Past Events

| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

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.

<em>Up the Yangtze</em> (2007)

Directed by Yung Chang
Depth of Field Film + Video
| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

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

"Johnson's Friendships"
| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

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.

Tzvetan Todorov, Theorist

"Memory, a Remedy for Evil?”
Forum on the Humanities & the Public World
| Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall

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

“If Gardens are the Answer, What is the Question?”
Forum on the Humanities & the Public World
| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

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)

Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer
Depth of Field Film + Video
| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

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.

| Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall

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)

William Kentridge, Artist

“Learning from the Absurd”
Avenali Lecture
| Hertz Hall

With an innovative use of charcoal drawing, prints, collages, stop-animation, film and theater, South African artist William Kentridge’s work continues to attract international recognition. Especially distinctive are his hand-drawn films, which are created using a technique he calls "stone-age filmmaking.”

<em>Certain Doubts of William Kentridge</em> (2007)

Directed by Alex Gabassi
Depth of Field Film + Video
| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

In conjunction with Townsend’s 2008-2009 Avenali Lecture by South African artist William Kentridge, Depth of Field will feature two short documentaries on the artist and his work. Included in the screening will be Alex Gabassi’s 2007 biography of the artist, Certain Doubts of William Kentridge, and Kentridge’s interview with Dan Cameron, which focuses specifically on Kentridge’s animated short film, Automatic Writing.