Events
SPRING 2009
April 9-11
Barefoot across the nation: Maqbool Fida Husain and the idea of India
The North Carolina Center for South Asian Studies will host an international symposium on the controversial Indian artist Maqbool Fida Husain on Duke campus, April 9th-11th, 2009. In addition to presentations by the following scholars, the conference will include a presentation by Vivan Sundaram of one of his latest works, “Barefoot with Husain.”
Presentations:
Susan Bean, “On Exhibition: The Art of M. F. Husain.”
Akeel Bilgrami, “How to Argue for Free Speech and Secularism.”
Veena Das, “The Unbearable Figure of Love”
David Gilmartin and Barbara Metcalf, “The Public, the Law and M. F. Husain”
Tapati Guha-Thakurta, “Fault-lines in a National Edifice: Debating the Rights and Offences of Contemporary Indian Art.”
Kajri Jain, “Taking and Making Offence: Husain and the Politics of Desecration.”
Ananya Jahanara Kabir, “Secret Histories of Indian Modernism: M. F. Husain as Indian Muslim Artist.”
Geeta Kapur, “Drawing the Line: The Exile of Maqbool Fida Husain.”
Bruce Lawrence, “Decoding MF Husain as a Muslim Painter.”
Ram Rahman, “Defending Husain in the public sphere: The Sahmat experience”
Patricia Uberoi, “The ‘Bliss’ of Madhuri: Husain and his ‘Muse’.”
Karin Zitzewitz, “ ‘I am an Indian and a painter, that is all:’ Intention and the Secular Subject in India.”
For further details, contact Sumathi Ramaswamy at sr76(at)duke(dot)edu and visit
our website at: http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/csas/husainconference2009.php
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April 24
The Place of Memory: A Symposium Exploring the Revisualization of the Neurosciences
This one-day symposium will explore themes relating to the neurosciences and the re-visualization of scientific knowledge through art and digital technology. It will begin with a series of lectures exploring extant examples of art-science collaborations, to be followed by two workshops focusing on themes relating to different aspects of memory.
For further information, please contact timothy.joseph.senior(at)googlemail(dot)com or visit the following website: http://isis.duke.edu/events/upcoming.html#neurosciencessymposium
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April 30 – May 1
From the Reel to the Virtual: The Past and Future of the Moving Image
Held in the context of the transformation of Duke University’s Program in Film Video Digital into a more capacious Program in the Arts of the Moving Image, our workshop aims to examine the relationships and tensions between cinema in its 20th century media embodiment—as film—and cinema in its 21st century, “post-filmic” and its pre-20th century, “pre-filmic” embodiments. Central to this examination are the following questions: can cinema exist independently of the materiality of film?; and if so, how can we define its specificity in a post-film model? What is gained and what is lost when cinema finds its material support in the computer-generated virtual image? Are there coherent differences between digital cinema and the digital arts? How can we conceive of the ongoing institutional and critical power of cinema at this moment of its material complexification? In sum, how can the production and study of cinema today reconcile its commitment to a certain historical and theoretical specificity and set of practices with an imperative to engage new, exciting technical developments in and beyond the moving image arts? What can empower us to resist incorporation into broader programs in the media arts within which the moving image becomes simply one type of dynamic pattern among others?; and what role(s) could/should cinema studies and cinema production play in relation to the institutionalization of the emerging arts of the moving image: computer animation, virtual reality, interactive games and more.
Opening: Screening of films by Malcolm Le Grice
Discussion with the filmmaker and reception to follow
April 30, 2009
5:00 PM
Nasher Museum of Art, Auditorium
Duke University
Joseph’s Newer Coat – 1998-2001, 16 minutes, 3 screens
Cherry – 2003, 2 minutes, 3 screens
Wier – 1993 and 2007, 3 minutes, 3 screens
DENISINED – SINEDENIS – 2006, 3 minutes, 3 screens
Even the Cyclops Pays the Ferryman – 1998-2001, 17 minutes, 3 screens
Symposium Sessions:
May 1, 2009
9:30 AM to 5:30 PM
0012 Westbrook
Duke University
9:30am–11:30am
Session I: The Place of the Digital in Cinema Studies
Malcolm LeGrice, respondent Marsha Orgeron
D. N. Rodowick, respondent Tim Lenoir
This session will focus on the question of history and specifically on the question of whether there is continuity between the institution of cinema that arguably comprises the artform of the 20th century (film) and the institution of cinema that is taking shape in and for the 21st century.
1:00pm–3:00pm
Session II: Programs between Film and Digital
Sharon Daniel, respondent Tom Rankin
Shawn Brixey, respondent Bill Seaman
This session will devote attention to practical issues confronting film studies programs at this moment of technical and institutional change.
3:30pm–5:30pm
Session III: The Future of Cinema Studies
Tom Gunning, respondent Negar Mottahedeh
Garrett Stewart, respondent Mark Hansen
This session will turn to the question of why we might want to retain “cinema” as a logic for organizing a program and, more generally, what its value is for thinking the future of media studies.
Co-sponsored by the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image, the Visual Studies Initiative, Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS), and the Jenkins Chair for New Technologies in Society.
For further detail contact marion(dot)monson(at)duke(dot)edu.
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May 4 – 5
Visual Thinking: how do visual communication technologies affect learning and knowledge retention in the sciences and humanities?
The explosion of visually rich computer tools has empowered educators and researchers to explore their data and communicate ideas using a visual language as well as a text-based language. The ease of use of these tools means non-experts can be creators as well as consumers. The time is ripe to seriously examine how we evaluate the effectiveness of incorporating visualization in all its forms (drawings, images, illustrations, videos, interactive games, 3D worlds, virtual reality) in teaching concepts in the sciences and humanities. How should we revise tests to reflect the strengths of visual communications? How important in the creation vs. consumption of materials in knowledge retention? How do we justify these activities when seeking federal funding?
This 1.5 day workshop will explore these questions by brining together individuals who are willing to experiment with visually rich methods of teaching. By the end of the workshop, we hope participants will develop 1) a set of visual teaching strategies that may help students learn principles in an alternative manner to the typical textbook experience and 2) a set of strategies to evaluate learning with visualizations.
The format of the workshop will include invited presentations and small-group working sessions.
For more information, visit http://cit.duke.edu/events/event.do?eventid=2001&occurid=3811.