend Theatre in St. Petersburg performs Don Co-Sponsor: The Center for Japanese Center for the Humanities Quixote and a thrilling program of mixed Studies at UC Berkeley repertory.
P Druid Theatre Company: Synge’s “The [email protected] Playboy of the Western World” and “The L Holloway Poetry Readings Shadow of the Glen” ENGLISH cal performances 6:30pm | 315 Wheeler Hall, Maude Fife 3pm | Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St, Room Berkeley Featuring Michael McClure, beat poet See Wednesday Oct. 8th listing for details.
P Measure for Measure: by William WEDNESDAY, october 15 Shakespeare P Druid Theatre Company: Synge’s “The Theater, Dance and Performance Studies c Gospel: 56th Annual Noon Concert Series Playboy of the Western World” and “The 8pm | Zellerbach Playhouse Shadow of the Glen” Department of music See Friday Oct. 10th listing for details. cal performances 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall 2pm and 8pm | Roda Theatre, 2025 University Gospel Choir directed by D. Addison St, Berkeley monday, october 13 Mark Wilson, “Hear it in the Air: Gospel See Wednesday Oct. 8th listing for Music for Changing Times.” L ATC Series: Tracking Transience: The details. Event contact: 510-642-4864 Orwell Project the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium of P Measure for Measure: by William the Berkeley Center Shakespeare for New Media Theater, Dance and Performance Studies 7:30pm | 160 8pm | Zellerbach Playhouse Kroeber Hall See Friday Oct. 10th listing for details. Hasan Elahi, Artist, SJSU
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 25 L Laughter Testing Sorrow: Construction of P I Love Beijing: The Films of Ning Ying CS China Transformed: Artscape/Cityscape Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation in the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Execution of Wanda Jean Allen Various times, Oct. 16-19 | Pacific Film Anthropology Lecture Series in Public Anthropology Archive Theater ANTHROPOLOGY With lucid visual intelligence, Ning Ying’s 5pm | Kroeber Hall, 221 Gifford Room films map the shifting physical and social Dr. Brackette topography of contemporary China, Williams, capturing places and people in perpetual anthropologist; motion. Ning Ying is an artist in residence Senior Justice at PFA this fall, appearing in person to Advocate, Open discuss her films and offering a master class History of Art Department Society Institute. for UC Berkeley students. 4pm | Berkeley Art Museum, Museum Theater P Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky In this two-day international symposium, Theatre leading curators, critics and scholars will cal performances look at artists working in different mediums 8pm | Zellerbach Hall as they react to the new Chinese megacity. See Tuesday Oct. 14th listing for details. Speakers include Wu Hung, Julia Andrews, Hou Hanru, William Schaefer, Pauline Yao, Kuiyi Shen, Jerome Silbergeld, Zheng thursday, october 16 Shengtian, Wendy Larson and Bérénice friday, october 17 Reynaud. L The Power of Laughter Sather Classical Lectures CS California Cervantes Conference: CS Celebration of Russian Culture classics department Cervantes and Romance cal performances 8:10pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall Department of Spanish and Portuguese 4pm-6pm | Hertz Hall Professor Mary Beard, Cambridge 1-5pm | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall A discussion about Orientalism in Classical University, presents a series of lectures The University of California, Berkeley, with Russian Ballet. Organized in conjunction under the theme of “Roman Laughter.” the sponsorship of the Cervantes Society with performances by Kirov Ballet and of America, hosts a two-day conference on Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre (Oct Cervantes and Romance. Keynote speaker 13-19); presentations by Victoria Bonnell is Marina Brownlee, Robert Schirmer of UC Berkeley’s Institute for Slavic, East Professor of Spanish at Princeton University European and Eurasian Studies, Russian (see October 18 listing). Dance scholar Tim Scholl of Oberlin Please contact 510.642.0281 for complete College, and others. schedule. Co-sponsors: Division of Arts and P Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky Humanities, Center for Spanish, and the Theatre Townsend Center for the Humanities. cal performances 8pm | Zellerbach Hall See Tuesday Oct. 14th listing for details.
P Measure for Measure: by William Shakespeare Event Key Theater, Dance and Performance Studies c concerts 8pm | Zellerbach Playhouse E exhibitions
P performances See Friday Oct. 10th listing for details. CS conferences and symposia L lectures, colloquia and readings
26 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 calendar of events
saturday, october 18 sunday, october 19 WEDnesday, october 22
CS California Cervantes Conference: P Measure for Measure: by William c Cervantes and Romance Shakespeare Gamelan: 56th Annual Noon Concert Series Department of Spanish and Portuguese Theater, Dance and Performance Studies 9am-5pm | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens 2pm | Zellerbach Playhouse Department of music Hall See Friday Oct. 10th listing for details. 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall Marina Brownlee, Robert Schirmer University Gamelan Ensembles present Professor of Spanish at Princeton P Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky a program of Javanese music and song; University, will deliver a keynote address at Theatre Midiyanto and Ben Brinner, directors. 11:00am, conference continues until 5pm. cal performances Event contact: 510-642-4864 Please contact 510.642.0281 for complete 3pm | Zellerbach Hall schedule. See Tuesday Oct. 14th listing for details. Co-sponsors: Division of Arts and thursday, october 23 Humanities, Center for Spanish, and the c L Townsend Center for the Humanities. Piotr Anderszewski, piano Feminism, the Political and the International cal performances CS What’s Happening: Contemporary Art gender & women’s studies 5pm | Hertz Concert Hall UC Berkeley Art Alumni Symposium VI 4pm | 190 Barrows Hall Piotr Anderszewski returns to Cal art alumni group Vivienne Jabri, King’s College, London, Performances with a recital program of 9:30am-4pm | 160 Kroeber Hall explores the implications for feminism of Mozart and Bach. The 6th annual Art Alumni Symposium late modern manifestations of power. [email protected] presents “What’s Happening,” an exchange by now-oriented artists and educators, P Film: Ning Ying’s “For Fun” exploring the processes of contemporary monday, october 20 Pacific Film Archive artists, the dynamic postmodern political 7:30pm | Pacific Film Archive Theater and social force in today’s art world. P The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun The first film in the Beijing Trilogy begins More information at www.calartalumni.org Depth of Field Film + Video Series with a loving but unsentimental tribute Townsend Center for the humanities to traditions and people forced into CS China Transformed: Artscape/Cityscape 7pm | 220 Stephens Hall, Geballe Room obsolescence. History of Art Department Co-Sponsors: Consortium for the Arts, 9:30am-5:30pm | Berkeley Art Museum, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Museum Theater Asian American Media See Friday Oct. 17th listing for details. P The Plebians Rehearse the Uprising, by P Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky Gunter Grass Theatre Theater, Dance and Performance Studies cal performances 8pm | Zellerbach Hall, Room 7
2pm & 8pm | Zellerbach Hall When Jorgen Vig decided to donate The 1953 workers’ uprising in East Berlin See Tuesday Oct. 14th listing for details. his aging Danish estate to the Russian rages in the streets, but Bertolt Brecht is Orthodox Church for use as a monastery, noticeably absent. Absorbed in rehearsal, P Measure for Measure: by William the last place he expected to find resistance Brecht fails to support the revolt, betraying Shakespeare was from one of the nuns who arrived to not only the workers, but his own self as Theater, Dance and Performance Studies take up residence. The Monastery follows well. 8pm | Zellerbach Playhouse Vig as he works toward realizing his forty- Event Contact: 510-642-8827 year dream and shows the struggle he See Friday Oct. 10th listing for details. encounters as an aging bachelor learning to live with stern and sometimes stubborn housemates. Event Contact 510-643-9670
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 27 L The Sense of Humor saturday, october 25 CS Altered States: Metamorphosis, Epiphany, Sather Classical Lectures Revolution classics department L Free Speech: New Media, Performance, comparative literature 8:10pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall and Democracy: A Conversation with Laurie 10am-10pm | 220 Stephens Hall, Geballe Professor Mary Beard, Cambridge Anderson Room cal performances University, presents a series of lectures The theme of this year’s annual graduate under the theme of “Roman Laughter.” 2pm | Wheeler Auditoroium student conference in Comparative Ken Goldberg of the Berkeley Center for Literature is “Altered States.” In three Friday, october 24 New Media and multi-media artist Laurie panels, we will use alteration as a means Anderson exchange ideas about politics, to think about the formal and theoretical technology, and art in conjunction with P Laurie Anderson: Homeland challenges of metamorphosis, religious Anderson’s performances of “Homeland” ecstasy, and state change. How does cal performances (Oct 24-25). In association with the Art, physical transformation demolish and 8pm | Zellerbach Hall Technology and Culture Colloquium at UC reconstruct subjectivity? Keynote address Laurie Anderson brings her new Berkeley. by Amy Hollywood, Harvard Divinity work, “Homeland,” to Zellerbach Hall, School. commissioned in part by Cal Performances. P The Plebians Rehearse the Uprising, by Gunter Grass sunday, october 26 Theater, Dance and Performance Studies
2pm | Zellerbach Hall, Room 7 P Film: Ning Ying’s “Railroad of Hope” (plus See Thursday Oct. 23rd listing for details. shorts) Pacific Film Archive P Film: Ning Ying’s “I Love Beijing” 1:30pm | Pacific Film Archive Theater Pacific Film Archive Information at www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 6:30pm | Pacific Film Archive Theater Co-Sponsors: Consortium for the Arts, The Beijing Trilogy accelerates to its Center for Chinese Studies, Center for conclusion in “I Love Beijing.” Asian American Media Co-Sponsors: Consortium for the Arts, P The Plebians Rehearse the Uprising, by Center for Chinese Studies, Center for P Film: Ning Ying’s “Perpetual Motion” Gunter Grass Asian American Media Theater, Dance and Performance Studies 8pm | Zellerbach Hall, Room 7 P Laurie Anderson: Homeland cal performances See Thursday Oct. 23rd listing for details. 8pm | Zellerbach Hall
P Film: Ning Ying’s “On the Beat” See Friday Oct. 24th listing for details. Pacific Film Archive
8:30pm | Pacific Film Archive Theater Pacific Film Archive The centerpiece of Ning Ying’s Beijing 4pm | Pacific Film Archive Theater Trilogy. Information at www.bampfa.berkeley.edu Co-Sponsors: Consortium for the Arts, Co-Sponsors: Consortium for the Arts, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Asian American Media Asian American Media Event Key c concerts
E exhibitions
P performances CS conferences and symposia L lectures, colloquia and readings
28 TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 calendar of events
c Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra; Leon tuesday, october 28 thursday, october 30 Botstein, conductor; Robert McDuffie, violin
L L cal performances Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Instances of Time: Poetry and Performance Revolution comparative literature 7pm | Zellerbach Hall Barbara Weinstock Memorial Lectures 5pm | 4337 Dwinelle - CL Library Since its inception, the Jerusalem on the Morals of Trade Symphony Orchestra has dedicated itself to graduate council Norma Cole, poet playing masterpieces from the Baroque to 4:10pm | Lipman Room, 8th Floor Barrows L Holloway Poetry Readings the contemporary. Hall ENGLISH [email protected] Amory Lovins is a distinguished energy, 6:30pm | 315 Wheeler Hall, Maude Fife business, and security analyst. For five Room monday, october 27 decades, he has applied his knowledge and passion for science to create solutions D.S. Marriott, UC Santa Cruz
L Master Class with Ning Ying to some of the world’s most challenging L Seeing the Joke pacific film archive problems. Sather Classical Lectures 4pm | Pacific Film Archive Theater classics department Join Ning Ying for a lively discussion about wednesday, october 29 8:10pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall her work as a documentary and feature Professor Mary Beard, Cambridge filmmaker. c Viola, Percussion & Electronics: 56th An- University, presents a series of lectures Co-Sponsors: Consortium for the Arts, nual Noon Concert Series under the theme of “Roman Laughter.” Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Department of music Asian American Media 12:15pm | Hertz Concert Hall L Artist Lecture: Fritz Haeg Ellen Ruth Rose, viola & Chris Froh, department of art practice percussion, Aaron Einbond, Beside Oneself; 7:30pm | 160 Kroeber Hall John MacCallum, …almost like hail; Linda Mr. Haeg is especially well known for his Bouchard, 4LN environmental work, including Edible Event contact: 510-642-4864 Estates, an ongoing landscaping project in which, over the last few years, he has L Regent’s Lecturer persuaded suburban homeowners to comparative literature replace their front lawns with vegetable 5pm | 220 Stephens Hall, Geballe Room gardens. Norma Cole, poet
L Plunder and the Rule of Law
Anthropology Lecture Series in Public Anthropology ANTHROPOLOGY 5pm | Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall Laura Nader, Anthropology Department at UC Berkeley
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 29 on exhibit at the townsend center
E Vanishing (Portraits) Photographs by Stephen Sharnoff with commentary by Suzanne Guerlac
August 28 through December 31, 2008
Vanishing (Portraits) features color photographs of miniature (mostly black and white) cemetery portraits found on tomb- stones in the south of France. These portraits of portraits explore themes of history, memorialization and time. Sharnoff writes: “I was moved by two desires: first to record effects of time on the found photographs showing the alterations due to years of expo- sure; and second, to preserve the portraits before further damage made them unrecognizable. I felt connected to the person in the picture, and to whoever placed the original photograph there. I also felt as though I were channeling the effort of the original photographer.” Sharnoff has exhibited at the Tongass National Forest in Juneau, Alaska (1991) and the Center for Latin Ameri- can Studies at UC Berkeley (2002). His photographic guide to the wildflowers of the Sierra Nevada is forthcoming with Uni- versity of California Press. He lives in Berkeley and Forcalquier, France.
Suzanne Guerlac is Professor of French at the University of Cali- fornia, Berkeley.
E Portals Paintings and relief prints by Julie Oppermann
September 5 through December 15, 2008
The Townsend Center is pleased to present “Portals,” an exhibi- tion of small watercolor paintings and relief prints by Julie Op- permann, a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience at UC Berkeley. In her work, Oppermann borrows imagery from textile pat- terns, wallpaper designs, and other decorative arts. The collage of these elements creates intimate dreamscapes—drawing the viewer into an imaginative world of colors, patterns and shapes. In all of the paintings, colors, lines and forms come together in unexpected ways. The layering of elements creates an illusion of depth and space, and the transparency of the watercolors allows the bottom layers to be visible though the top layers.
TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 30 townsend center news
Townsend Center Webcasts
The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley townsendcenter.berkeley.edu Ballet and Sex llet & Ba Sex ” “ || February 2005
In Conversation Joan Acocella, Dance critic || April 2008
=Zg\^ From Cyborgs to Companion Species On Global Memory || September 2003 || April 2008 Donna Haraway, UC Santa Cruz Homi Bhabha, English, Harvard University Cannabis, Forgetting, and the Botany of Desire || November 2002 Michael Pollan, Journalist Blackface Then and Now || March 2008 Greil Marcus, Cultural critic Migrations || February 2002 Performing Past and Present Sebastião Salgado, Photographer || November 2007 Robert Lepage, Playwright and Director Photo Credits: Page 3: by Julie Van Scoy. The Flying Manuscript Page 4 & 16: David Simon on the set of The Wire by Paul Schiraldi/HBO. || February 2006 Page 21: Maile Okamura as Juliet and Noah Vinson as Romeo of Hélène Cixous, Université de Paris VIII Mark Morris Dance Group by Gene Schiavone. Cover & Page 22: From Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad A Photographic Essay of the Stilt-Walkers of Trinidad and Tobago.Published by Pointed Leaf Press, LLC. Copyright © 2004 Stefan Falke Page 31: Robert LePage by Sophie Grenier. TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES | september/october 2008 31 Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage Paid University of California TOWNSEND CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES 220 Stephens Hall, MC 2340 University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 HG-09 IN THIS ISSUE Fall semester deadlines 3 Welcome! Project on Disciplinary Innovation Friday, Sepember 5, 2008 Anthony J. Cascardi, Director of the Townsend Center Conference and Lecture Grants Friday, Sepember 12, 2008 5 What Makes Culture Black? Townsend Departmental Residencies Monday, November 14, 2008 Bryan Wagner, Assistant Professor, Townsend Fellowships Monday, November 14, 2008 English G.R.O.U.P.: Courses, Team, & Apprenticeships Monday, November 14, 2008 7 Digital Humanities Notebook Collaborative Research Seminars Monday, November 14, 2008 8 Program News 16 Calendar of Campus Events For more information, please visit: 31 Exhibits townsendcenter.berkeley.edu