Philip Gossett and donors Brian and Karen Heckman Copp
Philip Gossett, the Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor in Music and the College, accepted the gift of a rare piano-vocal score of Rossini’s opera Guillaume Tell from donors Brian Copp and Karen Heckman Copp. The Copps met as students during the 1970s when singing together in the Rockefeller Chapel Choir, and Mrs. Copp took a course with Prof. Gossett.
Last summer, the score came to light when Mrs. Copp was cleaning out a closet. Mrs. Copp’s mother was an antique dealer and her father an opera lover, and the Copps believe the score may have been acquired at an auction. Prof. Gossett explained that although piano-vocal scores are common today, they were printed in small numbers during the early nineteenth century. “This score is in beautiful condition and will be a valuable addition to our research collection,” said Prof. Gossett.
The score will be housed in the Special Collections Research Center of the Regenstein Library.
The 2011 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence has recognized Frederick de Armas, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Spanish Literature, and Comparative Literature. Professor de Armas received an Honorable Mention in the Literature awards for his book, Don Quixote Among the Saracens: A Clash of Civilizations and Literary Genres (University of Toronto Press, 2011).
The annual PROSE Awards honors “the very best in professional and scholarly publishing” in 40 categories. The nominated books are are judged by a panel of publishers, librarians, and medical professionals.
From the University of Toronto Press:
The fictional Don Quixote was constantly defeated in his knightly adventures. In writing Quixote’s story, however, Miguel Cervantes succeeded in a different kind of quest — the creation of a modern novel that ‘conquers’ and assimilates countless literary genres. Don Quixote among the Saracens considers how Cervantes’s work reflects the clash of civilizations and anxieties towards cultural pluralism that permeated the Golden Age Spain.
Last week’s theatre review in the Chicago Tribune placed the Court Theatre’s production of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man at the top of it’s “must see” list for 2012. Kenneth Warren, an Ellison scholar at the University and the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English, was interviewed by Chicago magazine about the adaptation of the novel and the world premiere of the critically lauded play alongside director Christopher McElroen.
While Tribune critic Chris Jones called the play “a magnificent achievement for Court and the creative team,” the Chicago SunTimes pronounced it an “enthralling three hour odyssey . . . exquisitely choreographed, so that the story blazes with as much heat, energy and action as talk.”
From the Tribune:
“This production features Teagle F. Bougere, who turns in the kind of performance that Chicago actors will be trying to better for the rest of 2012. It’s more than three hours, sure, and complicated to boot, but it moves well and touches the heart as much as the mind.
The Invisible Man runs through February 19. Read reviews from the Chicago Tribune, SunTimes, and WBEZ. Chicago Magazine’s interview with director Christopher McElroen can be read here.
Dean Martha Roth and Joint Secretary in India's Ministry of Culture Sanjiv Mittal
Thanks to a $1.5 million gift from India’s Ministry of Culture, the University of Chicago has established a new chair in Indian Studies commemorating the legacy of the Hindu spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda. The Indian Ministry of Culture Vivekananda Visiting Professorship will be given to distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplines with an interest in the fields of study most relevant to the teachings and philosophies of the Swami, such as Indian philosophy, politics and social movements. The professorship, which the Division of the Humanities will administer, includes a teaching commitment as well as an annual public lecture.
From the University News Office:
“The Ministry’s generous support will allow us to expand on the University’s tradition of rigorous scholarship in Indian studies,” said University President Robert J. Zimmer. “This pledge, as well as the upcoming visit from Indian leaders, stand as a testament to the importance of the relationship between the University of Chicago and India, and the mutual commitment to scholarship.”
Several of the talks from October 22nd’s Humanities Day 2011 are now available on the Division of the Humanities website. In addition to the keynote address by Shadi Bartsch, the Ann L. and Lawrence B. Buttenwieser Professor of Classics, “The Wisdom of Fools: Christianity and the Break in the Classical Tradition,” seven other lectures are available for viewing. Watch presentations by David Wellbery, Christina von Nolcken, David Bevington, James Chandler, Ted Cohen, Michael Silverstein, and Armando Maggi.
The Humanities Division would like to thank the Office of Alumni and Development and the Office of the Vice-President for Communications for making these recordings possible.
Candace Vogler, the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Philosophy and Professor in the College and Chair of the Philosophy Department, was invited to dine with Michelle Obama, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and former Mayor Richard Daley as one of eight guests participating in artist Mary Ellen Carroll’s “Open Outcry.” The lunch is part of Itinerate Gastronomy, an ongoing project in which Carroll creates site-specific conversations around meals. Vogler, the First Lady and the current and former mayors dined January 23 at the financial gallery in the Chicago Board of Trade in a viewing room high above the active trading floor around a sculptural table designed by architect Simon Dance. The meal, the setting, and the seating are all intended to “catalyze useful conversation about the intersections of food, power, finance, policy, and art,” according to artist Mary Ellen Carroll.
The project was commissioned for the Smart Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibit, Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art, which opens February 16. A video of the luncheon will be on display. Feast runs until June 12 and presents the work of more than thirty artists and artist groups who have transformed the shared meal into a compelling artistic medium. To read more about the upcoming Feast exhibit visit the Smart Museum of Art’s website and the Feast Project blog.
A panel discussion moderated by WBEZ’s Eight Forty-Eight host Alison Cuddy on the beloved behemoth of language, The Chicago Manual of Style, featured two familiar University of Chicago faces.
Among the four panelists were Jason Riggle, Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Chicago Language Modeling Laboratory, and Ben Zimmer (AM’98, Division of the Social Sciences), former writer of the New York Times Magazine’s “On Language” column and Executive Producer of Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com.
Additional panelists included Carol Saller and Anita Samen from University of Chicago Press.
Along with this discussion, part of the International House Global Voices Program, other videos of interest can be found on the UChicago YouTube channel.
The world premiere of “double helix,” a composition by University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music and the College Augusta Read Thomas, is available on the university’s YouTube channel:
Composed as a tribute to the new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, the piece was performed by musicians Janet Sung and Yuan-Qing Yu at the library’s dedication. Read more about Augusta Read Thomas in Tableau here and here.
Michael Bourdaghs, Janel Mueller, and Joshua Scodel accepted their awards on January 7 from the Modern Language Association for their most recent publications.
Bourdaghs is the Associate Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Bourdaghs and co-editors Atsuko Ueda of Princeton University and Joseph A. Murphy of the University of Florida received the Scaglione Prize for Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature for their translation of Natsume Soseki’s Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings.
From the University News Office:
“We began this project because we wanted to get a conversation started about this utterly fascinating, but largely forgotten, book from 1907,” Bourdaghs said. “The award is gratifying to us because it means that the conversation we hoped for is underway.”
Mueller, the William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in English Language and Literature, and Scodel, the Helen A. Regenstein Professor in English Language and Literature, Comparative Literature, and the College, co-edited two volumes of Queen Elizabeth I’s translations of works in Latin, French, and Italian. Both volumes, Elizabeth I: Translations, 1544-1589 and Elizabeth I: Translations, 1592-1598, are published by the University of Chicago Press. Mueller and Scodel received the Modern Language Association Prize for a Distinguished Scholarly Edition.
From the University News Office:
Scodel and Mueller said they were “thrilled” by the MLA’s recognition of their work. “Janel Mueller and I tried to demonstrate in our edition how much Elizabeth reveals her own cast of mind through her lifelong activity as a translator, and I’m delighted that others find our work interesting,” Scodel said.
The University of Chicago’s Master of Arts Program in Humanities (MAPH) was featured in a recentInside Higher Educationarticle discussing the importance of humanities education. “Fear of Being Useful” was co-authored by MAPH co-founder Gerald Graff and highlights the MAPH program as an example of why the skills learned in the humanities remain crucial for today’s students.
From the article:
Another notable program that sees its mission as “bringing humanities into the world” beyond academe and that works closely with its university’s office of career placement is the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH) at the University of Chicago. According to a recent article by program associate A.J. Aronstein in Tableau, a University of Chicago house journal, one recent MAPH graduate got a job as finance director in Florida for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, later served as chief of staff at the International Trade Association, and now works as a political consultant in Washington. Other MAPH graduates have gone on to internships and subsequent positions as museum curators, technical writers, journalists and other media workers, marketing specialists, and policy analysts with investment firms.
Department of English Professor and Chairperson Elaine Hadley’s Living Liberalism: Practical Citizenship in Victorian Britain has been announced as the winner of the 2011 Albion Book Prize. Awarded annually by the North American Conference on British Studies, the Albion Book Prize recognizes the best book published by a North American scholar on British studies since 1800.
In the mid-Victorian era, liberalism was a practical politics: it had a party, it informed legislation, and it had adherents who identified with and expressed it as opinion. It was also the first British political movement to depend more on people than property, and on opinion rather than interest. But how would these subjects of liberal politics actually live liberalism?
To answer this question, Elaine Hadley focuses on the key concept of individuation—how it is embodied in politics and daily life and how it is expressed through opinion, discussion and sincerity. These are concerns that have been absent from commentary on the liberal subject. Living Liberalism argues that the properties of liberalism—citizenship, the vote, the candidate, and reform, among others—were developed in response to a chaotic and antagonistic world. In exploring how political liberalism imagined its impact on Victorian society, Hadley reveals an entirely new and unexpected prehistory of our modern liberal politics. A major revisionist account that alters our sense of the trajectory of liberalism, Living Liberalism revises our understanding of the presumption of the liberal subject.
After facing harsh criticism and a lawsuit, Oxford University Press will reprint two books that contain “300 Ramayanas,” a controversial essay by the late A.K. Ramanujan. Ramanujan was instrumental in developing University of Chicago’s South Asian Studies program and worked with the South Asian Languages and Civilization department, the Linguistics department, and the Committee on Social Thought.
Many academics criticized OUP’s decision to stop printing the late University of Chicago professor’s works because some material was thought to be offensive to the Hindu faith. The books, The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan and Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, will be reprinted “immediately,” according to OUP.
From Cherwell, the independent student newspaper at Oxford University:
Campaigners at Oxford University said they were “extremely glad that OUP recognised the importance of reprinting these books.” The three organisers of an international petition to reprint the books issued a joint statement, stating “We whole-heartedly support this affirmation of OUP’s longstanding commitment to excellence in scholarship, to the broadest possible dissemination of knowledge, and to the right of scholars, writers, and artists to freedom of thought and expression everywhere.”
From the Times of India:
[OUP's] move kicked up a big controversy, with top history scholars in India and abroad criticizing “censorship” in academics. OUP’s decision was conveyed to 450 scholars who had signed a petition against non-publishing of Ramanujan’s book and essay.
The Special Collections Research Center houses Ramanujan’s papers, which contain more than 50 years of correspondence, diaries, photographs, and other materials.
Read the Oxford University’s Cherwell story here. Read the Times of India story here.
Read past news stories about Ramanujan from the University News office here, here, and here.
Homer’s Iliad is 24 books long. That’s 15,693 lines of verse. And thanks to the University of Chicago Classical Entertainment Society, the whole thing was read aloud in 24 hours on November 20 at the Court Theatre. It took more than 75 readers—including eight UChicago faculty members—to pull off reading from five English translations and six non-English translations, ranging from ancient and modern Greek to Turkish and Mandarin.
From the Court Theatre blog:
Not only did we mobilize and engage the Humanities division at UChicago, we also seemingly captured the imagination of the Chicago community at large. Some passages even benefited from the bolstering effects of puppetry, clowning, and singing. There were Trojan Horses made out of graham crackers and there were shields made out of paper plates. There were children too young to read and there were best-selling authors (that’s right, UC alum Sara Paretsky stopped by and even signed our banner).
Archaeologist James Henry Breasted founded the Oriental Institute at the University in 1919, and was a beloved figure around the world. Jeffrey Abt, a former Special Collections exhibits coordinator and former acting director of the Smart Museum, has written a biography of Breasted called American Egyptologist: The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute, out this month from University of Chicago Press.
Abt discussed the book on Wednesday, December 14, at 7 p.m. at Breasted Hall in the Oriental Institute.
From the University News Office:
Originally, Abt wanted to write about teaching museums and decided to start with the Oriental Institute Museum because of its close proximity. In going through its archives, however, he quickly discovered the wealth of materials on Breasted and became fascinated with the archaeologist’s multi-faceted career.
Breasted, who received his Egyptology PhD in Germany, was the first formally trained American Egyptologist. While he was dashing and adventuresome, he also brought to the University the formidable intellectual gifts and ambitions that helped to fulfill William Rainey Harper’s vision of a research university.
At the November 7 award ceremony for the Joseph Jefferson Awards, Court Theatre came home doubly lauded. Porgy and Bess (already the recipient of five nominations for Chicago Equity theatrical productions) won two awards at the event. Artistic Director Charles Newell took home the the Jeff for Best Director of a Musical, and Doug Peck nabbed the Jeff for Best Music Direction.
“I’m incredibly proud that the hard work of Charles Newell, Doug Peck and the University of Chicago was recognized by the Jeff Committee,” said Stephen J. Albert, executive director of Court Theatre. “I also want to thank Associate Professor Travis Jackson and Court’s Resident Dramaturg Drew Dir for helping to make Porgy and Bess one of the most successful productions in our history.”
Four faculty from the Division of the Humanities were awarded prestigious prizes from the Modern Language Association (MLA) for their recent publications. The announcement was made on December 5. A total of eighteen prizes will be presented at the association’s annual convention in January.
Janel Mueller, the William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in the Department of English and the College and former Dean of the Division of the Humanities, and Joshua Scodel, the Helen A. Regenstein Professor in English, Comparative Literature, and the College, were the winners of the prize for a Distinguished Scholarly Edition for their two books Elizabeth I: Translations, 1544-1589 (University of Chicago Press, 2009) and Elizabeth I: Translations, 1592-1598 (University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Michael Bourdaghs, associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and his co-authors Atsuko Ueda and Joseph A. Murphy won the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature for their translation of Natsume Soseki’s Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings (Columbia University Press, 2010).
William S. Nickell, assistant professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, will receive an honorable mention for The Death of Tolstoy: Russia on the Eve, Astapovo Station, 1910 (Cornell University Press, 2010).
The Modern Language Association of America has 30,000 members in 100 countries. Founded in 1883, its mandate is to strengthen the study and teaching of languages and literature and provide opportunities for scholars to share their findings and teaching experiences with colleagues.
Guy Alitto, Associate Professor in History and East Asian Languages and Civilizations, has inspired and is featured in a Chinese Documentary called The Last Confucian and Me, based on Alitto’s book The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity. Liang’s influence had been nearly forgotten until the appearance of Alitto’s crucial work on the Chinese philosopher.
From the University News Office:
“It was fate that brought you together,” a young news reporter says to Alitto in the documentary. The documentary follows Alitto through vintage photographs of his work as an interpreter and scholar, and takes him back to a village where he did field work in the 1980s and 1990s.
Alitto observes: “As things improve in China materially, there also may be an opening for improvements for society as well, not only in China but elsewhere.” When the first book of transcripts on Liang came out, it was given the English title “Has Mankind a Future?” The documentary closes with the answer: “We have a Future!”
Update: A memorial service for Herman L. Sinaiko will take place Friday, Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. in Bond Chapel. Seating will begin at 3:30.
Herman L. Sinaiko, a beloved teacher in the College and a scholar of Plato, died Sunday, Oct. 2 in Hyde Park after battling lung cancer. He was 82.
Sinaiko received his PhD in 1961 from the Department of Philosophy and the Committee on Social Thought. He taught in the College for 57 years and served as dean of students in the College from 1982 to 1986 and was known to generations of undergraduates as a thoughtful, rigorous and devoted teacher.
From the University News Office:
“Herman Sinaiko was an enormously brilliant teacher who enriched and transformed the lives of the thousands of undergraduates whom he taught at Chicago,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “He leaves a powerful legacy of service to the University and the College.”
Sinaiko’s deep ties to the University were established during his years as an undergraduate living in Burton-Judson Courts. A proud “Hutchins baby,” Sinaiko entered the College in 1945 at the age of 16 and received his bachelor’s degree in 1947.
A fund has been established in Sinaiko’s honor. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the Herman Sinaiko Research Fellowship Fund, the Office of the College Dean, 1116 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
To read the article from the University News office click here.
Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Jesse Jackson has been named the winner of the 2011 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize for his book The Experimental Group: Ilka Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant-Gardes.
This prize is sponsored by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (formerly the AAASS) and the Center for Russian and East European Studies. It is awarded each year by ASEEES for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences. The prize is accompanied by a $1,000 award.
This award comes in addition to Professor Jackson’s previous commendations for The Experimental Group, including the 2011 Robert Motherwell Book Award for Outstanding Publication in the History and Criticism of Modernism in the Arts and an Honorable Mention in Art History & Criticism from the Association of American Publishers 2010 PROSE Book Awards.
To learn more about The Experimental Group: Ilka Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant-Gardes, click here.
In the wake of the recent publication of his book, A Case for Irony, Jonathan Lear, John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy, was interviewed by journalist Alice Karezeki. Professor Lear weighs in on, among other subjects, Eros, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen Colbert.
From the interview:
But when [Colbert] looks straight into the camera and says, “Nation,” on the one hand it’s a very funny routine and it’s mimetic. He’s imitating others, and we recognize the imitation, and we enjoy the mimesis, and it’s pleasurable, but when he does that, is there ever a moment when one is stung by the thought: Well, what would it be to be a nation? What would it be for us to be a polity that could be addressed? Underneath the very real humor – and I’m not saying it’s always arising – but there’s a possibility of actually getting shaken up about this.
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Hannah Hayes.
Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities in the College
Anne Walters Robertson writes on subjects ranging from the plainchant of the early church to the Latin and vernacular polyphony of the late middle ages. In her work, liturgical and secular music, and often the interactions of the two, mirror theological and courtly ideas and shape the development of medieval spirituality and personal devotion, architecture, institutional identity, and politics. Robertson is the first scholar to win all three awards of the Medieval Academy of America: the Haskins Medal (2006), the John Nicholas Brown Prize (1995), and the Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize (1987).
