Humanities Day 2015 - Session 2

Persepolis: Images of an Empire - 2:00 p.m. guided tour

tpopelka — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 01:07:28 +0000

Presenter:

From 1931 through 1939 Ernst Herzfeld and Erich Schmidt directed the Oriental Institute’s Persian Expedition in Iran. During their exploration, excavation, and restoration of this ancient site of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BC), Herzfeld and Schmidt had photographers Hans-Wichart von Busse and Boris Dubensky document the architectural wonders and landscape of Persepolis. This rich collection of photographs is now housed in the Museum Archives of the Oriental Institute. The selection of photographs featured in Persepolis: Images of an Empire capture the quintessential elements of Achaemenid Persian architectural style: forests of columns, monumental audience halls, elaborate staircases, and stone relief carvings of people from all corners of the empire. This court style expresses the Achaemenid imperial ideology of harmonious order, power, and unity. The photographs on display also demonstrate the contrast between the imperial terrace with its imposing architecture and the surrounding barren landscape. This duality reinforced the magnitude and grandeur of Persepolis.

Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life: A Collaboration

jsjoyce — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 19:44:24 +0000

Presenter:

Candace Vogler

Jennifer Frey

Session 2

Under what conditions do the everyday activities associated with being a good person provide a source of happiness and meaning in human life? What is the difference between morally serious people whose lives give them deep happiness and a sense of purpose, and morally serious people whose lives feel hollow?

We are embarking on a 28-month project funded by the John Templeton Foundation to explore and research these questions. The project, hosted by the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago and the University of South Carolina at Columbia, brings together an international gathering of 30 scholars in philosophy, psychology, and religious studies to engage in collaborative research on trans-personal, self-transcendent good as a framework for investigating fundamental questions about human life.

This presentation is full and closed to further registration.

Mapping Stars and Planets Until the Zodiac

jsjoyce — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 19:36:29 +0000

Presenter:

John Wee

Session 2

More than any other science in antiquity, Western astronomy was rooted in objects, categories, and techniques original to Mesopotamia. The Babylonian zodiac circle, in turn, grew out of more than five centuries of attempts at mapping the sky. This talk uses illustrations of ancient ‘astrolabes’ and constellation and planet drawings, along with computer simulations of the sky, to explore how ancient thinkers employed creative methods to relate celestial time and space, lunar and solar calendars, and observation and theory.

Of Myth-making and Monumentality: A Composer’s Response to Beethoven

jsjoyce — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 19:29:03 +0000

Presenter:

Anthony Cheung

Session 2

Beethoven has always loomed large in my life as a performer and composer, so it seemed only natural to reflect on his influence in my own work. Yet in the past three years, a veritable Beethoven obsession has ensued, with a large orchestra work (Lyra) speculating on a Beethovenian connection with the Orpheus myth, and two chamber commissions specifically requesting a dialogue with well-known works. In addition to discussing my formal, historical, and aesthetic considerations, I will also point to examples of how other composers have responded with homage, parody, and other forms of reinvention when confronted with similar projects.

The Emergence of Sign Language in Nicaragua

jsjoyce — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 19:24:50 +0000

Presenter:

Diane Brentari

Session 2

A new sign language has been emerging in Nicaragua for approximately 40 years. In this talk the critical differences and similarities will be presented between acquiring a language—as children do when they learn a signed or spoken language—and creating a language, as the Nicaraguan signers have done. Important cultural and contextual conditions for working in Nicaragua will also be discussed.

Poetry Reading by Creative Writing Faculty

jsjoyce — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 19:18:41 +0000

Presenter:

Rachel Galvin

Srikanth (Chicu) Reddy

John Wilkinson

Session 2

Join us as Rachel Galvin, Srikanth ‘Chicu’ Reddy and John Wilkinson read from their work. All three readers are prominent poets with a substantial record of publication, and are members of the Department of English Language and Literature and the Committee on Creative Writing. The reading celebrates Rachel’s appointment and Chicu’s return from a year in Mexico.

Art and Everythingism

jsjoyce — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 18:50:52 +0000

Presenter:

Matthew Jesse Jackson

Session 2

Today, it could be argued that the most compelling visual art is no longer defined primarily by particular media (painting, sculpture, photography, video), or by particular subjects (portraiture, landscape, still life, devotional image), or by particular strategies of representation (Cubism, Surrealism, Pop Art, Appropriation). Instead, the "art of our time" might best be described as being distinguished by activity that employs everything to evoke everything by means of everything. We will discuss the rise of this "Everythingism" and its implications for the history of art.

Afterword: The AACM (as) Opera

jsjoyce — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 18:42:23 +0000

Presenter:

A discussion of the opera Afterword, created at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry and premiering at MCA Chicago on October 16–17. Afterword is a “Bildungsoper”—a coming-of-age opera of ideas and testament whose libretto is drawn from A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press), George Lewis's 2008 book on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a Chicago-born, internationally acclaimed African American experimental music collective. This presentation is co-sponsored by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.

Expressionist Impulses: German and Central European Art, 1890–1990 - 2:00 p.m. guided tour

maskinner — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 16:40:28 +0000

Presenter:

University Staff

Session 2

Spanning a century of momentous and rapid political, social, and economic change, Expressionist Impulses charts the ebb and flow of key Expressionist tendencies in German and Central European art from, among other countries, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania. The incisive, often emotionally charged paintings, drawings, and sculptures on view—mounted from the Smart’s collection and supplemented by select promised gifts—bear powerful witness to periods of war, utopian dreams, economic depression, political division, and personal and political exile. No single style, technique, or theme dominates. Rather, Expressionist Impulses offers a fluid account of multiple waves of artists who were concerned with stylistic innovation bent in the service of social and political critiques.

A tour at 12:00 p.m. is also available.

Constructing Performativity: Architecture from the Users’ Point of View

maskinner — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:41:06 +0000

Presenter:

Niall Atkinson

Wei-Cheng Lin

Katherine Fischer Taylor

Session 2

What matters about architecture, as an immersive and usable art, is not only how buildings are designed by architects but also how people perform or carry out activities in and around them, and the extent to which architecture itself performs or produces meaningful effects on users. This panel analyzes how people participate in an extended performative dialogue with architecture, in three examples from late medieval Italy, twelfth-century China, and nineteenth-century France.