Beginning in 2007-08, the Franklin Humanities Institute will host between four to eight distinguished visiting scholars each year, for residencies of two to four weeks. Each visitor will participate in a range of events, including public lectures, weekly seminars, events intended for undergraduates, and other programs. Each visitor will maintain an office at the FHI and will be available for meetings with Duke faculty members and students.
2008-09 RESIDENTS
SEPTEMBER 8 - 19, 2008
ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE
Professor of Theatre Studies, Free University of Berlin
Erika Fischer-Lichte is Professor of Theatre Studies at the Free University of Berlin, where she also directs the Institute for Theatre Studies. One of Europe's foremost historians and theorists of theatre, she has held leadership posts in a range of scholarly organizations, including the German Society for Semiotics, the International Federation of Theatre Research, and the Standing Committee for the Humanities of the European Science Foundation. She is the author of numerous monographs and articles, principally on the semiotics of theatre, history of theatre, intercultural theatre, and aesthetics of performance. Her major books include Semiotik des Theaters (3 volumes, 1983; English trans., The Semiotics of Theatre, Indiana, 1992), Geschichte des Dramas (2 volumes, 1990; English trans., History of European Drama and Theatre, Routledge, 2004); The Show and the Gaze of Theatre: A European Perspective (Iowa, 1997); The Dramatic Touch of Difference: Theatre, Own and Foreign (edited with Josephine Riley & Michael Gissenwehrer, G. Narr, 1999); Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre (Routledge, 2005); and most recently, Aesthetik des Performativen (2004; English trans., The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetic, Routledge, 2008).
EVENTS
Tuesday, September 9, 4:30 PM
Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center
Culture as Performance: Developing a Concept of Performance
Thursday, September 18, 4:30 PM
Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center
Blurring the Boundaries between Reality and Fiction in Contemporary Theatre
More information coming soon on the Fischer-Lichte residency and other 2008-09 Distinguished Scholars in Residence.
2007-08 RESIDENTS
YVETTE CHRISTIANSË || ROMILA THAPAR || ELIZABETH POVINELLI || MICHAEL WARNER
 September 17 - 28, 2007 |
YVETTE CHRISTIANSË Associate Professor, English & Comparative Literature, Fordham University Author, Unconfessed: A Novel , 2007Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award Finalist Yvette Christiansë was born in South Africa under apartheid and emigrated with her parents via Swaziland to Australia at the age of 18. She teaches English and postcolonial studies at Fordham University. Her poetry, prose, and scholarly writings have been published in South Africa, Australia, Canada, and the US. She is the author of Castaway (Duke University Press, 1999), a book of poetry, and Unconfessed: A Novel (Other Press, 2006), a finalist for the Hemingway/PEN Award for a Distinguished First Book of fiction. Professor Christiansë will lead a pair of intensive creative writing workshops for undergraduates on Thursday and Friday, September 27 and 28, from 3:00 - 5:00 PM. 12-15 places are available. All creative writing students at Duke are invited. Interested students should submit up to 15 pages of recent fiction, nonfiction prose, or dramatic writing, along with a resume or short narrative biographical statement to fhi@duke.edu (include the subject line "Christiansë Workshop"). Submission deadline has been extended to Friday, September 21. Workshops will be tailored to the specific interests, abilities, and needs of participating writers. EVENTS Wednesday, September 19, 12-1 PM Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center Wednesdays at the Center: A Poetics of Sacrifice in Toni Morrison's Fiction Friday, September 21, 11:30-1 PM Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center "How Disposed Of": Economies of Silence and the Liberated Africans (Part of the "Revolutionaries and Recaptives" panel in 200 Years After the Abolition of the British Slave Trade: New Scholarly Directions - start & end times are for entire panel) Monday, September 24, 4:30 PM Rare Book Room, Perkins Library Reading from Unconfessed: A Novel Thursday, September 27, 7:00 PM Room 028, John Hope Franklin Center (Basement Level) Art, Language, and Public Space in South Africa: Constitutional Hill and West Cape Presented with the Concilium on Southern Africa (COSA) ** By invitation only ** Thursday & Friday, September 27 & 28, 3:00 - 5:00 PM Creative Writing Workshops Duke undergraduate creative writers welcomed - please see information above [ back to top ] |
 October 8 - November 2, 2007 Share on Facebook |
ROMILA THAPAR Professor Emeritus of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India 2004 Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South, US Library of Congress Romila Thapar is one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient Indian history, and a leading voice in public discourse about historical truth and political identity in contemporary India. Thapar received her doctoral degree from London University in 1960 and returned to a newly independent India to pursue her teaching and scholarship. Her research on ancient India has evolved new ways of reading evidence from archaeology, mythology, literature, philosophy, ritual texts, folklore, and other sources. First published in 1966, Thapar’s History of India, Vol.1, has been in print ever since. Thapar’s subsequent books - including Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations (1978), Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History (2003), Somanatha: The Many Voices of History (2005) - have secured her reputation as one of the most distinguished and productive scholars in her field. In 2004, the Library of Congress of the United States appointed her as the first holder of the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South. In the course of her illustrious career, Thapar has held many visiting posts in Europe, the United States and Japan. She is an Honorary Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago, the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, the University of Oxford and the University of Calcutta. In the citation presented by Oxford University while conferring on her an honorary doctorate of letters in 2002, she was lauded as “an historian who is indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge and prolific in its publication, and who, is above all a devoted partisan of the truth.” During her stay, Professor Thapar will offer a 4-week faculty and graduate seminar on "Elements of a Historical Tradition in Selected Early Indian Texts," deliver 2 public lectures, and participate in a public conversation with Dr. John Hope Franklin. To learn more about the seminar, to sign up, or to obtain readings, please e-mail fhi@duke.edu, with "Romila Thapar Seminar" in subject line. Space is limited - Duke faculty and students will be given priority. EVENTS Thursday, October 11, 4:30 PM Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center Recognizing Historical Traditions in Early India This lecture will be drawn from Dr. Thapar's current work on historical traditions in ancient India, contesting the generalization that Indian civilization lacked a sense of history. *** SPECIAL EVENT *** SPECIAL EVENT *** SPECIAL EVENT *** Saturday, October 27, 3:00 PM Goodson Chapel, Westbrook Building, Duke Divinity School The Historian in the World: A Conversation with John Hope Franklin and Romila Thapar Dr. Franklin (see biography here and here) and Dr. Thapar will reflect on the role of the historian in their respective societies and their own involvements in national and local debates around historical truth, political identity, and social reform. Moderated by Srinivas Aravamudan, Director, Franklin Humanities Institute and Professor of English, Duke University. Presented with the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies and the Department of History DIRECTIONS & PARKING: The Goodson Chapel and Westbrook Building is located near the Chapel and the Bryan Center on Duke's West Campus - see interactive map here. Parking is available at the Bryan Center for a "Special Events" flat fee of $5.00 (fee will be collected as you enter the parking lot). Detailed driving directions to the Bryan Center can be found at the interactive map above (click on "Parking and Directions," then click on "Bryan Center meter lot"). For more information, please call 919-668-1902. * Read press release of event here * Download event poster (pdf) here Wednesday, October 31, 4:30 PM Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center Trends in the Interpretations of Early Indian History This talk will consider historical writing on early India during the last fifty years, tracing the move away from colonial and nationalist views to ideas emanating from the social sciences. [ back to top ] |
 November 26 - December 7, 2007 Share on Facebook |
ELIZABETH POVINELLI Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University Elizabeth Povinelli is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University, where she is also Co-director of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture. Her writing has focused on developing a critical theory of late liberalism - grounding this critical task in theories of the translation, transfiguration and the circulation of values, materialities, and socialities within settler liberalisms. She is the author of Labor's Lot: The Power, History, and Culture of Aboriginal Action (Chicago UP, 1994), The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism (Duke UP, 2002) - which was named Best Book of the Year by Artforum - and most recently, The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality (Duke UP, 2006). She is also a former editor of the journal Public Culture and currently associate editor of Social Analysis. Professor Povinelli has won numerous grants and fellowships, including awards from the Mellon, Wenner Gren, and National Science Foundations. In 2006, she was the receipient of the Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Prize at Columbia. During the course of her two-week visit, Professor Povinelli will deliver a public lecture, participate in the 2007-08 FHI Seminar Recycle, hold conversations with graduate students in the FHI's Mellon Dissertation Working Group and undergraduate scholars and fellows, and engage with Duke faculty and students in other settings. EVENTS Monday, November 26, 1:30 PM *Room 225, Science Building (Old Art Museum), East Campus [ map ] Recognizing Digital Divisions, Circulating Socialities This talk critically examines the postcolonial digital archive. Using examples form from Indigenous digital archives in Australia, the essay examines the attempts of critical cultural makers to embed in the operating systems of archives alternative modes of social life, specifically, alternative modes of circulation, access, and control of information. It then asks what becomes an postcolonial archive if, instead of information, circulation, and access, it is organized around questions of obligation, corporeality, and social formation. Presented with the Department of Cultural Anthropology * Note room change Monday, December 3, 12:00 PM Conversation on Activism with Undergraduate Scholars and Fellows Open to all Duke Undergraduate Scholars and Fellows. Presented with the University Scholars Program Tuesday, December 4, 6:00 PM Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center - refreshments provided Alterity and Alternatives: A Conversation with Judith Halberstam and Elizabeth Povinelli on Queer Theory Moderated by Ara Wilson (Director, Program in Sexualities, Duke) Judith Halberstam is Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California and Distinguished Visiting Faculty at the Duke English Department for Fall 2007. Halberstam works in the areas of popular, visual and queer culture with an emphasis on subcultures. She is the author of Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995), Female Masculinity (1998), In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005), along with other co-authored and edited works. Presented by the Program in the Study of Sexualities, Franklin Humanities Institute, Department of English, and Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Trangender Life Wednesday, December 5, 12:00 PM Kinship, Friendship, Scholarship: A Conversation with Graduate Students on Negotiating Academic and Non-Academic Affiliations Priority given to students in the FHI's Mellon Dissertation Working Group and in the Program in Sexualities - please e-mail fhi@duke.edu to inquire about possible openings. Presented with the Program in the Study of Sexualities [ back to top ] |
 March 17 - 24, 2008 |
MICHAEL WARNER Professor of English and American Studies, Yale University Michael Warner's research interests include American literature, especially colonial and nineteenth-century; social theory and media studies; the history of the book; queer theory and sexuality studies; secularism and religion. He has published in a broad range of topics as well as styles, from scholarship in early American literature and print culture, to more theoretical writing about publics and social movements, to introductory editions and anthologies, to journalism and nonacademic political writing. His books include Publics and Counterpublics (Zone Books, 2002); The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (Harvard, 2000); The English Literatures of America, 1500-1800 (Routledge, 1996, co-edited with Myra Jehlen); Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (Minnesota, 1993); The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-century America (Harvard, 1992). He also edited The Portable Walt Whitman (Penguin, 2003) and American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King, Jr. (Library of America, 1999). At present he is working on a study of secularism. The project is partly a reflection on the dilemmas of secularism in the present; but that reflection is framed by a study of secular culture in America in the period before it was called secularism (roughly from the early eighteenth century to the Civil War). During his residency, Professor Warner will deliver a public lecture, participate in the FHI's Recycle Seminar, hold conversations with students in the Mellon Interdisciplinary Dissertation Working Group, University Scholars Program, and LGBT community. He will also hold office hours on Tuesday, March 18, 4-6pm at Room 202, Franklin Center. Please see below for information about his public events. PUBLIC EVENTS *** NEW DATE *** Monday, March 17, 4:30 PM Room 240, John Hope Franklin Center Sex and Secularity (This event was originally scheduled for Tuesday March 25) Presented with the Program in the Study of Sexualities & Department of English Tuesday, March 18, 6:00 PM Room 016 A/B, John Hope Franklin Center Dinner Conversation with Graduate Students RSVP to cmc7@duke.edu Presented by the Franklin Humanities Institute's Mellon Dissertation Working Group *** NEW LOCATION *** Monday, March 24, 5:00 PM Von Canon Room A, Bryan Center West Campus A Conversation with Michael Warner (for Undergraduates) For more program information, please visit http://lgbt.studentaffairs.duke.edu/. To RSVP, e-mail nina.ricci@duke.edu. IMPORTANT PROGRAM NOTE: Please note that "Alternative Political Imaginaries: A Conversation with Michael Hardt, Michael Warner, & Robyn Wiegman," originally scheduled for Wednesday, March 19, has been CANCELLED. [ back to top ] |