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Terrance Hayes visits Bloomington

This week, CAHI was delighted to present Terrance Hayes for a poetry reading at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Hayes is one of the essential poets writing in the U.S. Thursday night, October 3, he was warmly introduced by Provost Lauren Robel, then by longtime friend, Indiana Poet Laureate Adrian Matejka. Hayes read (and even sang) from his recent book, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Penguin Poets, 2018), a collection of work written in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. He was then joined on stage for a conversation with Matejka about his work.

Many thanks to our co-sponsor, the Susan D. Gubar Chair in Literature, as well as Provost Robel, the College of Arts + Sciences, the IU Arts and Humanities Council, and the Ruth N. Halls Humanities Fund. 

For more about Terrance Hayes, visit terrancehayes.com

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Tracy K. Smith, U.S. Poet Laureate, to Visit Bloomington in September 2018

CAHI is delighted to announce that Tracy K. Smith, U.S. poet laureate, will visit Bloomington in September 2018. Her visit will coincide with the IU Arts and Humanities Council’s September First Thursday Festival.

Most recently the author of Wade in the Water (2018), Smith has published four collections of poetry, as well as a memoir (Ordinary Light), which was a National Book Award Finalist in 2015. Her third volume of poems, Life on Mars, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2012.

Smith was first named Poet Laureate in 2017, but was since reappointed to a second term beginning in April 2018. She has recently been featured in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, and the New Yorker Radio Hour, among other national media outlets.

More information about Smith’s visit to Bloomington is forthcoming, but in the meantime, check out some of the above stories and interviews featuring Smith, and read up on her poetry!

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Also don’t miss Sophia McClennen’s talk on Latin American cinema & globalization next Thursday, at 4pm, as part of the IU Arts & Humanities Council’s First Thursday Festival!

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Counting down the days: one week until Laughtivism with Sophia McClennen & Srdja Popovic!

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Srdja Popovic on Tactics and Strategies of Non-Violent Struggle - Friday, March 2, 10:00am, GISB Auditorium (GA 0001)

Srdja Popovic is one of the founding members of the Serbian non-violent resistance movement Otpor!, which was instrumental in toppling the regime of former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. He is also a co-founder of the Centre for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an NGO in Belgrade that trains pro-democracy activists around the world, both in person and through online courses such as “Leading Nonviolent Movements for Social Progress.”

In 2015, Popovic published Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World, which reads like a how-to guide for staging your own nonviolent resistance movement. The book has received acclaim for its paradoxically serious humor—perhaps best articulated in a review from the Boston Globe: “By the end of 'Blueprint,' the idea that a punch is no match for a punch line feels like anything but a joke.”

Indeed, if funny, the methods that Popovic describes are in no way a joke. The creative techniques of nonviolent resistance developed by Otpor! and disseminated though the work of CANVAS have been adopted by resistance movements around the world. Named “the secret architect of the global revolution” by The Guardian, Popovic will offer a workshop on “Tactics and Strategies of Non-Violent Struggle,” drawing off his experiences working with resistance movements around the globe.

The workshop will be held Friday, March 2, at 10am (GISB Auditorium, GA 0001), in anticipation of his Friday evening appearance at “Laughtivism, a discussion on the contemporary function of political satire. On Friday at 7:30 pm (Fine Arts Auditorium, FA 015), Popovic will participate in a conversation with acclaimed scholar Sophia McClennen, focused on the power of satire as a force for fostering critical citizenship and challenging the status quo.

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Sophia McClennen on Latin American Cinema and Globalization - Thursday, March 1, 4:00pm, Indiana Memorial Union Oak Room

Sophia McClennen is Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at Penn State University, and founding director of Penn State’s Center for Global Studies. She has written two books on satire and U.S. politics and media: Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy and Is Satire Saving Our Nation?: Mockery and American Politics (co-authored with Remy Maisel).

McClennen’s studies of satire and politics hone in on the unique capabilities of satire in shaping a new generation of informed and involved citizens—while also being simply funny. Drawing off this work, McClennen will participate in “Laughtivism,” a discussion on the role of satire in contemporary politics along with Serbian activist Srdja Popovic on Friday, March 2, at 7:30 pm (Fine Arts Auditorium, FA 015).

In addition to her recent work with political satire, McClennen’s research engages with diverse forms of media and cultural production, including extensive work on Latin American cinema. McClennen has taught and conducted research throughout Latin America, and held a Fulbright faculty award in Peru in 2002 for her studies in Latin American film.

While in Bloomington, McClennen will give a lecture on “What Can Latin American Cinema Teach Us about Globalization?” on Thursday, March 1, at 4 pm (Oak Room, IMU). Her talk will focus on issues she takes on in her forthcoming book, Globalization and Latin American Cinema: Towards a New Critical Paradigm.

Studying the case of Latin American cinema, McClennen analyzes one of the most public - and most exportable - forms of postcolonial national culture to argue that millennial era globalization demands entirely new frameworks for thinking about the relationship between politics, culture, and economic policies. Tracing the full life-cycle of films and studying blockbusters like City of God, Motorcycle Diaries, and Children of Men, this talk argues that neoliberal globalization has created a highly ambivalent space for cultural expression, one willing to market against itself as long as the stories sell.

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CAHI presents "Laughtivism: The Power of Political Satire Today" -- Friday, March 2, 7:30pm, Fine Arts Auditorium (FA 015)

The College Arts & Humanities Institute is delighted to host a discussion with Serbian activist Srdja Popovic and acclaimed scholar Sophia McClennen on the contemporary power and functions of political satire. 

In a political climate in which sensitive news stories and entire media outlets are frequently denounced as “fake news,” political satire in the U.S. and around the world has been gaining prominence. Together, McClennen and Popovic will share their perspectives on the power of satire as a force for fostering critical citizenship and challenging the status quo. 

Earlier on Friday, at 10am, Popovic will offer a workshop on “Tactics and Strategies of Non-Violent Struggle” (GISB Auditorium, GA 0001) that draws on his experiences working with resistance movements around the world. He will also answer questions and speak about the Centre for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), of which he is co-director. 

On Thursday, March 1, Professor McClennen will give a lecture on “What Can Latin American Cinema Teach Us about Globalization?” (4pm, Oak Room, IMU) as part of First Thursday. Her talk addresses the issues that she discusses in her forthcoming book, Globalization and Latin American Cinema: Towards a New Critical Paradigm. 

Srdja Popovic is one of the founding members of the Serbian non-violent resistance movement Otpor!, which was instrumental in toppling Slobodan Milosevic’s regime, and the Centre for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an NGO in Belgrade that trains pro-democracy activists around the world, both in person and through online courses such as “Leading Nonviolent Movements for Social Progress.” Popovic is author of Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World. 

Sophia McClennen is Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at Penn State University, and founding director of Penn State’s Center for Global Studies. She has written two books on satire and U.S. politics and media: Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy and Is Satire Saving Our Nation?: Mockery and American Politics (co-authored with Remy Maisel). She has written extensively on questions of human rights and terrorism, and is co-author (with Jeffrey Di Leo, Henry Giroux, and Kenneth Saltman) of Neoliberalism, Education, Terrorism: Contemporary Dialogues, and co-editor (with Alexandra Schultheis Moore) of The Routledge Companion to Human Rights and Literature. 

These events are presented by the College Arts & Humanities Institute and co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the Political and Civic Engagement Program (PACE), the Media School, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Department of Political Science, the Russian and East European Institute, and the Indiana Memorial Union Board.

Special thanks so the Friends of Art Bookshop, who will be on hand to sell copies of the speakers’ books Friday evening, March 2. Please join us for a book signing following the event.

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George Saunders Interview for WFIU’s Profiles

Earlier this year, CAHI welcomed George Saunders to IU Bloomington for a public reading at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. While on campus, Saunders sat down with Aaron Cain for an interview for WFIU’s Profiles. Listen to the interview here.

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Jakobi Williams at the Chicago Humanities Festival

Each year, CAHI sends one of the scholars or artists working here at IU to the Chicago Humanities Festival to share their work with the passionate and curious audiences in Chicago. Past presenters from IU have included John Lucaites, Christoph Irmscher, and Arthur Liou. This year, Jakobi Williams, from History and AAADS, gave a rousing overview of his compelling research on the Black Panther Party of Chicago and the origins of the Rainbow Coalition. It was a great event, with an attentive and engaged audience. Jakobi did IU proud. Here is a YouTube video of that event.

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Jefferson Cowie lecture: “Work, Inequality, and Diversity in the American Century” - Thursday, Nov. 19, Mathers Museum of World Cultures

CAHI is delighted to partner with Themester to present Jefferson Cowie, Professor of Labor History at Cornell, at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures on Thursday, November 19, at 5:00pm.

Cowie will give a lecture titled “Work, Inequality, and Diversity in the American Century.” Once an obscure form of compensation, the buying and selling of a person’s labor power with pay grew to defeat slavery and other forms of servitude to become one of the defining elements of the modern age. Balancing the social history of working people with the history of ideas, Cowie will discuss the complex mix of freedom and coercion in the wage relationship, while exploring its instability and changing nature over time.

The previous day, Wednesday, November 18, Cowie will be joined by Joseph Varga of IU’s Labor Studies program and local labor leaders Chuck Deppert (AFL-CIO), Bill Fairborn (IBEW), and Jackie Yenna (White River Central Labor Council) for a discussion of Bloomington’s labor history at the Monroe Country History Center at 5:30pm. Both events are free and open to the public.

Jefferson Cowie teaches labor and working-class history, with research spanning a number of areas including politics, social history, and popular culture. His books focus on workers and the problem of social class in the postwar United States with an eye toward international and comparative history. He is the author of Capital Moves: RCA’s Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor, which received the Philip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History for 2000, and co-editor of Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization (2003), and, most recently, of Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (2010), which received a number of awards, including the Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History from the Society of American Historians, the Merle Curti Award from the Organization of American Historians, and the best book award from Labor History.

Professor Cowie’s visit is co-sponsored by the College Arts & Humanities Institute and Themester 2015: “@Work: The Nature of Labor on a Changing Planet,” an initiative of the College of Arts & Sciences.

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On Wednesday, February 18, CAHI hosted a talk by pop music scholar and critic Eric Weisbard, Assistant Professor of American studies at the University of Alabama and the founder and longtime organizer of the acclaimed EMP Pop Conference. Weisbard has worked as an editor and contributing writer at Spin and The Village Voice.

His recent book, Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music, offers a close look at top 40 radio as it has provided the soundtrack of American life for more than half a century. In it, Weisbard brings his winning style to the stories of the Isley Brothers, Dolly Parton, A&M Records, and Elton John, among others. He sheds new light on the upheavals in the music industry over the past fifteen years and their implications for the audiences it has shaped. Unlike other historians who have criticized the segmentation of pop radio, Weisbard argues that the creation of multiple formats allowed different subgroups—defined by race, class, gender, and region—to attain a kind of separate majority status. Music formats became the one reliable place where different groups of Americans could listen to modern life unfold from their distinct perspectives. Weisbard’s stimulating book is a tour de force, shaking up our ideas about the mainstream music industry in order to tease out the cultural importance of all performers and songs.

Thanks to everyone who braved the cold to come out for this exciting talk!

(Photos by Alex Teschmacher)

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Jonathan Elmer named Marilynn Thoma Artistic Director of the Chicago Humanities Festival

Hello Colleagues,

I'm happy to forward the following announcement from Jonathan Elmer. Please join me in wishing him the best as he takes on a new post as the Artistic Director of the Chicago Humanities Festival. This is good news for all of us in the College, especially since the post will not interfere with Jonathan's return to CAHI next year. You can read all about Jonathan's new role in the article from the Chicago Tribune below. 

Best, Ed

***

Dear Colleagues: As some of you have heard, I have been named the Thoma Artistic Director of the Chicago Humanities Festival. This is a half-time position and will involve some commuting as part of this new arrangement. I will return to the post of Director of CAHI at the end of my sabbatical (July 2015). I am eager to keep up the forward momentum at CAHI that Ed Comentale has built up this year.  I am sure that new experiences in Chicago will benefit arts and humanities initiatives in Bloomington as well. I am looking forward to my return to home base. — Jonathan

Steve Johnson at the Chicago Tribune:

The Chicago Humanities Festival said it would name on Wednesday Jonathan Elmer its new artistic director, a half-time position that helps guide the festival's programming choices and serves as one of its public faces. Elmer, 54, is a professor of English and director of the College Arts and Humanities Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. He will continue at IU and divide his time between Chicago and Bloomington, the CHF said. “He just rose to the top with the breadth of his interests,” said Phillip Bahar, executive director of the non-profit organization that puts on scores of events annually, the great majority of them in a concentrated period in October and November. Bahar cited “the fact that he's an expert on Edgar Allan Poe but then has also written about 'The Big Lebowski.' He's got this ability to bridge genres and different fields that we found compelling.” Elmer, who is also an accomplished jazz trombonist, said he hopes to continue the festival, entering its 26th year, on its recent paths, which have included outreach to younger audiences and more nontraditional kinds of events. But he added, he might encourage what sounds like a toughening of the festival's annual themes around which events are organized. (Last year's, for instance, was the very broad “Journeys.”) “There is a point of view implicit in choosing a theme and programming. Some of that point of view, we might be able to make more explicit. That might raise the profile,” he said via Skype from South Africa, where he is doing research and working on some administrative matters for IU. Formally starting in the position March 1, Elmer replaces Matti Bunzl, who was also an out-of-town academic, at the University of Illinois, when hired to the position. After four years, Bunzl left following the 2014 festival to run the Wien Museum celebrating the culture of his hometown of Vienna, Austria. The 2014 festival sold some 36,000 tickets and sold out 49 events, compared with 31,500 and 24 the previous year, according to Bahar. Alison Cuddy, the former WBEZ-FM 91.5 on-air personality, was promoted to associate artistic director at the festival, a full-time position. In replacing Bunzl, the CHF board considered changing its model and going with a full-time artistic director, vice-chair John McCarter said, but “she (Cuddy) is so strong. Having her here full time really reduces the need for (the artistic director) to be full-time.” “Well over 100” people applied for the position, according to Bahar, primarily academics, journalists and “general curators,” he said, and they were winnowed by an internal committee, without the help of an executive search firm. Elmer, who grew up in Bethesda, Md., said he had increasingly been doing “public facing” work at IU, and was not surprised to learn his name was on a list of people to consider Bunzl had submitted to the CHF board. But, he said, “I said to myself, 'I have a job. I don't see how I can do another one.'“ When the board asked him directly to apply, though, he reconsidered, he said. “It was a very exciting prospect,” not only because he and his wife had recently become empty nesters and established a second home in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, he said. “The Chicago Humanities Festival, I think, is an amazing story.” He's already become a habitue of the Constellation jazz club, Elmer said, and “we love our little place, literally half a block from Unabridged Books. I've been waiting my entire life to live near a good bookstore like that.” Elmer, currently researching a book on the concept of play, said there have been times in his life when he has considered pursuing the trombone as a primary career. “Some of the really ecstatic moments of my life were making music,” he said; he has recorded with Bang on a Can in New York and played with Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Carter. But being a full-time musician “is a very hard life,” Elmer said. “The other thing I had to say was, ‘What is the first thing I do when I get up in the morning?' I read a book. But they are twin loves, the world of literature and ideas and the world of music.” The new job will encourage him to dig deeper into the culture. “One of the huge joys of taking this position,” said Elmer, “was when the board made it clear they expected me to go to a lot of cultural events.”

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2nd Meeting of the Teju Cole Reading Group

On April 2nd, 2015, Teju Cole, one of the most important writers of our age, will give the inaugural Susan D. Gubar Lecture at Indiana University. Cole is the author of two highly acclaimed books, Every Day is for the Thief and Open City. In preparation for this exciting event, CAHI is hosting a reading group to discuss a selection of his writings. 

For the second meeting (Wednesday, February 25, 7pm, at CAHI), Vivian Nun Halloran and Dinah Holtzman will lead a discussion of “Hafiz” and other writings by Cole. Please find a selection of readings below.

LINKS FROM VIVIAN:

Essays

“Bring Back Our Girls?”

“A Piece of the Wall” (essay on immigration via new Twitter handle)

“Dappled Things: Pinkhassov on Instagram” 

“Unmournable Bodies” (on Charlie Hebdo)

Flower Report April 13

Flower Report April 20 

Flower Report April 27 

Flower Reports May 4

Flower Reports May 11

Flower Reports May 18

Fiction

“7 Short Stories About Drones.” 

“Hafiz”

LINKS FROM DINAH:

Text Essay

“Introduction” to Ivan Vladsović’s Double Negative (PDF)

Online Essays

Teju Cole, “Google Macchia”

Teju Cole, “The Atlas of Affect”

Matt Pearce, “Death by Twitter,” New Inquiry (On Teju Cole’s Use of Twitter as Literary Medium)

Online Curation (Audio/Video)

“Teju Cole’s Afrolicious Playlist,” New Inquiry

“Six Brazilian Songs,” Granta

Curated Twitter Streams

Teju Cole, Terror Painting

Teju Cole, The Time of the Game (Collaboration with Jer Throp and Mario Klingemann)

Teju Cole, TV Guide

“Teju Cole Tweets his Way Up Africa’s Slave Coast”

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CAHI presents: “An Evening with Margaret Atwood” at the Buskirk Chumley Theater

CAHI is delighted to present acclaimed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood as a Ruth N. Halls Distinguished Speaker on Tuesday, February 3, 7:00pm, at the Buskirk Chumley Theater. Ms. Atwood will give a public presentation and reading, and will be available to sign books.

Update: Although tickets for the event are now sold out, those waiting in line at the theater will be invited to fill empty seats ten minutes before the event begins.

Following Ms. Atwood’s presentation at the Buskirk Chumley, CAHI will hold a students-only meeting with her at the Whittenberger Auditorium on Wednesday, February 4, at 10:00am. We hope you will encourage your students to attend. There will also be a small academic symposium on her work during the last week of January (more details coming soon). Since September, CAHI has hosted a monthly reading group exploring her books, essays, and poetry.

A winner of many international literary awards, including the prestigious Booker Prize, Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction. She is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood. Atwood’s work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic, and Estonian. In 2004, she co-invented the LongPen, a remote signing device that allows someone to write in ink anywhere in the world via tablet PC and the Internet. She is also a popular personality on Twitter, with over 600,000 followers. HBO is currently teaming with director Darren Aronofsky to develop a series based on her “MaddAddamm” trilogy.

Funding for Ms. Atwood’s visit is made possible through the generous assistance of the Ruth N. Halls Fund and the College of Arts & Sciences.

For more information, please contact us here.

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Tonight: Katherine Boo at Alumni Hall

Tonight, October 23, the Kelley School of Business, the Media School, and the College Arts & Humanities Institute are proud to present Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Katherine Boo at Alumni Hall (IMU) at 7:00pm. Boo will speak about her experiences writing her recent New York Times bestselling book Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

With over twenty-five years in the field, Katherine has established herself as a fearless journalist dedicated to telling the stories of the poor and disadvantaged on the pages of many esteemed publications. Beginning her career at the alternative weekly Washington City Paper, she became a staff writer at The New Yorker and a reporter and editor for the Washington Post, after which she worked as a writer and co-editor of the Washington Monthly magazine. Over the years, her reporting from disadvantaged communities in the United States and abroad has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, and a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. Behind the Beautiful Forevers was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. This event is free and open to the public.

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Museums and the Public Humanities: A Panel Discussion — this Friday at CAHI

This Friday, September 5, museum directors and curators will explore current and future prospects for public humanities work in museums of ethnography and cultural history during a free public panel discussion titled “Museums and the Public Humanities.” The panelists will discuss digital humanities, the changing status of curation, and career preparation. The discussion will begin at 10:00am at CAHI (1211 E. Atwater Avenue, Bloomington).

Panelists will include C. Kurt Dewhurst (Director of Arts and Cultural Initiatives, Michigan State University), Marin Hanson (Curator, International Quilt Study Center and Museum), Jason Baird Jackson (Director, Mathers Museum of World Cultures), Jon Kay (Director, Traditional Arts Indiana), Marsha MacDowell (Curator of Folk Arts, Michigan State University Museum), and Mary Worrall (Curator of Cultural Heritage, Michigan State University Museum).

This event is part of a larger initiative funded by the College Arts & Humanities Institute through the Global Midwest initiative of the Humanities Without Walls (HWW) consortium. HWW has been generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

For more information, visit indiana.edu/~mathers or email mathers@indiana.edu.