Announcement: CMAS Fall Sexuality Studies Symposium This Weekend
This Friday and Saturday, the Center for Mexican American Studies will be hosting their Fall Sexuality Studies Symposium - "Sexing the Borderlands: From the Midwest Corridor and Beyond." The keynote address will be delivered by José Esteban Muñoz, Professor of Performance Studies at New York University, who will speak on "The Brown Commons: The Sense of Wildness."AMS professor and Associate Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies, Dr. Nicole Guidotti-Hernández, will be moderating a panel on Saturday, "Shameless Sex: From Porfirian Ruins to the UFW" at 11:00 a.m. in the Santa Rita Suite (3.502) of the Texas Union.This event is sponsored by the Center for Mexican American Studies; the LGBTQ/Sexualities research cluster in the Center for Women's and Gender Studies; the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies; the Performance as Public Practice program in the Department of Theatre and Dance; the Latino Media Studies program in the College of Communication; and the Department of English.
Announcement: Symposium This Week on "Creativity in the Face of Death"
This week, the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies and Texas Performing Arts will be hosting a 3-day symposium called “Creativity in the Face of Death: The Contemporary Resonance of Terezín.” The symposium will include performances, panels, lectures, and a photography exhibition. A number of the events feature AMS Professor and Director of the Schusterman Center, Dr. Robert Abzug, as well as AMS affiliate faculty member Dr. Rebecca Rossen.The following is a description of the event from the Schusterman Center's website:
“Creativity in the Face of Death: The Contemporary Resonance of Terezín,” a three-day symposium, will explore the enduring influence of music and art created by prisoners at Terezín (Theresienstadt), the “model ghetto” near Prague designed by the Nazis as a sham showcase to mask their murderous campaign against Europe’s Jews. The inmates, mostly Jews from Germany and Czechoslovakia and among them many notable artists, writers, composers, and musicians, acted out their parts for unsuspecting visitors even as, in the shadow of death, they raised the spirits of their fellow prisoners. Only 12 percent of the 140,000 Jews originally sent to Terezín survived. Virtually all of the members of the artistic community perished in the death camps or at Terezín itself.Their heroic example has served as a haunting challenge for later artists to create what Kafka declared books must be—“an axe for the sea frozen inside us.” “Creativity in the Face of Death: The Contemporary Resonance of Terezín” will bring together world-class musicians, dancers, choreographers, photographers, and scholars whose work has been touched by the legacy of Terezín.
The following events feature Dr. Abzug and Dr. Rossen in conversation with artists and scholars on the symposium theme:Wednesday, October 10ARTIST PANELCreativity in the Face of DeathDaniel Hope | Jeffrey Kahane | Donald ByrdModerated by Robert Abzug and Rebecca Rossen12:00 – 1:30 p.m. | Harry Ransom Center, Prothro TheaterThursday, October 11LECTURE/DISCUSSIONVeronika Tuckerova and Robert AbzugHistory and Memory: The Emergence of Terezín in Historical Artistic Consciousness: Czechoslovakia and America4:00 – 5:30 p.m. | Garrison 1.102—SPECTRUM DANCE THEATERThe Theater of Needless TalentsDonald Byrd, choreographer and directorPRE-PERFORMANCE LECTURE – Rebecca Rossen and Robert Abzug7:00 pm | Bass Concert Hall, Lobby Level 4PERFORMANCE8:00 p.m. | Texas Performing Arts’ Bass Concert HallSpectrum Dance Theater’s The Theater of Needless Talents, an evening-long work choreographed by Donald Byrd, pays homage to the Jewish artists who, though imprisoned in Nazi death camps, managed to create, perform, and bring hope to themselves and fellow inmates. The work is a series of powerful and eloquent sequences comprising modern dance, theatrical vignettes, cabaret, and commentary drawn from the words of artists and others of the time. These searing and evocative segments resonate with the horror and the absurdity of the situation in which these artists found themselves. The dance is set to the music of composer and death camp victim Erwin Schulhoff. The Theater of Needless Talents strives to make connections between the Holocaust and present-day sufferings brought on by prejudice, oppression, and persecution.More information and a complete schedule can be found here.
Announcement: RTF Panel Features AMS Chair Dr. Elizabeth Engelhardt
The following description of the event comes to us from RTF:
Can scholars reach a wider audience without sacrificing their academic reputations? What happens when they try?
A decade ago, Dan T. Carter, a Bancroft Award winning historian, and Paul Stekler, an Emmy Award winning UT filmmaker, collaborated on a documentary biography of George Wallace, George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire (which the Austin Film Society will screen at the State Theater on the night of October 10th). The film won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, an Emmy, and was broadcast nationally on PBS. Using that collaboration as a starting point, this panel, including Carter, Stekler, and a trio of UT scholars, will talk about treading the line between scholarly research and mass appeal, and the decision to go broad or institutional.
Panelists include:
Hope to see you at what is shaping up to be a great panel! And make sure not to miss the screening of Carter and Stekler's George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire on Wednesday, October 10 at the State Theater. More info here.
Announcement: Food for Black Thought Symposium This Weekend!
This Friday and Saturday, head on over to the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies (UT Austin) and the George Washington Carver Cultural Center for the Food for Black Thought Symposium. This event features presenters from UT Austin, including our own Dr. Elizabeth Engelhardt, as well as members of the wider Austin community.Here is a description of the symposium from the event website:
Critical discussions of food and the food system are on the rise in academic research, public policy, and in popular media. Food for Black Thought (FFBT) will explore how these issues involve, impact, and engage Black populations from transdisciplinary and community-based perspectives. FFBT will explore Black experiences with food and the food system, past and present, in Austin and beyond.The 2-day community + action symposium will take place at the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies (UT Austin) and at the George Washington Carver Cultural Center. Facilitators and presenters include youth and adults, from the University of Texas at Austin, the greater Austin community, and from across the United States.
The two-day symposium will feature interactive workshops, roundtables, film screenings, and keynote talks with Dr. Naa Oyo Kwate (director of the research lab for Race, Neighborhoods, and African-American Health) and Toni Tipton Martin (chef, culinary historian, and Founder and Director of the SANDE Youth Project). The symposium is free and open to the public.Sponsored by the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the Advertising and Public Relations Department, the Geography and The Environment Department, the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, the Black Media Council, and Foodways Texas.More details and a complete schedule can be found here.