events

2011-2012 Humanities Center Lecture Series

V I S I O N S

 

During the academic year 2011-2012 we will explore a wide range of interpretations of the concept of “vision” from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives: art criticism and visual studies; the art of photography and filmmaking; cultural manifestations of utopian or dystopian political visions; prophetic and catastrophic visions; visions of the afterlife and of the religious, spiritual, and ecstatic kind, etc.

In addition to our regular speaker series, this year we will also have and a two-day simposium on “Political Visions,” which will take place on March 29-30. For this symposium, we'll bring together writers, artists, activists, and scholars of different backgrounds to talk about new ways of envisioning and interpreting politics and creating consciousness through cultural practices.

List of Speakers - all events will be held in the Scheler Humanities Forum, Linderman 200

September 15, 2011 – 4:10pm
Dore Ashton
Art Critic and Author
The Vision of an Art Critic

October 13, 2011 – 4: 10pm
Jose Munoz
Professor of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity

November 17, 2011 - 4:10pm
Daniel Paashaus
Self-portrait Filmmaker
Katabasis

February 2, 2012 - 4:10pm
Amy Hollywood
Professor of Christian Studies, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University
Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History

February 23, 2012 - 4:10pm
James Elkins
Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
What Is an Image?

March 29-30, 2012 - 9am to 6pm
POLITICAL VISIONS SYMPOSIUM

Wafaa Bilal
Assistant Arts Profesor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University

Paddy Woodworth
Journalist

Juan Cole
Professor of History, University of Michigan

Nancy Bauer
Associate Profesor of Philosophy, Tufts University

Carol Adams
Writer

Frances Moore Lappe
Writer and co-founder of Small Planet

Luis Alberto Urrea
Writer

April 5, 2012 - 4:10pm
Eva Horn
Professor of Modern German Literature and Cultural Studies, University of Basel
The Last Man: Visions of the Human After the End of Mankind

April 17, 2012 - 4:10pm
Daniel Weidner
Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Freie Universitat Berlin
Speaking Boldly: The Prophetic in the 20th Century Political Thought