Announcement: Faith Ringgold and Michele Wallace in Conversation This Thursday!
Continuing a week of not-to-be-missed events, the Center for Art of Africa and its Diasporas and the Art History Department bring artist Faith Ringgold and feminist author Michele Wallace together for a conversation on Thursday, September 12 from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. in the Art Building, Room 1.102. Ringgold is an internationally-recognized artist and Wallace--Ringgold's daughter--is a journalist and scholar best known for her work, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1971).
The following comes to us from the Department of Art and Art History:
The Center for Art of Africa and it's Diasporas (CAAD), in conjunction with the Art History Lecture Series, presents internationally acclaimed artist Faith Ringgold in conversation with feminist author Michele Wallace.Faith Ringgold is an internationally renowned artist, activist, and storyteller. Her work is held in several museums' permanent collections, notably The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Ringgold’s colorful mosaics are showcased in several city buildings such as the Los Angeles Civic Center/Grand Park and the New York City 125th Street subway station . She is also an acclaimed children’s book author, awarded both the prestigious Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King award for her 1991 book, Tar Beach.Author and Professor Michele Wallace—Ringgold’s daughter—is perhaps best known for her controversial feminist critique of Black Nationalism’s sexist attitudes, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1971). Wallace was Essence Magazine’s Editor at Large (1983) and a columnist for The Village Voice (1995-1996). Wallace holds a BA and MA in English from The City College of New York, and a PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University. She is currently Professor of English at The City College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Announcement: Artist Laurie Anderson Begins Visiting Professorship This Week!
A graduate of Barnard College with an MFA in sculpture from Columbia University, Anderson is an experimental performing artist and composer renowned for her innovative use of technology in the arts. This includes incorporating such devices as elaborate installation pieces, voice filters, and improvised musical instruments. Throughout her career she has cast herself in roles as wide-ranging as poet, composer, photographer, filmmaker, vocalist, and instrumentalist.Over the past three decades, Anderson has performed throughout the United States and internationally. Some of her notable works include United States I-V, Empty Places, The Nerve Bible, and Songs and Stories for Moby Dick. She has also presented a number of acclaimed solo works, including Happiness, which premiered in 2001.The first phase of her residency, from September 9-11, 2013, includes a seminar with University faculty and graduate students, and a public showing of Laurie Anderson: Collected Films and Videos, followed by a question-and-answer session. The second visit, from September 25-27, features discussions with faculty and students, and the opening of the Landfall exhibit at the Visual Arts Center. During her final visit, from October 15-17, Anderson will perform with Kronos Quartet in the Texas premiere of Landfall at the Bass Concert Hall. There will be talk-backs after the performance and the following morning (photo: Laurie Anderson performing with Kronos Quartet).To learn more about Laurie Anderson and her work, please visit her official website. A recent interview with Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith on "Overheard" can be viewed here.
Hope to see you this week at "Laurie Anderson: Collected Films and Videos" with Q&A on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom, Salon C, AT&T Executive Education Center. Stay tuned for more announcements of exciting events this week at UT, and stay up-to-date with everything going on by checking out our calendar!
Stories from Summer Vacation: Brendan Gaughen Researches Place Collecting
In the last gasp of summer, here are a few words from Brendan Gaughen, who spent his summer taking several trips across the nation for his dissertation research -I’m finally doing some dissertation research and did some traveling this summer to do some interviews and generally report on what I saw. I’m looking at specific ways people interact with the places they visit and how some treat travel as a form of collecting, how technology facilitates or enables these practices, and the ways in which some of these practices can function as a sort of voluntary surveillance.
Geo-Woodstock, Lakeland FLThis is the largest annual gathering in North America for a community of practitioners of a GPS-based hobby called geocaching, in which people hide containers, post the coordinates online, and others go out and find them. It’s pretty simple but some of these so-called “geocachers” take things to the extreme, turning the hobby into a full-time occupation. There are more than 2 million geocaches hidden around the world, and an entire cottage industry has sprung up in the last several years catering to this community. Geocachers often hide objects as a way to memorialize places they find significant, though non-geocachers (“muggles,” borrowing a term from Harry Potter canon to describe those without wizard powers) generally have no idea these containers exist.
Extra Miler Club Convention, Reno NVThis is the only formal annual meeting for this group of people with intentional travel goals, generally that of visiting all 3141 counties in the United States. Many members document their accomplishments by taking a photograph of themselves at every county line sign; others attempt to do certain things in each state (such as play golf, eat at a Dairy Queen, etc). I spoke at length with one couple who drove their RV through all 48 states in a very circuitous manner, stopping to get an envelope stamped at the post office in every county seat in the US, something that had to happen during business hours Monday thru Friday. They had a page for each county with a postmarked envelope, self-photograph in front of the courthouse, and short write-up about what the town was like. This personal archive totaled 20 binders, something I would love to explore in further detail.
Lincoln Highway centennial celebration, Kearney NEThe Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway built in the United States and Kearney is the closest city to the highway’s midpoint (it ran between New York and San Francisco). A few dozen vintage autos started at either end of the highway and met up in Kearney, so the town was temporarily saturated with Packards, Ford Model A’s, and more cars my dad can more easily recognize than I can. Aside from witnessing a lot of nostalgia for archaic forms of automobile tourism, I attended some presentations about the history of the current incarnation of the Lincoln Highway Association and its 12-year long effort to map every iteration of the entire route – over 5,000 miles counting all the bypasses, realignments, and modernizations of the route. Some Lincoln Highway devotees wish to travel as many miles of the original route as possible, and at one stop on our bus tour I watched about 100 people feel compelled to walk a 500-foot stretch of century-old concrete, an original 1913 section of the Lincoln Highway. I was BY FAR the youngest person there, so it seems this [firsthand] nostalgic feeling toward the Lincoln Highway, and postwar road culture in general, may be in danger of disappearing altogether.
I made many contacts and took extensive notes at all three of these events, which, once I tie in a theoretical framework, will be beneficial for a couple chapters of my dissertation. I still have to decide how to approach writing about these groups and their members, but these trips have resulted in a ton of raw data, photographs, and interview notes. Being in these places reminded me that America is a big, fascinating, and complex place, and that there is a certain joy to discovering, interpreting, and complicating aspects of American culture.
Recent Grad Research: "Choice: Texas"
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEZ4gs2Iwng?feature=player_embedded]Recent Ph.D. grad Carly Kocurek is collaborating on the development of an interactive fiction game addressing reproductive healthcare and abortion access in Texas. The game, titled “Choice: Texas” will be a free to play web game scheduled for release early next year. Currently, she and co-developer Allyson Whipple are fundraising through IndieGoGo to support development costs. Here’s a description of the project from their IndieGoGo page:
Choice: Texas is an educational interactive fiction game which will be freely available on the web. Players will explore the game through one of several characters, each of whom reflects specific socioeconomic, geographic, and demographic factors impacting abortion access in Texas. Although billed as interactive fiction, Choice: Texas is based on extensive research into healthcare access, legal restrictions, geography, and demographics, and is reflective of the real circumstances facing women in the state.Choice: Texas is being developed by Allyson Whipple (writer, editor, and poet) and Carly Kocurek (writer and cultural historian) with the help of illustrator Grace Jennings.We are billing Choice: Texas as “a very serious game,” and we mean that. While the game is intended to be engaging, the issues it addresses are very serious. Women’s access to reproductive healthcare in Texas is significantly limited, a state of affairs that is especially true for women who are working class or poor, or who live in rural areas. One of the great strengths of games is that they can invite players to explore other people’s experiences; Choice: Texas is such a game, and asks players to seriously consider the plight of Texas women.Choice: Texas has already gained some positive responses, including acceptance into the Future and Reality of Gaming (F.R.O.G.) 2013 Conference in Vienna. We will have a working prototype of the game prepared by the conference dates in late September, and look forward to completing the game by February 2014.
Carly and Allyson have already raised just over half of their goal, and have until 11:59 p.m. PT on September 18 to meet their goal. Check out their IndieGoGo here and follow their project blog here.