Spring 2012 Events

Letters from Emptiness
Paintings by Eva Bovenzi

On Exhibit: January 17 – May 4, 2012
Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

With their iridescent shapes emerging from blue or red backgrounds, Eva Bovenzi’s paintings at one moment suggest outer space, at another the sea. The forms described are similarly ambiguous: they could be tiny or enormous. Like apparitions from a world that is both familiar and unfamiliar, these forms seem caught in the ephemeral moment between appearing and disappearing. They are mysterious messages: letters from emptiness.

More on the exhibit

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Luminous
Watercolor Paintings by Darril Tighe

On Exhibit: August 22 – May 4, 2012
Townsend Center Offices, 220 Stephens Hall

Darril Tighe’s watercolors explore abstraction as a means for expressing a range of emotions through color, layering of washes and choices about composition. Tighe’s complex color combinations suggest a quality of translucence and evoke a state of reverie and reflection, through which the viewer is momentarily transported, and then returns, enriched.

More on the exhibit

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Emmanuel Witzthum, Townsend Resident Fellow
“Dissolving Localities | Urban Space and the Prosumer: The Future of Artistic Creation?”

Monday, February 13, 2012
4 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Israeli musician Emmanuel Witzthum is a composer, violist, installation artist, and director of The Lab (Hama'abada) in Jerusalem, a venue for experimental theater, dance, and music. He has also served as musical advisor to the Israel Festival, the premier festival for the arts in Israel. Mr. Witzthum will be hosted by the Department of Music while at Berkeley.

More on Emmanuel Witzthum

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Louder than a Bomb (2010)
Directed by Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel

Monday, February 13, 2012
7 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

The oldest of literary forms gets an energetic update in Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel’s inspiring depiction of Chicago’s annual high school poetry contest. Following four teams from across the city, the film stops to explore the backgrounds of several of the contestants and offers a glimpse of the lives that are eventually woven into their verse.

Part of the Depth of Field Film + Video Series: Art & Culture in Transit(ion).

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Avenali Chair in the Humanities, 2011-2012
Fredric Jameson, Literary Theorist and Critic

"The Aesthetics of Singularity"
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
6 p.m. | International House, Chevron Auditorium

Follow-up Panel Discussion with Fredric Jameson
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
12–2 p.m. | Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall

Literary theorist and critic Fredric Jameson is William A. Lane Professor in the Program in Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. He has published a wide range of works analyzing literary and cultural texts, while developing his own Marxist theoretical perspectives and offering important critiques of opposing theoretical schools and positions. Professor Jameson’s best-known publications include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism; The Political Unconscious; and Marxism and Form, and his most recent works are The Hegel Variations and Representing 'Capital.'

Webcast | More on Fredric Jameson and the Avenali Lectures

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Wayne Horowitz, Townsend Resident Fellow
"Towards Infinity and Beyond: Big Universe, Little Universe in the Ancient Near East"

Wednesday, February 29, 2012
5 p.m. | Department of Near Eastern Studies, 254 Barrows Hall

Professor of Assyriology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Wayne Horowitz is an authority on cuneiform texts (in Sumerian and Akkadian) that deal, directly or indirectly, with the structure of the cosmos. He is the author of Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography; Writing Science Before the Greeks: A Naturalistic Analysis of the Babylonian Astronomical Treatise MUL.APIN; and the forthcoming Astrolabes, among others. Professor Horowitz will be hosted by the Department of Near Eastern Studies while at Berkeley.

More on Wayne Horowitz

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Waste Land (2010)
Directed by Lucy Walker

Monday, March 12, 2012
7 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Director Lucy Walker follows artist Vik Muniz as he visits the world’s largest garbage dump in Rio de Janeiro and builds one of his famous portraits from trash. The world the film explores is indeed a land of waste, but it is also a world of vibrant optimism, endless creativity, and touching generosity on the part of the people who occupy it.

Part of the Depth of Field Film + Video Series: Art & Culture in Transit(ion).

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Svetlana Boym, Professor of Slavic & Comparative Literature, Harvard University
"Freedom and the Arts of Dissent"

Thursday, March 15, 2012
5 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Svetlana Boym is a Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literatures at Harvard University and the Associate of Harvard School of Design and Architecture. Writer, theorist and media artist, she is the author of many books including The Future of Nostalgia (2001), Architecture of the Off-Modern (2008), Territories of Terror: Memory and Mythology of Gulag (exhibit and catalogue 2006), and the novel Ninochka (2003). Her newest book, Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea (Chicago University Press, 2010), spans from Greek tragedy to contemporary art scandals, and explores cross-cultural conceptions of freedom and the relationship between aesthetics and politics.

Part of the Forum on the Humanities and the Public World.

Webcast

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“Old Things for New Times”
Launch Event for the “Old Things: The Past in the Present” Course Thread

Keynote Lecture by Hans Sluga (Philosophy)
"What has History to do with Me?: Old Things for New Times"
Thursday, March 15, 2012
5 p.m. | 3335 Dwinelle Hall

Symposium: "Old Things: Reflections on the Study of the Past"
Friday, March 16, 2012
9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. | Townsend Center Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

In celebration of the launch of the Old Things Course Thread, faculty members present papers addressing the value of studying the past at the university level, particularly at UC Berkeley. Faculty participants: Daniel Boyarin (Near Eastern Studies), Michael Nylan (History), Niklaus Largier (German and Comparative Literature), Ramona Naddaff (Rhetoric), Erich Gruen (History and Classics, emeritus), Carolyn Merchant (Environmental Science, Policy, & Management), and Benjamin Porter (Near Eastern Studies).

More on Old Things for New Times

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Mark Lilla, Professor of Humanities, Columbia University
"Innocence"

Tuesday, March 20, 2012
5 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Mark Lilla’s research in the humanities focuses on intellectual history, with a particular emphasis on Western political and religious thought. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, and the New York Times, Professor Lilla is best known for his books The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West.

Part of the Forum on the Humanities and the Public World.

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Una’s Lecturer, 2011-2012
Lisbet Rausing, Senior Research Fellow, Imperial College

"Who Guards the Guardians? Professors, Publishing, and the Public"
Monday, April 9, 2012
6 p.m. | Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall

Follow-up Panel Discussion with Lisbet Rausing
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
4-6 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Dr. Lisbet Rausing is a Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College’s Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. She is also the founder of the Arcadia Fund, which since 2001 has made grant commitments of over $181 million to preserve endangered treasures of culture and nature. Dr. Rausing is the author of Linnaeus: Nature and Nation as well as numerous scholarly articles, including “Toward a New Alexandria,” (The New Republic, March 2010), which addresses the future of libraries and public access to scholarly resources.

Webcast | More on Lisbet Rausing and Una's Lectures

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Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
Directed by Banksy

Monday, April 16, 2012
7 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Exit Through the Gift Shop focuses on Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant and aspiring filmmaker in Los Angeles who infiltrates the underground street art community and befriends the talented and elusive Banksy. As Guetta documents Banksy’s exploits, he slowly establishes an artistic profile of his own as “Mr. Brainwash,” leaving the audience to wonder who is subject and who is filmmaker.

Part of the Depth of Field Film + Video Series: Art & Culture in Transit(ion).

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Course Threads Symposium

Tuesday, April 24, 2012
4 p.m. | Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

The Course Threads Symposium is a capstone forum for students who have completed all requirements of the Course Threads Program. Students will present on the topics they studied within their thread, discussing the ways in which interdisciplinary course work informed their knowledge of the topic.