Panel Discussants: Bill Viola, Greg Niemeyer (Art Practice), Charles Altieri (English) and Alva Noë (Philosophy).
Moderator: Linda Williams (Rhetoric and Film Studies)
For over 35 years Bill Viola has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a form of contemporary art. Rooted in modern life yet often evoking age-old religious philosophies and visual iconography, Viola’s work addresses universal human experiences such as birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness.
The Townsend Center reinstitutes the Speculative Lunch series in 2009-2010 with a focus on Digital Technology in Humanities Scholarship. This is an informal brown bag lunch series with beverages provided by the Townsend Center.
Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang tells the story of Yu Shui, one of the 5.3 million people who will be displaced with the completion of the Three Gorges Dam along China’s Yangtze River. The film captures the stunning natural landscape that will soon be underwater while documenting the people whose way of life will disappear with it.
Jeffrey Meyers
On the day before the 300th anniversary of Samuel Johnson’s birth, Jeffrey Meyers will deliver a lecture focusing on the author’s friendships with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith.
From his earliest publications on literary theory in the mid 1960s to his moral inquiries into identity, responsibility, and ethics in his more recent historical studies, Tzvetan Todorov continues to be one of the foremost contemporary European literary and cultural theorists.
Rebecca Solnit, Writer, Historian, & Activist
Rebecca Solnit is the best-selling author of numerous books, including A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; Hope in the Dark; and Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics.
<em>Andy Goldsworthy: Rivers and Tides</em> (2004)
Rivers and Tides follows sculptor Andy Goldsworthy as he creates ephemeral, site-specific earthworks out of found materials in natural settings. As an artist, Goldsworthy seeks to mimic the patterns and rhythms of the natural world, and director Thomas Riedelsheimer’s film patiently and engagingly captures both the work and worldview of his subject.
“In An Age of of Depoliticization: Some Reflections on Contemporary Intellectual Debates in China Since the 1990s”
Panel Discussants: Wang Hui, Martin Jay (History), Pheng Cheah (Rhetoric) and Colleen Lye (English)
Panel Discussants: Kaja Silverman (Rhetoric and Film Studies), Larry Rinder (Berkeley Art Museum) and Mark Rosenthal (Norton Museum of Art). Moderated by Anthony J. Cascardi (Townsend Center Director)