FACULTY BOOKWATCH

Launched in 2004 in partnership with the Duke Library, Faculty Bookwatch is a series intended to celebrate and to encourage scholarly conversations on important recent books by Duke humanities faculty. Each program consists of a panel discussion on the book with speakers representing different fields and disciplines, with addition remarks by the featured author. Past programs have focused on Cathy Davidson's Revolution and the Word: the Rise of the Novel in America (Oxford 2004, Expanded Edition), Barbara Herrnstein Smith's Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth, and the Human (Duke 2006), and Anne Allison's Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination (California 2006). For more information, please contact Christina Chia.

2007-08 PROGRAMS
(Check back soon for Spring program information)

UPCOMING EVENTS
	Tuesday, February 5, 2008 6:30 PM Rare Book Room, Perkins Library Rereading the Black Legend: Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires Margaret Greer, Walter Mignolo, Maureen Quilligan, eds. Panelists: LEWIS R. GORDON Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Judaic Studies and Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies, Temple University MARGARET R. GREER Professor of Spanish and former chair of Romance Studies, Duke University LESLIE PEIRCE Silver Professor of History & Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University (Rereading the Black Legend contributor) with WALTER MIGNOLO William H. Wannamaker Professor of Romance Studies, Literature, and Cultural Anthropology, Director of the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities, Duke University MAUREEN QUILLIGAN Florence R. Brinkley Professor and former chair of English, Duke University About the Featured Book The phrase “The Black Legend” was coined in 1912 by a Spanish journalist in protest of the characterization of Spain by other Europeans as a backward country defined by ignorance, superstition, and religious fanaticism, whose history could never recover from the black mark of its violent conquest of the Americas. Challenging this stereotype, Rereading the Black Legend contextualizes Spain’s uniquely tarnished reputation by exposing the colonial efforts of other nations whose interests were served by propagating the “Black Legend.” A distinguished group of contributors here examine early modern imperialisms including the Ottomans in Eastern Europe, the Portuguese in East India, and the cases of Mughal India and China, to historicize the charge of unique Spanish brutality in encounters with indigenous peoples during the Age of Exploration. The geographic reach and linguistic breadth of this ambitious collection will make it a valuable resource for any discussion of race, national identity, and religious belief in the European Renaissance.
PAST EVENTS
Share on Facebook	Thursday, October 25, 2007, 4:30 PM* Rare Book Room, Perkins Library *Note correct start time Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy by TORIL MOI James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies Panel Discussion with: SARAH BECKWITH Marcello Lotti Professor of English and Professor of Religion and Theater Studies, Duke FREDRIC JAMESON William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies, Duke MARTIN PUCHNER H. Gordon Garbedian Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia [ click here to see Professor Puchner's review of Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernsim in the London Review of Books ] Related Events October 22 + 23: 2 Film Adaptations of the Ibsen play An Enemy of the People October 26: Martin Puchner, Theater and Philosophy: Socrates on the Modern Stage About the Featured Author & Book Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University.  Her central research and teaching interest is in feminist theory and women’s writing. She has also worked extensively in literary theory and aesthetics broadly defined, and in 19th- and 20th-century European literature. She is particularly interested in questions arising in areas where literature and philosophy overlap. Her books include Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985; 2nd edition 2002), Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman (1994); and What Is a Woman? And Other Essays (1999), republished in a shorter version as Sex, Gender and the Body (2005). She is the editor of The Kristeva Reader (1986), and of French Feminist Thought (1987). Her most recent book, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy, was published by Oxford University Press in September 2006. Ibsens modernisme, the Norwegian translation by Agnete Øye, was published by Pax Forlag in Oslo in May 2006.  The book reconsiders the work of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). In spite of his unquestioned status as a classic of the stage, Ibsen is often dismissed as a boring realist, whose plays are of interest only because they remain the gateway to modern theater. Moi makes a powerful case not just for Ibsen's modernity, but also for his modernism.  The book situates Ibsen in his cultural context, emphasizes his position as a Norwegian in European culture, and shows how important painting and other visual arts were for his aesthetic education. The book rewrites literary history, reminding modern readers that idealism was the dominant aesthetic paradigm of the nineteenth century. Modernism was born in the ruins of idealism, Moi argues, thus challenging traditional theories of the opposition between realism and modernism. This radical new account places Ibsen in his rightful place alongside Baudelaire, Flaubert and Manet as a founder of European modernism.
	Related Screenings: 2 Film Adaptations of the Ibsen Play An Enemy of the People Monday, October 22, 2007, 8:00 PM Griffith Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus Screening: An Enemy of the People (En Folkefiende) (dir. Erik Skjoldbjærg, 2005, 90 min, Norway, Norwegian with English subtitles, Color, 35mm) ** More information here (scroll down) - link to external site Presented with the Royal Norwegian Embassy, Washington, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Department of Promotion and Protocol), the Film/Video/Digital Program, and the Department of Theater Studies. Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 8:00 PM Griffith Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus Screening: Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People) (dir. Satyajit Ray, 1989, 102 min, India, Bengali with English subtitles, Color, DVD) ** More information here (scroll down) - link to external site Presented with the Film/Video/Digital Program, the Department of Theater Studies, the Department of Asian & African Languages & Literature, and the North Carolina Center for South Asian Studies [ Back to Toril Moi Bookwatch ]