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.
Alumni Voices: Dr. Frank Goodyear, Associate Curator of Photography of the National Portrait Gallery
Here, we offer some insights from Dr. Frank Goodyear, currently the Associate Curator of Photographs for the Smithsonian Institute's National Portrait Gallery. He graduated from UT with a Ph.D. in American Studies in 1998, focusing on 19th and 20th century photography. His books include Faces of the Frontier: Photographic Portraits from the American West, 1845-1924 (2009), Red Cloud: Photographs of a Lakota Chief (2003), and Zaida Ben-Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer (2008).
How is the work that you're doing right now informed by the work that you did as a student in American Studies at UT?I am a photography curator at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. I enjoy my job because it gives me an opportunity to meet and work with people from many, many different backgrounds. To give you an example, one day not long ago, I started my day giving a special museum tour to a group of D.C. kindergartners. Thirty minutes is all that they were good for, but we had a great time looking at a large, colorful painting of LL Cool J. One kid thought he looked like a king, which is a pretty fair assessment. That get-together was then followed by an afternoon meeting with two researchers from Harvard who are working on a new book about Frederick Douglass’s public image. It was interesting to share with them the different likenesses of Douglass in the museum’s collection and to discuss the role that images played within the abolitionist movement.In my job I get to work with artists, conservators, collectors, dealers, other curators and scholars, and groups that range in age from five to eighty-five. What was most valuable about my experience at UT was the time to read widely across the field of American cultural history. Conversations with both the faculty and my fellow grad students were invaluable in gaining expertise in my area of concentration (American photography and visual culture), but reading and thinking so widely also prepared me to work with the great number of people I encounter as a Smithsonian curator. At UT, I learned to look closely and to ask good questions, and that knowledge serves me well every day.Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for students in our department about how to get the most out of their time here?This advice might sound quite shallow; however, my recommendation is to regularly attend get-togethers with colleagues and guest scholars. Go to as many guest lectures, art openings, symposiums, and after-seminar happy hours as possible. Go to the parties and other social functions. I realize that everyone’s time is limited, but it’s vital to participate in the larger scholarly dialogue that goes on beyond the seminar room. When possible, try to attend academic meetings, submit an abstract to a scholarly panel, and pursue a publishing opportunity. Graduate students should be as pro-active as possible in getting out, finding their voice, and making a name for themselves and their research interests. And there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun too.
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.