UConn has been selected as a host site for a national traveling exhibition in 2016 for “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare.”
Full article from the Chronicle, Vl. 133 No. 52 Tuesday, March 3 2015
APRIL 16, 2015 – SHE-HULK and THE CITY
APRIL 16, 2015
4:00 PM Laurel Hall, Room 302, Please contact uchi@uconn.edu or 486-9057 to reserve a seat
SHE-HULK and THE CITY
by ROY T. COOK
Unlike DC Comics’ superheroes like Superman and Batman, who live in, and fight crime within, fictional cities such as Metropolis and Gotham, the superheroes of Marvel comics are not only city-dwellers, but inhabitants of a real city: New York. The use of New York (and, in fact, for the most part Manhattan) as the setting for the vast majority of Marvel’s superhero stories does not merely add a sense of realism to these comics by locating these fantastic adventures in a real-life setting, in addition, the fact that these characters live in New York adds a substantial metafictional aspect to a great many of their stories. New York is not only a real city, but it is the very city within which Marvel comics are published. Marvel Comics has used a number of metafictional strategies including inserting both the company, its well-known creators and editors, and other New York luminaries into their stories. This significantly complicates the relationship between what is fictionally true of these superheroic characters and what is actually true of their producers and consumers. In this talk Cook will look at a character and comic that is particularly rich and fruitful in this regard: John Byrne’s early 1990’s run on Sensational She-Hulk. He will detail how the subtle interactions between the fictional world that the She-Hulk inhabits, the actual city within which these comics are produced, and the very real and very intentional overlap between the two, complicates and enriches our understanding of how fiction works within serialized narrative art.
Roy T. Cook is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities and Resident Fellow of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. He has published over fifty articles and book chapters on logic, the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of art (especially popular art). He co-edited The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach (Wiley-Blackwell 2012) with Aaron Meskin, and is the author of The Yablo Paradox: An Essay on Circularity (Oxford University Press 2014) and Paradoxes (Polity 2013). He is also a co-founder of the interdisciplinary comics studies blog PencilPanelPage and hopes to someday write a book about the Sensational She-Hulk. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife, their cat Mr. Prickley, and approximately 2.5 million LEGO bricks.
Race and Anarchy Conference 3/26-3/27 UConn
Race and Anarchy Conference 3/26-3/27
Thursday, March 26th
Dodd Research Center
2:00 PM–3:20 PM Special exhibit of anarchist and race-related papers in the Archives & Special Collections in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, curated by Graham Stinnett (reception with refreshments will be in the hall)
Class of 1947 Room, Babbidge Library:
3:30 PM–3:45 PM Opening Remarks: Jane Anna Gordon, Political Science and Africana Studies, and Lewis R. Gordon, Philosophy and Africana Studies
3:45 PM–4:45 PM Reflections on Anarchy at UCONN
Introduced and moderated by Donald Baxter, Philosophy, UCONN
Leonard Krimerman, Philosophy, UCONN
4:45 PM–6:00 PM Keynote Address
Introduced and moderated by Jeffrey Ogbar, History and Center for Popular Music, UCONN
John Bracey, Afro-American Studies, UMASS-AMHERST
Friday, March 27, 2015
African American Cultural Center, 4th Floor, Student Union, UCONN
9:00 AM–9:30 AM Morning refreshments and opening remarks, Lewis R. Gordon and Willena Price, Director of the African American Cultural Center
9:30 AM–10:45 AM American Perspectives on Anarchism and Race
Introduced and moderated by Fred Lee, Political Science and Asian and Asian-American Studies, UCONN
Jorell Melendez, History, UCONN
Edward Avery-Natale, Sociology, North Dakota State University
10:45 AM–12:00 PM Decolonization and Decoloniality
Introduced and moderated by Elisa Cicchinato, University of Paris-East and Deivison Mendes Nkosi, Federal University of Brazil
George Ciccariello-Maher, Political Science and History, Drexel University
Nejm Benessaiah, Anthropology, University of Kent
12:00 PM–1:00 PM Buffet lunch at the African American Cultural Center with a special welcome from Jelani Cobb, History and Director of the Africana Studies Institute
African American Cultural Center, 4th Floor, Student Union, UCONN
1:00 PM–2:45 PM Indigeneity, Race, Sexuality
Introduced and moderated by Melina Pappademos, History, UCONN
Irene Calis, Political and International Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa
Tshepo Madlingozi, Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Tanya Saunders, Africana Studies, Ohio State University
2:45 PM–3:00 PM Next Steps
Edward Avery-Natale
George Ciccariello-Maher
3:00-3:15 PM Concluding remarks: Jane Gordon and Lewis Gordon
This event is free and open to the public.
Esther Allen: “Mañach’s Martí” – March 26, 2015 5:30pm
Associate Professor Esther Allen, writer and translator from Baruch College (CUNY), will speak about Jorge Mañach’s 1933 biography of José Martí at 4pm on March 26 in 236 Oak Hall.
Looking Beyond the Wall Encountering the Humanitarian Crisis on the Border – ROBERT NEUSTADT
April 14, 2015 2:00 PM –
CLAS/AUSTIN, Stern Room 217
In this talk, Neustadt describes the extraordinary field trips to the Arizona/Mexico border he has been taking with students since 2010. He discusses the environmental, financial, political and humanitarian costs of the border Wall. He also touches on how the pedagogy of field trips—experiential education—brings down walls that separate professors from students as well as students from other students. Finally, he will talk about the discursive wall that separates “us” from “them” (US citizens from undocumented migrants), a wall that silences the undocumented and obscures the humanitarian crisis on the border from most people’s view.
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Robert A. Neustadt, Professor of Spanish and Director of Latin American Studies at Northern Arizona University, has published two books on performance and experimental art. Since 2010 he has been taking classes on field trips to the U.S. / Mexico border where students experience, first hand, the human, environmental and political dimensions of immigration. He co-produced, Border Songs, a double
cd of music and spoken word about the border and immigration.
The Early Evolution of Christian Philanthropy – Daniel Caner
Daniel Caner, associate professor in the departments of history and literatures, cultures, and languages
During a 300-year period that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the first truly complex Christian society emerged in the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, that claimed much of Southeastern Europe, the Near East, and the northern coast of Africa, according to Associate Professor of History and Literatures, Cultures, and Languages Daniel Caner.
“This was first time that the state became so intertwined with a totalizing religion like Christianity,” says Caner, whose work specializes in the social and cultural history of Late Antiquity. “Starting in the 4th century, you see the state starting to fund churches and monasteries and encouraging laypeople to give to these institutions as a way to salvation.”
This new use of religious gifts by the state to promote social order, though very different from today’s secular concept of philanthropy, laid the foundation for many modern charitable practices. But while Caner says that early Christian philanthropy was part of an earnest attempt to produce a utopian society, he also emphasizes that it raises complex ethical questions that people still grapple with about wealth scarcity, acquisition, and distribution.
“The post-classical period is a fascinating study of how wealth is held onto by few people,” says Caner. “In the previous era, wealth was controlled by Roman senators and aristocracy; here you see the system challenged, broken up [with the fall of the Western Roman Empire], and reformed with another set of elites.”
UConn has been chosen to be part of the traveling Shakespeare First Folio exhibition in 2016
UConn has been selected as a host site for a national traveling exhibition in 2016 for “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare.”
The “First Folio” is the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays published in 1623 by two of his fellow actors, seven years after the Bard’s death. The collection includes 18 plays that would otherwise have been lost, including “Macbeth,” Julius Caesar,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Tempest,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” “The Comedy of Errors” and As You Like It.” The exhibition will take place in the Gilman Gallery at the William Benton Museum of Art in Storrs.
The tour is a partnership between The Folger Shakespeare Library, Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association and will be hosted by one institution in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s passing. Specific dates for the tour host sites will be announced in April.
El Instituto, the Asian/Asian American Studies Institute, Sociology, and the Political Theory Workshop are sponsoring two events with Cristina Beltrán, Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University.
Feb 10th 2015
11:00 am – 12:30 pm, 438 Oak Hall
A chat with graduate students from political science and sociology—but seriously, everyone is welcome
The second is a public talk,
“Making Sense of Latino Conservatives”:
3:30 pm, Class of 1947 Room, Homer Babbidge Library
Please contact Fred Lee at fred.lee@uconn.edu for more information.
LECTURE BY DR. MARK ANTHONY NEAL DUKE UNIVERSITY, Monday, February 9th , 4:00 PM
Monday, February 9th , 4:00 PM Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Konover Auditorium
“Let me Bang Your Box: The Erotic Life of the Blues”
LECTURE BY DR. MARK ANTHONY NEAL (DUKE UNIVERSITY)
Monday, February 9th , 4:00 PM
Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Konover Auditorium
MODERATED BY RAHNI SONG Grammy-Nominated & Platinum-Selling Producer, Performer and Songwriter
UConn Scholar-in-Residence
Free and Open to the Public!
Reception and Refreshments to Follow
THE FIRST PAN-AFRICAN BARAZA: FRANTZ FANON AT 90 DISCUSSION BY PROF LEWIS GORDON
Talks organized by the Pan-African Baraza & Thought Works to mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of Frantz Fanon. A lecture by Professor Lewis Gordon, Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor at Rhodes University, South Africa, and Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies, with affiliation in Judaic Studies, at the University of Connecticut, USA.
