Xtra! Canada recently featured a Q&A with Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Professor in English, and 2013 Northrop Frye Professor of Literary Theory at University of Toronto’s Centre for Comparative Literature. In the Q&A, Berlant discusses her most recent book, Cruel Optimism, as well as U.S. politics, same-sex marriage, and teaching. On her goals as a queer scholar, Berlant says:
I’m all for training my students in curiosity. One thing we talk about is what an LGBTQ teacher’s job is these days. How much is the project of a queer pedagogy not just the project of distributing more fabulousness, or learning more history, but also of learning to have curiosity about the objects that sustain us intimately and politically? For me, not taking the object for granted – not assuming that someone’s erotic patterns are a clear and coherent story about who they are, for example – is a fundamental contribution of queer work.
Read the full Q&A here.
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Tagged with Faculty, Lauren Berlant.
On February 8, Jessica Stockholder, Chair and Professor in Visual Arts, Jonathan Ullyot, PhD’10 and instructor in the College, and Nicholas Wong, a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature, and others gathered at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts to discuss the concept of color. This dialogue, presented by the Arts|Science Initiative, is part of The Cabinet, a monthly series seeking to explore multiple perspectives surrounding a particular theme, such as color, narrative, silence, and many more. Stockholder discussed how she uses color in her work and how we experience color as viewers, while Ullyot and Wong presented a video on color and read a poem about color, respectively.
This month’s installment of The Cabinet on Thursday, March 7 at 7 p.m. will focus on models and how they are used in both the arts and the sciences. More information can be found here.
photo courtesy of Jennifer Smoose, MFA’13
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Arriving on campus before classes begin might seem like an activity limited to first-years. However, the 300 graduate students that headed to the Center for Teaching and Learning this past fall were in for their own kind of orientation–an intensive two-day instruction workshop to prepare them for teaching College courses. Students took part in large-scale discussions about classroom ethics and attended smaller group sessions devoted to topics ranging from teaching in the American classroom to the role of the teaching assistant. Martin Baeumel, a PhD candidate in Germanic Studies and consultant at the Center for Teaching and Learning, co-taught a session alongside Britni Ratliff, SM’07, PhD’11 and Jessica Robinson, AM’05 titled “Pedagogical Self-Assessment: How Do You Know Your Students Are Learning?”, which argued that self-assessment is one of the most important aspects of teaching. Beaumel says: “When you start teaching, if you notice a class isn’t going well, you might tend to prepare more content. And 99 percent of the time, this particular class will go even worse, because you’re so focused on content you lose touch with what students need.”
For more information on professional development opportunities through the Center for Teaching and Learning, click here.
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Tagged with Center for Teaching and Learning, Germanic Studies, Students.
On Feb. 3, 2013, Chicago-based contemporary chamber music ensemble CUBE marked its 25th anniversary with a concert, titled “Hanging From the Edge,” at Fulton Hall. CUBE has strong ties to the University of Chicago community: Patricia Morehead, the founder of CUBE, received her PhD in composition from the University, and John Eaton, Professor Emeritus in Music, serves on its advisory board along with Augusta Read Thomas, University Professor in Music. The concert was presented by the Renaissance Society and combined computer-generated sounds, even incorporating “an uninvited telephone ringing from a nearby office,” with more traditional arrangements. The program also included an untitled piece, performed by Howard Sandroff, Director of the Computer Music Studio and Senior Lecturer in Music, and Ben Sutherland, PhD’01, that involved rapping on two metallic sculptures with various objects including wooden sticks and a violin bow.
More information on CUBE, including audio samples, can be found here.
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It’s a balmy 38 degrees today in Chicago, but an article by A-J Aronstein, AM’10, in the Paris Review Daily reminds us not to get too comfortable. Aronstein, an alumni of the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH), meditates on how the unique cold of February in Chicago affects our bodies and brains, leading us from Lacan to Netflix and from selfish survival to the promise of OKCupid. He writes:
It’s a tenuous period during which one skates between euphoric invigoration (induced by the body’s deployment of emergency reserves of natural stimulants to keep one’s system from shutting down) and cataclysmic despair. To survive it requires the assignment of some kind of meaning to the weather: to consider it not in the idiom of ordinary conversation (“Boy, it sure is cold out there today!”), but rather as a philosophical problem, an existential threat, a constant companion on otherwise lonely nights. Only in this way can we take something useful from winter.
More work from MAPH alumni can be found here or in MAPH’s newly created digital journal, Colloquium.
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Tagged with Alumni, Master of Arts Program in the Humanities.
In the February 2013 issue of Interview, William Pope.L, Associate Professor in Visual Arts, discussed his upcoming exhibition at the Renaissance Society and his “crawl” pieces. The most famous of these “crawl” works consisted of crawling on his hands and knees from the beginning to the end of Broadway street in Manhattan, a 22-mile journey that took him nine years to complete, “with each installment lasting as long as Pope.L could endure the knee and elbow pain (often about six blocks).” He also considered questions surrounding whether he defines his work as activism, his upcoming Pull! project (in which he and a group of local participants will pull an eight-ton truck through the streets of Cleveland by hand), and his thoughts on authorship in community-based art.
The community is, in fact, one of the most important parts of Pope.L’s work. When asked whether he enjoys making the work he does, he responded:
No, I did not enjoy crawling. Overall, I enjoy making work with others. I enjoy the small moments of revelation that are only possible in the company of others. I enjoy making a clear puzzle. I realize more and more that making is unmaking. To make something is to undo it. To make something is to make it less mysterious, that is, in the process of removing a veil, one of many. You gain more intimacy, but it may not be very pleasant.
Pope.L’s show at the Renaissance Society, titled Forlesen, will run from April 28 to June 23. It will be his first solo exhibition in Chicago since joining the University faculty.
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Tagged with Faculty, Visual Arts.
We live in an era of convenience, and trying to make someone fall in love with you using only your personality is time-consuming. It might be time to try a different kind of charm: ancient Greek magic! The Core spoke with Chris Faraone, Frank Curtis Springer and Gertrude Melcher Springer in Classics, about the kinds of love spells described in his book Ancient Greek Love Magic. Faraone explained that men and women typically used different kinds of spells, an eros spell for men and a philia spell for women. The eros spell was used as more of a curse, designed to cause the woman an unbearable amount of torture which could only be relieved by the man who cast the spell. The philia spell was designed to bind the man closer to the woman, and was related more to healing magic than to torture (which presumably comes in the later stages of the relationship). Below is a sample philia spell from Ancient Greek Love Magic, reproduced by The Core, with sample names included:
A spell for inducing affection (Philia):
Take a silver tablet and inscribe with a bronze stylus the following spell:
“Give to me, Madison, whom Tammy bore, advantage over men and women, especially over Benjamin, whom Barbara bore, forever and for all time.”
Wear it under your garment and you will be victorious.
And if that doesn’t work, we have magic the Greeks didn’t: internet dating.
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Richard G. Stern, the Helen A. Regenstein Professor Emeritus in English, died January 24 at age 84. Stern joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1955 and wrote over twenty books of fiction and nonfiction in his lifetime. He was friends with many distinguished writers, including Saul Bellow, X’39, and Philip Roth, AM’55, who credits Stern for the idea to write his novella Goodbye, Columbus. During his time at the University, Stern received the Award of Merit from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He was also a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Heartland Prize. The Paris Review describes him as “…a nurturing teacher and a powerful force in literature at the University of Chicago.”
On teaching at the University, he wrote:
It’s important at the University of Chicago, where the Great Works loom monumentally, to free students from the paralysis of intimidation by them. I don’t hesitate to compare the best student work with the work of masters. This is not meant to cheapen the marvelous but to evoke it. The hope is to make students fall in love with sublimity and to show them it’s not out of reach.
Stern is survived by his wife, poet Alane Rollings, BA’72, MA’75; four children from his first marriage, Christopher, Andrew, Nicholas and Kate; and five grandchildren.
Read a tribute from a former student and friend of Stern’s here.
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Tagged with Emeritus Faculty.
Valerie Snobeck, MFA’08, has created a piece titled American Standard Movement as part of the annual Threshold series sponsored by the Smart Museum of Art. The site-specific work, presented in the Vera and A.D. Elden Sculpture Garden, re-uses debris netting that was previously part of a construction project on the University of Chicago campus in order to open up questions about environment, the passage of time, and progress.
From the Smart Museum description:
Such netting serves a function—to catch debris let loose by construction activities—and also behaves as an aesthetic marker of the construction site itself. Snobeck’s work takes this duality as a point of entry. Netting marks the absence of a wall, but is, unlike a wall, woven and hung, permeable. In American Standard Movement, the netting is co-opted, but not necessarily displaced.
The painting on the netting references tools used in watch repair in order to measure internal components, which, given the banner’s outdoor setting, draws the viewer’s attention to the body and the environment as component parts situated in larger systems.
American Standard Movement will show until October 2013. For more information on current exhibitions at the Smart Museum, please click here.
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Tagged with Alumni, Smart Museum of Art, Visual Arts.
Cultural historian Marina Belozerskaya, AM’92, PhD’97, has published the first book-length account of the Tazza Farnese, a libation bowl dating to Ptolemaic Egypt that once belonged to Cleopatra. The book, titled Medusa’s Gaze: The Extraordinary Journey of the Tazza Farnese, charts the renowned artifact’s journey through history, from Rome and Constantinople to the Holy Roman Emperor’s court at Palermo and the French Revolution. It inspired artists such as Raphael and Botticelli and was owned by Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Mongol rulers. The Tazza Farnese‘s adventure continued even after it came to rest at the Naples National Archaeological Museum–it was nearly destroyed there in 1925 by a deranged guard.
For more information on alumni publications, visit the University of Chicago Magazine, or check out the catalog of alumni books on the magazine’s Goodreads page.
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Tagged with Alumni, Publications.
Robert Louden, AM’76, PhD’81, is the fifth person to be named distinguished professor at the University of Southern Maine, one of the highest honors a tenured professor can receive at the university. Louden, whose interests include the history of ethics, ethical theory, Kant, and the history of philosophy, arrived at USM in 1982 as an assistant professor. He became a professor in 1996 and has served as the department chair four times since then. In 2009 he also received the University of Southern Maine Faculty Senate Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Humanities. He has published four books with the Oxford University Press and edited one, titled The Greeks and Us: Essays in Honor of Arthur W. H. Adkins, with the University of Chicago Press.
More alumni news can be found in the most recent edition of the University of Chicago Magazine.
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Tagged with Alumni, Awards.
Erica Rand, AM’81, PhD’89, published a book of essays–part cultural critique, part memoir–last year titled Red Nails, Black Skates: Gender, Cash, and Pleasures On and Off the Ice. The idea for the book began when Rand, a professor in women’s and gender studies and art and visual culture at Bates College, started figure skating and noticed the numerous ways in which the sport intersected with her academic interests: strict gender rules, class distinctions, and heavy emphasis on popular culture. For example, both male and female skaters must follow strict guidelines for apparel, such as white skates and short skirts for women, black skates and spandex–clingy, but still masculine–for men. The book contains Rand’s observations about the skating world from the point of view of a “self-identified queer femme in a heavily sequined sport.”
Read more about Rand’s research and the work of other UChicago alumni here.
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Tagged with Alumni, Publications.
In December, the College admissions office received a mysterious package addressed to Henry Walton Jones, Jr.–better known as Indiana Jones (AB’22), one of the University’s more famous, albeit fictional, alumni. The package, which included a handwritten journal as well as notes and photographs from Raiders of the Lost Ark, attracted quite a bit of media attention until the mystery was solved. Paul Charfauros, who makes replica journals, sold the prop to a collector on Ebay, and while in transit the outer envelope was separated from the package addressed to Indy. Believing the package to be real, the post office added the correct zip code and sent it to the University. Upon learning of the mix-up, Charfauros donated the prop.
The package and its contents will be on display at the Oriental Institute. Chief curator Jack Green joked that the collectible belonged in a museum because, after all, “Maybe it contains information our scholars need.” The exhibit, dubbed “Raiders of the Lost Journal,” will run until March 31, when the package will be retired to the archives.
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Tagged with Alumni, Oriental Institute.
Augusta Read Thomas, University Professor in Music and renowned composer, was recently awarded the Order of Lincoln by the Lincoln Academy of Illinois for her many contributions to the world of music. The Order of Lincoln was established in 1964 to recognize Illinois natives or current residents for their professional achievements or public service, and in 1989 was declared the state’s highest honor. Past recipients of the award include Maria Tallchief, Benny Goodman, Mahalia Jackson, Sherrill Milnes, and Ardis Krainik.
For more information on the Order of Lincoln, including past recipients, click here.
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Tagged with Augusta Read Thomas, Awards, Faculty.
John Kuhns, MFA’75, didn’t begin his career with the endgame of becoming a novelist. However, as he was taking sculpture classes at the university, he couldn’t picture himself as a professional artist, either. Kuhns, an investment banker specializing in hydroelectric energy and CEO of three companies, has taken his unlikely career path and used it as fodder for his first novel, China Fortunes: A Tale of Business in the New World, which details the highs and lows of the semiautobiographical character Jack Davis. As Kuhns explains, his varied career is less unique than it may seem: “I read recently that the average person has seven jobs in three different industries during their career. The idea that you would get out of school with a practical education and have a job for life is gone with the wind.” Much like his recent turn towards writing though, Kuhns says you have to follow your heart when it comes to work: “Pursue a career in something that you’re good at, and never make a career decision based on the money…if you do something you’re good at, the money will come.” Kuhns’ second novel, South of the Clouds, is forthcoming.
To read more about Kuhns’ varied professional pursuits, click here.
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Tagged with Alumni, Master of Fine Arts.
In the recently-published biography Peter Selz: Sketches of a Life in Art, author Paul J. Karlstrom details Peter Selz’s illustrious career as an art historian, which Selz states “has consisted of looking at art that I think is excellent–whether German expressionism then or Morris Graves now–that deserve to be seen and is on the periphery.” Selz, now 93, has written over fifty books and articles on art and art history, and befriended artists such as Mark Rothko and Sam Francis. He also formed friendships with several artists he met during his time as a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
After escaping Nazi Germany at the age of 17, Selz attended the University on the GI Bill, studying Art History under professors Ulrich Middeldorf and Joshua C. Taylor. In 1954, Selz earned his PhD with a 600-page dissertation that examined the work of artists such as Kandinsky, Beckmann, and Emil Nolde within social and political contexts. It became an extremely influential book within the field, German Expressionist Painting, and is still in print.
In the 1960s, Selz became a professor of art and founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California. His home in Berkeley is a testament to his long and thriving career–it contains works such as a Beckmann self-portrait and the painting Iris (pictured), a gift from Sam Francis. Far from retiring, Selz remains dedicated to writing, teaching, and curating.
More information about Selz’s work, including his connections to the University, can be found in the fall issue of Tableau.
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Tagged with Alumni.
To honor University Librarian Judith Nadler’s “leadership and careful guidance for researchers”, Michael I. Allen, Associate Professor in Classics, donated the fifth-century military science text De re militari or On Military Matters by Flavius Vegetius Renatus to the Special Collections Research Center. Because the book was shunned by the Church, it is extremely rare–approximately a dozen copies exist in North American and European libraries. Allen was pleased to present his gift “in honour of Judith Nadler in recognition of her long, varied, and important contributions to the University through the Library.”
Earlier in 2012, Allen also donated Vita D. N. Jesu Christi, by Ludolphus of Saxony, in honor of James Vaughan, Associate University Librarian for User Services. This rare 17th-century text presents the life of Christ through meditations and prayers. Upon donating the book, Allen said: “I’m pleased to offer a special book in honor of Jim Vaughan. Like all the library staff, he makes positive things happen.”
For more news on events and exhibitions at the Special Collections Research Center, click here.
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Tagged with Classics, Faculty, Special Collections Research Center.
The Walls of Delhi, written by Uday Prakash and translated by Jason Grunebaum, Senior Lecturer in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, has been shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. For prize consideration, as the site explains, authors could belong to this region through birth or be of any ethnicity but the writing should pertain to the South Asian region in terms of content and theme. The prize brings South Asian writing to a new global audience through a celebration of the achievements of South Asian writers, and aims to raise awareness of South Asian culture around the world. The winner will be announced in January 2013 during the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in India, which Grunebaum and Prakash will attend.
To view the 2012 longlist and learn more about the 2012 prizewinner, click here.
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Tagged with Awards, Faculty, South Asian Languages and Civilizations.
Larry Norman, Professor in Romance Languages and Literatures, Theater and Performance Studies, and the College, recently received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Literary Studies from the Modern Language Association for his book The Shock of the Ancient: Literature and History in Early Modern France. According to the selection committee’s citation for the book, “Probing early modern reactions to the classical age, Norman’s compelling analysis highlights the value of art in bridging distance in human consciousness in any era.” Norman currently serves as Deputy Provost for the Arts at the University, and has curated exhibitions at the Smart Museum of Art and the Special Collections Research Center. The Scaglione Prize is “awarded annually for an outstanding scholarly work in its field—a literary or linguistic study, a critical edition of an important work, or a critical biography—written by a member of the association.”
For more information about the MLA 2012 prizewinners, please click here.
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Tagged with Awards, Faculty, Larry Norman.
On November 7 at the Field Museum, a multidisciplinary panel composed of University of Chicago faculty together with Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory researchers and engineers convened to discuss the topic of time. “Playing with Time” was the sixth in a Joint Speaker Event series organized by the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories. Questions discussed by the panel included, “Did humans invent time to help explain everything around us? Was there time before the origin of the universe?” and “How does a virus experience time?”
Patrick Jagoda, Assistant Professor of English, noted the ways humanities fields like literature and new media grapple with the notion of time, such as in the novel Einstein’s Dreams. “Clock time makes ordered schedules possible, but bodily time is shaped by moods, desires and whims,” he said. “Another scheme imagines time as a current of water occasionally displaced by passing breezes.” Video games, he noted, have developed ways to allow users to manipulate time.
The question of time travel fascinated the panel. Joseph Lykken, a particle theorist at Fermilab, explained that travel to the future has been observed with particle accelerators. “Muons (subatomic particles), for example, usually survive for a microsecond, but when we speed them up they can survive a thousand times as long. They have traveled to the future.” For the humanities, time travel may involve fewer subatomic particles and more creativity. Jagoda noted that reading an old book or playing a video game can be an imaginative way to put oneself in another time.
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Tagged with Argonne National Laboratory, Faculty, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Joint Speaker Event, Patrick Jagoda, Playing With Time.
Xtra! Canada recently featured a Q&A with Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Professor in English, and 2013 Northrop Frye Professor of Literary Theory at University of Toronto’s Centre for Comparative Literature. In the Q&A, Berlant discusses her most recent book, Cruel Optimism, as well as U.S. politics, same-sex marriage, and teaching. On her goals as a queer scholar, Berlant says:
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