The Stanford Humanities Center will sponsor a Dissertation Writing Group in 2012-13.
This program fosters intensive and supportive exchange across humanistic fields for those in the final stages of dissertation writing. Graduate students from a variety of humanities departments present and discuss their work in a multidisciplinary context. Students whose projects cut across a number of fields may find this forum especially helpful to their scholarship.
Eligibility
Stanford graduate students from humanities departments who have advanced to the chapter-writing phase of the dissertation.
Commitment
Meetings will be held at the Humanities Center from 4 to 6 pm on Thursdays every other week. Eligible students may sign up to participate during one of three quarters (autumn, winter, or spring) and must agree to attend all meetings held during that quarter (5 meetings total). Participation will be limited to a maximum of 10 students per quarter.
Format
Up to two participants will pre-circulate a chapter or portion of a chapter (no more than 35 pages) by Friday of the week preceding each meeting. The group will read these chapters in advance. Each chapter will receive approximately 45 minutes of structured feedback and constructive critique. A short portion of each meeting will be devoted to general concerns of the group.
Guests
Participants may invite advisors, committee members, and other interested parties to read pre-circulated chapters and attend the meeting at which they present.
Facilitation
The Associate Director of the Humanities Center will run the workshop.
Sign up now!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Fellows Spotlight: Johanna Yunker
by Brianne Felsher
Art cannot be separated from the history and culture that surround and influence it. Johanna Yunker is proving this point in “Socialism and Feminism in East German Opera,” the dissertation she is writing as a graduate student of musicology at Stanford University and a Geballe Dissertation Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center. Her work looks at the careers and works of two East German artists: Ruth Zechlin, composer and musician, and Ruth Berghaus, opera director and choreographer. How were these women’s lives and artistic products influenced by the socialist state? By the avant-garde art community? By East Germany’s particular type of feminism? These are the questions that Johanna Yunker explores in her work.
The answers are complicated: “Women in East Germany had a very unusual position [because of socialism],” Yunker explains. They had a “literary feminism… It was not about protesting or changing laws.” She shows how the two artists approached womanhood, feminism, and gender roles in different ways. Director Ruth Berghaus’ 1982 production of Les Troyens, for example, featured a strong female lead as well as a program that included exerpts from the novel Cassandra by Christa Wolf, one of East Germany’s most influential female writers. In contrast, Ruth Zechlin wanted people to think of her simply as a composer, not, as many people did, always a “female composer.” Zechlin said of her music, “To me it is entirely unimportant if a work was composed by a woman or a man. It just counts if the music is good or bad.”
Yunker spent a year in Berlin learning German, listening to opera and sifting through musical scores, newspaper reviews, photographs, and decaying VHS recordings of productions from the 1980s. Although both Zechlin and Berghaus have passed away, Yunker was able to gain unprecedented access to both womens’ personal archives through contact with their families. She has been able to digitize much in these archives to preserve them for future generations.
After she receives her doctorate, Yunker expects to teach music, and hopes to “continue [researching the] large cultural picture.” We shall be watching as she integrates feminism, culture, and art of the twenty-first century into her own professional and personal life.
 |
| Johanna Yunker |
The answers are complicated: “Women in East Germany had a very unusual position [because of socialism],” Yunker explains. They had a “literary feminism… It was not about protesting or changing laws.” She shows how the two artists approached womanhood, feminism, and gender roles in different ways. Director Ruth Berghaus’ 1982 production of Les Troyens, for example, featured a strong female lead as well as a program that included exerpts from the novel Cassandra by Christa Wolf, one of East Germany’s most influential female writers. In contrast, Ruth Zechlin wanted people to think of her simply as a composer, not, as many people did, always a “female composer.” Zechlin said of her music, “To me it is entirely unimportant if a work was composed by a woman or a man. It just counts if the music is good or bad.”
Yunker spent a year in Berlin learning German, listening to opera and sifting through musical scores, newspaper reviews, photographs, and decaying VHS recordings of productions from the 1980s. Although both Zechlin and Berghaus have passed away, Yunker was able to gain unprecedented access to both womens’ personal archives through contact with their families. She has been able to digitize much in these archives to preserve them for future generations.
After she receives her doctorate, Yunker expects to teach music, and hopes to “continue [researching the] large cultural picture.” We shall be watching as she integrates feminism, culture, and art of the twenty-first century into her own professional and personal life.
Friday, May 18, 2012
FSI-Humanities Center International Visitor Spotlight: Patrick Wolfe
By Camryn Douglass
Patrick Wolfe is a professor of history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and an FSI-Humanities Center International Visitor for 2011-12 in May. We spoke with him a bit about his time at Stanford last week:
What are you working on while at Stanford University?
What I’m trying to do while I’m here is finish off a large book that tries to put fairly well understood histories of the American West in comparative perspective. I’m organizing established, known material into an understanding that puts settler-colonialism as the primary factor involved in the history of the United States West in the post-Gilded Age era. It operates with a wide time frame, and it’s already taking me much too long to write because I keep adding bits! That’s the problem with comparative work. It just gets more and more tempting to say, “Hey, let’s see if this works somewhere else as well, or doesn’t.” In which case, the difference can be interesting. I’m hoping to leave Stanford with a raw first draft of the whole thing.
Please tell us a bit about how your project started.
My study of aboriginal history and aboriginal issues led me to wider questions of colonial and racial matters. I encountered a lot of U.S. students asking questions about aboriginal issues in relation to civil rights, or in relation to Native American issues. Since then I’ve been thinking more and more comparatively, or perhaps thinking comparatively about more and more places. My work is centered on indigenous histories in Australia and the United States, but for comparative purposes I stray outside those realms to issues regarding African Americans, Afro-Brazilians, and Palestinians.
What is settler-colonialism?
Settler-colonialism is a form of colonialism that is exclusive. It’s a “winner take all,” a zero-sum game, whereby outsiders come to a country, and seek to take it away from the people who already live there, remove them, replace them, and displace them, and take over the country, and make it their own. As such it’s different from the forms of colonialism which we saw in, say, British India, or the Dutch East Indies, or somewhere like that, where foreigners went, and sat on top of Native society, and put it to work for them. In settler colonies foreigners come to eliminate the Natives, to get rid of them. Not necessarily bodily, not necessarily physically. Classically, there are assimilation policies which, rather than physically exterminating Native people, seek to transform them into white people.
In the U.S., reservations are a classic mode of eliminating Natives. They don’t get rid of them, but they box them up in a fixed locale, and that has the effect of rendering the rest of their territory available for settler use for the railroads, for ranches, for plantations, for mining, whatever, it may be for forestry. Another such technique would be the allotment policy that was brought in on a general scale towards the end of the 19th century, which sought to break down reservations into private lots owned by individual families who could, of course, then sell them off to white people. So, again, it’s not the straightforward physical violence of the frontier, but it has the effect of eliminating the Native people.
Patrick Wolfe will give a lecture on settler-colonialism on Thursday, May 24 from 3-5 pm in the Stanford Humanities Center Board Room. All members of the Stanford Community are welcome.
Patrick Wolfe is a professor of history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and an FSI-Humanities Center International Visitor for 2011-12 in May. We spoke with him a bit about his time at Stanford last week:
What are you working on while at Stanford University?
 |
| Patrick Wolfe |
Please tell us a bit about how your project started.
My study of aboriginal history and aboriginal issues led me to wider questions of colonial and racial matters. I encountered a lot of U.S. students asking questions about aboriginal issues in relation to civil rights, or in relation to Native American issues. Since then I’ve been thinking more and more comparatively, or perhaps thinking comparatively about more and more places. My work is centered on indigenous histories in Australia and the United States, but for comparative purposes I stray outside those realms to issues regarding African Americans, Afro-Brazilians, and Palestinians.
What is settler-colonialism?
Settler-colonialism is a form of colonialism that is exclusive. It’s a “winner take all,” a zero-sum game, whereby outsiders come to a country, and seek to take it away from the people who already live there, remove them, replace them, and displace them, and take over the country, and make it their own. As such it’s different from the forms of colonialism which we saw in, say, British India, or the Dutch East Indies, or somewhere like that, where foreigners went, and sat on top of Native society, and put it to work for them. In settler colonies foreigners come to eliminate the Natives, to get rid of them. Not necessarily bodily, not necessarily physically. Classically, there are assimilation policies which, rather than physically exterminating Native people, seek to transform them into white people.
In the U.S., reservations are a classic mode of eliminating Natives. They don’t get rid of them, but they box them up in a fixed locale, and that has the effect of rendering the rest of their territory available for settler use for the railroads, for ranches, for plantations, for mining, whatever, it may be for forestry. Another such technique would be the allotment policy that was brought in on a general scale towards the end of the 19th century, which sought to break down reservations into private lots owned by individual families who could, of course, then sell them off to white people. So, again, it’s not the straightforward physical violence of the frontier, but it has the effect of eliminating the Native people.
Patrick Wolfe will give a lecture on settler-colonialism on Thursday, May 24 from 3-5 pm in the Stanford Humanities Center Board Room. All members of the Stanford Community are welcome.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Everyday Comedy
By Camryn Douglass
Scene: After a swim at the beach, a man attempts to dry himself off while standing in front of a light post. He flings the towel around his back, inadvertently wrapping the towel around the post behind him. He pulls the towel back and forth (around the post, not his back) and is confused about why he cannot get dry. The man is frustrated and he goes home dripping wet. The audience shrieks with laughter.
This scene from Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulots’ Holiday may not be as grand as a house collapsing around Buster Keaton, but it elicits the same joy from the audience. Why? Because Tati has shown the audience a character they can all relate to. He is someone they could know, and the basic misunderstanding represented is a common experience. It is this mastery of the comic ordinary that first attracted the interest of External Faculty Fellow Malcolm Turvey who is examining Tati's unique comedic style for his upcoming book Play Time: Jacques Tati and Comic Modernism.
“Tati is interesting for a number of reasons,” Turvey remarks. “His first three films (The Big Day, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, and My Uncle) were very, very popular with ordinary people. When they were released they did well in the theaters, and they’ve since gone on to have a long afterlife. On the other hand, he also cultivated a very challenging–some even say avant-garde–style of filmmaking. So he brings together this highly idiosyncratic, difficult, challenging visual and oral style, and combines it with the more popular genre of comedy. He exemplifies a trend in avant-garde art of the twentieth century, which is to draw on comedy.”
Hidden Comedy
Some are quick to relegate comedy to the category of mere distraction, but Turvey sees much more in Tati’s art. “One of the unusual things about his films is you always notice something new when you rewatch them,” Turvey says. “He deliberately hides a lot of the gags and comedy in his movies. He exemplifies this kind of larger commingling of avant-garde, advanced art, and popular comedy.”
After speaking with Turvey, it is very clear that Tati’s art of comedy is special. It is not simply gag after gag watching someone with incredible abilities entertain. Tati is trying to do something with his work. “If you watch a Charlie Chaplin film, Chaplin comes off as a very extraordinary person. He’s different from everyone else.” Turvey explains. “Tati wanted his major comic character, Monsieur Hulot, to be totally ordinary.” And herein lies the element of Tati’s filmmaking that makes him so unique among his peers: Tati did not shoot to be an outlier. As Turvey points out, Tati wanted to portray characters that you felt you knew–your friend, your uncle, your teacher. Rather than elevate comedy as a spectacle, Tati sought to make comedy accessible to everyone. He wished to “suggest that comedy is not something that only experts can do, but rather it’s something that anyone and everyone can be involved in.” He wanted to “democratize comedy, and take it out of the hands of specialists.”
Comic Modernity
Tati took special care to bring comedy to the masses. He took the emphasis off of himself, and invited a kind of participatory spectatorship. Other comedic directors tended to frame something funny in a close up, so the viewer is fed the joke. Tati, however, tended to avoid close ups and preferred that the viewer seek out the joke. He created an active experience where the viewer is largely dependent upon his or her own participation in order to get the fullest experience of the movie. If the viewer was not actively looking all throughout the scene, she would miss the joke altogether.
Why did Tati work so hard to layer his comedy and get the viewer involved? Tati wanted to “transform life in some way,” Turvey explains. “He hoped, I think, that once he’d shown you while watching a film how funny ordinary things can be, you would then go out into the world, and notice ordinary things as funny.” Tati hoped to teach the viewer to look for humor in everyday life. Perhaps this is one reason his films are so appealing. They teach us to look for humor, rather than wait for it.
Turvey also has another suggestion. Much of Tati’s comedy surrounds the failures of his character, Monsieur Hulot, has at fitting in to modern society. “The modern world is difficult for many people to live in,” Turvey explains. Tati’s films strive to show comedy in everyday life. They relate to a common struggle most people face. By showing us in films how to look for the funny parts of modern life, people can better cope with the struggles of living in a modern world.
See if you can find the hidden comedy in this clip. Hint: it has to do with a sock.
Scene: After a swim at the beach, a man attempts to dry himself off while standing in front of a light post. He flings the towel around his back, inadvertently wrapping the towel around the post behind him. He pulls the towel back and forth (around the post, not his back) and is confused about why he cannot get dry. The man is frustrated and he goes home dripping wet. The audience shrieks with laughter.
 |
| Malcolm Turvey |
“Tati is interesting for a number of reasons,” Turvey remarks. “His first three films (The Big Day, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, and My Uncle) were very, very popular with ordinary people. When they were released they did well in the theaters, and they’ve since gone on to have a long afterlife. On the other hand, he also cultivated a very challenging–some even say avant-garde–style of filmmaking. So he brings together this highly idiosyncratic, difficult, challenging visual and oral style, and combines it with the more popular genre of comedy. He exemplifies a trend in avant-garde art of the twentieth century, which is to draw on comedy.”
Hidden Comedy
Some are quick to relegate comedy to the category of mere distraction, but Turvey sees much more in Tati’s art. “One of the unusual things about his films is you always notice something new when you rewatch them,” Turvey says. “He deliberately hides a lot of the gags and comedy in his movies. He exemplifies this kind of larger commingling of avant-garde, advanced art, and popular comedy.”
After speaking with Turvey, it is very clear that Tati’s art of comedy is special. It is not simply gag after gag watching someone with incredible abilities entertain. Tati is trying to do something with his work. “If you watch a Charlie Chaplin film, Chaplin comes off as a very extraordinary person. He’s different from everyone else.” Turvey explains. “Tati wanted his major comic character, Monsieur Hulot, to be totally ordinary.” And herein lies the element of Tati’s filmmaking that makes him so unique among his peers: Tati did not shoot to be an outlier. As Turvey points out, Tati wanted to portray characters that you felt you knew–your friend, your uncle, your teacher. Rather than elevate comedy as a spectacle, Tati sought to make comedy accessible to everyone. He wished to “suggest that comedy is not something that only experts can do, but rather it’s something that anyone and everyone can be involved in.” He wanted to “democratize comedy, and take it out of the hands of specialists.”
Comic Modernity
Tati took special care to bring comedy to the masses. He took the emphasis off of himself, and invited a kind of participatory spectatorship. Other comedic directors tended to frame something funny in a close up, so the viewer is fed the joke. Tati, however, tended to avoid close ups and preferred that the viewer seek out the joke. He created an active experience where the viewer is largely dependent upon his or her own participation in order to get the fullest experience of the movie. If the viewer was not actively looking all throughout the scene, she would miss the joke altogether.
Why did Tati work so hard to layer his comedy and get the viewer involved? Tati wanted to “transform life in some way,” Turvey explains. “He hoped, I think, that once he’d shown you while watching a film how funny ordinary things can be, you would then go out into the world, and notice ordinary things as funny.” Tati hoped to teach the viewer to look for humor in everyday life. Perhaps this is one reason his films are so appealing. They teach us to look for humor, rather than wait for it.
Turvey also has another suggestion. Much of Tati’s comedy surrounds the failures of his character, Monsieur Hulot, has at fitting in to modern society. “The modern world is difficult for many people to live in,” Turvey explains. Tati’s films strive to show comedy in everyday life. They relate to a common struggle most people face. By showing us in films how to look for the funny parts of modern life, people can better cope with the struggles of living in a modern world.
Monday, April 30, 2012
International Q&A with SiCa-Humanities Center 2011 Arts Writer/Practitioner M.K Raina
By Marie-Pierre Ulloa
Why and how did you become a theatre artist?
It all started long back, when I was a school kid of seven years. Our school principal, Mr. Deena Nath Nadeem, a legendary poet of the Kashmiri language, wrote a verse play for the children of the school. The play was about birds, animals, humans, and their inter-relationships. It was a futuristic thing dealing with the co-existence between these two worlds–that is the human and the non-human world, nature. It had lovely songs set to folk melodies that we, as children, sang. Later these became big hit songs over the radio. I had a major role to play, that of an orphan child driven away by evil uncles along with my little sister into a forest full of trees, birds and animals–a microcosm of nature, where these children are taken care of by the inhabitants of this forest.
It is from this experience that I started my journey as a child actor in all sorts of plays, where a child was needed. All these plays were in my mother tongue, Kashmiri.
Now, looking back, I think I perhaps had a hidden desire to perform and organise group activities. In my early years, we had formed a performance group in our locality and we would often create some kind of improvised performances and show it to our friends and some times to our elders. Most of the times, I remember I used to lead such endeavours and my fellow child artists had to follow my instructions. Many a times there would be arguments and showdowns, and the elders would have to intervene. Perhaps this was a part of our very tight-knit community living and also part of our Hindu-Muslim interconnectivity.
During all these growing-up years, I had the privilege of being encouraged by my parents and my grandmother. They never objected to my activities or interfered in any way from my childhood to my college days. My state of Jammu and Kashmir offered me a three-year scholarship to join the National School of Drama, New Delhi, where I got trained as a theatre professional. Along with my theatre activity, I studied biology chemistry up to university level. At one point I had a choice either to become a doctor like my father or become a biochemist, but I followed my heart. This decision surprised my entire clan except my parents, since no one in my family had ever ventured into the world of arts. My parents’ simple encouragement and faith in me has been my inspiration all these years. I have stayed a free-lance theatre person all these forty years working not only in India but also in South Asia both in theatre and films.
What are the three or four seminal plays in a theatre director’s dream repertory, and in yours in particular?
One cannot speak for other directors, since each director works in his own world and under his particular national culture specifics and social conditions. For me, I always had this desire to deal with classics from Sanskrit plays like KALI DASA’S Shakuntla, or Bhasis – urubhangam. Among contemporary plays I love plays that deal with the predicament of a human condition in the present social-political environment. I love themes and concepts developed by me in collaboration with traditional and professional performers, a kind of lab work, which later develops into a major theatre production. The themes one has dealt with in the area of my work are the concepts of displacement of people involving different cultures, beliefs, histories, violence and memory.
Who are your models and mentors, if any?
This is a difficult question, for a person who lost his home, his town, and who has witnessed violence and has escaped death many times, in cross fires. All models and mentors vanished during the many trials one has undergone. It is a sad and lonely state to be in. Hence I always look inwards into myself for inspiration and courage. I have always said that I am like a stream of water flowing down the hill, making its own path around any obstacles and moving on, and one day this stream will naturally dry up and become invisible.
I have no Gurus. I learned from many teachers and some of them have been the poorest of the poor with great wisdom.
Which are the most critical skills in order to become a good theatre director?
The most important skill is experiencing life in all its colours and shades. One can study in the best universities and learn skills from great teachers and masters. But if one does not learn and absorbs the essence of compassion and subsume it into one’s soul, all knowledge and skills will remain a bag of tricks and empty shells. Mahatama Gandhi once said, “If you are in a dilemma about a decision that you have to take, and you do not know what to do, at that moment recall the face of a poorest and most impoverished human being in front of you and think, can this particular action of yours change his life and empower him. Then you will be able to make the right decision.”
Why and how did you become a theatre artist?
 |
| M.K. Raina |
It is from this experience that I started my journey as a child actor in all sorts of plays, where a child was needed. All these plays were in my mother tongue, Kashmiri.
Now, looking back, I think I perhaps had a hidden desire to perform and organise group activities. In my early years, we had formed a performance group in our locality and we would often create some kind of improvised performances and show it to our friends and some times to our elders. Most of the times, I remember I used to lead such endeavours and my fellow child artists had to follow my instructions. Many a times there would be arguments and showdowns, and the elders would have to intervene. Perhaps this was a part of our very tight-knit community living and also part of our Hindu-Muslim interconnectivity.
During all these growing-up years, I had the privilege of being encouraged by my parents and my grandmother. They never objected to my activities or interfered in any way from my childhood to my college days. My state of Jammu and Kashmir offered me a three-year scholarship to join the National School of Drama, New Delhi, where I got trained as a theatre professional. Along with my theatre activity, I studied biology chemistry up to university level. At one point I had a choice either to become a doctor like my father or become a biochemist, but I followed my heart. This decision surprised my entire clan except my parents, since no one in my family had ever ventured into the world of arts. My parents’ simple encouragement and faith in me has been my inspiration all these years. I have stayed a free-lance theatre person all these forty years working not only in India but also in South Asia both in theatre and films.
What are the three or four seminal plays in a theatre director’s dream repertory, and in yours in particular?
One cannot speak for other directors, since each director works in his own world and under his particular national culture specifics and social conditions. For me, I always had this desire to deal with classics from Sanskrit plays like KALI DASA’S Shakuntla, or Bhasis – urubhangam. Among contemporary plays I love plays that deal with the predicament of a human condition in the present social-political environment. I love themes and concepts developed by me in collaboration with traditional and professional performers, a kind of lab work, which later develops into a major theatre production. The themes one has dealt with in the area of my work are the concepts of displacement of people involving different cultures, beliefs, histories, violence and memory.
Who are your models and mentors, if any?
This is a difficult question, for a person who lost his home, his town, and who has witnessed violence and has escaped death many times, in cross fires. All models and mentors vanished during the many trials one has undergone. It is a sad and lonely state to be in. Hence I always look inwards into myself for inspiration and courage. I have always said that I am like a stream of water flowing down the hill, making its own path around any obstacles and moving on, and one day this stream will naturally dry up and become invisible.
I have no Gurus. I learned from many teachers and some of them have been the poorest of the poor with great wisdom.
Which are the most critical skills in order to become a good theatre director?
The most important skill is experiencing life in all its colours and shades. One can study in the best universities and learn skills from great teachers and masters. But if one does not learn and absorbs the essence of compassion and subsume it into one’s soul, all knowledge and skills will remain a bag of tricks and empty shells. Mahatama Gandhi once said, “If you are in a dilemma about a decision that you have to take, and you do not know what to do, at that moment recall the face of a poorest and most impoverished human being in front of you and think, can this particular action of yours change his life and empower him. Then you will be able to make the right decision.”
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Humanities Center Names 2012-13 Fellows
The Stanford Humanities Center has named 28 fellows for the 2012-13 academic year. Chosen from a pool of over 400 applicants, the 2012-13 cohort comprises scholars from other institutions, as well as Stanford faculty and advanced Stanford graduate students. Fellows will pursue individual research and writing for the full academic year while contributing to the Stanford community through their participation in workshops, lectures, and courses.
Mark Antliff, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Duke University
Sculpture Against the State: Direct Carving, Gaudier-Brzeska and the Cultural Politics of Anarchism
Marcelo Aranda, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
Between Discovery and Enlightenment: Spanish Scientific Culture through Decline, War and Reform, 1670-1735
Oksana Bulgakowa, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Institute of Film, Theater and Cultural Studies, Gutenberg University, Mainz
Voice and the Traces of Time: The Russian Archive of Vocal Memory
James Campbell, Donald Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
Freedom Now: History, Memory, and the Mississippi Freedom Movement
Adrian Daub, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of German Studies, Stanford University
Dynasties: The Nuclear Family and its Discontents in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany
Graciela De Pierris, Violet Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Hume, Kant, and the Metaphysical Tradition
Siyen Fei, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
Sexuality and Empire: Female Chastity and Frontier Societies in Ming China (1368-1644)
Corisande Fenwick, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Fashioning State and Subject in Late Antique and early Medieval North Africa (500-800)
Marisa Galvez, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of French and Italian, Stanford University
Training for Holy War: The Poetics of Crusade Writing
Bruce Hall, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, Duke University
Bonds of Trade: Slavery and Commerce in the 19th-century Circum-Saharan World
Héctor Hoyos, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, Stanford University
The Commodity as Prism: A Hundred Years of Latin American Things
James Kierstead, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Classics, Stanford University
An Association of Associations: Social Capital and Group Dynamics in Democratic Athens
Matthew Kohrman, Donald Andrew Whittier Fellow
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Making Life and Death in China’s Urban Cigarette Market
Barbara Kowalzig, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Classics, New York University
Gods Around the Pond: Religion, Society and the Sea in the Early Mediterranean Economy
Aida Mbowa, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Drama, Stanford University
Dialogic Constructions of a New Black Aesthetic: East Africa and African America, 1952-1979
Robert Morrison, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Religion, Bowdoin College
Jewish Scholars in Renaissance Italy
Sara Mrsny, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Justice, Labor, and the Family: Why We Should Accommodate Caregivers in Workplaces
Harriet Murav, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Marking Time: The Writing of David Bergelson
Nicoletta Orlandi, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Rice University
Seeing in Practice: Putting Vision in its Place
Padma Rangarajan, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of Colorado, Boulder
Thug Life: The British Empire and the Birth of Terrorism
Byron Sartain, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Music, Stanford University
François Couperin’s Pièces de clavecin and the Musical Communities of Paris and Versailles
Laura Stokes, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
The Murder of Uly Mörnach: Greed, Honor, and Violence in the Basel Butchers' Guild, 1502
Jennifer Tamas, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of French and Italian, Stanford University
Paradoxical Powers of Declarations in Old Regime and Revolutionary France
Sean Teuton, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Cities of Refuge: Indigenous Cosmopolitan Writers and the International Imaginary
Jennifer Trimble, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of Classics, Stanford University
Visual Literacies in Roman Art
Chloe Veltman, Arts Writer/Practitioner Fellow
Writer and Broadcaster
The Communal Voice: Exploring the Metaphorical Significance of Portrayals of Ensemble Singing in Art and Literature
Richard Vinograd, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University
Chinese Painting in Theory
Peter Woodford, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University
Religion, Science, and Value: The Philosophy of Life and its Critics
*****************************
The Center's fellowships are made possible by gifts and grants from the following individuals, foundations and Stanford offices: The Esther Hayfer Bloom Estate, Theodore H. and Frances K. Geballe, Mimi and Peter Haas, Marta Sutton Weeks, the Mericos Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the offices of the Dean of Research and the Dean of Humanities and Sciences.
Mark Antliff, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Duke University
Sculpture Against the State: Direct Carving, Gaudier-Brzeska and the Cultural Politics of Anarchism
Marcelo Aranda, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
Between Discovery and Enlightenment: Spanish Scientific Culture through Decline, War and Reform, 1670-1735
Oksana Bulgakowa, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Institute of Film, Theater and Cultural Studies, Gutenberg University, Mainz
Voice and the Traces of Time: The Russian Archive of Vocal Memory
James Campbell, Donald Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
Freedom Now: History, Memory, and the Mississippi Freedom Movement
Adrian Daub, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of German Studies, Stanford University
Dynasties: The Nuclear Family and its Discontents in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany
Graciela De Pierris, Violet Andrews Whittier Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Hume, Kant, and the Metaphysical Tradition
Siyen Fei, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
Sexuality and Empire: Female Chastity and Frontier Societies in Ming China (1368-1644)
Corisande Fenwick, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Fashioning State and Subject in Late Antique and early Medieval North Africa (500-800)
Marisa Galvez, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of French and Italian, Stanford University
Training for Holy War: The Poetics of Crusade Writing
Bruce Hall, External Faculty Fellow
Department of History, Duke University
Bonds of Trade: Slavery and Commerce in the 19th-century Circum-Saharan World
Héctor Hoyos, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, Stanford University
The Commodity as Prism: A Hundred Years of Latin American Things
James Kierstead, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Classics, Stanford University
An Association of Associations: Social Capital and Group Dynamics in Democratic Athens
Matthew Kohrman, Donald Andrew Whittier Fellow
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Making Life and Death in China’s Urban Cigarette Market
Barbara Kowalzig, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Classics, New York University
Gods Around the Pond: Religion, Society and the Sea in the Early Mediterranean Economy
Aida Mbowa, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Drama, Stanford University
Dialogic Constructions of a New Black Aesthetic: East Africa and African America, 1952-1979
Robert Morrison, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Religion, Bowdoin College
Jewish Scholars in Renaissance Italy
Sara Mrsny, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Justice, Labor, and the Family: Why We Should Accommodate Caregivers in Workplaces
Harriet Murav, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Marking Time: The Writing of David Bergelson
Nicoletta Orlandi, External Faculty Fellow
Department of Philosophy, Rice University
Seeing in Practice: Putting Vision in its Place
Padma Rangarajan, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of Colorado, Boulder
Thug Life: The British Empire and the Birth of Terrorism
Byron Sartain, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Music, Stanford University
François Couperin’s Pièces de clavecin and the Musical Communities of Paris and Versailles
Laura Stokes, Internal Faculty Fellow
Department of History, Stanford University
The Murder of Uly Mörnach: Greed, Honor, and Violence in the Basel Butchers' Guild, 1502
Jennifer Tamas, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of French and Italian, Stanford University
Paradoxical Powers of Declarations in Old Regime and Revolutionary France
Sean Teuton, External Faculty Fellow
Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Cities of Refuge: Indigenous Cosmopolitan Writers and the International Imaginary
Jennifer Trimble, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of Classics, Stanford University
Visual Literacies in Roman Art
Chloe Veltman, Arts Writer/Practitioner Fellow
Writer and Broadcaster
The Communal Voice: Exploring the Metaphorical Significance of Portrayals of Ensemble Singing in Art and Literature
Richard Vinograd, Ellen Andrews Wright Fellow
Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University
Chinese Painting in Theory
Peter Woodford, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow
Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University
Religion, Science, and Value: The Philosophy of Life and its Critics
*****************************
The Center's fellowships are made possible by gifts and grants from the following individuals, foundations and Stanford offices: The Esther Hayfer Bloom Estate, Theodore H. and Frances K. Geballe, Mimi and Peter Haas, Marta Sutton Weeks, the Mericos Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the offices of the Dean of Research and the Dean of Humanities and Sciences.
Friday, April 13, 2012
International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2012-13
By Marie-Pierre Ulloa
The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2012-13 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its fourth year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.
A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.
The following scholars have been selected for the upcoming academic year:
Maha Abdel-Rahman (April 2013) is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, and an Egyptian academic and activist. She holds a PhD from the Dutch Institute of Social Studies. While at Stanford, she will research the relationship between social movements and civil society in Egypt, and will give seminars based on her book project, On Protest Movements and Uprisings: Egypt’s Permanent Revolution. She was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.
Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He will explore the relationship between European settler colonialism and genocide in hunter-gatherer societies, and will bring to campus a comparative perspective on genocide, race, identity and language. His latest publication, The Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples (2010) was the first to deal with the topic of genocide in the South African context. He will also present from his edited book, Invariably Genocide?: When Hunter-gatherers and Commercial Stock Farmers Clash, due for publication in 2013. He was nominated by the Center for African Studies.
Nuray Mert (October 2012) is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University. She is a political observer and contributor to Turkey’s major newspapers (Milliyet and Hûrriyet Daily News), one of the few contemporary Turkish public intellectuals with an academic background and a journalist’s investigative mind. An outspoken critic on sensitive issues in the Turkish context such as rights of minorities (the Kurdish Question), freedom of religion and of press, she will lecture on the geopolitical implications of the Arab Spring for Turkey and the Middle East, and on Turkey’s accession to the European Union in light of the financial crisis of the Euro-zone. She was nominated by the Mediterranean Studies Forum.
Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His work explores the role of myth in Maori culture, the resolution of boundaries between the Maori and the New Zealand government, and where tribal/indigenous knowledge systems fit within the wider philosophy of knowledge. During his residency, he will examine how Pacific peoples adapted western knowledge systems, not just with regard to western technology but in more theoretical areas such as the pre-Socratic philosophers and the 19th century scientists. He will also focus on the migration of traditions from the Tahitian-Marquesas Island group to the outer lying island of Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaii). He was nominated by the Woods Institute for the Environment.
In addition to the jointly-sponsored program with FSI, the Humanities Center will also bring international visitors from France and India as part of the international programs at the Humanities Center.
Denis Lacorne (January 2013) is a prominent French public intellectual and Professor of Political Science at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) Sciences Po in Paris. Lacorne will give presentations on French and American notions of religious toleration, deriving from his latest book on US and French secularism which demonstrates that, despite some striking similarities between US secularism and French laïcité, the secularization of French society has followed a different path from that of American society. He was nominated by the French Culture Workshop and the History Department.
Himanshu Prabha Ray (May 2013) is an historian of Ancient India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she works in the fields of ancient India and maritime archaeology. During her residency, she will discuss and finalize her current book project, Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for Modern India, as well as her research on the creation of a public discourse around Buddhism in the colonial and post-colonial period in India. The Buddha, in her account, is not statically located in history, but rather contested within settings of colonialism, post-colonialism and nation-building. She was nominated by the Classics Department, with the support of the Department of Religious Studies, the Center for South Asia, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Archaeology Center.
While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa.
The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2012-13 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its fourth year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.
A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.
The following scholars have been selected for the upcoming academic year:
Maha Abdel-Rahman (April 2013) is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, and an Egyptian academic and activist. She holds a PhD from the Dutch Institute of Social Studies. While at Stanford, she will research the relationship between social movements and civil society in Egypt, and will give seminars based on her book project, On Protest Movements and Uprisings: Egypt’s Permanent Revolution. She was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.
Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He will explore the relationship between European settler colonialism and genocide in hunter-gatherer societies, and will bring to campus a comparative perspective on genocide, race, identity and language. His latest publication, The Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples (2010) was the first to deal with the topic of genocide in the South African context. He will also present from his edited book, Invariably Genocide?: When Hunter-gatherers and Commercial Stock Farmers Clash, due for publication in 2013. He was nominated by the Center for African Studies.
Nuray Mert (October 2012) is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University. She is a political observer and contributor to Turkey’s major newspapers (Milliyet and Hûrriyet Daily News), one of the few contemporary Turkish public intellectuals with an academic background and a journalist’s investigative mind. An outspoken critic on sensitive issues in the Turkish context such as rights of minorities (the Kurdish Question), freedom of religion and of press, she will lecture on the geopolitical implications of the Arab Spring for Turkey and the Middle East, and on Turkey’s accession to the European Union in light of the financial crisis of the Euro-zone. She was nominated by the Mediterranean Studies Forum.
Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His work explores the role of myth in Maori culture, the resolution of boundaries between the Maori and the New Zealand government, and where tribal/indigenous knowledge systems fit within the wider philosophy of knowledge. During his residency, he will examine how Pacific peoples adapted western knowledge systems, not just with regard to western technology but in more theoretical areas such as the pre-Socratic philosophers and the 19th century scientists. He will also focus on the migration of traditions from the Tahitian-Marquesas Island group to the outer lying island of Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaii). He was nominated by the Woods Institute for the Environment.
In addition to the jointly-sponsored program with FSI, the Humanities Center will also bring international visitors from France and India as part of the international programs at the Humanities Center.
Denis Lacorne (January 2013) is a prominent French public intellectual and Professor of Political Science at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) Sciences Po in Paris. Lacorne will give presentations on French and American notions of religious toleration, deriving from his latest book on US and French secularism which demonstrates that, despite some striking similarities between US secularism and French laïcité, the secularization of French society has followed a different path from that of American society. He was nominated by the French Culture Workshop and the History Department.
Himanshu Prabha Ray (May 2013) is an historian of Ancient India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she works in the fields of ancient India and maritime archaeology. During her residency, she will discuss and finalize her current book project, Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for Modern India, as well as her research on the creation of a public discourse around Buddhism in the colonial and post-colonial period in India. The Buddha, in her account, is not statically located in history, but rather contested within settings of colonialism, post-colonialism and nation-building. She was nominated by the Classics Department, with the support of the Department of Religious Studies, the Center for South Asia, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Archaeology Center.
While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa.
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