Mahindra Humanities Center 5-Year Anniversary Report by Neal Akatsuka

MAHINDRA HUMANITIES CENTER | HARVARD

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The Mahindra Humanities Center Five-Year Anniversary Report summarizes our activities across many constituencies and scales, from the intimate gatherings in our seminars to the thousand-person audiences for the Norton Lectures. The Mahindra Humanities Center is a crossroads for interdisciplinary discussions among Harvard faculty, faculty from other area institutions, graduate students, undergraduates, and the public. It sponsors lectures, panels, readings, conferences, workshops, and seminars on a wide range of topics. It also supports informal occasions for the exchange of ideas and the sharing of scholarly and artistic work. The Mahindra Center seeks to foster collaborations between the humanities, social sciences, and sciences in the belief that the humanities make a unique contribution in establishing—through interpretation and conversation—communities of interest and climates of opinion.

James Rothenberg joined the gifts of the ever-listening ear and the ever-attentive eye with a rigorous readiness to stand for what he believed and to stand by those to whom he had given his word. Jim inspired many of us across the university to make the best kind of trouble; he urged us to take the trouble to look beyond our own parochial needs and priorities as individual scholars or members of particular schools or centers. Encouraging us to view ourselves as if from elsewhere, he offered a view of the university as an intricate mosaic: an institution larger than the sum of its parts and yet one that remains vitally connected because it is only the individual pieces of the mosaic that enable us to grasp the big picture. Jim thought deeply about Harvard by constantly thinking across Harvard. 1 9 4 6 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2 0 1 5

FROM THE DIRECTOR The Mahindra Humanities Center initiates projects across wide interdisciplinary jurisdictions because our community stretches from Harvard Yard to Allston and Longwood. It is a tribute to our colleagues, near and far, that they are acutely aware that scholarly specialisms are founded on ethical commitments and intellectual interests that address the problems of humanity before they provide the protocols of professionalism. At the Mahindra Center, we have had physicians from the Medical School speak about the autobiography of illness and the ethics of caregiving; musicians have explored the responsibilities of cultural citizenship; sociologists have conversed with legal and literary scholars about the dilemmas of mass incarceration; philosophers, historians, lawyers, and human rights activists have debated the concept of evil. As we cast the net of the humanities wide and deep, our ambition is sustained by those who show confidence in our vision. It is they who provide us with institutional resources, but more than that, they stand behind the arts and humanities at times in which our future

territorial sovereignty. The web has extended—some would say attenuated—our sense of cultural and territorial belonging, and although our habitations may be virtual, they are no less vital. We are deemed to be living in a vast and wired Age of Information. Advances in science and technology are so closely linked with the commercial ethos of markets and the media that the concept of “information” is often reduced to the speed and volume of facts, figures, and Big Data. Humanists argue against the hegemony of this reductive concept of the uses (and abuses) of information and their dominance in the shaping of academic institutions and professional training. Humanists contend that there can be no Age of Information without urgently acknowledging that we live in an Age of Interpretation and Intercultural Communication. And communication—whether verbal or visual, face-to-face or virtual—is at the very core of the principles and pedagogies of humanistic disciplines. The etymology of the word “communication” emphasizes the educational practice of creating a shared common knowledge, and the association of communication with moinicos (from munia, derived from Old Latin moenia, implying a duty or obligation) imbues the act of communication with an ethical obligation—the pedagogical obligation. We have an obligation to create a global climate of informed conversation in order to empower dialogues of conciliation, negotiation, and convergence amongst intellectual traditions that have diverse—even conflicting—historical, political, and cultural lineages. Built around pedagogies of representation and interpretation—textual, visual, digital, political, ethical, ecological, etc.—the humanities engage with the “deep” history of shifting relations between cultural expression, historical transition, and political transformation. They play a mediating role in this three-way process. Humanistic disciplines articulate the changing, contingent relationships between cultural meaning and social value as they shape “agents”—individual, collective, institutional—who participate in the creation of public opinion and the definition of public interest. The ethics of citizenship, in our time, are defined as much by migration and resettlement as by indigenous belonging, as much by global governance as by national sovereignty. And the humanities play a central role in defining the terms and the territories of cultural citizenship as it creates innovative institutions and identities in the making of a civil society.

seems to falter in the face of instrumental calculations about what an education is worth. Many of them appear in this report, which sums up the first five years of our existence as the Mahindra Humanities Center, named in recognition of the extraordinary support of Anand and Anuradha Mahindra. Global domains of knowledge—scientific, professional, humanistic—have spread to an

HOMI BHABHA

DIRECTOR

extent, and with a rapidity, that was unimaginable even a few decades ago. Digital technologies of diverse genres and “generations” have, over the years, created an internet internationalism that shapes global relations, be they personal or professional. The resort to social media has reconfigured the domain of civil society; networked digital platforms redraw the boundaries between individual rights and collective responsibilities and create new constituencies that enhance conversations within the nation-state and beyond its

From film screenings and panel discussions to the Norton and Tanner Lectures, each of my experiences at events sponsored by the Center has reminded me how the humanities are as essential to our approach to the future as they are to our understanding of the past.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

In the five years since Harvard celebrated Anand Mahindraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extraordinary generosity and vision, the Mahindra Humanities Center has fostered a community within our community, helping to create a zone of exploration and contemplation open to individuals from across the University. From film screenings and panel discussions to the Norton and Tanner Lectures, each of my experiences at events sponsored by the Center has reminded me how the humanities are as essential to our approach to the future as they are to our understanding of the past. Deep engagement with history, language, literature, philosophy, religion, and the arts expands the capacity for interpretation, for making meaning and making sense of the world, and for thinking imaginatively about where humanity might seek to go. I am pleased that the Mahindra Humanities Center has evolved into a crossroads where the humanities are embraced, illuminated, and developed, and where important conversations about their future are encouraged. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is central to the mission of the research university, and I look forward, as always, to the continued success of the Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remarkable and rigorous work.

DREW GILPIN FAUST PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND LINCOLN PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

SPEAKERS

Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman David Aberbach Rachel Ablow Darlene Abreu-Ferreira Christiane Ackermann Lou Agosta Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza Kamran Ahmed Shahab Ahmed Rebekah Ahrendt Anna Aizman Kuroda Akinobu Nadja Aksamija Samuel Alexander Ana Maria Huaita Alfaro Pierre Alféri Nicole Aljoe Lucia Allais Sarah Allan Sarah Allen Araceli Alonso Ellen Amster Peter-André Alt Michael Amico Shahid Amin Sunil Amrith Amanda Anderson Mary Anderson Christian Appy Emily Apter Nana Ariel Minou Arjomand David Armitage John Armitage Philip Armstrong Maure Aronson Antonio Arraiza Albert Russell Ascoli Matthew Aucoin Felicity Aulino Elaine Auyoung Ariella Azoulay Andrew Bacevich Michelle Bach-Coulibaly Lawrence Bacow Benjamin Bagby Timothy Bahti Ian Balfour Étienne Balibar Alejandra Ballón-Gutierrez Mahzarin Banaji Paul Bandia Peter Fibiger Bang Monika Barget Konstanze Baron Sam Barrett Cristelle Baskins

Kaushik Basu Eliot Bates Antonin Baudry kat baus Max Bazerman Faith Beasley Richard Beaudoin James Beaver Gary Beckman Victoria Benavidez Kristen A. Bennett Reda Bensmaia Jacques Berchtold Susan Bernofsky Charles Bernstein Jane Bernstein Robin Bernstein Susan Bernstein Michela Berti Laurel Bestock Jacqueline Bhabha Rustom Bharucha Edel Bhreathnach Mario Biagioli Betsey Biggs Laurent Binet David Blackbourn Josiah Blackmore Ann Blair Marie-Claire Blais David K. Blake Suzanne Preston Blier Mara Block Jeffrey Bloechl Paul Bloom Dominique Bluher Gabriella Blum Lawrence D. Bobo Nils Bock Erika Boeckeler Vanessa Boese Chief Boima Stephen Bokenkamp Peter Bol Drummond Bone Thomas Borchert Susan Bordo Kate Bornstein Sugata Bose Vladimir Boskovic Panos Bosnakis Ibtissam Bouachrine Jacques Bouchard Karen Bourrier David Bouvier Ewen Bowie Matthieu Boyd Doug Bradley

Mark Bradley Allan M. Brandt Benjamin Braude Liam Breatnach Catherine Brekus Jan Bremmer John Brenkman John Brewer Thiemo Breyer Alan Brody Michael Bronski Michaela Bronstein Peter Brooks Ben Brose Bill Brown Christopher Brown Kimberly Juanita Brown Nathan Brown Vincent Brown Mirjam Brusius Julia Bryan-Wilson Philippe Buc Benjamin Buchloh Lawrence Buell Ric Burns John Burt Stephanie Burt Rebecca Bushnell Judith Butler Melvin Butler Paul Butler James Buzard Alison Byerly Qing Cai Maria Emilia Cairo Diana Caley Daniel Callahan Vangelis Calotychos Clara Calvo Luis Camnitzer Alessandra Campana Robert Campany Duncan Campbell Jill Campbell Matthew Campbell Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum William Canferro Frank Capogna Christopher Capozzola Raúl Cárdenas Marg Carkeet Taylor Carman Davíd Carrasco Clare Carroll Lisa Cartwright Ellen Cassedy Christopher Castiglia Gregory Castle

Kevin Cathcart Howard J. Caygill Carla Cevasco Kahlil Chaar-Perez Dipesh Chakrabarty Catherine Chalier Joshua Chambers-Lesson Joyce Chaplin Herrick Chapman Roger Chartier Partha Chatterjee Celia M. Chazelle Jack Chen Yu-yu Cheng Tamara Chin Mark Chiusano Robert Chodat Nicos Christodoulakis Hillary L. Chute Fabrizio Ciccone Gregory T. Clark Robert Clark Shayne Clarke Michelle Clayton Charles Clements Francis Clooney Charles Cogan Gina Cogan Brigid Cohen Dan Cohen William Cohen David D. Cole Sarah Cole Claire Colebrook Bearden Coleman Theresa Coletti Stefan Collini Michel Collot Sarah Connell Claire Connolly Emily Contois Michael Cook Claire Mauss Copeaux Etienne Copeaux Rita Copeland Stanley Corngold Nancy Cott Francisco Raul Cornejo Nicola Courtright Sarah Covington Callie Crossley Paul Crossley Gabriela Cruz Alex Csiszar Tom Cummins Soelve Curdts Gregory Currie

Armand D’Angour José Da Silva Lianbin Dai William Dalrymple Jacob Dalton Veronika Darian Robert Darnton Nandita Das Veena Das Surekha Davies Lydia Davis Michael Davis Peter Davis Theo Davis Anastasia Day Aniket De Miguel de Beistegui Angela Ida de Benedictis David de Boer Adrian De Leon Hent de Vries Angus Deaton Vincent Debaene Hélène Debax Robert Decaroli Christopher Decherd Jane Degenhardt Sergio Delgado Harrison Demas Vincent Denis William Deresiewicz Christine Desan Dipankar Deshmukh Sanchia Desouza Samantha Desroches Faisal Devji Stephanie Dick Jessica Dickson Mario DiGangi Elizabeth Maddock Dillon Wai Chee Dimock Rakel Dink Rebecca Dirksen Emily Dolan Ricardo Dominguez Charles Donahue Dan Donoghue Rowan Dorin Nathaniel Dorsky Brandon Dotson Calliopi Dourou Matthew Doyle Anja Dreschke Esther Duflo Paul Duguid Kristin Nicole Dukes

David Dumville Erika Duncan Helga Duncan Jeremy Dunham Mario Dunkel Fiona Dunn Helen Dunstan Pascaline Dupas Simon During Samantha Eddy Lee Edelman Jacob Edgar Petros Efthymiou Ronald Egan Howard Eiland Mehmet Uğur Ekinci Sarah El-Ghazaly Andrew Elfenbein Ellen Elias-Bursac Caroline Elkins Mark Elliott Meaghan Elliott Marwa Elshakry Christoph Emmrich James Engell Lars Engle Marc Epstein Angel Esteban Immanuel Etkes Gennady Estraikh Jed Esty Geraint Evans Eddo Evink Yannis Evrigenis Banning Eyre Michael Fagenblat Francis Falceto Lianna Farber Bernard Faure Drew Gilpin Faust Leila Fawaz Natalia Fedorova Kristian Feigelson Therese Feiler Noah Feldman Shoshana Felman Marie-Claude Felton Blenda B. Femenias Peter Fenves Frances Ferguson Peter Fergusson Christine Ferlampin-Acher Zoa Alonso Fernández Mark Ferraguto David Ferry Lynn Festa Federico Finchelstein

Kavita Mudan Finn Stanley Fish Devin Fitzgerald Elizabeth Fitzpatrick Danuta Fjellestad Mary Flanagan Julia Flanders Daniel Fleming Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger Lisa Fluet Jeanne Follansbee Marcia Folsom Jonathan Foltz Murray Forman Danielle Fosler-Lussier James Fowkes Ariel Fox Carlos Fraenkel Mary Franklin-Brown Robert Fraser Hannah Freed-Thall David Freedberg Elaine Freedgood Lauren Freeman Oliver Freiberger Julio Frenk Amy Freund Brian Frykenberg Takanori Fujita Arlan Fuller Helen Fulton Toru Funayama Jacques Fux Pedro Gadanho Jan Felix Gaertner Alan Galey Peter Galison Paolo Galluzzi Karina Galperin Paul Galvez Michael Gamer Forrest Gander Jeanne Gang Matt Gannon Tamar Garb Alan Garber Jorge Garcia Finnian Moore Garety Jay Garfield Stefania Gargioni Leah Garrett Matthew Garrett Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Ellen Garvey K. Healan Gaston Roberta V. Gatti Niels Gaul

Assaf Gavron Anthony Geist Matthew Gelbart Petra Gelbart Eurydice Georganteli Finnian Gerety Dezideriu Gergely Russ Gershon Debra Gettelman Touba Ghadessi Genie Giaimo Robert Gibbs Sean Gilsdorf Esther Gimeno Carlo Ginzburg Gabriel Giorgi Giulia Giovani Nancy Gish Franco Giudice Carra Glatt Peter Godfrey-Smith Eckart Goebel Irving Goh Jessica Goldberg Simon Goldhill Elizabeth C. Goldsmith Osvaldo Golijov Richard J. Golsan Liliana Gomez-Popescu Irene Good Lauren Goodlad Peter Goodrich Bonnie Gordon Neve Gordon Peter Gordon Jennifer Gosetti-Fernencei Marie Gottschalk Maria Gough Susanne Goumegou Anthony Grafton Laura Graham Phyllis Granoff Iain Hamilton Grant Cristina Grasseni Andrew Gray Elizabeth A. Gray Francesca Grazioli Jack Greenberg Rachel Greenblatt Stephen Greenblatt Joshua Greene Virginie Greene Linda Greenhouse Emily Greenwood Rae Greiner Malte Griesse Benjamin D. Grimm

SPEAKERS

Anna Grimshaw Christopher Grobe Arthur Groos David Grossman Joanna Grossman David Grubbs Marah Gubar Charlotte Guichard Alma Guillermoprieto Jo Guldi Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht Christian Gütl Kim Gutschow Will Guy Judith Haber Martin Hägglund Daniela Hahn Rachel Haidu Moshe Halbertal David Hall Charles Hallisey Jeffrey Hamburger Sherine Hamdy Yannis Hamilakis John Hamilton Evelynn M. Hammonds Herbie Hancock Ian Hancock Rivi Handler-Spitz Sarah Hankins Matthias Hansl Ulrike Hanstein Chad Harbach Bernard E. Harcourt Markus Hardtmann Mary Harlow Jocelyn Harris Paul Harris Susan Harris Stephen Harrison Susan Harvey Galit Hasan-Rokem Saman Hassibi Lisa Haushofer Christian Hawkey Daniela Helbig Louise Hecht Chris Hedges Sara Hefny Stefania Heim Matthew Heitzman Kythe Heller Natasha Heller Daniel Heller-Roazen Anna Henchman Diana E. Henderson David Henkin Jonathan Herman

Ben Herson Philip Heymann Stephen Heyworth John Hill Josephine Hill Barbara Hillers Helen Hills T.J. Hinrichs Dennis Hirota Maria Hlavajova Hi’ilei Hobart Allan Hobson Arne Hoecker Ton Hoenslaars Stanley Hoffmann Christopher Hoklotubbe Graham Holderness Amber Hollibaugh JJ Hollingsworth Amy Hollywood Brooke Holmes Richard Holmes Bonnie Honig Dara Horn Albertus Horsting Simon Hosie Susan Howe Martha Howell William Hunting Howell Elizabeth Hudson Aeron Hunt Sarah Huang Eleanor Hubbard David Hubel Rosario Hubert Mireille Huchon Emily Hudson Pascale Hugon Lynn A. Hunt Richard Hunter Michael Hunteri Patrick Hutchinson Carrie Hyde David Hykes Steven Hyman Robert Hymes Katherine Ibbett Maria Iliou Marcia C. Inhorn Sim Innes Vincent J. Intondi Caren Irr Andrew Irving Benjamin Isaacs Gü lru Necipoğ lu Vijay Iyer Alfredo Jaar Ray Jackendoff

Michael D. Jackson Lauren Jacobi Colin Jacobsen Bianca Jagger David James E. Wyn James Joy James Katherine Jansen Gene Jarrett Mark Jarzombek Maya Jasanoff Martin Jay Christine Jeanneret Leigh Jenco Michael W. Jennings Deborah Jenson Andrew Jewett Cao Jin Douglas Johnson Walter Johnson William Johnson Adrian Johnston Etienne Jollet Aled Llion Jones Bradley Jones Emily Griffiths Jones Graham Jones John Jones Jason A. Josephson Fady Joudah Daniel Juette Cemal Kafadar Benjamin Kahan Coppélia Kahn Abhishek Kaicker Maria Kaliambou Craig Kallendorf Andreas Kalyvas Stathis Kalyvas Maryam Kamali Nancy Kanwisher Louis Kaplan Gazmend Kapllani Andromache Karanika Ernst Karel Pamela S. Karlan Jonathan Ned Katz Chad Kautzer Gleb Kazakov William Keach Thomas Keirstead Margaret Kelleher Hildegard Keller Jocelyn Kelly Michael Kelly Sean Kelly Robin Kelsey Nancy Kendrick

J. Mark Kenoyer William Kentridge Dimitris Keridis Rashid Khalidi Chad Kia Tracy Kidder Mookie Kideckel Sarah Kile Chris Killip Ju Yon Kim Katherine Kim Amy King Racha Kirakosian Matthew Kirschenbaum David Kishik Alexander Kitroeff Martin Kintzinger Valerie Kivelson Sharon Kivenko Morten Kjaerum Irit Kleiman Arthur Kleinman Deeana Klepper James Kloppenberg Felicia Knaul Marika Knowles Yu Jin Ko Angela Kocze María Kodama Catherine Kodat Raphael Koenig Katherine Kolb Alysia Kolentsis Nancy Kollmann Catherine Koonar Anna Kornbluh Frank J. Korom Dean Kostos Joshua Kotin Adam Kotsko Maryanne Kowaleski Lawrence Kramer Jonathan Kramnick Virginia Krause Ivan Kreilkamp Vera Kreilkamp Michael Kremer Gundula Kreuzer Sanjay Krishnan Suneeta Krishnan Julia Kristeva Wilhelm Krull Kir Kuiken Kyrill Kunakhovich David Kurnick Norman Kutcher Nicola Lacey Francois Lachaud

Lilach Lachman Alejandra Laera Anne Lafont Andrew Laird Mark Laird Jaya Lakshminarayanan Courtney Lamberth Elizabeth Lambourn Christian Lammerts David Lammy Michele Lamont Hannah Landecker Harm Langenkamp Douglas Lanier Martine Lappé Diana Larsen Kostas Lavdas Jacob Lauinger Jean-Pierre Le Dantec Fabienne Le Houérou Panayotis League Jennifer Leaning De-nin Lee Maurice Lee Robert Lehman Rebecca Lemov Jill Lepore Michael Lesley Rika Lesser Lawrence Lessig Frank Lestringant Carmen Levick Michael Levine Neil Levine Lital Levy David Levering Lewis Wai-Yee Li Jacqueline Lichtenstein Jeffrey Lieber Caroline Lieffers Nancy Lin Ursula Lindqvist Lawrence Lipking Margaret Litvin Olga Litwak Xinru Liu David N. Livingstone Mario Livio Ernesto Livon-Grosman Francisco Lloreda Chris Llvanos Eric Lob David Locke Kathryn Lofton Anne Löhnert Stéphane Lojkine Heather K. Love Christopher Loveluck

Lisa Lowe Michèle Lowrie Glenn Lowry Leah Lowthorp Francis Ludlow Keridwen Luis Christina Lupton John Lurz Deborah Lyons Tara Lyons Ning Ma Yo-Yo Ma David Maayan Evan Angus MacCarthy Gillian MacDonald Peter Machinist Ruth Mack Shannon Mackey Margaret MacMillan Rachida Madani Jeannette Mageo Aruni Mahapatra Charles S. Maier Danny Makonnen Bindu Malieckal Chibli Mallat Marian Mandache Scott Mandelbrote Xolela Mangcu Roi Maor Andrea Marculescu Hannah Marcus Avishai Margalit Maria Margaroni Laurence Marie Stephanie Maroney Wythe Marschall Kate Marshall Wayne Marshall Aryn Martin Carla D. Martin Mary Anne Martin Taras Mashtalir Adam Maskevich Margareta Matache John T. Matthews D.T. Max Pablo Rey Mazón Matthew Mazzotta Achille Mbembe Maia McAleavey Annie McClanahan Richard McCoy Theresa McCulla Josh McDermott Christie McDonald Paula McDowell Corey McEleney

Ian McEwan Kevin McGeough Max McGuinness Linda McJannet Catherine McKenna Kevin McLaughlin Kathleen McLuskie Tracy McNulty Sarah McPhee Richard Meadow Eric Méchoulan Jeffrey Mehlman Didier Méhu Pedro Memelsdorff Avi Mendelson Adia Mendelson-Maoz Peter Mendelsund Mireille Fanon Mendes Carolina Chávez Mendoza Christoph Menke Madhavi Menon Paul Menzer Lisa Merrill Claire Messud Adam Mestyan Mark Meulenbeld Liam Meyer Linda R. Meyer Karin Meyers Frank I. Michelman Birtukan Midekssa Oana Mihalache Tiya Miles Catherine Millet Margaret Mills Stephen Milner Alastair Minnis Martha Minow Andrzej Mirga Anna Mirga Kalman Mizsei Robert Mnookin Antanas Mockus Joey Mogul Naseemah Mohamed Henrike Moll Anne Monius Ingrid Monson Jean-Paul Montagnier Aisha Moodie-Mills Eric Moormann Codruţa Morari Martin Moraw Alison More Kathryn Tierney Moreadith Alberto Moreiras

Luis Moreno-Ocampo Franco Moretti Ben Morgan Christopher Morris Errol Morris Toni Morrison Gary Saul Morson Valzhyna Mort Benjamin Moser Warrick Moses Elly Moseson Robb Moss Judith Mossman Iulia Motoc Roy Mottahedeh Wajdi Mouawad Samuel Moyn Gregory Moynahan Attila Mráz Daniela Mueller Elias Muhanna Fiston Mwanza Mujila Inka Mülder-Bach Darcy Mullen Patrick Mullen Carol Muller Oliver Müller Jorge Munguía Alfreda Murck Andrew Murphy Erin Murphy Maureen Murphy Sebastian Musch Deak Nabers Sandra Naddaff Franziska Naether Alexander Nagel Erika Naginski Mira Nair James Najarian Touria Nakkouch Carla Nappi Kirin Narayan Shakthi Nataraj Ram Natarajan Anastasia Natsina Luis García Nava Cynthia Nazarian Monica White Ndounou Lawrence Nees Susan Neiman Alondra Nelson Eric Nelson András Németh Hilary Neroni Nancy Netzer Elisa New Catherine Newell

SPEAKERS

Alana Newhouse Kevin Newmark Sir Geoffrey Nice Stephen G. Nichols Argyro Nicolaou Mignon Nixon Linda Nochlin James Noggle Erin Hyde Nolan William Nolan Nicole Nolette Grace Nono Dennis Norman Linn Normand Paul North Marie-Louise Nosch Gabriela Nouzeilles Zachary Nowak Christopher Nugent Tara Nummedal Ivan Nunez del Prado Juan Nunez del Prado Colmán Ó Clabaigh Kevin Lewis O’Neill Meghan O’Rourke Luis Morena Ocampo Amy Ogata Kevin Ohi William Olena Kelly Oliver Andrés Soria Olmedo Katharine Olson Liesl Olson Lena Cowen Orlin Stephen Osadetz Jordan Osterer Roger Owen Elaine Pagels Panos Panay Laikwan Pang Nikos Panou Vasilis Papageorgiou Fabio Parasecoli Ilana Pardes Erato Paris Inés París Katharine Park Ben Parker María Luisa Parra Judith Pascoe Jann Pasler Nikos Passas Parimal Patil Cristina Pato Anand Patwardhan Diane Paulus Thomas Pavel Eva Payne

Richard Payne Carmen Font Paz Jason Peacey Irene Peirano Sarah Pelletier D’hana Perry Ruth Perry T.A. Perry Nicola Perugini Peter Pesic Jeffrey N. Peters Trace Peterson Margiana Petersen Rockney Tobias Peyerl James Phelan Patricia Phillippy Ruth Phillips Francisco Prado-Vilar Claudia Prieto Piastro Katharina Piechocki Danya Pilgrim Steven Pinker Robert Pinsky Johanna Pirker Arkady Plotnitsky John Plotz Judith Plotz Janet Polasky Spiro N. Pollalis Emily Richmond Pollock Sheldon I. Pollock Michael Pomeranz Victor Bedoya Ponte Laurence Pope II Liliana Gómez Popescu Hilary Poris Robert C. Post Burcht Pranger Leela Prasad Mylène Priam Leah Price Yopie Prins Michail Psalidopoulos Martin Puchner Beatriz Puente Ballesteros Michael Puett Meredith Quinn Intisar Rabb Ahmed Ragab Tilottama Rajan Frédéric Ramel Kathryn Ramey   Mari Carmen Ramírez Jacques Rancière Ann Marie Rasmussen Markus Rautzenberg

J.D. Reed Eileen Reeves Stephen Regan Alexander Rehding Martine Reid Robert Reid-Pharr Timothy Reiss Almut-Barbara Renger Kate Rennebohm Margaret Rennix Sindhumathi Revuluri Joseph Rezek Sarah Richardson Paula Richman Antje Richter Gerhard Richter Victoria Rimell Constance Rinaldo Andrea Ritchie Fred Ritchin Harriet Ritvo Gina Rivera Dylon Robbins Jennifer Roberts Joanne Roberts John Robinson-Appels Eleanor Robson Catherine Rockwood Amy Rodgers Gloria Rodriguez David Roessel Gayle Rogers Jaclyn Rohel Avital Ronell Sophia Roosth Emily Rose Jonathan Rosenberg Nancy Rosenblum Kathrin Rosenfield Anna Ross Ellen Ross Lee Ross Emma Rothschild Mark Rowe Wendy Wassyng Roworth Suparna Roychoudhury Matthew Rubery Julius Ruff Bruce Rusk Paul Russell Richard Rutherford Judith Ryan Peter Sacks Thomas Max Safley Puja Sahney Dana Sajdi Kendra Salois

Richard Salomon Thet Sambath Bert Samuels Michael Sandel Stephanie Sandler Eric L. Santner Hashim Sarkis Beatriz Sarlo Adheesh Sathaye Melania Savino Rebecca Saxe Amir Sayadabdi Matthew Sayers Elaine Scarry Daniel Schacter Michaela Schäuble Thomas Schestag Leslie Scheuler Erika Schlager Jeffrey Schnapp Danilo Scholz Hilary Schor Arman Schwartz Madeleine Schwartz Peter Schweigert Ivy Schweitzer Stephen Scully Klaus Seidl Claire Seiler Amartya Sen Laurence Senelick Shuddhabrata Sengupta Emmanuelle Senici Svati Shah Avinoam Shalem Anton Shammas Adam Shapiro Lois Shapiro Christina Sharpe Kay Kaufman Shelemay Marc Shell Angela Sheng Joshua Wolf Shenk Charles Shepherdson David Sherman Anna Shields Amit Shilo Koichi Shinohara Zhao Shiyu Daniel Shore Anne Shreffler Ann Shteir Richard Shweder Beatrice Sica Michael Silber Alison Simmons Emile Simpson

Hannah Simpson Joel Simundich Jerome Singerman Lisa Siraganian Nikki Skillman Borut Škodlar Eric Slauter Edward Slingerland Daniel Smail Kristel Smentek Caleb Smith Christine Smith Faith Smith Norman Smith Sandra Smith Carroll Smith Rosenberg Jonathan Smolin Gretchen Sneegas J.P. Sniadecki Thomas Snyder Abraham Socher Andrew Sofer Jacob Soll Werner Sollors Yasmin Solomonescu Doris Sommer Diana Sorensen Dimitris Sotiropoulos Elizabeth Spelke Doreen Spence Sarah Spence Matthew Spencer Steven Spielberg Kevin Spinale Elyssa Spitzer Arne Spohr Stephanie Spray Stephen Squibb Susanne Sreedhar Charles Stang Gregory H. Stanton Beata Stawarska Carol S. Steiker Jordan Alexander Stein Anthony Steinbock Uwe Steiner Alma Steingard David Stern Giora Sternberg Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg Kenneth W. Stikkers Kristen Stilt M. Vanci Stirnemann Matthew Stokes Paul Stoller James N. Stone

Joanna Story Chase Strangio Ian Straughn Kera Street Almut Suerbaum Susan Suleiman Natasha Sumner Yanfei Sun Olivier Surel M. Paula Survilla Matthew Sussman Christina Svendsen Srividhya Swaminathan Wendy Swartz Eileen Sweeney Aleksandra Szelag Nicolas Tackett Hue-Tam Ho Tai Megan Taing Ichiro Takayoshi Elisa Tamarkin Patricia J. Tang Himmet Taskomur Maria Tatar Adiel Tel-Oren Vivi Tellas Dennis Tenen Jonathan Tenney Misha Teramura Peter Terry Kimberly Theidon Richard Thomas Thelma K. Thomas Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze C. Jason Throop Davone Tines Galina Tirnanic Janet Todd William Mills Todd III Colm Tóibín Nicholas Tosaj Trung Tran Dylan Trigg Michele Trizio Katrin Trüstedt Iliana Tsankova Lillian Lan-ying Tseng Loukas Tsoukalis Richard Tuck Alicia Turner Mark Turner Roy Tzohar James Uden Jason Ur Nadia Urbinati Philip Ursprung Phillip John Usher

Michael Uyehara Ananya Vajpeyi Damian Valdez Felipe Valencia Joseph Valente Deborah Valenze Ülo Valk Elena Valussi David Van der Leer Chet Van Duzer Hans Van Ess Albert Van Helden Kate Van Orden Angela Vanhaelen Virginia Vaughan Michael E. Veal Irma A. Velásquez Helen Vendler Lawrence Venuti Kostas Vergopoulos Peter Vermeersch Rok Vevar J. Keith Vincent Tommaso Vitale Daniel Vitkus Hans Ulrich Vogel Eva von Dassow Richard von Glahn Adelheid Voskuhl Miranda Waggoner Beate Wagner-Hasel Dror Wahrman Jeremy Waldron Rosmarie Waldrop Joshua Walker Cynthia Wall Sarah Wall-Randell Michael Walzer Aihe Wang Eugene Wang Helen Wang Yugen Wang Brian Waniewski Michael Warner Sarah Wassberg Audrey Wasser Nell Wasserstrom Peter Waterhouse Alice Waters Nicholas Watson Andrew H. Weaver Michael Weinstein Travis Weiss Ellen Welch David Wellbery Craig Werner Bruce Western Susan Whyman

Samantha Widder Richard Widdess Heather Wiebe Nick Wilding Tobias Wilke Daniel Williams Rowan Williams Travis Williams Willow Williamson Elizabeth Wilson Christian Wiman Irene Winter Jay Winter Heather Wolfe Andreas Wolfsteiner James Wood A.J. Woodman Marjorie Curry Woods Andrea Worm David Joseph Wrisley Christoph Wulf Karen Wynn Xu Xin Jonathan L. Yaeger Nobuyoshi Yamabe Jeffrey Yang Shao-yun Yang Waseem Yaqoob Julian Yolles Rona Yona Mary Yossi Ashley Rose Young Christopher Young Dan Zahavi Tom Zajac Ghassan Zaqtan Anna Zayaruznaya Malika Zeghal Simos Zeniou Henri Zerner Maria Zervos Ling Zhang Feng Zhao Martin Zillinger Basile Zimmermann Jan Ziolkowski Slavoj Žižek Janet Zong Jason Zysk

The Center extends its gratitude and appreciation to President Drew Gilpin Faust, Provost Alan Garber, Deans Michael Smith, Diana Sorensen, and Robin Kelsey, Anand Mahindra, Rita E. Hauser, Catherine C. Marron, Paul Buttenwieser, Anne F. Rothenberg, James F. Rothenberg, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for

events

making our activities possible through their generosity and collaborative spirit.

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Robert C. Post, Carlo Ginzburg, Rowan Williams, and Esther Duflo

industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, are held at Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and the University of Utah. They are intended to advance and reflect upon scholarship and learning relating to human values. Tanner lecturers may come from the humanities, sciences, creative arts, or leadership in public or private

TANNER LECTURES

The Tanner Lectures, established by the scholar,

affairs. Under the stewardship of the Mahindra Center, the 2011–12 Tanner Lectures at Harvard were presented by Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on “Human Values and the Design of the Fight against Poverty.” In 2012– 13, the Tanner Lectures were presented by Robert C. Post, Dean and Sol and Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, on “Representative Democracy: The Constitutional Theory of Campaign Finance Reform.” In 2013– 14, Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, presented the Tanner Lectures on “The Paradoxes of Empathy.” In 2014–15, Carlo Ginzburg, Franklin D. Murphy Professor of Italian Renaissance Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, presented the Tanner Lectures on “Casuistry, For and Against: Pascal’s Provinciales and Their Aftermath.”

Poetry was endowed in 1925. Harvard’s preeminent lecture series in the arts and humanities, the Norton Lectures recognize individuals of extraordinary talent who, in addition to their particular expertise, have the gift of wide dissemination and wise expression. The term “poetry” is interpreted in the broadest sense to encompass all poetic expression in language, music, or the fine arts; past Norton Professors have included T.S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Leonard Bernstein, Czeslaw Milosz, John Cage, and Nadine Gordimer. In 2011–12, the Norton Lectures were given by the artist William Kentridge in a series of six Drawing Lessons: “In Praise of Shadows,” “A Brief History of Colonial Revolts,” “Vertical Thinking: A Johannesburg Biography,” “Practical Epistemology: Life in the Studio,” “In Praise of Mistranslation,” and “Anti-Entropy.” In 2013–14, pianist and composer Herbie Hancock gave the Norton Lectures on “The Ethics of Jazz” in six Sets: “The Wisdom of Miles Davis,” “Breaking the Rules,” “Cultural Diplomacy and the Voice of Freedom,” “Innovation and New Technologies,” “Buddhism and Creativity,” and “Once Upon a Time…” In 2015–16, the Norton Lectures were given by Toni Morrison, writer and Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, at Princeton University, on “The Origin of Others, The Literature of Belonging” in six Lectures: “Romancing Slavery,” “Being and Becoming the Stranger,” “The Color Fetish,” “Configurations of Blackness,” “Narrating the Other,”

NORTON LECTURES

The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in

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Toni Morrison, Herbie Hancock, and William Kentridge

and “The Foreigner’s Home.”

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Ian McEwan, Mira Nair, David Grossman, Rita E. Hauser, and Steven Spielberg

RITA E. HAUSER FORUM FOR THE ARTS

The scale of Rita and Gus Hauser’s generosity to Harvard is remarkable, spanning the campus from the Law School to the Kennedy School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Rita E. Hauser Forum brings this history of innovation and integration to the Mahindra Humanities Center by enabling us to bring to campus major figures to reflect on their own artistic practices and on “the state of the arts” more generally. The novelist Ian McEwan inaugurated the Hauser Forum in 2012 with his lecture “The Lever: Where Novelists Stand to Move the World.” In 2013, the filmmaker Mira Nair ’79 screened and discussed her new film The Reluctant Fundamentalist. In 2014, the filmmaker Steven Spielberg discussed the influences and motivations behind his films. In 2015, the writer David Grossman gave a lecture on “Facts of Life and Death,” reflecting on his work as a novelist and public intellectual in Israel.

VIOLENCE AND NON-VIOLENCE

ANDREW W. M ELLON SEM I NAR ON

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Étienne Balibar, Moshe Halbertal, Davóne Tines, Robert Shapiro, Partha Chatterjee, and Veena Das

The call to arms and the politics of non-violent resistance are often represented as polarities. There are, however, many gray areas that define the dialectical relationship between violence and non-violence. This university-wide seminar, supported by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation, explored various dimensions of the interrelationship between violence and non-violence —as disciplinary formation, historical event, ideological or ethical discourse. In the inaugural year of 2014–15, the seminar focused on the theme of war and included lectures by Partha Chatterjee (Columbia University) on “International Law and the Pedagogy of Violence,” Étienne Balibar (University of California, Irvine) on “Violence, Civility, and Politics Revisited,” Vincent Intondi (Montgomery College) on his book African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement, and Kevin Lewis O’Neill (University of Toronto) “On Hunting”; a film screening and panel discussion with director Peter Davis on the 40th anniversary of his Academy Award-winning Vietnam War documentary Hearts

and Minds; conferences on the centennial anniversary of World War I and on “Asymmetric Warfare”; a preview of the new opera Crossing about the Civil War with the composer Matthew Aucoin ’12 and the baritone Davone Tine; and a panel discussion on “Whitman’s Civil War Revisited: Drum-Taps at 150,” followed by a performance of Whitman’s war poetry set to music. In 2015–16, the seminar concentrated on the theme of everyday violence and included lectures by Rustom Bharucha (Jawaharlal Nehru University) on his recently published book Terror and Performance, Veena Das (Johns Hopkins University) on “Fleeting Moments That Last Forever: Violence of and Against the Everyday,” Nancy Rosenblum (Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government) on “When Neighbors Become Violent: Struggles with the Democracy of Everyday Life,” and journalist Alma Guillermoprieto on “Making Art Out of Fright.” These public events complemented the biweekly Mellon seminar meetings that featured the work of our postdoctoral fellows in discussion with faculty and graduate students.

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“Instead of digging ourselves in behind a stockade of overambitious claims couched at too high a level of abstraction and delivered in a tone of defensiveness, I think it’s better to start from some of the facts of our actual practice in our actual diverse disciplines and work up from there. The kinds of understanding and judgment exercised in those disciplines are of a piece with the kinds of understanding and judgment involved in living a life. We should recognize that that, in the end, is part of why they interest us and seem worthwhile. And perhaps we then need to acknowledge that any subsequent attempts at justification in other terms must start from and build on that recognition. In trying to justify the humanities, as in trying to live a life, what may turn out to matter most is holding one’s nerve.” – Stefan Collini, Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History, University of Cambridge

THE HUMANITIES AND THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSITY

Stefan Collini, Lynn A. Hunt and Sheldon I. Pollock

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THE ART OF SURVIVAL

A TENTH ANNIVERSARY OBSERVANCE OF 9/11 IN WORDS, MUSIC, AND DANCE The Mahindra Center was honored to have been asked by President Faust to curate the university’s observance of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. In Sanders Theatre, before an audience of around 700, we presented “The Art of Survival.”

By processing 9/11 through a range of cul-

tural practices, we attempted to “work through” its traumas while staging the displaced and discontinuous events of the decade that followed— bombings in London, Madrid, Mumbai, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Abu Ghraib, torture, and rendition—in a way that conceptualized 9/11 on a global as well as national scale. The humanistic arts of performance and interpretation, we strove to suggest, serve as a kind of public archive very different from the sound bites of the news media.

9/11, 3/11, 7/7. For a community such as

ours, these dates have become pivotal for reflecting on the uses of knowledge in moments of crisis and emergency. The exigency of events, we came to realize, intensified our urgent need for dialogue and discussion, for tempering our anger with argument, and for carefully calibrating the scales of justice and judgment.

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Made possible through the generosity of Harry Parsekian, this series honors and promotes the humanistic values espoused by the late Turkish Armenian journalist and intellectual Hrant Dink, assassinated in 2007. It aims at keeping Dink’s legacy alive by providing a platform for the development of critical perspectives, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical discourses regarding transitional justice, conflict resolution, peace and democracy, and human rights, especially as they apply to past and current relations between Armenia and Turkey and the Turkish and Armenian peoples. In 2014–15, Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University) gave the inaugural lecture on “Unhealed Wounds of World War I: Armenia, Kurdistan, and Palestine.” In 2015–16, Sir Geoffrey Nice (Gresham College) discussed his work at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, at the permanent International Criminal Court, and for victims’ groups in “Complex Truths in Trials of Conflicts.”

HRANT DINK MEMORIAL PEACE AND JUSTICE LECTURE

Cemal Kafadar, Sir Geoffrey Nice, Rashid Khalidi, Diana Sorensen, Harry Parsekian and Cemal Kafadar

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Scenes from Brooklyn, Lydia Davis, Colm Tóibín with Claire Messud

to speak on campus, with the intention of fostering

WRITERS SPEAK

This series brings significant contemporary writers literary conversation. 2015–16 marked the inaugural year of the series: the first speaker was the acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín, who read from his work-in-progress based on The Oresteia. He then discussed his work (including his novel Brooklyn, recently adapted for the cinema) with novelist Claire Messud and took questions from the audience. The second speaker, also in the spring semester, was the writer and translator Lydia Davis, winner of the International Man Booker Prize, who gave a reading and was also in conversation with Claire Messud. Both writers conducted lunchtime workshops with students: Tóibín discussed craft questions; Lydia Davis discussed translation.

FROM LEFT

Explores questions of who constitutes our contemporary publics and how these publics understand and advocate for their interests.

In the Public Interest explores questions of who constitutes our contemporary publics and how these publics understand and advocate for their interests. The inaugural event, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 2015, addressed urgent questions raised by the exhibition Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities. Discussants included Homi Bhabha, Pedro Gadanho (MoMA), Jeanne Gang (Studio Gang Architects), and Glenn Lowry (MoMA). The discussion explored how rapidly changing demographics, uncontrolled urban growth, and unequal distribution of goods and services are affecting the way cities function, creating new social, political, economic, and cultural conditions. Future topics will include journalism, corporations, universities, libraries, and museums.

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Homi Bhabha, Pedro Gadanho, Jeanne Gang, and Glenn Lowry

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Q ABOVE

Lisa Randall, Janet Browne, Mario Livio, and Anna Henchman RIGHT

Roger Chartier

20 QUESTIONS

Christie McDonald, Herrick Chapman, Dominique Bluher, Lizabeth Cohen, William Deresiewicz, and Chris Hedges

The “20” Questions series features discussions of provocative recent publications in a unique format. The author of the publication gives a brief presentation, and then five or six questioners—coming from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives—each poses one question. After the author has responded, the audience joins in the discussion. In 2011–12, “20” Questions featured Christie McDonald (Smith Professor of French Language and Literature) and Susan Suleiman (C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France) discussing French Global, Chris Hedges (Truthdig columnist) discussing Death of the Liberal Class, and Steven Pinker (Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology) discussing The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. In 2012–13, the series featured Roger Chartier (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) discussing “From Author’s Hand to Printer’s Mind: When and Why Do Literary Manuscripts Survive?” In 2013–14, Mario Livio (Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute) discussed his book Brilliant Blunders. In 2014–15, William Deresiewicz discussed his book Excellent Sheep.

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Unlike our other programs which take long historical views or trace large thematic arcs, Master Classes provide an occasion to celebrate a meditative moment of genius: the genius of a complex, exemplary work slowly unfolding in the precise and passionate reading of a gifted interpreter. The reader attempts to catch the spirit of the work in a relatively short, shareable excerpt that allows for an exploration of the work’s fuller themes, forms, questions, and beliefs. There is an element of instruction and interpretation in Master Classes, but beyond those pedagogical aims, they allow for the pleasures of a slow and serious working-away at details of textual construction and attention that are often overlooked in broader and quicker surveys. In 2011–12, Sugata Bose (Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs) presented “Poetry, Painting and Politics: The Late Phase of Rabindranath Tagore,” and Ingrid Monson (Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music) discussed John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. In 2013–14, Noah Feldman (Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law) discussed the US Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell. In 2014–15, Stephanie Sandler (Ernest E. Monrad Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures) presented “How to Read a Russian Poem: Osip Mandelstam, ‘Armed with the Eye of the Arrowing Wasp.’”

MASTER CLASSES

Ingrid Monson, Stephanie Sandler, John Coltrane, Sugata Bose, Osip Mandelstam, and Noah Feldman

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2011–12

Joseph Connors History of Art and Architecture

Chaya Czernowin

At these biweekly Thursday gatherings, new members of the Harvard faculty present their work and get to know colleagues from a wide range of fields. Lively conversations rather than formal lectures, these lunches have helped build intellectual communities beyond departments and disciplines.

Sergio Delgado

Romance Languages and Literatures

Simon Innes

Celtic Languages and Literatures

Jill Johnson

Music/Dance Program

Ju Yon Kim English

Rebecca Lemov History of Science

Jeffrey Schnapp

Romance Languages and Literatures; metaLab

Adrian Staehli Classics

Andrew Warren

David Alworth

English; History and Literature

Isabelle Charnavel Linguistics

Alejandro de la Fuente

Tomiko Brown-Nagin Law School; History

Federico Cortese

Music; Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra

Alex Csiszar

History of Science

Jane Hutton

Graduate School of Design

Russell Jones Philosophy

Laurence Ralph

African and African American Studies; Anthropology

Leah Whittington English

Alexander Zahlten

East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Germanic Languages and Literatures

Government; Safra Center for Ethics

Visual and Environmental Studies

Ousmane Kane Divinity School

Jinah Kim

History of Art and Architecture

Derek Miller English

2012–13

Sociology

Nicole Sütterlin

Laura Frahm

Kate van Orden

Bart Bonikowski

Divinity School

2015–16

Katharina Piechocki

Divinity School

Mayra Rivera Rivera

History; African and African American Studies

English

Aisha Beliso-De Jesús

2013–14

Comparative Literature Music

Kirsten Weld History

2014–15

Josiah Blackmore

Romance Languages and Literatures

Tamar Herzog History

Elizabeth Hinton

Danielle Allen Sunil Amrith

History; South Asian Studies

Catherine Brekus Divinity School

Genevieve Clutario

History; History and Literature

David Holland Divinity School

Jane Kamensky

History; Schlesinger Library

Racha Kirakosian

Germanic Languages and Literatures; Committee on the Study of Religion

Justine Landau

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Intisar Rabb

Law School; Radcliffe Institute

Mario Small Sociology

NEW FACULTY LUNCHES

Music

History; African and African American Studies

Vijay Iyer Music

Paul Kosmin Classics

Deidre Lynch English

Samuel Moyn

History; Law School

Lorgia García Peña

Romance Languages and Literatures; History and Literature

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NEWS FLASH

Peter Galison, Jill Lepore, Malika Zeghal, Michael Ignatieff and Jacqueline Bhabha

News Flash is a series of lunches for faculty from across the campus in which a colleague leads a discussion of an important current event or issue. For most of those in attendance, the topic does not immediately connect with their scholarly expertise; the goal is to provide occasions for faculty to interact as intellectuals whose interests and ideas extend far beyond their academic specialties. The speaker presents a brief and informal “op-ed” on the topic— no longer than 7 or 8 minutes—that serves as a spur to a wide-ranging conversation. Speakers have included Malika Zeghal on the Arab Spring, Jerold Kayden on the Occupy Movement, David Gergen on the 2012 presidential campaign, Richard Parker on the Greek financial crisis, Jill Lepore on the Planned Parenthood controversy, Daniel Schrag on the 2012 summer droughts in the United States, David Hemenway on gun violence, Peter Galison on surveillance and the NSA, Diane Paulus on making a musical, Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the 2014 Indian General Election, Jessica Stern on ISIS, and Jacqueline Bhabha and Michael Ignatieff on the refugee crisis.

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In partnership with Harvard Law School, the Mahindra Center has organized a range of events under the rubric Legal Humanities that explore intersections between the law, literature, film, ethics, history, hermeneutics, and other areas of humanistic inquiry. In 2012–13, a collaboration between the Mahindra Center, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and the Volkswagen Foundation, resulted in the conference “Confronting Evil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.” This conference brought together leading scholars from a broad range of fields to explore evil in both its conceptual and practical dimensions. How do humanists, social scientists, and legal scholars think about what constitutes evil and about how political actors respond to evil in world affairs? Panels addressed “The Concept and Rhetoric of Evil,” “The Psychology of Evil: Cognitive,

LEGAL HUMANITIES

Lawrence Bobo, David D. Cole, Avishai Margalit, Mahzarin Banaji with Joshua Greene, and Linda R. Meyer

Behavioral, and Social Implications,” “Witnessing Evil in World Affairs: From Everyday Evils to Extraordinary Crimes,” and “Responding to Evil: Should We Bargain with the Devil?” In 2013–14, the Mahindra Center held the conference “Prison USA” to discuss the dilemmas of mass incarceration. Panels addressed the questions “How Did We Get Here?” and “How Do We Get Out?” with leading humanists, social scientists, and legal scholars.

Volkswagen Foundation Fellows organize day-long symposia on topics related to their own research. These symposia cover a broad range of subjects and draw participants from various disciplines and geographic locations. The Volkswagen Fellowships’ rich contribution to Harvard’s intellectual life owes much to the creative international vision of the Volkswagen Foundation’s Secretary General, Wilhelm Krull. In 2011–12, Anne Löhnert organized a symposium on palaces and temples in the late Bronze Age of the ancient Near East, Berit Hildebrandt coordinated an event on exchange along the Silk Roads between the Mediterranean World M A D E P O S S I B L E W I T H S U P P O R T F R O M T H E V O L K S WA G E N F O U N D AT I O N

VOLKSWAGEN FELLOWS’ SYMPOSIA

Each year the Mahindra Humanities Center’s

and Asia, and Kyung-Ho Cha coordinated a symposium on Walter Benjamin, religion, and the study of technology. In 2012–13, Michaela Schäuble coordinated a symposium on ethnography and representation, and Daniel Loick organized an event on rights and subjectivity. In 2013–14, Daniela Hahn organized a symposium on artistic modes of historicization in and through documents and performance, Mirjam Brusius coordinated an event on the study and representation of the Middle East in current scholarship and museums, and Malte Griesse organized a symposium on early modern visual representations of revolution and punishment. In 2014–15, Thiemo Breyer coordinated a symposium on human intersubjectivity vis-à-vis visibility, embodiment, and empathy. In 2015–16, Konstanze Baron held a symposium on authorship and self-exegesis, and Nils Bock convened a symposium on premodern money and economies.

M A D E P O S S I B L E W I T H S U P P O R T F R O M T H E V O L K S WA G E N F O U N D AT I O N

Mahindra Humanities Center Graduate Student Initiatives are made possible by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

graduate initiatives Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference How to End a Revolution How to begin a revolution is a question that has received much attention from many great thinkers. The goal of our conference was to reverse that perspective and ask, “How to End a Revolution?” The question was inspired by the ongoing uprisings in the Arab world that began at the end of 2010. These revolutions highlighted the challenges of making a constructive and collective end to social and political movements. Conference themes included theoretical definitions, literary descriptions, and historical examinations of the “end” or “ends” of revolutions, as well as strategies employed by various players during a revolution—political and religious leaders, legislators, military officials, mass media professionals. Students of literature, philosophy, history, political science, and law presented papers on panels titled “Thinking and Writing the End,” “Enacting the End,” “Building and Constructing the End of a Revolution,” “Winning the Public,” and “The Conditions of Happy Endings.” Each panel was matched with a faculty respondent: Malika Zeghal, Erika Naginski, David Blackbourn, and Roger Owen of Harvard University; Kristen Stilt of Northwestern University; Intisar Rabb of Boston College; and a Harvard graduate student, Stephen Squibb. Chibli Mallat, a human rights lawyer, a former candidate for presidency of Lebanon, and a leading scholar of Middle Eastern law and politics opened the conference with his keynote remarks summarizing the status of the “Middle East Revolutionary Earthquake.” The next day, conference participants engaged in a discussion with members from the Syrian opposition through Skype. Later participants shared personal experiences on the theme of “freedom” that were enacted by True Story Theater, a Boston-based improvisational ensemble. A discussion between Chibli Mallat and Roger Owen on “New Beginnings” moderated by Scott Liddle concluded the event.

R O G E R OW E N • C H I B L I M A L L AT • N AT H A N I E L D O R S KY

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Imaging the Ineffable: Representation and Reality in Religion and Film M A RC H 2 9 –3 1 , 2 013

Over the course of three days in March 2013, “Imaging the Ineffable” brought together students of religious studies, film studies, filmmakers, and the general public to explore the perennial question of how to represent the unrepresentable, how to image the ineffable. Participants hailing from as far away as Germany came to present conference papers, touching on a broad diversity of topics, including iconoclasm, iconophila, mysticism, visuality, ethics, and performance theory. Paper presentations were followed by stimulating Q&As and discussions, many of which continued into our meal-time workshopping sessions and coffee hours. The weekend included a carefully curated selection of films—drawn from diverse genres, including documentary, narrative fiction, animation, ethnographic, and experimental—that illustrated, in a variety of different ways, the central conference theme of showing the unshowable. Our keynote speaker, acclaimed filmmaker and author Nathaniel Dorsky, opened the weekend with a screening of his most recent works at the Harvard Film Archive, followed by lively conversation and book signings. Our keynote event, “The Transcendental Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky,” featured a screening of three of Dorsky’s most celebrated films, followed by an interview between Dorsky and Charles Hallisey, Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard University, on the topic of transcendence, ineffability, and devotion in religion and film.

The Future of Food Studies As food studies has risen to prominence, scholars have emphasized that we can use food as a lens to examine nearly any topic. Yet it is clear that food studies must grapple with many questions, including questions about the field’s own identity. With food studies becoming increasingly institutionalized, how will the field continue to evolve? What new subjects, methods, or theories will reshape the study of food in coming years? What areas of food culture and politics urgently need academic attention? And how can the field stay relevant when public interest in food inevitably wanes? Emerging scholars at the forefront of food studies offered exciting answers to these questions. Following a keynote by Fabio Parasecoli of The New School, panels covered a wide range of topics over the course of three days, including “Victory Gardens: Cultivating More Than Produce,” “The Politics of Commerce and Authority: Science, Eating, and the Body,” “The Past, Present, and Future of Food Technology,” “Food and the City: The Culture and Politics of Food Retail,” “Forks Across the Aisle: Food Studies and Collaborative Future,” “Food, Cultures, and Colonialism,” “Memory, Reclamation, and Appropriation: Food and Literature,” “At the Table: The Many Meanings of Food Consumption,” “Food, the Nation, and Identity,” “Food (In)Security and the Food System,” “Race and Gender in the Foodscape,” and “Security, Sovereignty, and the City: Transnational and CrossDisciplinary Perspectives on Food and Urban Hunger.”

Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshops The Mahindra Humanities Center sponsors five Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshops every year. These interdisciplinary workshops, open to Harvard graduate students in all departments and programs, are intended to foster discussion of methodologies and practices in important areas of study that often cross departmental boundaries. While the workshops are especially focused on dissertation work, they include periodic discussion of general issues and questions. Harvard graduate students at all levels of study, from the first year of graduate school to the dissertation stage, are encouraged to attend. 2011–1 2

Hegelian Identities Faculty Director: Gordon Teskey (English) Graduate Student Coordinator: William Baldwin

Hegelian Identities focused on structural problems underlying such contemporary practices in the humanities as interdisciplinarity and hybridity. These are forms of combining identities or transitioning from one kind of identity to another. Humanities scholars performing these operations are often unaware of the dialectical tradition underlying them. In this year, the workshop had two parts: one investigating the dialectical tradition in the twentieth century, the other examining Heidegger’s Being and Time as a novel reinterpretation of the problem of identity and nonidentity in Hegel.

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL

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Medieval Studies Interdisciplinary Workshop Faculty Director: Nicholas Watson (English) Graduate Student Coordinators: Julian Yolles, John Zaleski

The Medieval Studies workshop fostered intellectual community among graduate students in different fields of historical study relating to medieval Europe through the exchange of ideas, information, and methodologies. The format of the workshop emphasized regular meetings with faculty and scholars in the Harvard community; discussion of texts, images, and objects of essential value to all students of the medieval period; and the practice of using Harvard’s medieval research resources. Participants were encouraged to attend the Mahindra Humanities Center Medieval Studies seminar.

The Political Economy of Modern Capitalism Faculty Directors: Sven Beckert (History), Christine Desan (Harvard Law School) Graduate Student Coordinator: Caitlin Rosenthal

This workshop provided a forum for the interdisciplinary study of capitalism as a historically situated process of regulating social relations. Every two weeks during the academic year the workshop brought together graduate students, faculty, and outside scholars to study, analyze, and debate the development of modern capitalism. The workshop combined public sessions, in which visiting scholars presented works-in-progress, with closed sessions, in which graduate students debated core readings on themes such as labor, commodities, money, and the state. This combination encouraged debate on the best new research on the history of capitalism while also exposing students to classic works of political economy.

Screen Cultures and the Visual Turn Faculty Directors: Tom Conley (Visual and Environmental Studies; Romance Languages and Literatures), David Rodowick (Visual and Environmental Studies) Graduate Student Coordinators: Stephanie Lam, Lindsey Lodhie

This workshop explored new interdisciplinary analyses and theorizations of the moving image in an expanded field. Screen cultures encompass a range of contexts in which the moving image is framed, distributed, received, and interpreted. These range from the traditionally conceived sites of cinema, video, and television to increasingly dispersed new media platforms. The workshop focused on cross-disciplinary methodologies for understanding the cultural, theoretical, and historical implications of emergent moving image practices.

Workshop on History, Culture, and Society Faculty Directors: Orlando Patterson (Sociology), John Stauffer (History of American Civilization; English) Graduate Student Coordinator: Chris Muller

As a forum for the exploration of new developments in historical social science, this workshop explored interdisciplinary scholarship in the fields of history, sociology, political science, psychology, and economics. The workshop’s primary methodological goal was to initiate a discussion of what constitutes acceptable historical evidence in each of the social sciences; its main substantive goal was to explore how the past influences the present. Workshop participants explored issues such as the extent to which current levels of development in the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa can be predicted by their historical involvement in the slave trades, homicide rates in Western and developing nations over time, and the historical sources of institutions accounting for economic development. 2 012 –1 3

American Literature in Comparative and Ethnic Perspectives Faculty Directors: Glenda R. Carpio (English; African and African American Studies), Werner Sollors (English; African and African American Studies) Graduate Student Coordinator: Jack Hamilton

American studies scholars and graduate students now work comparatively—placing literature and culture of the United States into hemispheric, transnational, and global contexts, or focusing on themes of race, ethnicity, migration, or multilingualism. This workshop supported work in these areas and promoted conversations across the boundaries of various graduate programs. Topics included discussions of what it means to compare, new approaches to ethnic issues, as well as new research on literature, art, music, photography, and film.

The Discovery of the Classical World(s): Perspectives from the Outside Faculty Directors: Adrian Staehli (Classics), Paul Kosmin (Classics) Graduate Student Coordinators: Elizabeth Mitchell, Monica Park

This workshop brought together students and scholars from different fields who were looking at the classical world with a sense of distance, and who sought to “other” such a world rather than work from it as a baseline. The theme, “Classical World(s),” was open to interpretation in the widest sense and ripe for deconstruction. While “discovery” can refer to encounters and interactions across space or over time, fifth-century BCE Persian and nineteenth-century CE American “discoveries” of the classical world, for example, were equally welcome. Papers were diverse, but a small number of discussion sessions drew out broader themes and located “classicism(s)” as a historical and contemporary concept.

Drama Colloquium Faculty Directors: Martin Puchner (English; Comparative Literatures), Ju Yon Kim (English) Graduate Student Coordinators: Matt Franks, Rebecca Kastleman

The study of drama provokes conversations across historical periods, literary traditions, and artistic media, inviting a range of theoretical approaches and disciplinary orientations. This workshop provided a forum for these discussions, drawing together students and faculty from national literature and area studies programs, as well as other departments within the university. The workshop offered an opportunity to develop research in dramatic literature, dramatic criticism and theory, theater history, theater practice, and performance studies. Biweekly meetings consisted of textual discussions, graduate student presentations, and faculty lectures.

The Middle East Beyond Borders: Culture, Religion, Politics Faculty Directors: Malika Zeghal (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; Religion), Ahmed Ragab (Harvard Divinity School; History of Science) Graduate Student Coordinators: Bethany Kibler, Aylin Yildirim Tschoepe, Kirsten Wesselhoeft

The Middle East Beyond Borders workshop took for its founding premise that the “Middle East” as an object of inquiry must fundamentally engage notions of boundaries, mobility, and transformation. The aim of the workshop was to foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars whose research and diverse expertise would help generate new methods, language, and frameworks through which to engage the past and present of the region, as well as discussions on its future.

North American Religions Faculty Directors: Ann Braude (Harvard Divinity School; History of American Civilization), David Hempton (Harvard Divinity School; History of American Civilization), Dan McKanan (Divinity School; History of American Civilization) Graduate Student Coordinator: Kip Richardson

The North American Religions workshop provided a forum for graduate students and their advisors to collectively consider, critique, and comment on graduate student research-inprocess. The workshop spanned the entire range of American history and civilization, from the seventeenth century to the present, and encompassed a variety of disciplines, methodologies, and specializations.

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Early Sciences Faculty Directors: Shigehisa Kuriyama (East Asian Languages and Civilizations), Katharine Park (History of Science), Ahmed Ragab (Divinity School) Graduate Student Coordinators: Deirdre Moore, Paolo Savoia

This workshop brought graduate students together with postdoctoral fellows and faculty members to discuss their work on the history of medieval and early modern science and medicine. Meetings focused on the history of pre-modern sciences (understood generally as embracing the period before 1800) from the point of view of medieval and early modern European and Atlantic history, history of science, Middle Eastern and East Asian studies, and gender history. The workshop focused on science and medicine as broad social and cultural experiences to be analyzed from a multiplicity of approaches, from micro-history to comparative and global history.

History, Culture, and Society Faculty Directors: Orlando Patterson (Sociology), Daniel Smail (History) Graduate Student Coordinator: Carly Knight

This workshop provided a forum for the presentation of interdisciplinary scholarship in history across the social sciences. The workshop invited graduate students and faculty in the disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and sociology to present work on historical topics. The workshop’s primary goal was to initiate a discussion of what constitutes acceptable historical evidence in each of the social sciences. It was our contention that the closer we attend to the different metrics of credibility each disciplines use to assess its work, the greater will be the improvement of historical work generally. We put special effort into seeking out papers discussing how the past influences the present.

New Directions in the History of Central and Inner Asia

Political Theory Faculty Directors: Michael Rosen (Government), Nancy Rosenblum (Government) Graduate Student Coordinator: Joe Muller

Political theory sits at the crossroads of several disciplines and draws on methods and insights from philosophy, literature, history, law, and political science. Political theory is unified by its subject: politics. The Political Theory Workshop welcomed work ranging from the history of political thought to contemporary political philosophy.

Theater and Performance Faculty Directors: Marjorie Garber (English), Ju Yon Kim (English), Martin Puchner (English; Comparative Literature) Graduate Student Coordinators: Matt Franks, Rebecca Kastleman

The study of drama provokes conversations across historical periods, literary traditions, and artistic media, inviting a range of theoretical approaches and disciplinary orientations. This workshop provided a forum for these discussions, drawing together students and faculty from national literature and area studies programs as well as other departments within the university. The workshop offered an opportunity to develop research in dramatic literature, dramatic criticism and theory, theater history, theater practice, and performance studies; our biweekly meetings consisted of textual discussions, graduate student presentations, and faculty lectures.

Faculty Directors: Mark Elliott (East Asian Languages and Civilizations), David Roxburgh (History of Art

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and Architecture)

Arabic and Islamic Studies

Graduate Student Coordinator: Eric Schluessel

Harvard is home to a cohort of pioneering young students of Central and Inner Asian history, who work in many different academic departments and utilize a variety of theoretical and methodological frameworks. By bringing them into dialogue, this workshop fostered a community of scholars prepared to give a North American orientation to a field long centered in Europe. Participants presented ongoing research in the history of a region sometimes seen as the pivot of world history, from the Mongol conquests through the early twentieth century, featuring projects integrating indigenous sources with innovative critical approaches that revisit and revise longstanding problems and narratives.

Faculty Directors: M. Shahab Ahmed (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; Committee on the Study of Religion; Law School), Khaled El-Rouayheb (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) Graduate Student Coordinator: Arjun Nair

This workshop sought to provide a collaborative environment for the discussion of ongoing research in Arabic and Islamic studies. Meetings brought together graduate students and faculty primarily from Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Study of Religion, and the Divinity School. The majority of these meetings were devoted to student presentations, but we reserved two sessions for outside speakers who have done innovative work in Islamic studies.

British and Anglophone Literature Colloquium Faculty Directors: Amanda Claybaugh (English), Leah Price (English) Graduate Student Coordinators: Amanda Auerbach, Miles Osgood, Janet Zong

The British and Anglophone Literature Colloquium was capacious in its scope of inquiry: we were interested in transnational, post-colonial, Victorian, modernist, and postmodernist literatures and cultures broadly associated with Britain and its (former) territories, from the nineteenth century onward. The Colloquium provided a forum for graduate students from Harvard and other institutions to share and discuss their work at various stages, from seminar papers and prospectuses to dissertation excerpts. In addition to our graduate student workshops, we also facilitated conversations centered on current research in relevant fields and planned events to guide professional development. We held talks and panels with scholars of note and organized a reading series on the theory of the novel.

Early Modern European History (History; Radcliffe Institute), Mark Kishlansky (History) Graduate Student Coordinators: Hannah Callaway, Elizabeth Cross, Louis Gerdelan

The Early Modern European History Workshop was an interdisciplinary workshop that centered on the history of Europe largely defined between roughly 1450 and 1750. Drawing participants from graduate students and faculty from Harvard and many area universities, it featured talks and pre-circulated papers on a wide range of topics, followed by extended discussion. The workshop sponsored or co-sponsored sessions on Descartes in the Netherlands, masculine hierarchies in Roman ecclesiastical households, indigenous medical knowledge in the Portuguese colonial system, early modern science and the Mediterranean consular network, printer lobbying and public persuasion in the seventeenth century, Jews and Christians in eighteenth-century Bohemia, the kingdom of Kongo and the Thirty Years War, monstrous races in early modern maps, as well as a joint conversation with the Medieval History Workshop on pre-modern global history.

Screen Studies Faculty Directors: Tom Conley (Romance Languages and Literatures; Visual and Environmental Studies), Eric Rentschler (Germanic Languages and Literatures) Graduate Student Coordinators: T. Brandon Evans, Caufield Schnug

Screen studies encompass a range of contexts in which the moving image is framed, distributed, received, and interpreted. These range from the traditionally conceived sites of cinema, video, and television to increasingly dispersed new media platforms. From the protocinematic (e.g., magic lanterns) to contemporary forms (e.g., locative media, public projections),

RENÉ DESCARTES

Faculty Directors: David Armitage (History), Ann Blair (History), James Hankins (History), Tamar Herzog

the workshop welcomed students interested in tracing new genealogies of screen cultures and their relations to public life. Running through the academic year in the form of bimonthly meetings, the workshop focused on creating a shared body of resources that could be applied to the participants’ own work. Time and resources were spent on workshopping our own projects, inviting outside scholars and artists as well as Harvard faculty members to present their research in the field, and sponsoring film screenings and visits to local art exhibitions.

Territories of Empire: Transition, Function, and Atrophy Faculty Directors: Paul Kosmin (Classics), Adrian Staehli (Classics) Graduate Student Coordinators: Charles Bartlett, Anthony Shannon

This graduate workshop sought to explore how empires understand their territories. Specifically, we wanted to examine how empires respond to changes in the physical extent of their territories, conceptually organize (or even mythologize) their territories, and modify their institutions and practices of governance to meet new challenges within their territories, or fail to do so. We were particularly interested in the last of these questions, as it stresses the potential importance of atrophy in explaining empires’ decline. It may often be difficult to satisfyingly identify institutions or practices whose inflexibility exacerbated a new challenge to an empire, or, conversely, to trace the evolution of effective imperial mechanisms or to schematize them. However, where we are able to see such rigidity or adaptation, we have a window onto an empire’s selfawareness and self-criticism, and perhaps also onto the cultural and political considerations for or against adaptation.

2 015–16

Arabic and Islamic Studies Faculty Directors: Ali Asani (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; Committee on the Study of Religion; Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program), Khaled El-Rouayheb (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) Graduate Student Coordinators: Arjun Nair, Caitlyn Olson

This workshop sought to provide a collaborative environment for the discussion of ongoing research in Arabic and Islamic studies. We were especially focused on the study of history— intellectual, social, or otherwise, from the advent of Islam to the colonial period. Meetings brought together graduate students and faculty primarily from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Study of Religion, the Divinity School, and the Departments of History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. The majority of these meetings were devoted to student presentations, but we reserved two sessions for outside speakers who have done innovative work in Islamic studies. Graduate students with interests in the study of Islam broadly conceived were invited to participate.

Faculty Directors: Marjorie Garber (English), Ju Yon Kim (English), Derek Miller (English), Martin Puchner

Panaesthetics: A Colloquium on the Visual Arts, Literature, and Music

(English; Comparative Literature)

Faculty Directors: Cécile Guédon (Comparative Literature), John Hamilton (Germanic Languages

Graduate Student Coordinators: Tarryn Li-Min Chun, Elizabeth Phillips

and Literatures), Lisa Parkes (Germanic Languages and Literatures)

Drama Colloquium

The Drama Colloquium brought together graduate students and faculty working on drama, theater, and performance studies across multiple fields within the university and provided a forum for rigorous interdisciplinary conversation. Each semester we offered talks from and workshops for graduate students at different stages of their dissertation writing process, as well as sponsored panel discussions, outside and faculty speakers, and trips to see local live performances followed by discussion. The Drama Colloquium also served as a confluence point for various arts institutions across the university to discuss the future of theater pedagogy and student theater at Harvard.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern China: New Directions in History, Literature, Anthropology, and Political Science Faculty Directors: Mark Elliot (History; East Asian Languages and Civilizations), Arunabh Ghosh (History) Graduate Student Coordinators: Rui Hua, Miya Xie

This workshop provided a space for intellectual discussion on all aspects of modern and contemporary China, from literature and history to the social sciences. It emphasized the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and new theoretical perspectives on China’s modern transformation. Participants were drawn primarily from the Departments of History, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Comparative Literature. The majority of the meetings were devoted to student presentations of dissertation prospectuses and chapters, but also reserved some time for guest speakers and joint reading sessions on issues of general interest.

Graduate Student Coordinator: Julian Friedrich

The colloquium offered students a forum for presenting and discussing their interdisciplinary work and investigating fields of research promoted by Daniel Albright. We focused on ongoing research in aesthetics, poetics, and intermedial crossings, especially between literature and music, but also other interartistic borrowings at the time of modernism and beyond. We carried forward the idea of a “Comparative Arts” framework of scholarly inquiry, fostering a sense of community to young and advanced researchers who engage with Albright’s far-reaching body of scholarship, from Untwisting the Serpent (2000) to Panaesthetics (2014), from Quantum Poetics (1997) to Music Speaks: On the Language of Opera, Dance and Song (2009). A further goal of the colloquium was to explore and discuss current research trends in literature, arts, and media studies, with a primary focus on Passage des Digitalen by Bernhard Siegert (2003).

Workshop in Political Theory Faculty Directors: Harvey Mansfield (Government), Eric Nelson (Government), Nancy Rosenblum (Government)

The Workshop in Political Theory served as a forum for graduate students in political theory to present works-in-progress and receive feedback from both faculty and fellow graduate students. All members of the political theory community were welcome, including first- and second-year graduate students.

The seminar program has been a core activity of the Mahindra Humanities Center since its founding as the Center for Literary Studies in 1984. Ranging widely across disciplines, methodologies, and time periods, the seminars serve a broad constituency

seminars

of faculty and graduate students at Harvard and throughout the region.

African Musics Abroad took a global and comparative approach to African music and mobility in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

African Musics Abroad African Musics Abroad took a global and comparative approach to African music and mobility in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with particular attention to music and musicians within the new African communities established since 1960 in North America. The seminar gave attention to case studies of individual African diaspora communities; it built on both African studies and diaspora studies to explore theories and methods for comparative study of African musics outside the African continent; it investigated human and virtual channels through which these African musics have travelled; and it took account of new, hybrid styles that have emerged as a result of African musical mobility. Speakers included Carol Muller (University of Pennsylvania), who explored the relationship between diaspora and cosmopolitanism in South African jazz, and Patricia Tang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), who spoke about undocumented African musicians in the US. David Locke (Tufts University) provided an overview of a Northern Ghanaian Damba Festival mounted at Tufts University, detailing issues this event raised for applied ethnomusicology. Carla D. Martin (Harvard University) discussed the expanding Internet presence of Lusophone African music and challenges of digital curation, and Michael E. Veal (Yale University) provided an historical and ethnographic perspective on the West African Sublime Frequencies Label impact abroad.

American Literature and Culture C H A I R S : A M A N DA C L AY B AU G H , T H EO DAV I S , J O S E P H R E ZE K

The American Literature and Culture seminar has become a mainstay of Americanist scholarly exchange in the Boston area. The first year (2012–13) featured talks and responses by Jill Lepore (Harvard University), Joseph Rezek (Boston University), Kimberly Juanita Brown (Northeastern University), Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman (Brandeis University), Robert Chodat (Boston University), Ju Yon Kim (Harvard University), Elizabeth Maddock Dillon (Northeastern University), William Huntting Howell (Boston University), Christopher Castiglia (Pennsylvania State University), Jordan Alexander Stein (Fordham University), John T. Matthews (Boston University), and Ichiro Takayoshi (Tufts University). In 2013–14 we heard from Michael Warner (Yale University), Theo Davis (Northeastern University), Kate Marshall (University of Notre Dame), Stuart Burrows (Brown University), Steven Biel (Harvard University), Nina Silber (Boston University), Maurice Lee (Boston

H E N R Y DAV I D T H O R E A U • H A S H I M S A R K I S

C H A I R S : C A R L A M A RT I N , K AY K AU F M A N S H E L E M AY, PAT R I C I A J . TA N G

University), Lawrence Buell (Harvard University), Jennifer Roberts (Harvard University), Mary Kelley (University of Michigan), Lisa Lowe (Tufts University) and Elizabeth Maddock Dillon. In 2014–15, speakers and responders included Nancy Cott (Harvard University), Amanda Claybaugh (Harvard University), Murray Forman (Northeastern University), Scott Poulson-Bryant (Harvard University), Elisa Tamarkin (University of California, Berkeley), Matthew Garrett (Wesleyan University), Gene Jarrett (Boston University), Joseph Rezek, Leah Price (Harvard University), Theo Davis, and Nathan Wolff (Tufts University). In 2015–16, the seminar welcomed and heard from Deak Nabers (Brown University) on Thoreau, Douglass, and Harpers Ferry on emancipation with response from Merve Emre (McGill University), Kevin Ohi (Boston College) on Henry James’ New York Edition prefaces with response from Amanda Claybaugh, Carrie Hyde (University of California, Los Angeles) on early US citizenship with response by Leslie Eckel (Suffolk University), Nicole Aljoe (Northeastern University) on Florence Hall and the Caribbean colonial archives with response by Christopher Taylor (University of Chicago), William Huntting Howell (Boston University) on Anthony Burns with response by Paul Erickson (American Antiquarian Society), and Robin Kelsey (Harvard University) on Ted Serios and the death of modernism with response by Ash Anderson (Boston College).

Architecture and Knowledge C H A I R S : M I C H A E L H AYS , A L I N A PAY N E

Architecture and Knowledge presented the current research of several scholars whose work was wide-ranging in time period and topic. In 2011–12, Hashim Sarkis (Harvard Graduate School of Design) traced how the typology of American high schools shifted in the 1950s to accommodate new pedagogies, which converged with new available construction technologies and methods. Sarkis called the changed ideology a “second functionalism.” Sarah McPhee (Emory University) discussed the works of the engraver Giovanni Battista Falda. In seventeenth-century Rome, the works of Falda became particularly popular with the first waves of Grand Tour participants. Falda became a significant commercial success as a result. His works appealed to tourists keen to retain

The Art, Popular Culture, and Civic Life seminar gathers together a diverse group of scholars, artists, architects, photographers, filmmakers,

a detailed and accurate representation of those parts of Rome they had visited. He refined mapping techniques to include precise details of architectural and horticultural interest as well as reflect changes in everyday urban life, especially the increasing use of horse-drawn carriages for purposes of status. David van der Leer (Guggenheim Museum) presented the BMW Lab as a way of answering the question: what does it mean to take architecture curation from museum walls to city streets? The Lab brings information about architecture and urbanism into the public realm. In 2012–13, Paul Crossley (Courtauld Institute of Art) discussed how no object of Western Art has been more mythologized, dissected, fantasized over, and analyzed than the Gothic cathedral. Cathedrals count among the earliest testing grounds for archaeological analysis, but they are also architectures of reason and structural audacity, objects of fascination for theologians and mystics alike. Crossley explored the contradictory interpretations of the Gothic as symptoms of shifting historiographical preoccupations. Dylan Trigg (University College Dublin) presented a meditation on Martin Heidegger and the role of the concept and experience of “home” in the phenomenology of agoraphobia. Trigg sought to bring together questions of how our experience of others is affected by our experience of space, and how, in turn, our experience of spatiality is affected by others. Helen Hills (University of York) shared a piece of her ongoing reinterpretation of the concept of baroque in contemporary scholarship. Baroque Naples was a city of familial and internecine rivalries, religious devotion, and intense urban politics. Against this context, Hills gave a close reading of the decoration of selected baroque churches that promises a complete revision of baroque Neapolitan iconography. In 2013–14, Philip Ursprung (ETH Zürich) spoke about Gordon Matta Clark, Nadja Aksamija (Wesleyan University) discussed the reinvention of Sansovino, Jean-Pierre Le Dantec (University of Paris, La-Villette) traced urban design from André Le Nôtre onward, Nicola Courtright (Amherst College) discussed physical and imagined architecture in seventeenth-century France, Mark Jarzombek (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) spoke about Corridic Modernism, and Lucia Allais (Princeton University) lectured on the spatialization of monument protection between 1931 and 1939. In 2014–15, the seminar held an event on teaching, writing, and history with Neil Levine.

G O R D O N M AT TA C L A R K E • A L I A S A N I

and leaders of arts organizations.

Art, Popular Culture, and Civic Life C H A I R S : K I K U A DAT TO, M I C H A E L S A N D E L

The seminar gathered together a diverse group of scholars, artists, architects, photographers, filmmakers, and leaders of arts organizations from Boston and around the world to explore the interplay of the arts, popular culture, and civic life. Rather than invite outside speakers, we had lively, wide-ranging discussions with different members of the group introducing each discussion. In 2013–14, we began with a discussion of “The Power of Art: Contending with Censorship Hard and Soft” and explored such questions as: to what extent, if any, does the case against censorship depend on denying or downplaying the influence of the arts and popular culture? What strategies have artists used to circumvent censorship—both state censorship and the “silent” censorship of market forces? David Der-Wei Wang (Harvard University) and Jie Li (Harvard University) led off the next discussion on “Contested Memories: Monuments and Memorials,” beginning with Tiananmen Square as a site of historical memory and protest and then examining how the artifacts of everyday life became important carriers of memory during the Cultural Revolution. Drawing on his eyewitness coverage of the Iraq War, Gary Knight (Tufts University) led a discussion on “Photography, Iconic Images, and Civic Discourse.” We then turned to the deceptively simple but provocative question: “Do the Arts Make Us Better,” led by former principal dancer of the New York City Ballet Damian Woetzel (Aspen Institute). Pulitzer Prize-winning South African photojournalist and author Greg Marinovich led us in an examination of the complex questions raised in photographing violence in “Averting Our Gaze: Contending with Images of Poverty, Suffering, and Political Violence.” Ali Asani (Harvard University) and James Carroll (award-winning novelist, nonfiction writer, and columnist for the Boston Globe) led us in a far-reaching discussion on “Religion and the Artistic Imagination.” Concluding our year, Rahul Mehrota (Harvard Graduate School of Design) shared his innovative architecture, conservation, and urban design projects in India, to lead our discussion on “Shaping a Common Life: Architecture and Public Spaces.” In 2014–15, we began the year with a provocative session on “Has Market Thinking Invaded the Arts?” led by Anne Hawley (Elizabeth Stewart Gardner Museum). Next, David Der-Wei Wang (Harvard University) introduced a discussion of Hong Kong’s “umbrella revolution,” and members of the group reflected on the similarities and differences between the Hong Kong protests and other recent democracy movements in Egypt, Turkey, and the United States. We then turned to analyzing the power of songs in the process of social transformation. David Howse (Harvard University, Emerson College),

The Buddhist Studies Forum remains one of the preeminent Buddhist studies speaker series in the country, showcasing work from across the

an acclaimed soloist, sang several American spiritual and protest songs, and then we explored the historical and social meanings of protest songs in the United States and in other countries. Continuing our focus on the power of music in shaping culture, Sharmila Sen (Harvard University Press) introduced a discussion on “Why Indian Movies Sing,” which led to a wide-ranging discussion on the changing themes of musicals in India and in the US. Acclaimed architect William Rawn, who designed the concert hall at Tanglewood and many other award-winning buildings, led our next discussion on “Why Democracy Needs Architecture.” Focusing on examples of architecture from around the world, we analyzed the way the design of buildings, public squares, and public parks can promote or impede civic deliberation. We next turned to the role of photojournalism in civic life. Gary Knight (Tufts University) and David Campbell, an Australian writer and academic, led a discussion on “Ethics, Manipulation, and Photojournalism.” The year ended with a rich philosophical discussion on “Apologies: Public and Private” led by James Carroll. In 2015–16, we convened discussions on the art of dissent, the bullfight and the theology of sacrifice, Ai Wei-Wei and contemporary Australian Indigenous artists, political cartoons, remaking the past vis-à-vis movies, art in the public square, the ethics and aesthetics of the art of suffering, and populism and democracy.

Buddhist Studies Forum C H A I R S : JA N E T GYATS O, JA M E S R O B S O N

The Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum remains one of the preeminent Buddhist studies speaker series in the country and is perhaps the only series that showcases work from across the Buddhist world and from past to present. Visiting speakers represent both renowned experts and new faces in the field. In Fall 2011, Felicity Aulino (Harvard University) shared work from her dissertation on how Buddhism structures practices and discourses of palliative care in Thailand; Francois Lachaud (École Pratique des Hautes Études) spoke on nineteenth-century Japanese collectors and purveyors of Buddhist knowledge; Richard Salomon (University of Washington) discussed newly discovered manuscripts from Gandhara and their importance for our understanding of early Buddhism. In Spring 2012, Jacob Dalton (University of California, Berkeley) explored intersections of Buddhism and politics in tenth-century legal decrees from Western Tibet; and Elizabeth Lambourn (De Montfort University) shared findings from Indian Ocean studies and their relevance for understanding Buddhist society and economy in India.

R U D O L F G . WAG N E R

Buddhist world and from past to present.

In Fall 2012, Nobuyoshi Yamabe (Tokyo Nogyo Daigaku) gave an art historian’s perspective on Buddhist practice from the caves of Qumtura. In Spring 2013, Shayne Clarke (McMaster University) used a philological approach to unravel the complicated history of Buddhist nuns’ ordination lineages, and Nancy Lin (Vanderbilt University) explored rituals, art, and texts from the seventeenth-century court of the Fifth Dalai Lama. During the 2013–14 series, Matthew R. Sayers (Lebanon Valley College) presented his ongoing work on Buddhist influences on traditional forms of ancestral offerings in Ancient India; Roy Tzohar (Tel Aviv University) focused on Buddhist philosophy; Jason Neelis (Wilfrid Laurier University) took us to northwestern Pakistan by analyzing newly discovered textual fragments related to Buddhist rebirth narratives. The seminar hosted Phyllis Granoff (Yale University) and Koichi Shinohara (Yale University) for talks on Indian and Chinese Buddhist ritual art and literature. Christoph Emmrich (University of Toronto) spoke on Nepalese Newar Buddhist ritual manuals related to gender, and Bernard Faure (Columbia University) discussed Japanese Shinto and the Ise Shrine by exploring issues of gender, ritual, art, and literature. In 2014–15, Robert Decaroli (George Mason University) explored the development of the Buddha image in early South Asia; Brandon Dotson (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) gave a talk on living and dead sutras in Dunhuang; Natasha Heller (University of California, Los Angeles) discussed when a bodhisattva is a superhero; Mark Rowe (McMaster University) focused on female priests in contemporary Japan; and Jay Garfield (Smith College) talked about the results of a study by Dignāga’s Ālambana-parīkṣā. In 2015–16, the seminar welcomed Heather Blair (Indiana University) for a talk on Buddhist hell and secularity in post-war Japanese picture books; Rudolph Wagner (Heidelberg University) to discuss early Central Asian and Chinese commentaries on the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa sutra; Cameron Warner (Aarhus University) to explore the daily practices, social organizations, and existential dilemmas of potential Buddhists in Nepal; Jonathan Gold (Princeton University) to talk on the Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu’s relativism about the Buddha’s causal concepts; Kim Gutschow (Williams College) to present a talk on the Buddha’s mother; John Holt (Bowdoin College) to discuss the Buddhist/Muslim conflict in contemporary Myanmar; and Shea Ingram (Harvard University) to explore the nature of social networks in East Asian Buddhism in the late twelfth century.

The Cartography seminar launched in 2014–15 to engage with crucial questions pertaining to the “spatial turn”

Cartography C H A I R S : TO M CO N L E Y, K AT H A R I N A P I EC H O C K I

We launched the Cartography seminar in 2014–15 to engage with crucial questions pertaining to the “spatial turn” driving the humanities today. The speakers we invited engaged with what J.B. Harley has termed the “cartographic turn” in the humanities and helped rethink the manifold uses, guises, and ramifications of buzzwords and key concepts such as “cartography,” “mapping,” “space,” and “place” across languages, cultures, and historical periods. David Joseph Wrisley (American University of Beirut), a specialist in medieval French literature and digital humanities, explored ways of visualizing medieval French places across the Mediterranean through methods offered by digital media. Expanding medieval studies not only spatially—across the Mediterranean—but also medially, through digitalization and the collection of big data, Wrisley was able to show the virtues of collecting data on a large scale in order to redefine literary history and contribute to “distant reading.” Dana Sajdi (Boston College), a historian trained in Islamic history as well as in Arabic and Ottoman historiography, presented from her ongoing book project, Visualizing Damascus, a timely investigation of the “contested landscape” of medieval Damascus. Different in its approach than Wrisley’s visually oriented talk, Sajdi’s presentation focused on non-pictorial descriptions of Damascus, thus highlighting the importance and power of the written word to create images of landscapes and descriptions of cities. Benjamin Braude (Boston College), a historian specializing in race and the construction of collective identities in the Middle East and Europe, in Ottoman as well as Jewish history, gave a talk on the history of continents, with an emphasis on ancient Greek and Roman models of continental thinking. Braude’s central questions were: when and why did the concept of “continent” emerge? Finally, Timothy Reiss (New York University), a comparative literature scholar working on early modern Transoceanic travels, networks, and expansions, presented from his ongoing work on “bird-islands,” a paradigm that Reiss uses to think through questions of European Transatlantic expansion, exploration, and exploitation. In 2015–16, Chet Van Duzer (University of Mississippi) discussed his work on Pierre Desceliers’ world map of 1550.

BENJAMIN BRAUDE • DYLAN THOMAS

driving the humanities today.

Celtic Literature and Culture C H A I R S : C AT H E R I N E M C K E N N A , TO M Á S Ó C AT H A S A I G H , N ATA S H A S U M N E R

In 2011–12 and 2012–13, four speakers considered aspects of medieval Irish literature. Historian David Dumville (University of Aberdeen) turned a critical eye on the new Penguin Book of Irish Poetry, arguing that scholars have misunderstood the nature of medieval Irish verse. Paul Russell (University of Cambridge) examined medieval commentaries on the oldest extant Irish poem. Barbara Hillers (Harvard University) traced the folkloristic origins of medieval Irish narrative, and Elizabeth Gray (Harvard University) cast new light on the imagery of the raven and the wolf in an early Irish saga. Historical geographer Francis Ludlow (Harvard University) showed how Irish annalistic records can be mined for climatological information, and archaeologist Liz Fitzpatrick (Harvard University) used a wide array of evidence in a study of medieval royal demesnes in Ireland. Landscape also figured into Sarah Covington’s (Queens College) talk on folk memory in Ireland of Oliver Cromwell. William Nolan (University College Dublin) surveyed the attitude to the Irish language of English-speaking nationalists in the 1840s. Fiona Dunn (University of Glasgow) told us about the current promotion of Gaelic in higher education in Scotland. In addition, three sessions were devoted to Welsh literature and culture. Katherine Olson (Bangor University) spoke about the impact of religion on the early modern literature; E. Wyn James (Cardiff University) explored the representation of slavery in Welsh print culture; and Daniel Williams (Harvard University) revisited Raymond Williams’ theory of culture, defending it against criticism by Henry Louis Gates. The series culminated in a presentation by Nancy Netzer (Boston College) on The Book of Durrow, a beautifully illuminated insular gospel book. Following the lecture, the facsimile of the manuscript was on display in the Houghton Library for a week. In 2013–14 and 2014–15, the seminar once again featured seminars on topics both Irish and Welsh, both literary and historical, both medieval and modern. Liam Breatnach (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) presented new work on medieval Irish bardic satire and Brian Frykenberg (Museum of Printing) on Irish wild man legends, while Francis Ludlow (Yale University) updated us on his work on the relationship between violence and extreme weather events detailed in early Irish annals. Clare Carroll (City University of New York) discussed the historiographical activity of exiled Irishmen in the early modern period, and Maureen Murphy (Hofstra University) explored the activities of American Asenath Nicholson during the Irish famine of the 1840s. Helen Fulton (York University) discussed the interpretation of the Troy legend in medieval Wales and England, and Aled Llion Jones (Bangor University) offered a Heideggerian approach to twelfth- and

The Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome seminar has attracted some of the leading classicists, historians, and archaeologists

thirteenth-century Welsh court poetry. Geraint Evans (Swansea University) presented some of his most recent research on printing in Welsh in the seventeenth century. We also had a seminar session on the Breton Barzaz Breiz with Matthieu Boyd (Fairleigh Dickinson University) and presentation from Sìm Innes (Glasgow University) on a Scottish Gaelic translation of Shakespeare’s Scottish play. In 2015–16, the seminar welcomed speakers on a wide range of topics, including Natasha Sumner (Harvard University) on Fionn mac Cumhaill, Colmán Ó Clabaigh (Glenstal Abbey, Boston College) on women and religion in late medieval Ireland, Matthieu Boyd on the meaning of two gessa placed upon Cú Chulainn, Chris Killip (Harvard University) on being Manx, Edel Bhreathnach (Discovery Programme: Center for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland) on the royal sites of Ireland, Vera Kreilkamp (Boston College) and Diana Larsen (Boston College) on planning “The Arts and Crafts Movement: Making it Irish,” Christopher Loveluck (University of Nottingham) on Western Britain and Ireland in an expanding archaeological context, c. AD 400–1200, Katharine Olson on women, manuscript culture, and the apocalypse in medieval and Renaissance Wales and Ireland, and E. Wyn James on identity, immigration, and assimilation in the case of the Welsh settlement in Patagonia.

China Humanities C H A I R S : JA M E S R O B S O N , M I C H A E L P U E T T

China Humanities is a biweekly speaker series that explores the Chinese experience across the spectrum of the humanities and from different time periods. Speakers have discussed material from a wide range of historical periods, from Hans van Ess (University of Munich) comparing the earliest Han history texts, to Aihe Wang (University of Hong Kong) revealing her involvement in an underground art movement during the Cultural Revolution, to Basile Zimmermann (University of Geneva) discussing electronic music devices and computer encodings in contemporary China. The range of disciplinary perspectives presented has been equally diverse. Jack Chen (University of California, Los Angeles) demonstrated how new computing techniques may help us to visualize the Shishuo Xinyu in a different light, Edward Slingerland (University of British Columbia) discussed some new approaches to early Chinese religion and philosophy drawn from the cognitive and evolutionary sciences and Michael Hunter (Yale University) used quantitative analysis of citations to argue that Confucius’ Analects may not have been Confucius’ Analects after all. Toru Funayama (Kyoto University) studied how the notion of Mahayana precepts relates to the question of the “sinification” of

L A I KWA N PA N G • I DY L S O F T H E O C R I T U S

across the breadth of the field.

Buddhism, while Stephen Bokenkamp (Arizona State University) later explored how the Daoist Lingbao corpus responded to this imported religion in turn. We have discussed a range of topics, including Chinese gardens with Duncan Campbell (Australian National University), Qing eunuchs with Norman Kutcher (Syracuse University), Chinese gossip and lore literature with Sarah Allen (Wellesley College), Chinese art history with De-nin Lee (Emerson College), Manchu drug literature with Carla Nappi (University of British Columbia), book history with Lianbin Dai (Harvard University), Tang funerary inscriptions with Anna Shields (University of Maryland, Baltimore County), burial charities in eighteenth-century China with Helen Dunstan (University of Sydney), Mao Zedong’s golden mangoes with Alfreda Murck (China Institute, New York), early epistolary fiction in China with Antje Richter (University of Colorado, Boulder), soldiers and maritime trade during the Ming-Qin transition with Zhao Shiyu (Peking University), the Hanlin academician Hong Mai and his supernatural tales with Ronald Egan (Stanford University), poetry and empire building with Yu-yu Cheng (National Taiwan University, Princeton University), Protestant Christianity in post-Mao China with Yanfei Sun (Zhejiang University), documentaries of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement with Laikwan Pang (Chinese University of Hong Kong), and intertextuality in early medieval China with Wendy Swartz (Rutgers University).

Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome C H A I R S : DAV I D E L M E R , R I C H A R D T H O M A S

Speakers over the past five years have well represented the goals of the Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome seminar. The seminar attracted some of the leading classicists, historians, and archaeologists across the breadth of the field. A number of papers, illustrating a range of approaches, explored questions of literary history or interpretation: Simon Goldhill (University of Cambridge) outlined an aesthetics of Sophoclean metrics; Richard Rutherford (Oxford University) discussed the treatment of sexuality in Greek tragedy; Jan Felix Gaertner (Harvard University) used stylometrics to assess the authorship of the

Classical Traditions has sought to maintain a high standard of innovative and provocative lectures as well as enhance

Bellum Alexandrinum; Richard Hunter (University of Cambridge) explored connections between the archaic Greek lyric poet Stesichorus and the Hellenistic poet Theocritus; Stephen Scully (Boston University) traced the influence of Hesiod on Aeschylus’ Oresteia; Ewen Bowie (Oxford University) identified a strategy of “de-authorization” in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe; Irene Peirano (Yale University) linked rhetorical theory to shipwreck scenes in Roman epic; Deborah Lyons (Miami University of Ohio) discussed immortalization as a topos in early Greek poetry; David Bouvier (University of Lausanne) unearthed from the Odyssey an unsettling image of a violent Odysseus; Stephen Harrison (Oxford University) discussed the poetics and politics of Horace’s hymn to Bacchus; James Uden (Boston University) analyzed satire and superstition in second-century Rome; Maria Emilia Cairo (Universidad Nacional de La Plata-Conicet) explored Roman identity and religion in Cicero’s De Divinatione; Stephen Heyworth (Oxford University) discussed segmentation and interpretation with the Odes (Book 2) of Horace; and A.J. Woodman (University of Virginia) traced vinous voices in Horace’s Epode 9. Cultural history was well represented with talks by Benjamin Isaacs (Tel Aviv University) on the Roman view of Nomads; William Johnson (Duke University) on publication and book circulation in ancient Rome; Armand D’Angour (Oxford University) on ancient Greek music; Mark Bradley (University of Nottingham) on obesity, corpulence, and emaciation in Roman art; Damian Valdez (University of Cambridge) on German Philhellenism; and Judith Mossman (University of Nottingham) on Plutarch, Lucian, and the sixth century BC. Archaeologist Yannis Hamilakis (University of Southampton) discussed time, materiality, and their connection to antiquities in the eastern Mediterranean. Early Christianity in the Late Antique period was the theme of a paper by Jan Bremmer (University of Groningen), who argued that early Christians took little from pagan mystery cults. Finally, reception was well represented by Eric Moormann (University of Nijmegen), who explored nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary evocations of the destruction of Pompeii; by J. D. Reed (Brown University), who discovered unexpected Virgilian echoes in the works of Garcilaso de la Vega; and by Andrew Laird (Warwick University), who analyzed classical literature and millenarian views in post-conquest Mexico vis-à-vis the Ecstasis of Fray Cristóbal Cabrera (1548).

E M I LY G R E E N W O O D • G O E T H E

its interdisciplinary, theoretical scope.

Classical Traditions C H A I R S : S T E P H A N I E F R A M P TO N , J O H N H A M I LTO N , C H R I S TO P H E R J O H N S O N , C H R I S TO P H E R K R E B S

Classical Traditions has sought to maintain a high standard of innovative and provocative lectures as well as enhance its interdisciplinary, theoretical scope. In 2011–12, the seminar welcomed talks by Peter Pesic (St. John’s College) on the classical origins and implications of the concept of personhood, Jacob Soll (Rutgers University) on NeoStoicism, natural law, and the decline of classical prudence in Enlightenment politics, Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) on Isaac Casaubon and the study of ancient history, Craig Kallendorf (Texas A&M University) on book history and the reception of the classics in the Renaissance, and Emily Greenwood (Yale University) on black classicism. In 2012–13, Kathrin Rosenfield (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) offered an in-depth presentation on her latest publication, which deals with Friedrich Hölderlin’s intriguing and enigmatic readings of Sophocles. The ensuing discussion moved well beyond philological issues to consider the validity of Heidegger’s hermeneutic interpretations and Foucault’s polemical intervention against dominant psychoanalytic discussions of the poet. Brooke Holmes (Princeton University) spoke on Michel Serres’ study of Lucretius, and touched on issues ranging from the legacy of ancient atomism to the history of medicine. Michèle Lowrie (University of Chicago) and Victoria Rimell (University of Rome) presented their work on Roman theories of security, in conjunction with the publication of John Hamilton’s (Harvard University) own book on this topic. Finally, Emily Apter (New York University), who discussed her involvement in her major translation project, built on Barbara Cassin’s Vocabulaire européen des philosophies, which was presented as a theoretically charged translation of “untranslatable” terms. In 2013–14, Michèle Lowrie discussed cura and comos in Virgil’s Georgics, Jennifer Gosetti-Fernencei (Fordham University) described challenges in Kafka and Rilke vis-à-vis imaginative envisioning, and Amit Shilo (Harvard University) explored political theologies with the Oresteia. In 2014–15, the seminar featured lectures, a roundtable discussion, and a workshop with Eckart Goebel (New York University) on Goethe’s Proserpina and David Wellbery (University of Chicago) on tragic form in Goethe’s Faust. In 2015–16, Nancy Gish (University of Southern Maine) presented her work on Eliot, Virgil, and abandoned women.

Rebecca Saxe (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) showed how surprising the human capacity to think about minds is for understanding

Cognitive Theory and the Arts C H A I R S : A N N A H E N C H M A N , A L A N R I C H A R D S O N , E L A I N E S C A R RY

Cognitive Theory and the Arts offered scholars a chance to reflect on the recent history of their fields between 2011 and 2015. For example, Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist David Hubel (Harvard University) surveyed the vast amount now known about vision, puzzled over the word “consciousness,” and outlined topics that are still underexplored in neuroscience. Literary scholar Nikki Skillman (Harvard University) showed how productively American poets have engaged with the mind sciences since the 1950s. Neuroscientist Nancy Kanwisher (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) reflected on progress in brain imaging since the 1990s. She discussed three mental functions that are assigned localized regions of the brain: recognizing faces, identifying places, and thinking about what other people are thinking. Several speakers emphasized the importance of simulation and combination in mental life. Daniel Schacter (Harvard University) described recent research on the overlap between remembering and imagining, and connected memory to thinking about the future. Mark Turner (Case Western Reserve) analyzed massive data about the grammar of network TV news, which enables audience members to put different spatial and temporal frameworks in relation. Joshua D. Greene (Harvard University) engaged with how the brain constructs complex thoughts. Allan Hobson (Harvard Medical School) explored the relationship of dreaming to virtual reality. Asking what is distinctive about human cognition, Elizabeth Spelke (Harvard University) proposed that human minds are uniquely able to integrate learning systems. By combining navigation skills with the recognition of objects and forms, we can come up with theoretical geometry. Rebecca Saxe (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) showed how surprising the human capacity to think about minds is for understanding both our own behavior and the actions of others. Jonathan Kramnick (Rutgers University) provided a historical perspective on theory of mind, tracing ideas about how we are able to imagine minds strikingly different from our own back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Three literary scholars investigated mental phenomena that tend to have negative associations: hallucinations, annoyance, and stupidity. Suparna Roychoudhury (Harvard University) discussed seventeenth-century ideas about the harmful powers of the imagination evident in Macbeth. Margaret Rennix (Harvard University) connected George Eliot’s pervasive interest in annoyance and irritation with her rejection of stream of consciousness. Matthew Sussman (Harvard University) showed that even a writer as cerebral as Henry James credits states of stupidity and ignorance, sometimes even according these states the moral high ground.

REBECCA SAXE • SHAKESPEARE

both our own behavior and the actions of others.

Four seminars focused on mental acts of which we are largely unaware. Alison Simmons (Harvard University) traced the status of unconscious thought from 1700 to 1900. Psychologist Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University) discussed “implicit prejudice,” the unconscious and instantaneous judgments that the best-intentioned people make about whether people different from themselves possess talent. Paul Harris (Harvard University) explained how children gather information about the world through the reports of others and how nuanced their distinctions between fact and fiction can be at an early age. Ray Jackendoff (Tufts University) investigated the relationship between thought and “inner speech.”

Cultural and Humanitarian Agents C H A I R S : D O R I S S O M M E R , M I C H A E L VA N R O OY E N

Over the past five years, Cultural and Humanitarian Agents has showcased the work of collaborators from diverse professions and backgrounds with the consistent goal of showing how the arts and interpretation enhance active citizenship. Our 2011–12 program began with a presentation by Jocelyn Kelly (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative) on the reintegration of child soldiers into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The series also featured the works of artists Raul Cardenas Osuna and Alfredo Jaar. Osuna’s project addressed the sustainability of contested territories in Tijuana, while Jaar’s presentation focused on the difficult process through which art reveals social injustice and inspires public action. In addition, musician John Crowley explained how he has transposed the virtues of harmony and cooperation from his career as a cellist to his new humanitarian passions. David Lammy (former British Minister of Culture) led a conversation on the arts, culture, and community. Former Mayor of Bogota Antanas Mockus gave a presentation extolling the critical value art can and must actively have in a “city in crisis.” Finally, Naseemah Mohamed (Rhodes Scholar and Harvard College senior) presented her work on post-colonial pedagogy in Zimbabwe. The 2012–13 program included a presentation by artist/engineer Luis García Nava and Carolina Chávez Mendoza. Francisco Lloreda (High Presidential Advisor for Public Safety of the Government of Colombia) lent a humanist perspective to urban crime problems in the Colombian Andes. Finally, Pablo Rey Mazón (Massachusetts Institute of

Cultural and Humanitarian Agents has showcased the work of collaborators with the consistent goal of showing how the arts and

Technology) spoke about his work with Basurama, a Spain-based group that recycles waste to perform artistic social interventions. The 2013–14 program began with artist Matthew Mazzotta’s presentation on Open House–a project in which he transformed a derelict property and recycled materials into a free, open-air theater that was designed in collaboration with the community of York, Alabama. Next, Fred Ritchin (New York University) offered a presentation on his book, Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen, which explored the power of photography as a tool for social justice. The final event was a panel discussion that brought together curators, artists and academics to discuss FeFa’s potential contributions to social, economic, and political change in Cuba. The 2014–15 program supported a talk centered on the work of actor and director Nandita Das. Das was joined by Cara Moyer-Duncan (Emerson College) and Mukti Khaire (Harvard Business School). The seminar also brought Jorge Munguía of the Mexico Citybased design firm Buró-Buró to share strategies for developing innovative, participatory platforms in partnership with cultural institutions. Art historian Robin Greeley (University of Connecticut) moderated a discussion between anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University) and writer Pedro Ángel Palou (Tufts University) about the Ayotzinapa disappearances and the role of culture in raising wider questions about what makes for effective political mobilization and renewed civic agency in Mexico. The final event of the year was a closed working group that brought together art historians and literary scholars to develop recommendations for how to interpret symbolic reparations in Colombia. Doris Sommer, Jose Falconi, and Lisa Crossman of the Cultural Agents Initiative, Robin Greeley and Michael Orwicz (University of Connecticut), Ana María Reyes (Boston University), and Fernando Rosenberg (Brandeis University) participated. In 2015–16, the program included Alejandra Ballón-Gutierrez (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) and Kimberly Theidon (Tufts University) on affective politics, Simon Hosie on architecture and community engagement in Colombia, Araceli Alonso (University of Wisconsin, Madison) on Nikumbuke and the transformation of structural violence by women into health and well-being in Kenya, Fabienne Le Houérou (Sciences-PO [Aix]) on asylum in France from 1990 to 2015 and on his ethnographic film, Angu: A Woman on the Edge.

RAUL CARDENAS OSUNA • GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL

interpretation enhance active citizenship.

Dialectical Thinking In the Humanities C H A I R S : R O B E RT L E H M A N , J U L I E O R L E M A N S K I , G O R D O N T E S K E Y, A N D R E W WA R R E N

In 2012–13, Dialectical Thinking in the Humanities began as a reading group that also hosted four distinguished speakers. Three times each month, members of the Bostonarea scholarly community met to discuss readings drawn either from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit or from works of critical theory in the Hegelian tradition. The group encompassed graduate students and faculty members (with the occasional undergraduate) from Harvard, Tufts, Brandeis, Boston College, and Boston University. Since the purpose of the group was to explore in depth and across the humanities a certain style of thinking that may be called “dialectical,” intensive reading and discussion were central to its activities. In addition to Hegel’s writings, the critical theory readings included texts by Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille, Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, Robert Pippin, and Rebecca Comay. Martin Jay (University of California, Berkeley) joined us to discuss the value of reason for Habermas. Kevin Newmark (Boston College) addressed the nature of irony in Kierkegaard’s writings. Timothy Bahti gave a reading of “ends” in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Finally, Annie McClanahan (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) brought together Marx and Freud to gloss the uncanniness of debt. In 2013–14, the seminar hosted three speakers. Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico) analyzed the relationship between idealism and psychoanalysis. Ian Balfour (York University) surveyed Kant’s conception of the imagination. Finally, Nathan Brown (University of California, Davis) discussed the articulation of form and genesis in Hegel’s Science of Logic. In 2014–15, the seminar met weekly, reading two tracks of texts in alternating weeks. In the first we read Hegel’s early work, including The Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy and Faith and Knowledge; in the second, we read Derrida’s Of Grammatology. We also hosted five speakers: Iain Hamilton Grant (University of the West of England) began the year with an original reading of Hegel’s Differenzschrift and its relationship to Schelling; Audrey Wasser (Miami University) discussed the concepts of problem and genesis in Proust, Beckett, and Deleuze; with the France and the World seminar, we co-hosted Irving Goh (Tufts University), who discussed his concept of the “Reject” in contemporary French thought; then, in dialogue with Kant and Benjamin, Kir Kuiken (State University of New York, Albany) discussed the question of sovereignty in Derrida’s as-yet-unpublished Peine de Mort II seminars; and finally Tilottama Rajan (University of Western Ontario) provided a reading of Hegel’s figuration of the concept of system across his career. During the summer of 2015, we met weekly to read Badiou’s Logics of Worlds.

Eighteenth-Century Studies serves a constituency of faculty, graduate students, and community members with a wide range

In 2015–16, we read Kant’s, Schelling’s, and Hegel’s philosophies of nature, and Heidegger’s late works. The seminar also welcomed lectures by Miguel de Beistegui (University of Warwick) on Lacan from a genealogical perspective, Paul North (Yale University) on Heidegger in the 1930s, Jeremy Dunham (University of Sheffield) on the unexpected marriage between Darwinian evolutionary theory and Leibnizian metaphysics, Soelve Curdts (Universität Düsseldorf) on the ends of judgment vis-à-vis Kant and Hegel, and Sean Kelly (Harvard University) on Heidegger, Kant, and conceptualism. We also held a mini-conference on “The Natural and the Aesthetic,” featuring talks by Kurt Cavender (Brandeis University), Elizabeth Fay (University of Massachusetts, Boston), Richard Flynn (Brandeis University), Jess Keiser (Tufts University), Rob Lehman (Boston College), Amod Lele (Boston University), Matthias Rudolf (Salem State University), and Andrew Warren (Harvard University).

Eighteenth-Century Studies C H A I R S : S U S A N L A N S E R , YO O N S U N L E E , R U T H P E R RY

Focusing on the long period from the 1660s through the 1820s, Eighteenth-Century Studies serves a constituency of faculty, graduate students, and community members with a wide range of disciplinary and topical interests. Our most intensive focus for regular participants is English literature, but we strive for perspectives on music, politics, art, philosophy, and science, preferring wherever possible an interdisciplinary or international lens. Our speakers for 2011–16 represent this commitment to balance and breadth. They addressed various topics in English and French literature, German art history, Scottish musical history, the English provincial book market, French painting, English women’s scientific endeavors, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, and more. For example, visual representation predominated in talks by Ann Shteir (York University) and Mark Laird (Harvard University) that explored intersections of art and botany; by Dror Wahrman (Indiana University) on the “media revolution;” by Charlotte Guichard (Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique) on artists’ graffiti in eighteenth-century Rome; and by Wendy Roworth (University of Rhode Island) on Angelica Kauffman. Biography figured in Roworth’s project and in Susan Bordo’s presentation (University of Kentucky) of eighteenth-century versions of Anne Boleyn. Romanticists Bill Keach (Brown University) and Michael Gamer (University of Pennsylvania) anchored the end of our period. Our other invited speakers included Matthew Gelbart (Fordham University) on Scottish music, Vincent Denis (University of Paris I—Panthéon-Sorbonne) on the European police, Christina Lupton (University

S E A N K E L LY • A N N E B O L E Y N • B A L Z A C

of disciplinary and topical interests.

of Warwick) on the printed page, Jill Campbell (Yale University) on Alexander Pope and the fictionality effect, Amy Freund (Texas Christian University) on dogs, guns, and men in eighteenth-century France, Deborah Jenson (Duke University) on neuroscience and the Haitian Declaration of Independence, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg (University of Michigan) on liberal universalism, Ruth Mack (State University of New York, Buffalo) on Joseph Banks and early ethnography, Lawrence Lipking (Northwestern University) on the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Drummond Bone (University of Oxford) on Byron and the margins of Romanticism, Srividhya Swaminathan (Long Island University) on early Caribbean rhetoric of the runaway, Janet Polasky (University of New Hampshire) on revolutions between nations from 1776 to 1789, Paula McDowell (New York University) on “vociferation,” Giora Sternberg (University of Oxford) on manipulating information in the Ancien Régime, Stephen Osadetz (Harvard University) on Sir Charles Grandison and the trial of principle, and philosopher Nancy Kendrick (Wheaton College) on Aristotelian friendship in Astell and Wollstonecraft. Our “mini-series” on Jane Austen’s novels featured scholars from three continents: Jocelyn Harris (University of Otago), Marcia Folsom (Wheelock College), and Robert Clark (University of East Anglia). Our annual “signature” event, “New Eyes on the Eighteenth Century,” provides graduate students and newly-minted PhDs with the opportunity to present their work in ways that elicit enthusiastic support and generative suggestions from senior scholars.

France and the World C H A I R S : V E R E N A CO N L E Y, S Y LVA I N E G U YOT, M Y L È N E P R I A M

In 2011–12, France and the World unfolded in several directions. First, Antonin Baudry (Embassy of France, New York City) focused on the relation between creative economy and the art market in France and the United States. Wajdi Mouawad (National Art Center, Ottawa) and Marie-Claire Blais, two Francophone writers, gave readings from their newly published work, followed by lectures on writing in French outside of France. Based on the

In 2015–16, France and the World hosted Fiston Mwanza Mujila (writer, Democratic Republic of Congo) on

current questioning of French identity, the seminar also looked back on the construction of identity in earlier times. Katherine Kolb (Southeastern Louisiana University) examined the influence of Beethoven on Balzac, while Jacques Berchtold (University Paris IV—Sorbonne) revealed the ambiguous image of Switzerland as a political ideal and an existential limitation in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s La nouvelle Héloïse. The seminar then turned to problems arising today with David Aberbach (McGill University), who spoke about forms of patriotism that developed among European Jews between 1789 and 1939 in spite of a growing awareness of racial hatred. The seminar also studied the relation between the French Renaissance’s “imagining speech” and the cinema’s “talking images” in a conference on Renaissance and Cinema, co-sponsored with the Renaissance Studies seminar and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. In 2012–13, the seminar emphasized the question of politics and aesthetics. Jacques Rancière (University of Paris VIII—Saint Denis) spoke of the relation between aesthetics and democracy in the work of Flaubert and Mallarmé but mainly in the Dziga Vertov’s documentary, Man with a Movie Camera. Drawing on Marx, Freud, Jean-Luc Nancy and others, Etienne Balibar (University of Paris IX—Nanterre) discussed notions of community and democracy in their relation with cosmopolitanism and citizenship. Achille Mbembe (University of the Witwatersrand) offered a critique of universalist thought and contemporary theories of dependence that represent and construct difference according to their visions and concerns, while Mylène Priam (Harvard University) presented a generational appraisal of the concept, theory, and literary movement of Créolité. Finally, Joshua Walker (University of Chicago) spoke of the impact of diamond mining on communities in Africa. The second semester considered a French nation in transformation. Irit Kleiman (Boston University) spoke of political subjectivity at the edge of modernity in France. Damien Mahiet (Harvard University) discussed sovereignty and conquest by way of eighteenthcentury French opera, and Martine Reid (Université de Lille-III) identified similarities and differences in works by French women writers in the social and historical contexts of the nineteenth and twentieth century. In 2013–14, the seminar moved in three directions. First, following the seminar’s long history of hosting artists and writers, we invited four French and Francophone authors: Pierre Alféri (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) discussed the problem of writing poetry in an age of multimedia while Rachida Madani (Morocco) addressed that of

M A N W I T H A M OV I E C A M E R A • F I S TO N M WA N Z A M UJ I L A

poetic variations.

writing in French in contemporary Morocco. Laurent Binet and Catherine Millet (ArtPress) spoke of the relation between fiction and history in France today. Second, the seminar hosted a series of talks dedicated to a global early modern French culture, from medieval religious drama to travel narratives, that included presentations by Christine FerlampinAcher (University Rennes 2), Andrea Marculescu (Harvard University), and Faith Beasley (Dartmouth College). Two talks focused on the importance of architecture: Nicola Courtright (Amherst College) spoke on seventeenth-century architecture while Jean-Pierre LeDantec focused on contemporary architectural projects in the Parisian banlieues. Third, two seminars were dedicated to philosophical and political issues today: Olivier Surel (University Paris Ouest Nanterre) discussed the idea of “multinaturalism,” and Reda Bensmaia (Brown University) commented on filmic and literary representations of the harragas, the clandestine migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean. During 2014–15, this seminar continued to explore the changing role of French thought and culture in France, Europe, and the world. In the fall, we began with four French contemporary thinkers and writers who all engage with problems that reach beyond national borders. Marc Crépon (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) presented a rethinking of World War I that undid the present stereotypes; Barbara Cassin (Former Director, Collège International de Philosophie, Paris) examined the notion of performance and performativity in connection with apartheid in South Africa; Philippe Vasset (writer, Paris) gave a performative reading of one of his novels; and Françoise Vergès (Collège d’ Études Mondiales, Paris) explored the intersection of race, gender and economics in former French colonies. The spring semester began with three sessions on France’s post-colonial legacy. Paul Bandia (Concordia College, Montreal) spoke about the importance of translation studies for the study of post-colonial literature; Claire Mauss-Copeaux presented her work demystifying official photography from the war in Algeria (1954–1962) and Etienne Copeaux spoke about the teaching of Islam in France today, especially after the events of Charlie Hebdo. Philip Armstrong (Ohio State University) presented a paper that theorized today’s notion of “precarity” while Irving Goh (Tufts University) spoke about the importance of theoretical shifts in what he called a “post-humanist” world. In 2015–16, the seminar featured talks by Michel Collot (University Paris III—Sorbonne Nouvelle) on landscape in modern and contemporary art, Fiston Mwanza Mujila (writer, Democratic Republic of Congo) on poetic variations, Vincent Debaene (Columbia University) on complicating the narrative of the emergence of Francophone African literature, Laurence Marie (French Embassy) on spectacle in Enlightenment Europe, Stéphane Lojkine (University of Aix-Marseille) on aesthetics and politics vis-à-vis the Enlightenment, and John Armitage (Winchester School of the Arts) and Joanne Roberts (Winchester School of the Arts) on critical luxury studies.

Gender and Sexuality lectures covered a diverse range of subject matter united by a shared intellectual commitment to interdisciplinary analysis.

Gender and Sexuality The 2011–12 lectures covered a diverse range of subject matter united by a shared intellectual commitment to interdisciplinary analysis. Faith Smith (Brandeis University) spoke about her new book on Caribbean sexualities and citizenship; Svati Shah (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) examined ideas of Indian politics and modernity in relation to urban and rural spaces; Keridwen Luis (Harvard University) discussed her anthropological research on lesbian separatist communities; Christina Sharpe (Tufts University) lectured on the racial and sexual politics of Valerie Martin’s novel Property; Monica White Ndounou (Tufts University) discussed African-American playwright Anna Julia Cooper’s dramatic criticism; and Robin Bernstein (Harvard University) spoke about the relationship between performance theory and lesbian history. The 2012–13 talks addressed same-sex romantic friendship and American conceptions of freedom. Ivy Schweitzer (Dartmouth College) did so with an emphasis on philosophical theorizations of friendship; Michael Amico (Yale University) studied the letters of two civil war soldiers; Lisa Merrill (Hofstra University) examined white actress Charlotte Cushman’s relationship with her African American servant and confidante Sally Mercer; and Robert Reid Pharr (City University of New York) put the lives and works of Langston Hughes and Frederico Garcia Lorca into poetic, political conversation. In April all four speakers returned to Harvard and, in conjunction with Amber Hollibaugh and Jonathan Ned Katz, were part of a two-day symposium on same-sex friendships and American democracy. The 2013–14 talks treated the history of ideas about the influence of the mother’s behaviors, experiences, and physiology on the fate of her growing embryo. Hannah Landecker (University of California, Los Angeles) spoke on contemporary epigenetics research against the backdrop of the history of metabolism and reproduction. Miranda Waggoner (Princeton University) analyzed the prominent metaphor of “fetal programming” in current epigenetics science. Martine Lappé (University of California, Los Angeles) examined how the maternal-fetal interface has become a central target for theorizing environmental risk within autism research. Aryn Martin (York University) examined the imagery and rhetorics of the body in maternal-fetal microchimerism research in the field of immunology. The year culminated in a day-long symposium in April featuring leading researchers from anthropology, evolutionary biology, sociology, philosophy, history of medicine, and political science. Speakers reflected on the implications of emerging genetic research for maternal autonomy; the event is video archived and its outcomes documented in an August 2014 comment in the journal Nature.

LANGSTON HUGHES • CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

C H A I R S : M I C H A E L B R O N S K I , J YOT I P U R I , S A R A H R I C H A R D S O N , L I N DA S C H LO S S B E R G

In 2014–15, the seminar focused on the future of gay marriage and the crucial issues facing the LGBT movement, including increased discrimination against and criminalization of people with HIV; the effects of class and poverty on the LGBT movement; the problems of relying on federal law to secure LGBT equality; and religious exemptions and conscious clauses that undermine LGBT anti-discrimination law. Joey Mogul (People’s Law Office, Chicago) discussed the ongoing criminalization of LGBTQ people in the US; Kevin Cathcart (Lambda Legal Defense) addressed HIV discrimination and criminalization; and Aisha Moodie-Mills (FIRE Initiative, Center for American Progress) lectured on class, race, and poverty in the LGBT movement. These three speakers were joined by Nan Hunter (Georgetown Law School) and Jewelle Gomez (playwright, novelist, cultural worker) in a day-long symposium in March on the future of LGBT activism. In 2015–16, talks addressed the question of queer and feminist justice in a time of militarized policing, racially targeted state violence, and mass incarceration through a variety of lenses, including scholarly, archival, legal, and activist. Andrea Ritchie (Open Society Foundations) discussed the policing of race, sex, and gender; Joy James (Williams College) spoke about Edward Snowden and Assata Shakur; Chase Strangio (ACLU LGBT and HIV Project) explored the effects of carceral reforms on LGBT prisoners; and Kristin Nicole Dukes (Simmons College) examined the perceptions and representations of black women.

German Studies: New Perspectives C H A I R S : B E N JA M I N B U C H LO H , J O H N H A M I LTO N , J U D I T H RYA N

Through a comparative study of German conceptions of the Kulturwissenschaften and American versions of “German studies,” the seminar aimed to initiate a new phase in the debate on the function and scope of interdisciplinary approaches to the field. Speakers were invited to reflect on the implicit and explicit methods they use to make fresh discoveries or to shed new light on more familiar questions. In 2013–14, Jeffrey Hamburger (Harvard University) discussed belting from Byzantine art history to Bildanthropologie. Inka Mülder-Bach (University of Munich, Princeton

Hispanic Cultures hosted Andrés Soria Olmedo (Universidad de Granada, Brown University), who offered a close reading of

University) lectured on Robert Musil, and Katrin Trüstedt (Yale University, University of Erfurt) spoke on literary and cultural studies. In 2014–15, speakers included Judith Ryan (Harvard University) on Hermann Broch and the beginnings of modern Kulturwissenschaft, Anne Shreffler (Harvard University) on Hanns Eisler, Bertolt Brecht, and the twelve-tone system, and David Wellbery (University of Chicago) on tragic form in Goethe’s Faust. The seminar commemorated the 200th anniversary of the death of Marquis de Sade with talks by Eric Rentschler (Harvard University) and Jeffrey Mehlman (Boston University), moderated by Nicole Sütterlin (Harvard University). In 2015–16, the seminar welcomed talks by Michael Levine (Rutgers University) on Apollinaire, Rilke, and Celan, Gerhard Richter (Brown University) on Adorno’s artwork in Mörike’s Mouse Trap, Stanley Corngold (Princeton University) on Walter Kaufmann, and Almut Suerbaum (Oxford University) on mystical theology in late medieval song.

Hispanic Cultures C H A I R S : S E R G I O D E LG A D O, B R A D E P P S , M A RY G AY LO R D, J O S É R A B A S A , M A R I A N O S I S K I N D, DORIS SOMMER

For the 2011–12 academic year, we organized seminar activities around the theme of the avant-garde. Seven events took place, beginning with a presentation by seminar co-organizer Sergio Delgado (Harvard University) on the writings of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, a figure of increasing importance in North American academic circles and future subject of a major retrospective at the New York MoMA. Dylon Robbins (Boston University) spoke on music and the notion of trance in Brazilian Cinema Novo. A discussion with Spanish filmmaker Inés París took place later that academic term. Andrés Soria Olmedo (Universidad de Granada, Brown University) offered a close reading of a work by Federico García Lorca. In the spring, Josiah Blackmore (University of Toronto, Harvard University) shared insights on the poetry of Antonio Botto and its translation by Fernando Pessoa. The cycle ended with presentations by activist/scholar Ricardo Dominguez (University of California, San Diego) on his work to date, and by curator Mari Carmen Ramírez (The Museum of Fine Arts Houston) on Latin American and Latina/o as art historical categories.

LY G I A C L A R K • F E D E R I C O G A R C Í A L O R C A

a work by Federico García Lorca.

In 2012–13, Beatriz Sarlo (CONICET, Argentina) offered a lecture on the place of Borges in the critical tradition of Argentine culture; Esther Gimeno (University of Vienna) talked about bilingual and polylingual filmmaking in Spain and Latin America, offering a workshop for graduate students where they close-read the films she addressed in her lecture; Gabriela Nouzeilles (Princeton University) presented material on her forthcoming book on critical approaches to literature and photography. During the 2013–14 academic year, the seminar hosted Michelle Clayton’s (Brown University) presentation on postcards and other forms of writing in movement. Kahlil ChaarPerez (Harvard University) analyzed colonial discourses of subjection in late-nineteenthcentury Caribbean theater. Francisco Raúl Cornejo (Institut Nationale de Recherche Scientifique, Centre Urbanisation-Culture Société) presented findings from research into the history of design in Brazil. Lastly, Antonio J. Arraiza, Andrew Gray (Harvard University), and Felipe Valencia (Swarthmore College) came together for a colloquium focused on concepts of poetic creation in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poetry. In 2014–15, the seminar welcomed talks by Liliana Gómez Popescu (Martin Luther Universität) on the Caribbean in narratives of space, Angel Esteban (University of Delaware) on Borges, Vivi Tellas (Princeton University) on biodrama and biography on the Argentine stage, and María Kodama on Borges and fantasy literature. In 2015–16, speakers included Gabriel Giorgi (New York University) on images of the living and political temporalities, Federico Finchelstein (The New School) on Lugones and Borges, Alejandra Laera (University of Buenos Aires) on fiction in contemporary Argentina, Antanas Mockus (New York University) and Luis Camnitzer (artist) on ““Pedagogo de vanguardia,” Alberto Moreiras (Texas A&M University) on the cunning of character, Anthony Geist (University of Washington) on surrealism and the crisis of the Generation of ’27, and Karina Galperin (Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Buenos Aires) on Vermeyen and his firstperson visual narratives of Charles V’s Tunisian campaign.

History of the Book C H A I R S : A N N B L A I R , A L E X C S I SZ A R , R O B E RT DA R N TO N , DAV I D D. H A L L , D E I D R E LY N C H , L E A H P R I C E

Had Samuel Johnson been describing the History of the Book seminar, he might have observed that our talks in the past five years have ranged “from China to Peru.” (More specifically, from a talk by Lianbin Dai [Harvard University] on textual collation and its guiding principles in eighteenth-century evidential scholarship to Tom Cummins [Harvard University] on illustrated natural historical manuscripts in colonial Peru.) Books produced in our own backyard (Eric Slauter’s account of Walden’s carbon footprint) have alternated

Had Samuel Johnson been describing the History of the Book seminar, he might have observed that the talks in the past five years

with books documenting far-flung tourism (John Brewer’s analysis of an eighteenthcentury visitor’s register at Pompeii). Our time-span stretched even farther, running from publication in the ancient world (William Johnson, Duke University), Augustine’s reading (Daniel Donoghue and Albert Horstung, both at Harvard University), and the heritage of Constantine VII (András Németh, Vatican Library), to the heritage of to the late-twentieth-century rise of the word processor (Matt Kirschenbaum, University of Maryland), the eighteenth-century origins of Googleera assumptions about getting “information” out of books (Paul Duguid, Berkeley), and the contemporary Newton Project and its development of a digital edition (Scott Mandelbrote, Cambridge University). The disciplines represented by our speakers ranged from various national literatures to history, art history and history of science, by way of digital humanities, information sciences, and the law. Meredith Quinn and Himmet Taskomur (Harvard University) analyzed legal commentaries in seventeenth-century Istanbul, Peter Mendelsund (Knopf Publishing Group) explored the art of the book cover, and David Stern (University of Pennsylvania) traced the wanderings of a medieval Jewish Haggadah. Early modernists tackled topics as diverse as seventeenth-century lobbying (Jason Peacey, University College London), writing paper and filing systems in early modern English households (Heather Wolfe, Folger Library), the choirbook tradition in France (Jean-Paul Montagnier, McGill University, Université de Lorraine, France), the reception of Annius of Viterbo in Renaissance Italy (Benjamin Braude, Boston College), early modern censorship (Hannah Marcus, Stanford), the friendly reader in seventeenth-century France (Eric Méchoulan, Université de Montréal, Harvard University), cataloguing “monsters” (Surekha Davies, Western Connecticut State University), self-publishing in eighteenthcentury France (Marie-Claude Felton, Harvard University), print, voice, and manuscript in Pope (Paula McDowell, New York University), and the book trade and layout in the printed page and in paintings of printed matter in eighteenth-century England (Susan Whyman, Princeton University; Christina Lupton, University of Warwick; and Dror Wahrman, Indiana University), as well as the manipulation of information (Giora Sternberg, University of Oxford). Closer to our own time, the seminar considered the invention of peer review (Alex Csiszar, Harvard University), American scrapbooking (Ellen Garvey, New Jersey City University), digital books as artifacts (Alan Galey, University of Toronto), and the book after the phonograph (Matthew Rubery, Queen Mary University of London), as well as scholars’ own working methods in sessions on “cyberformalism” (Daniel Shore, Georgetown University) and the Digital Public Library of America (by its director, Dan Cohen). And in a US context, David Henkin (University of California, Berkeley) explored

M AT T K I R C H E N B AU M • T H E O P H I L A PA L M E R

have ranged “from China to Peru.”

“weekliness” in nineteenth-century diaries and newspapers, Michael Kelly (Amherst College) spoke on bibliography and Native American bodies in the Revolutionary era, and Joseph Rezek (Boston University) discussed transatlantic reprinting in the same era. A key goal of the seminar is to encourage a new generation of book historians, among undergraduate as well as graduate students and postdocs. Each year the seminar culminated in a day-long graduate conference held jointly with Yale University (at Yale in 2012, 2014, and 2016, and at Harvard in 2013 and 2015). Several other sessions of the seminar have been integrated into graduate and undergraduate courses, and a book history dissertation writers’ group that grew out of the seminar continues to thrive. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with Houghton and other libraries and with the Radcliffe Institute, the Berkman Center, and metaLAB to bring together scholars with librarians and bring research on old media into dialogue with new digital questions. For more on exhibitions, courses, and book-historical projects at Harvard and beyond that have grown out of the seminar, please visit our website, bookhistory.harvard.edu.

Jewish Cultures and Societies C H A I R S : S H AY E CO H E N , R AC H E L G R E E N B L AT T

During the 2011–12 year, we hosted speakers from major contemporary print and electronic forums for Jewish culture, society, and politics, beginning with Tablet Magazine and its weekly podcast Vox Tablet. Next, speakers from the Yiddish-language weekly Forverts addressed the changing Yiddish-speaking population and the challenge of keeping American Jews multilingual. We followed in early 2013 with the editor of the Jewish Review of Books. Several of these guests’ careers straddle public and academic life, encouraging debate on issues like the relationship between academic book reviews for scholarly journals and those written for a wider reading audience. Gary Saul Morson (Northwestern University) looked at the darker side of ways in which the rapid diffusion of ideas characteristic of modern print culture—a virulently anti-Semitic publication—has influenced Jews’ place in society.

A M Y O G ATA • S A P P H O A N D A LC A E U S

In September 2012, Galit Hasan-Rokem (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) returned us to classical Jewish literature with an exploration of the appearance of singing sirens in traditional midrashic literature and their connection to both Greek literatures and Byzantine mosaics. Olga Litwak and Louise Hecht (Palacky University, Olomouc) introduced literary and historical aspects of Jewish life in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Central and Eastern Europe. Leah Garrett (Monash University) explored literary expressions of descendants of those European Jews, World War II veterans who shaped the great American war novel, bringing us back to ways American Jews exchange ideas in a variety of cultural outlets. Marc Epstein (Vassar College) began our 2013–14 academic year with a colorful interpretation of imagery in a medieval Passover Haggadah. We discussed “Jewish historical imagination” with Michael Silber (Hebrew University) speaking on historical writing by nineteenth-century Hungarian rabbis, and Lucia Raspe (Goethe Universität Frankfurt) on remembrances of medieval Jewish Worms. With Pavel Sladek (Charles University, Prague), Rachel Greenblatt (Harvard University), and Pawel Maciejko (Hebrew University), we approached Christian-Jewish relations in early modern Bohemia. Michael Fagenblat (Monash University) and Paul Franks (Yale University) brought us into Jewish modernity looking through a philosophical lens, while Eitan Kensky (Harvard University) and Rona Yona (Tel Aviv University) did so through literature. In 2014–15, seminar speakers included Dara Horn (Harvard University) on Yiddish storytelling, Rachel Greenblatt on Jewish-Christian relations in Central Europe, Xu Xin (Nanjing University) on Jewish studies in China, and Lilach Lachman (Haifa University) on the poetry of Yeshurun, Biton, and Pedaya. In 2015–16, we welcomed Immanuel Etkes (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) on Haredi spiritual leadership, Assaf Gavron (San Diego State University) on translation, and Adia Mendelson-Maoz (Open University of Israel) on Israel and Africa in the Hebrew-Israeli literature of Beta Israel.

Ludics C H A I R S : K AT H L E E N CO L E M A N , VA S S I L I K I R A P T I

In 2013–14, Amy Ogata (Bard Graduate Center) treated design for children’s play and toys as an historical subject of the mid-twentieth century, laying emphasis on the relationship between objects and spaces and post-war notions of learning and the idea of creativity. Brian Waniewski (Institute of Play, New York) examined the role of playing as a metaphor for game design, treating games as dynamic systems that activate the learners’ critical thinking and are therefore capable of revitalizing society, with a response by Shari Tishman (Harvard Graduate School of Education). In the spirit of carnival and International Bagpipe Day, the closing roundtable discussion included a demonstration of Greek, Irish, and medieval bagpipes with three of the most prominent scholar-practitioners in the greater Boston area: Patrick Hutchinson (Brown University), Panayotis League (Harvard University), and Tom Zajak (Wellesley College). In 2014–15, Zoa Alonso Fernández (Harvard University) introduced the audience to modern ballets based on Roman legend and history from Spartacus to Caligula, focusing mainly on three ballets choreographed during the past fifty years. The core of her presentation was an exploration of the notion of “dance” as one of the meanings embedded in the Latin verb ludo and the noun ludus, from which the term “ludic” is derived. At the same time, she showed how ballet in the USSR was politicized during the Cold War—play that was deadly serious. Poet Jim Stone conducted a workshop on translating the poetry of the archaic Greek poet Sappho. By introducing elements of play into his challenge to us to translate one of Sappho’s short poems, he had the entire audience responding to the brevity and depth of Sappho’s expression, and reflecting it in a variety of innovative ways. Mary Yossi (University of Athens) explored the notion of laughter in Greek lyric poetry. This proved to be a natural sequel to the workshop on the lyric poetry of Sappho. Yossi established a typology of laughter in twelve categories (e.g., “Laughter and the symposion,” “Laughter in a ritual context,” etc.) that provoked a lively discussion about the function of humor in literary genres other than comedy. Finally, Nicole Nolette (Harvard University, University of Ottawa) demonstrated how bilingual French-Canadian theatre exploits the slippage between French and English to comment on social and cultural stereotypes and expose ludicrous situations arising from mistaken assumptions. In 2015–16, seminar speakers included Mary Flanagan (Darmouth College) and Constance Rinaldo (Harvard University) on purposeful gaming, Andromache Karanika (University of California, Irvine) on ludic poetics in the Greek wedding song tradition, Franziska Naether (University of Leipzig) on finds from Roman tower houses in Tuna

Medieval Studies has continued to serve as a forum for interdisciplinary scholarship on the Middle Ages in Europe, the Mediterranean

el-Gebel (Egypt), Danuta Fjellestad (Uppsala University) on post-postmodern fiction, Dean Kostos (award-winning poet) on scheme and schemata, Panos Bosnakis (Center of Avant-Garde Studies) on poetry, Maria Zervos (Emerson College) on the interplay of poetry and moving image, John Robinson-Appels (Columbia University) on comedy, physicality, and dance, Panos Panay (BerkleeICE) on creativity and entrepreneurship, and Christian Gütl (Graz University of Technology) and Johanna Pirker (Graz University of Technology) on virtual experiences, games, and teaching. The trajectory of the seminar demonstrates that ludic elements are fundamental to human endeavors to make sense of the world across millennia.

Medieval Studies C H A I R S : S E A N G I L S D O R F, LU I S G I R Ó N - N EG R Ó N , B E V E R LY K I E NZL E , S T E P H E N M I TC H E L L , K AT H A R I N E PA R K , PA N AG I OT I S R O I LO S , DA N I E L S M A I L , N I C H O L A S WAT S O N

Over the past five years, Medieval Studies has continued to serve as a forum for interdisciplinary scholarship on the Middle Ages in Europe, the Mediterranean world, and beyond. Seminar sessions addressed the diverse fields and approaches that define medieval studies, with a special emphasis upon the history of the book in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish societies. In 2011–12, topics included the creation of German chronicles and early Islamic books; notions of time in Anglo-Saxon historiography and German vernacular poetry; the interpretive problems posed by Romanesque altars, Gothic cathedrals, and Andalucian palaces; and the scientific value of medieval annals. In 2012–13, the seminar explored the theme “Horizons of the Middle Ages” with panel discussions on questions such as “Is the Middle Ages global?” and “Why should we be medieval?” These sessions brought together a wide range of interlocutors, including scholars on South Asian religion (Anne Monius, Harvard Divinity School), medieval Japanese historiography (Thomas Keirstead, University of Toronto), the pre-modern Caucasus (Richard Payne, University of Chicago), women in Islamic Spain (Ibtissam Bouachrine, Smith College), and Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Europe (Deeana Klepper, Boston University). The 2013–14 academic year focused on the theme of “Authorship and Authority,” with panel discussions on money and its importance within medieval society and the intellectual legacy of Alastair Minnis’s groundbreaking The Medieval Theory of Authorship (with a response by Minnis himself), and talks on issues ranging from medieval mapping to royal epitaphs to the future of the scholarly monograph in medieval studies.

N I C H O L A S WAT S O N

world, and beyond.

In 2014–15, the seminar began with a panel reflecting on the career and impact upon medieval studies of the recently-deceased historian Jacques LeGoff, chaired by Professor Emeritus Thomas Bisson (Harvard University) and featuring contributions by Fiona Somerset (University of Connecticut), Stephen White (Emory University), and Harvard faculty members Kevin Madigan and Panagiotis Roilos. During the year, the seminar welcomed a broad range of speakers including Katherine Jansen (Catholic University) on peacemaking in medieval Italy, Sam Barrett (Cambridge University) and Ben Bagby (University of Paris) on musical settings of Boethius, David Wrisley (American University of Beirut) on geospatial technology as a tool for medieval literary analysis, and Dana Sajdi (Boston College) on representations of medieval Damascus. 2014–15 also saw the debut of a popular new lunchtime seminar series, “Collations,” featuring interdisciplinary presentations on new research by Harvard colleagues including Michael Flier, Charles Stang, Luis Girón Négron, Eurydice Georganteli, and Susanne Zwierlein. In 2015–16, the seminar hosted a panel discussion on medieval learning and the modern university featuring Catherine McKenna (Harvard University), Ahmed Ragab (Harvard Divinity School), Eileen Sweeney (Boston College), Nicholas Watson (Harvard University), and Jan Ziolkowski (Harvard University). The seminar also welcomed talks by Ahmed Ragab on patienthood and case histories in medieval Islamicate medicine, Sean Gilsdorf on words, pictures, and curriculum, Charles Donahue (Harvard Law School) on English manuscript statute books, Sarah Spence (Medieval Academy of America) on Sicility and the poetic negotiation of empire, Virginie Greene (Harvard University) on Old French poetry, Julian Yolles (Harvard University) on reading the Desert Fathers in Frankish Sidon, Burcht Pranger (University of Amsterdam) on Augustine, Ann Marie Rasmussen (University of Waterloo) on the polyfunctionality of script on medieval badges, Racha Kirakosian (Harvard University) on mystical books and material text, Carlos Fraenkel (McGill University) on Maimonides vis-à-vis medieval Arabic philosophy, Christopher Loveluck (Harvard University) on game theory, archaeology, and Western Europe (AD 1000–1150), Francisco Prado-Vilar (Colegio Real Complutense) on cosmic silence, Christine Smith (Harvard University) on St. Peter’s, Ben Morgan (Oxford University) on varieties of freedom, Rowan Dorin (Harvard University) on the epidemiology of expulsion in late medieval Europe,

A particularly successful event discussed the work of the Greek-American filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos and his impact on

and Josiah Blackmore (Harvard University), Maryanne Kowaleski (Fordham University, Radcliffe Institute), and Christopher Loveluck (Nottingham University) on a pelagic Middle Ages. In keeping with its role as a meeting place for diverse intellectual traditions, the seminar has continued to collaborate actively with other Mahindra Humanities Center seminars as well as departments and research institutes across Harvard, co-hosting talks with the seminars on the History of the Book, Cartography, and Jewish Cultures and Societies as well as the Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture, the Center for Jewish Studies, and the Departments of Celtic Languages and Literatures, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Romance Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature, and History of Art and Architecture.

Modern Greek Literature and Culture C H A I R S : PA N AG I OT I S R O I LO S , D I M I T R I O S YAT R O M A N O L A K I S

During the past five years, Modern Greek Literature and Culture focused on transitional periods in modern Greek literature and culture, with special emphasis on the complex ways in which Greek societies engaged with different cultural traditions across chronological and geographical boundaries at moments of historical, cultural, and socioeconomic crisis. Leading literary scholars, historians, economists, and researchers in visual and environmental studies explored conceptual schemata, sociocultural interactions, and power dynamics in diverse domains of early modern and modern Greek culture. A variety of topics were studied from interdisciplinary perspectives, including the traumatic impact that the Nazi occupation of the country had on personal and collective memory and related discursive modes of healing; neglected sociopolitical dimensions of the military dictatorship (1967–1974) and their importance for a scholarly reevaluation of the period; comparative and transhistorical approaches to the current economic and sociocultural crisis in Greece and in other European countries; the cultural heritage of Byzantium before and during the Enlightenment; the construction of the notion of the island and its broader cultural and political dimensions; and the negotiation of gender roles and heroic paradigms in “Digenes Akrites,” the oral fictional work dedicated to the homonymous, fictional “liminal” hero—one of the most fundamental literary and cultural icons of Greek culture.

R AY M O N D C H A N D L E R • G R E G O R Y M A R KO P O U L O S

avant-garde American cinema.

In 2013–14 our seminar introduced a series of graduate student papers on modern Greek literature and culture. The same academic year culminated in an event on the influential twentieth-century poet C. P. Cavafy on the occasion of the end of the Cavafy Year; the event involved more than twenty Harvard faculty and students and was attended by more than 150 people. In 2014–15, the seminar focused on three major topics. First, we considered the reception of aspects of classical antiquity in early modernity, with particular emphasis on the contribution of Aristotelian philosophy to early modern political theory as well as on the impact of Lucian’s idiosyncratic (mainly satirical) discourse on late-seventeenthto early-eighteenth-century Phanariot literature and culture. Second, we examined the cultural achievements of the Greek diaspora. In that context, of great importance and particularly successful was an event on the work of the Greek-American filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos and its impact on avant-garde American cinema. The event was co-sponsored by the Harvard Film Archive. The Greek-American diaspora and its literary production was the focus of another seminar, which approached the issue from a cultural historical and comparative perspective. The legacy of C. P. Cavafy was the subject of a presentation by poet Robert Pinsky. Third, we discussed the current political and economic crisis in Greece, viewed within its broader European and global contexts. The relevant seminars placed emphasis on the multivalent ways in which Greece’s political history (including party policy-making and its idiosyncratic positioning toward European politics) informed aspects of the contemporary crisis. In 2015–16, speakers addressed a range of topics, including Stathis Kalyvas (Yale University) on the Greek crisis, Eurozone, and European integration, Dimitris Keridis (Panteion University) on the battle for Greece, Simos Zeniou (Harvard University) on Greek revolutionary poetry, Anastasia Natsina (University of Crete) on the countryside of the Greek Bildungsroman, Gazi Kapllani (Wellesley College) on Cavafy, Vangelis Calotychos (Brown University) on Greek “Weird Wave” film, and Loukas Tsoukalis (University of Athens, Harvard Kennedy School) on Greece’s political and economic crisis.

Modernism C H A I R S : PA I G E R E Y N O L D S , J O H N PAU L R I Q U E L M E

In the past five years, we have traversed topics reflecting the diverse, interdisciplinary character of modernist studies. Examining the relationship between modernism and the arts, Catherine Kodat (University of the Arts) presented a revisionary political and genderoriented understanding of Merce Cunningham’s choreography during the Cold War as

BETSEY BIGGS • RICHARD WRIGHT • HILLARY CHUTE

culturally critical; her session revealed affiliations of Cunningham’s late modernism with Joyce’s earlier modernism and Duchamp’s Dadaism. Christopher Grobe (Amherst College) treated the act of reading as both conceptually performative and literally staged in later modernist theatre (Beckett) and in contemporary theatre (Gatz) that repeats the language of an earlier modernist work. Hillary Chute (University of Chicago) focused on the depiction of time in Winsor McCay’s comics. Lisa Siraganian (American Academy, Southern Methodist University) dealt with color theory and the modernism of Wyndham Lewis and Virginia Woolf. Hannah Freed-Thall (Brown University) discussed media aesthetics from Proust to Woolf. Stephen Regan (Durham University) brought out artistic naturalism and impressionism in George Moore’s Esther Waters. John Lurz (Tufts University) examined the materiality of the text in Woolf’s Jacob’s Room. Two speakers presented on film: Hilary Schor (Radcliffe Institute, University of Southern California) traced the shifting notions of betrayal in adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, while Jonathan Foltz (Boston University) elucidated the relationship between literary formalism and silent film. Reflecting the current investment of modernist studies in cultural exchange, Jed Esty (University of Pennsylvania) spoke on Occidentalism in Conrad and Nabokov, while Claire Connolly (Cardiff University, Wales) offered an archipelagic reading of Irish and Welsh modernism. Susan Harris (University of Notre Dame) examined Sean O’Casey’s interest in the Soviet Union, Margaret Kelleher (University College Dublin) explored bilingualism in Joyce, and Sanjay Krishnan (Boston University) reinterpreted Naipaul’s realism. Joshua Kotin (Princeton University) explored the aesthetic difficulty of reading Ezra Pound and J.H. Prynne in Chinese. Speakers regularly introduced provocative revisionary thinking about established figures. Lisa Fluet (College of the Holy Cross) challenged Jameson’s long-accepted critical position on Raymond Chandler, Gregory Castle (University of Arizona) shared new understandings of temporality in Yeats, and Helen Vendler (Harvard University) spoke on Heaney’s engagement with classical literature. Joseph Valente’s (University of Buffalo) lecture on Conrad’s The Secret Agent addressed cognitive disability, linking a modernist classic to the emergent field of disability studies, and David Sherman (Brandeis University) explored the burgeoning interest in the post-secular. Several speakers shed new light on modernism: Claire Seiler (American Academy, Dickinson College) in her consideration of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry and “suspension” as a heuristic for understanding the mid-century; Jeanne Follansbee (Harvard University), in her study of Richard Wright’s and Tillie Olsen’s anti-fascism; Patrick Mullen (Northeastern University) in his discussion of Boston’s Mary Follet and the modernist reimagining of collectivity; Nancy Gish (University of Southern Maine) in her analysis of Eliot, Virgil, and

abandoned women; Gayle Rogers (University of Pittsburgh) in her study of Ezra Pound and the American university; David James (University of London) in his consideration of elegies of redress from Conrad to McEwan; Michaela Bronstein (Harvard Society of Fellows), in her attention to politics, race, and sexuality in late modernist African American writers (Baldwin, Ellison) responding to Henry James; Liesl Olson (Newberry Library) in her rereading of the little magazine Poetry through a distinctive Chicago modernism; Benjamin Kahan (Louisiana State University) in his probing of American fiction’s relation to industrialization and to sexology; and Sam Alexander (Endicott College) in his interdisciplinary work bringing social sciences to bear on literature by considering the integration of statistical representation into modernist form in Dos Passos, with an eye on Dos Passos’s influence on non-fiction writers today, such as George Packer in his history of the new America, The Unwinding.

Music, Sensory Ecologies, and the Body C H A I R S : K AY K AU F M A N S H E L E M AY, S I N D H U M AT H I R E V U LU R I , R I C H A R D WO L F

Music, Sensory Ecologies, and the Body explored recent developments relating to the “sensorial turn” in ethnomusicology and anthropology, exploring theories of presence, affect, and embodiment as they apply to the study of music and sound. Key areas of inquiry included performance and “liveness”; presence and digital/new media; ethnography as sensory process; the embodied voice; materialities of sound; ecological approaches to the senses; and productive tensions between “presence” and hermeneutics-oriented approaches. Ingrid Monson (Harvard University) opened the series with a discussion of various perspectives (cognition, embodiment, etc.) that have been integral to recent explorations regarding “sensation” and “the sensory” in music studies. Eliot Bates (Cornell University) explored the intersections of technology, virtuosity, and social space in Turkish music studios, drawing on his own fieldwork and participation as a studio engineer in Turkey and the Turkish diaspora. Composer/sound artist Betsey Biggs (Brown University) shared a number of pieces from her own creative work that bring together practices of soundwalks, public art, and interactive multimedia. Media historian Jonathan Sterne

The Philosophy, Poetry, and Religion seminar hosted Catherine Chalier (University of Paris), who spoke about the writings of Hasidic Rebbe

(McGill University) offered glimpses into the history of the mp3, particularly as it relates to notions of noise and the audible. Michelle Bach-Coulibaly (Brown University) explored the creative act of empathetic art-making, while Takanori Fujita (Kyoto City University of Arts) discussed corporeality through repetition in Japanese traditional music. Finally, Richard Widdess (University of London) provided insight into the body’s role in constructing musical meaning in North Indian music.

Opera C H A I R S : JA N E B E R N S T E I N , A L E S S A N D R A C A M PA N A , S I N D H U M AT H I R E V U LU R I , A N N E S H R E F F L E R

The seminar has consolidated its position as one of the most dynamic fora for opera studies, including both international and local scholars, both established and junior researchers. We regularly feature operas that are performed locally. Fall 2011 was launched with a discussion of a fundamental text on opera staging and viewing, Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator, led by Martin Puchner (Harvard University) and Andrew Sofer (Boston College), and moderated by Alessandra Campana (Tufts University). Laurence Senelick (Tufts University) offered a juxtaposition of supposed opposites, “Offenbach, Wagner, and Nietzsche: The Politics of Polemic.” Musicologist Heather Wiebe (University of Virginia) presented on Britten’s Curlew River. The 2012–13 season featured Emanuele Senici (University of Rome “La Sapienza”) on the rise of modern operatic criticism in Napoleonic Milan. Marking the bicentennial of Richard Wagner’s birth, Gundula Kreuzer (Yale University) focused on the curtain as a central technology of the operatic stage. Bonnie Gordon (University of Virginia) explored the spectacular effects of fire in water in seventeenth-century Roman opera in the context of the city itself. Finally, Hillary Poris (Northeastern University) showed the crucial role played by nineteenth-century mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot in Meyerbeer’s composition of Le Prophète. In 2013–14, Christopher Morris (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) presented his recent research on mediated opera, focusing on the complex relation between new

M A R T I N P U C H N E R • C AT H E R I N E C H A L I E R

Kalonymus Shapiro.

media technologies of production, reproduction, and dissemination of the operatic event. With a serendipitous leap back to old technologies, Jane Bernstein (Tufts University) spoke about seventeenth-century print culture in Rome and its partaking to the creation of one of the first dramas in music, Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo. Also concerned with urban and material culture, Gabriela Cruz (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) offered an imaginative account of Portuguese popular theatre and its passion for parodic subversions of official opera repertoire in mid-nineteenth-century Lisbon. A novel political reading of early Verdi, one that eschews the representational fallacy of traditional Verdi scholarship, was the topic of Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg’s (Brown University) paper on recent productions of I due Foscari. In 2014–15, Sindhumathi Revuluri (Harvard University) discussed Tan Dun’s The First Emperor and the expectations of exoticism. Arthur Groos (Cornell University) examined Das Rheingold as musical cosmogony. Arman Schwartz (University of Birmingham) spoke on Gianni Schicchi, Tuscan revivalism, and the Great War. Katharina Piechocki (Harvard University) explored Ottaviano Castelli’s Roman opera production for the birth of Louis XIV (1638). Brigid Cohen (New York University) discussed Ono in opera in 1961. Emily Richmond Pollock (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) presented on rebuilding, retrenchment, and the “reopening” of Munich’s Nationaltheater. In 2015–16, Daniel Callahan (Boston College) discussed choreomusicality, Emily Dolan (Harvard University) explored the operatic worlds of the orchestra, Christine Jeanneret (University of Copenhagen) presented her research on singing, acting, and moving in early Italian opera, Angela Ida de Benedictis (Paul Sacher Foundation) spoke on Luigi Nono’s theatrical projects of the 1950s, and Elizabeth Hudson (Northeastern University) analyzed Verdi’s Il trovatore.

Philosophy, Poetry, and Religion C H A I R S : M A RT Y CO H E N , P E T E R S AC K S

Between 2011 and 2016, the Philosophy, Poetry, and Religion seminar invited speakers to discuss a wide range of topics. Catherine Chalier (University of Paris) spoke about the Hasidic Rebbe Kalonymus Shapiro, whose writings tried to reconcile the Kabbalistic notion that everything existing is sustained by a divine spark with the deportations to concentration camps he was witnessing as a spiritual leader in the Warsaw ghetto. This talk explored more directly the theme of finding an ethics in this world of radiance, fertile darkness, and unfathomable suffering that figured more implicitly in other talks. Emily Hudson (Boston University) crossed this theme in speaking of w’s theophany in the

Over the past five years, Psychoanalytic Practices paired psychoanalysis with

Bhagavad Gita, embracing all cosmic phenomena in his inclusive divinity, and through her noting the blatant imperfections of Rama, the incarnation the text ironically asserts to be perfect. Paula Richman (Oberlin College) addressed related issues in her consideration of analogies between Paradise Lost and a Prati-Nayakan (counter-hero) in a Kathakali dance drama. Shoshana Felman (Emory University)’s treatment of ironic justice, focusing on the trial of Oscar Wilde, showed a profoundly playful wit finally bending before the harshness of the world, and T.A. Perry (Boston College)’s exploration of enigma in Ecclesiastes explicated a Biblical text that achieves whatever discernment of beauty and consolation it can find without overlooking any of life’s withering challenges. Eddo Evink (University of Groningen) discussed Patocka’s biographical enactment and philosophical formulations on love and sacrifice. The labyrinths of irony were traversed by Kevin Newmark (Boston College), of the personalist norm by Jorge Garcia (Boston College), of medical ethics by Adiel Tel-Oren, and of the possibility and impossibility of literature by Michael Jackson (Harvard Divinity School). Dan Zahavi (University of Copenhagen) and Lou Agosta (Illinois School of Professional Psychology) gave talks on empathy, drawing on phenomenological perspectives from Husserl, Heidegger, Scheler, and Stein to explore its lavish promise alongside rigorous cautions about what can be fathomed of the other. The talk by Anthony Steinbock (Southern Illinois University) on humility and pride continued ongoing themes about the cognitive and ethical implications of affect, while James Noggle (Wellesley College) considered unfelt affect in eighteenth-century British writing in relation to modern notions of unconsciousness. The aesthetics of existence was the subject of Kenneth Stikkers (Southern Illinois University Carbondale). John Burt (Brandeis University) gave the recurring topic of negative capability its most concrete turn by exploring it in Lincoln’s political actions and thought. Grace Nono (New York University) gave a talk and performance on Philippine shamanism, sacred chant, and cultural revitalization. Juan and Ivan Nunez del Prado provided a discussion on reciprocity as an ethical principle in the Inka tradition, C. Jason Throop (University of California, Los Angeles) presented on being otherwise vis-à-vis regret, morality, and mood, Jeffrey Bloechl (Boston College) offered a re-reading of Emmanuel Levinas, and Hannah Simpson (Boston University) considered suicide and Vedantic Hinduism alongside Beckett and Schopenhauer. Rabbi David Maayan engaged with the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Francis Clooney (Harvard Divinity School) presented on poetry and the interreligious imagination, Doreen Spence offered her perspective as a native elder and indigenous grandmother, and Steven Pinker (Harvard University) reflected on why, in his view, violence has declined.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN • SIGMUND FREUD

philosophy, theology, and history/politics.

Politics, Literature, and the Arts C H A I R S : S V E T L A N A B OY M , S U S A N R U B I N S U L E I M A N

In 2011–12, Politics, Literature, and the Arts invited Ellen Cassedy, who discussed contested memories in the city of Vilnius, known before World War II as the “Jerusalem of the North” because of its significant Jewish population and reduced to almost nothing at present. 2012–13 began with Israeli scholar Ilana Pardes’ (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) presentation about the Song of Songs in Israeli Culture, and then moved to Brazilian scholar Jacques Fux’s (Universidade Estadual de Campinas) introduction to Jewish Identity in Brazil, followed by two American speakers: Richard J. Golsan (Texas A&M University) discussed contemporary French fiction about World War II, while James Phelan (Ohio State University) spoke about the American reception of Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom. The series was brought to a close by French scholar Kristian Feigelson’s (University of Paris III—Sorbonne Nouvelle) discussion of films and photographs about the Soviet Gulag, including photos of his own recent visits to sites in Siberia. In 2013–14, the seminar welcomed presentations by Julia Kissina (Columbia University) on Russian literature and Art Without Borders, Michael Rothberg (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on multidirectional memory and Holocaust internationalism before human rights, Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University) and Leo Spitzer (Columbia University) on assimilation, exclusion, and resistance vis-à-vis school pictures, and Sandra Smith (Robinson College, University of Cambridge) on translating Camus’ L’Etranger anew.

Psychoanalytic Practices C H A I R S : H U M P H R E Y M O R R I S , F R A N C E S R E S T U CC I A

Over the past five years, Psychoanalytic Practices paired psychoanalysis with philosophy, theology, and history/politics. The seminar pursues this inquiry in two ways. First, we convene a monthly reading group with regular membership that builds its discussion around sustained engagements with core texts. In 2011–12, our monthly reading group discussed

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the relation of psychoanalysis to the image: is the image simply a psychic representation or is it, more disruptively, a psychic event—a presentation? Beginning with Freud, we proceeded to Barthes and Derrida, and ended with Benjamin. In 2012–13, we used the philosophical perspectives of Laplanche, Derrida, Weber, Green, and Young-Bruehl to inquire into the dynamics of reception, translation, and transmission of psychoanalysis as a theory, with Freud’s “Wolf Man” and Beyond the Pleasure Principle as our primary texts. In 2013–14, we read Juliet Mitchell and Julia Kristeva to develop the question of unrepresented states in psychoanalysis. In 2014–15, readings were guided by the theme of “Beyond Representation: Theories of the Primal in Psychoanalysis.” In 2015–16, we focused on the topic of “What Makes Psychic Reality Real: Encounters with Disavowed Others in Literature and Clinical Work.” Second, we hold seminars given by invited guests from a range of disciplines. Our speakers address psychoanalytic theory/practice on its own as well as in relation to political, historical, aesthetic, theological, philosophical, and contemporary theoretical arenas. In 2011–12, Slavoj Žižek (New York University) lectured on sexual difference. Kelly Oliver (Vanderbilt University) focused on the death penalty in two talks: one on animals, the other on Derrida. Hilary Neroni (University of Vermont) took up biopolitics and the tortured body. In 2012–13, Maria Margaroni (University of Cyprus), drawing on Kristeva’s amorous dialogue with Thérèse in Thérèse, mon amour, explicated Kristeva’s rethinking of sublimation in light of “the baroque”—an uninhibited celebration of illusion. Lacanian Eric Santner (University of Chicago) defended his argument in The Royal Remains, in which he illuminates how various symbolic investitures produce a surplus of enjoyment, “the flesh,” a sublime substance that must be managed and reinvested; Santner studies the biopolitical consequences of the transition from royal to popular sovereignty. Martin Hägglund (Yale University) presented Dying for Time, in which he challenges the Lacanian conception of desire as lack with his Derridean notion that temporal finitude animates desire. In 2013–14, Julia Kristeva (University of Paris 7-Diderot) gave an interactive seminar focused on “disability,” Saint Teresa of Avila, and intimate revolt. Lacanian theorist and analyst Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico) explored the implications of psychoanalysis for transcendental materialism, pursuing a non-reductive theory of subjectivity while remaining committed to the natural sciences. Adam Kotsko (Shimer College) used psychoanalysis as a catalyst to open up Agamben’s philosophy.

In 2014–15, Daniel Heller-Roazen (Princeton University) focused on Aristotle’s “indefinite” terms that are constructed by the addition of a “non” to ordinary expressions (e.g., “non-man”). He traced the history of the philosophical treatment of such terms from Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the modern period, where they inform Lacanian theory. David Kishik (Emerson College) presented material that revolved around his new book on Walter Benjamin, The Manhattan Project: A Theory of a City, touching on its psychoanalytic undertones. Charles Shepherdson (State University of New York, Albany) spoke on emotion in the horizon of aesthetic experience, taking up Kant and Jean-Luc Nancy on the question of “sense.” In 2015–16, Anna Kornbluh (University of Illinois at Chicago) discussed formalization and the space of the political in psychoanalysis. Tracy McNulty (Cornell University) reflected on the speculative mythology of the death drive. Lee Edelman (Tufts University) spoke on psychoanalysis, queerness, and ontological negation. The seminar also organized a graduate symposium on Kristeva, including presentations by William Olena, Matt Gannon, Samantha Eddy, Charles Clements, Fabrizio Ciccone, Nell Wasserstrom, Kevin Spinale, and Harrison Demas.

Renaissance Studies C H A I R S : TO M CO N L E Y, S Y LVA I N E G U YOT

In 2011–12, the Renaissance Studies seminar hosted and coordinated, with the Ecole en Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), an international conference titled, “Renaissance and Cinema,” which featured twelve speakers and filmmaker Lech Majeska (director of The Mill and the Cross, a feature inspired from the paintings of Pieter Breugel). In 2012–13, Cynthia Nazarian (Northwestern University) delivered a lecture on D’Aubigné and violence, and Victor Bedoya Ponte (Universities of Lyon and Seville) presented the fruits of his research on pre-Cartesian philosophy in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spain. Carme Fonte Paz, a visiting scholar from Barcelona, offered a study titled, “From Sophia to Sappho: Women’s Lyric in 17th Century England.” Eric Méchoulan (University of Montréal) lectured on the trope of friendship in texts from Rabelais and Montaigne to Sorel and Cyrano. Ian Maclean (University of Oxford) lectured on the body in early modern Europe. In 2013–14, the seminar hosted a lecture by Jeffrey Peters (University of Kentucky), titled “Labor and La Fontaine,” which featured a reading of the fables in view of sources in sixteenth-century translations of Aesop. The following month the seminar organized a one-day colloquium on Cervantès’ Novelas ejemplares that included eight papers by

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The Rethinking Translation seminar hosted poet and translator Stefania Heim (Columbia University), who read from her ongoing

graduate students, colleagues, and peers in and around the area. Co-organized with Mary Gaylord, the colloquium was crowned by an exposition of the Cervantes collection in the Houghton Library. Frank Lestringant (University of Paris-4) presented a study of Guillaume Testu’s Cosmographie universelle (1561), a manuscript atlas (at the Bibliothèque de Vincennes) that remains a crucial document for the discoveries of Magellanica and other islands in the southern hemisphere. The biggest event of the year was a oneday conference coordinating Renaissance studies at Harvard University with the Atelier de la Renaissance at the University of Paris-4. The event took place at the Houghton Library on the eve of the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America: participants included Claude La Charité, Anne-Pascale Pouey-Mounou, Dominique Bertrand, Mireille Huchon, Anne Réach-Ngo, Marie-Claire Thomine, Louise Amazan, Trung Tran, Romain Menini, Kate Van Orden, Henri Zerner, Jeremie Korta, and Sanam Nader. The conference was designed to establish a link with the Atelier and to set in place Harvard University’s collaboration with the International Conference, “L’Inextinguible Rabelais,” that took place in November 12–15, 2014 at the Musée National de la Renaissance (Château d’Écouan) and the University of Paris. In 2014–15, speakers included Virginia Krause (Brown University) on Hélisenne de Crenne and the rise of the French novel. In 2015–16, the seminar welcomed Phillip John Usher (New York University) on New World mining in the humanist anthropocene, Chet Van Duzer (University of Mississippi) on Pierre Desceliers’ Map of 1550, and Eileen Reeves (Princeton University) on astronomy, art, and appropriation. The seminar also sponsored two conferences: one on “Desseins du livre en France, 1530–1590” and the other on “Florentine Soundscapes of the Fifteenth Century.”

Rethinking Translation C H A I R S : S A N D R A N A D DA F F, S T E P H A N I E S A N D L E R , C H R I S T I N A S V E N D S E N

Rethinking Translation launched in the fall of 2011. We began with a reading and discussion with New York poet/translator Christian Hawkey, whose Ventrakl exemplifies a kind of free, creative act of translating we were eager to feature. A jointly sponsored event with poet Susan Howe and musician/performer David Grubbs followed. Our next event was with John Hill, curator of a Walker Evans photography exhibit in Mather House; we had a lively discussion there on notions of translation that could guide an interpretation of these photographs. In the spring of 2012, we hosted a large gathering with translators and classicists David Ferry (Boston University) and Richard Thomas (Harvard University), looking

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translations of Italian poetry.

closely at different versions of passages from Virgil. Our final event for the year was with Jeffrey Schnapp (Harvard University) on intermedia translation. In 2012–13, the series included a discussion by Lawrence Venuti (Temple University), as well as a reading by Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan and his American translator, Fady Joudah. We also hosted Christian Wiman (Editor, Poetry), who read from his new translations of Osip Mandelstam. In the spring of 2013, we sponsored three seminars: poet and translator Stefania Heim (Columbia University) read from her ongoing translations of Italian poetry; Richard Beaudoin (Harvard University), accompanied by Constantine Finehouse (New England Conservatory) on the piano, spoke of his compositions as translations of other pieces of music; and a discussion with the Harvard Divinity School’s Translating Sacred Texts seminar, led by Francis Clooney and Anne Monius, on translating ancient Tamil texts. In 2013–14, Susan Bernofsky (Columbia University), Sandra Smith (Cambridge University), and Jeffrey Yang (New Directions Press) focused their presentations on particular works and authors in translation (Kafka’s “Metamorphoses,” Camus’ L’Etranger, Liu Xiaobo); while Forrest Gander (Brown University), Peter Waterhouse (University of Vienna), Rosmarie Waldrop (independent translator and poet), and Charles Bernstein (University of Pennsylvania) addressed the challenges of translating poetry and poetic forms. In a turn away from the literary focus of our presentations, Ellen Elias-Bursac (independent translator) spoke about the real-world impact of translation in a conversation about her experience as a translator at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In 2014–15, the seminar heard from Valzhyna Mort (Cornell University) on the mood for language, Peter Waterhouse (University of Vienna) on Rosmarie Waldrop and Charles Bernstein, Peter Sacks (Harvard University) on textual painting, and Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza (Harvard University) and Ernesto Livon-Grosman (Boston College) on fictions of translation through Spanish and Latin American poetry. In 2015–16, we hosted a series of seminars and workshops with the Versatorium Translation Workshop of the University of Vienna on Celan, Shakespeare, and translation, introduced by John Hamilton (Harvard University), Judith Ryan (Harvard University), and Christina Svendsen (University of Pennsylvania), and supplemented by presentations by Richard Beaudoin (Harvard University), Sarah Pelletier (Princeton University), and Lois Shapiro (Wellesley College).

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Shakespearean Studies hosted speakers who approached plays through linguistic, mathematical, and

Science, Religion, and Culture C H A I R S : JA N E T GYATS O, A N D R E W J E W E T T, A H M E D R AG A B

The first year of Science, Religion, and Culture in 2012–13 began with Andrew Jewett’s (Harvard University) aptly themed inaugural lecture on the disciplinary histories of science and religion in modern America. We followed with a series of lectures focusing on Asian and the Middle East: Marcia C. Inhorn (Yale University) addressed the influence of Islam on the adoption of new methods of fertilization; T.J. Hinrich (Cornell University) spoke to the close relationship between religion and the state in Song China; a presentation on the importance of bodily markings in Hindu culture and its relationship to Buddhism and karma from Daud Ali (University of Pennsylvania); and our closing lecture by Divinity School alumnus Jason Ananda Josephson (Williams College) on the coterminous development and fundamental inseparability of science and religion in nineteenth-century Japan. Alison Simmons (Harvard University) lectured on Cartesian mind-body dualism, and K. Healan Gaston (Harvard Divinity School) addressed the importance of religious thinking to scientific pursuits expounded by the Niebuhr brothers. In 2013–14, Sherine Hamdy (Brown University) explored the impact of science and religion on bioethical debates. Ellen Amster (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) explored connections between Western and Islamic healing practices and their political implications in Morocco. The seminar’s main event was a two-day workshop entitled, “Science, Religion, and the Limits of Truth.” The workshop brought together leading scholars in science studies and in science and religion, including David Jones (Seminary of the Southwest), David Kaiser (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Michael Gordin (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The workshop explored the concept of “scientific orthodoxy” and the how the process of legitimation in science connects, divides, and abuts science with other modes of cultural inquiry. In 2014–15, speakers included David N. Livingstone (Queen’s College in Belfast) on violence, warfare, and climatic reductionism, Mark S. Cladis (Brown University) on Romanticism, modernity, and the study of religion, and Karen King (Harvard University), Anne Monius (Harvard University), and Daniel Smail (Harvard University) on a history of death. In 2015–16, the seminar welcomed talks by Mara Block (Harvard University) on

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KAREN L. KING • SHYLOCK AND JESSICA

comparative conceptual frameworks.

Christian sexual subjects and modern care of the soul, Kathryn Lofton (Yale University) on the Goldman Sachs group in crisis, Eva Payne (Harvard University) on the age of consent debates in the US and India, Ahmed Ragab (Harvard Divinity School) on medieval Islamic hospitals, Maryam Kamali (Harvard University) on the concept of destiny in the medieval Persian historiography, Michael Lesley (Harvard Divinity School) on circumcision in an era of human rights, Adam Shapiro (Harvard University) on historical myths in science and religion debates, and Sophia Roosth (Harvard University) on her current research. The seminar also hosted a series of events centered on professionalization, touching on topics like family and career with Catherine Brekus (Harvard University), Christopher Hoklotubbe (Andover Newton Theological Seminary), Courtney Lamberth (Harvard University), and Ian Straughn (Brown University); and the academic job market with Elias Muhanna (Brown University), Ahmed Ragab, and Alma Steingold (Harvard Society of Fellows). Finally, the seminar hosted a discussion on “cultures” of sciences and religions with Jessica Dickson (Harvard University), Rebecca Lemov (Harvard University), Wythe Marschall (Harvard University), Ahmed Ragab, and Kera Street (Harvard University).

Shakespearean Studies C H A I R S : W I L L I A M C A R R O L L , CO P P É L I A K A H N

In 2011–14, Shakespearean Studies hosted speakers on topics ranging from the relation of early modern religion to drama, in papers by Helga Duncan (Stonehill College) on sacred space in As You Like It, Jason Zysk’s (University of New Hampshire) on Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus as a “sacramental play,” Judith Haber (Tufts University) on Henry V, Travis Williams (University of Rhode Island) on The Merchant of Venice, and Margaret Litvin (Boston University) on an Arab Hamlet. These papers approached plays through, respectively, linguistic, mathematical, and comparative conceptual frameworks. Local scholars were on full display in our graduate symposium in December 2012, with papers by three advanced doctoral students: Kristen A. Bennett (Tufts University), Liam Meyer (Boston University), and Alice Waters (Boston College). Their topics ranged from Jonson’s Bartholemew Fair and Shakespeare’s Pericles to social mobility in Jacobean city comedy. Our distinguished outside speakers included Richard McCoy (City University of New York), who also pursued the religious turn in early modern studies, Lena Cowen Orlin (Georgetown University) on Shakespearean biography, Lars Engle (University of Tulsa) on moral agency in Montaigne and Shakespeare, Clara Calvo (Universidad de Murcia) and Ton Hoenslaars (Utrecht University) presenting our first-ever joint paper on commemorative festivals, Corey McEleney (Fordham University) on Henry V, and Madhavi Menon (American University) considering the unspeakable in Othello.

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Rebecca Bushnell (University of Pennsylvania) argued that video games offer extraordinary insight into the intersections of time, choice,

In 2014–15, we began with an interpretation of hidden meanings in the typography of the first quarto edition of Hamlet by Erica Boeckeler (Northeastern University). Linda McJannet (Bentley University) focused on how the addition of dances in performance affects our understanding of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines. Coppélia Kahn (Brown University) went outside Shakespearean texts to ask how celebration of Shakespearean anniversaries constructs cultural images of him. At our annual graduate symposium, Emma Atwood (Boston College) raised questions about the interiority of soliloquies based on their location as stipulated in stage directions, bringing together psychology and architecture; Josephine Hardman (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) queried the appropriation and influence of Cervantes on tragicomedies by Beaumont and Fletcher; and Gregory Schnitzspahn (Tufts University) explored verbal and cultural constructions of virginity in Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling. Turning to the latest innovations in pedagogy, Yu Jin Ko (Wellesley College) explained in detail the intellectual and technological challenges of creating and teaching a Shakespeare course as a MOOC. Appropriating affect theory to interpret emotional forces and political agency, Mario Di Gangi (City University of New York) explored monarch-subject relations in a play by Samuel Rowley. Rebecca Bushnell (University of Pennsylvania) finished the year by arguing that video games offer extraordinary insight into the intersections of time, choice, action, and character in Shakespearean tragedy. In 2015–16, the seminar hosted talks by Jane Degenhardt (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) on risk, fortune, and the ecology of audience engagement in Pericles, Douglas Lanier (University of New Hampshire) on commemorating Shakespeare in America in 1864, Virginia Vaughan (Clark University) on the myths of Hercules and Shakespeare, and Lena Cowen Orlin on Shakespeare’s daughters. The annual graduate symposium included Avi Mendelson (Brandeis University) on Lear’s hydrophobia and contagious madnesses, Matthew Stokes (Boston University) on ursine power and violent self-assertion in early modern England, and Misha Teramura (Harvard University) on spectral criticism and reading lost plays.

Victorian Literature and Culture C H A I R S : L AU R A G R E E N , K E L LY H AG E R , J O H N P I C K E R , J O H N P LOT Z

Victorian Literature and Culture presentations addressed topics from Victorian natural history to Methodist sisterhoods; fictional genres from realism to sensation and ghost stories to manga; political philosophy; and erotic and elegiac poetry. Geographically, the seminar ranged widely, with speakers from England and Australia, from local institutions and from universities across the United States.

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action, and character in Shakespearean tragedy.

Presenters emphasized image and sound as well as the written word and the relationship between nineteenth-century serial media and the twenty-first-century television seriality. Alison Byerly (Middlebury College) analyzed the Victorian fascination with the 360-degree panorama; Judith Pascoe (University of Iowa) introduced Japanese literary and visual adaptations of Wuthering Heights; and Harriet Ritvo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) explicated Victorian representations of species hybridization. A paper by Matthew Rubery (Queen Mary University of London) explored the impact of the phonograph on Victorian writing. An analysis by historian Ellen Ross (Ramapo College) of the evolution of a Methodist sisterhood took off from an image of the sisters in their Victorian attire, while Lauren Goodlad (University of Illinois) suggested a more material approach to genre history. The seminar heard about Victorian fiction from Karen Bourrier (Boston University) on masculine disability; Rae Greiner (Indiana University) on stupidity in Barry Lyndon; Maia McAleavey (Boston College) on “improper” conclusions in novels by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Thomas Hardy; Anna Henchman on the interrelated plots of Victorian novels as “celestial systems;” James Buzard (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) on David Copperfield as a figure of tentative and uncertain modernity; and William Cohen (University of Maryland) on the intermediary (and unmediated) use of French in Villette. George Eliot, from the “Seaside Papers” to Middlemarch, was the focus in papers by Amy King (St. John’s University), David Kurnick (Rutgers University), Simon During (University of Brisbane), and Debra Gettelman (College of the Holy Cross). Judith Plotz (George Washington University) spoke on “winsome ghost daughters” of the Victorian novel. Ghostliness also figured in an analysis by Ivan Kreilkamp (Indiana University) of the “trope of spectrality” in Thomas Hardy’s lyric poetry, while Yopie Prins (University of Michigan), by contrast, found emphatically embodied form in Swinburne’s “flagellant verse.” Victorian men of letters were represented by Frances Ferguson’s (University of Chicago) paper on John Stuart Mill’s connection to Bentham and Coleridge. Other topics included the cult of the child by Marah Gubar (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), military relics and Thomas Hardy by Aeron Hunt (Boston College), Matthew Arnold and the rivalries of Central Asia by James Najarian (Boston College), and reading for the world by Elaine Auyoung (University of Minnesota). The yearly panels of graduate student work, organized by Debra Gettelman and Maia McAleavy, have included students from Boston University, Tufts, Boston College, Harvard, Brandeis, and Northeastern.

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The Visual Representation, Materiality, and Medium seminar featured a series of talks raising fundamental questions about representation in

Visual Representation, Materiality, and Medium C H A I R S : R O B I N K E L S E Y, E WA L A J E R- B U R C H A RT H

In the past five years, this seminar has featured a series of talks raising fundamental questions about representation in the modern or contemporary periods. In 2011–12, Jacqueline Lichtenstein (University of Paris—Sorbonne) explored the establishment of an academic art discourse in the late eighteenth century, paying special attention to how certain parties became authorized to speak about art. Henri Zerner (Harvard University) followed with a discussion of the innovative ways in which the painter Ingres sought to make the work of art a process rather than a product. Julia Bryan-Wilson (University of California, Berkeley) concluded the year with a paper on the representation of bodies, labor, and knowledge in Fiat Lux, a book that Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall produced for the University of California. Mignon Nixon (Courtauld Institute of Art) led off our 2012–13 program with an examination of the critical politics of subjectivity in Nancy Spero’s drawings of the 1960s. In the spring, our seminar co-sponsored an important symposium, “Exhibition as Medium,” which was organized by Harvard graduate students Claire Grace and Kevin Lotery, and which featured talks by, among others, Benjamin Buchloh (Harvard University), Romy Golan (City University of New York), and T.J. Demos (University College London). The symposium explored the crucial roles that exhibition design has played in twentieth-century art. Our program for the year concluded with a talk by Tamar Garb (University College London) on trauma and South African photography under Apartheid. In 2013–14, Rachel Haidu (University of Rochester) shared her recent work that reconceives the notion of influence to accommodate the complex forms of relation bonding art works in the contemporary period. In the spring, Ariella Azoulay (Brown University) led a session in which participants struggled—at one point experientially with materials she brought and distributed—with the contingent ways that historical knowledge is drawn from representations. Ruth Phillips (Carleton University) rounded out the year with a cross-cultural inquiry into the emergence of alternative modernisms.

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ANSEL ADAMS • NINA SIMONE • BENJAMIN BUCHLOH

the modern or contemporary periods.

In 2014–15, speakers included Paul Galvez (Wellesley College) on Gustave Courbet and the poetics of matter, Linda Nochlin (New York University) on Gericault, Goya, and the representation of misery after the Industrial Revolution, Anne Lafont (Institut National d’Histoire de l’art) on Attuck, Belley, and Toussaint, and Etienne Jollet (Sorbonne Paris I) on royal monuments and the earth in early modern France. In 2015–16, the seminar hosted talks by Jeffrey Lieber (Harvard University) on Flintstone modernism, Alexander Nagel (New York University) on the emergent superintendency of painting in the Renaissance, Joshua Chambers-Lesson (Northwestern University) on Nina Simone and the work of minoritarian performance, and Kristel Smentek (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) on imagining China in eighteenth-century France.

Women and Culture in the Early Modern World CHAIRS: DIANA HENDERSON, MARINA LESLIE

Women and Culture in the Early Modern World continued its recovery of early modern women’s lived experience while considering gender and sexuality more broadly as representational strategies and sociopolitical practices. Our speakers shared current work ranging across a wide array of disciplines—including literature, theater, film, history, digital archiving, art history, religious studies, dance, linguistics, and philosophy—and explored the early modern world all the way from Japan and the Mughal Empire through northern and southern Europe to New France and the emergent Global South. Elizabeth Goldsmith (Boston University), Tara Nummedal (Brown University), Bindu Malieckal (Saint Anselm College), Patricia Phillipy (Kingston University, London), and Gina Cogan (Boston University) demonstrated the power of biography to illuminate the range of women’s lives and challenge assumptions of their cultural marginality, focusing respectively on Hortense and Marie Mancini in seventeenth-century France and Italy; the alchemist Anna Zieglerin in Reformation Germany; sixteenth-century royals Gulbadan and Noorjahan in India; Alice Spencer in England; and Buddhist nun Bunchi in Japan. Moving between biography and fiction, Kavita Mudan Finn (Simmons College, Southern New Hampshire University) explored the tragic, transgressive voices of Eleanor Cobham and Margaret of Anjou. The ideological work of gender featured importantly in a number of presentations. Susanne Sreedhar (Boston University) traced the origins of contract theory to Samuel Pufendorf’s naturalized accounts of gender and the family, while Amy Rodgers (Mount Holyoke College) focused on childlessness in early modern England. Kathleen McLuskie (University of Birmingham), Tara Lyons (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), and Sarah Wall-Randell (Wellesley College) each focused on dramatic literature to analyze

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OMKARA • WILLIAM KENTRIDGE

figurations of female power—domestic, royal, and mythic, respectively—while Alysia Kolentsis (University of Waterloo) applied discourse analysis to reconsider Shakespeare’s Cressida and independent scholar Catherine Rockwood examined the gendering of garrulity in Ben Jonson’s late plays. Issues of image and illustration were examined in the presentations of Marika Knowles (Harvard University) on representations of the death of women in seventeenth-century France and of Cristelle Baskins (Tufts University) on the Regina d’Algiero (1587) in the early modern Mediterranean. Carmen Font Paz (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Emily Griffiths Jones (Boston University) examined female authorship, focusing respectively on the religious writings of relatively obscure women during the English Civil War and one of the most popular Restoration writers, Aphra Behn. Sarah Connell (Northeastern University) explored the encoding of intertextuality in early women’s texts. Julia Flanders (Northeastern University) shared the evolution of and teaching resources available through the online Women Writers Project. Several historical case studies revealed the intersectionality between gender analysis and other dimensions of social construction. Katherine Ibbett (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) drew on accounts of French nuns in Montreal to explore gender’s place in the history of compassion, while Darlene Abreu-Ferreira (University of Winnipeg) addressed the disturbing paradox of African women’s enslavement in Portugal being described as “benevolent.” Eleanor Hubbard (Princeton University) reconsidered the evidentiary bases for estimating early modern Englishwomen’s literacy rates; Lauren Jacobi (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) charted the urban geography and embodied representations of banking in Florence; Touba Ghadessi (Wheaton College) examined rulership vis-à-vis ambiguous bodies (1494–1589); and Alison More (Edinburgh University, Harvard University) explored tensions between male religious regulators and self-representations of female penitentials’ lives. Many papers featured transhistorical and cross-cultural perspectives as well. Erin Murphy (Boston University) compared early modern women’s accounts of their wartime experience to Virginia Woolf’s. Diana Henderson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) discussed the transformational power of caste, religion, and sexuality in Omkara, Vishai Bhardwaj’s film reimagining Othello. Coppélia Kahn (Brown University) and Susan Bordo (University of Kentucky) pursued the iconic figures of Ophelia and Anne Boleyn respectively across time to examine the cultural work they continue to perform. Linda McJannet (Bentley University) emphasized the effects and alterations that particular dance sequences created for Shakespeare’s tragic heroines in modern films.

The Mahindra Humanities Center hosts a new group of postdoctoral fellows, some of whom joined us through a collaboration with the Volkswagen Foundation, each year. Starting in 2014–15, fellowships were awarded in conjunction with the three-year Mellon seminar on violence/non-violence.

2011–12

KYUNG-HO CHA

Kyung-Ho Cha is Assistant Professor of German Literature at the University of Bayreuth (Germany). He received his PhD in German Literature from the Technical University of Berlin in 2008. His primary work is in the field of literature and science, focusing on evolutionary biology and the writings of Walter Benjamin. His book, Human Mimicry: Poetics of Evolution (2010), explores the emergence and proliferation of the scientific myth of human mimicry in literature and the human sciences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The biological term “mimicry” originally describes the deceptive resemblance of an insect to another species or its environment. Around 1900, men of letters as well as biologists, physicians, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, and sociologists probed the question of human mimicry and its function for societal coexistence: human beings are attributed the biological ability of perfectly adapting to their social environment to the point that they are physically and psychologically indiscernible from their peers. His current project, “Walter Benjamin and the History of Science,” analyzes the historical context of Benjamin’s epistemology and pursues

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the question of whether his reflections on material culture and changing modes of perception can be methodically harnessed for a “Benjaminian” history of science.

Humanities. She has recently completed a book manuscript that examines the human rights problems and struggles of migrants by engaging with the works of twentiethcentury political theorist Hannah Arendt.

H AY D O N CHERRY

BERIT HILDEBRANDT

Haydon Cherry is originally from New Zealand, and received a BA (Honors) in Southeast Asian Studies and an MA in History from the National University of Singapore. He received his PhD from Yale University. He now teaches in the Department of History at Northwestern University. He is interested in the social and economic history of modern Southeast Asia broadly, and the histories of Vietnam and Burma in particular. His current book manuscript examines the changing social history of the poor in French colonial Saigon by tracing the itineraries of six poor migrants (an orphan, a prostitute, a rickshaw puller, a poor Frenchman, a Chinese coolie, and an invalid) in the early decades of the twentieth century. His other research projects include an intellectual biography of Đào Duy Anh, a leading Vietnamese Marxist intellectual, and a social history of crime in Rangoon, Burma, during the 1920s and 1930s.

AY T E N C

Postdoctoral Fellows

GÜNDOGDU

Ayten Gündoğdu is Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College– Columbia University. Her current research draws on the resources of modern, contemporary, and continental political thought to address challenging questions related to human rights, immigration, and citizenship. Gündoğdu has work published and forthcoming in Contemporary Political Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, and Law, Culture and the

Berit Hildebrandt is Marie Curie Fellow and Associate Professor at the Danish National Research Foundations’ Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen. Also a classical archaeologist, she received her PhD in Ancient History in 2005 from the University of Göttingen (Germany). Her research interests include social and economic history, gender history, and ancient medicine. Her current project explores exchange along the Silk Roads between Rome and China in antiquity. Roman written sources mention silk (sericum/serica) as a much soughtafter good, but at the same time a moral discourse arose which condemned it for a number of reasons. She argues that the moralizing literature conceals the important role silk played in the formation of the monarchy, for example, as a mark of status. Based on written and archaeological sources, the project investigates the different forms of exchange and the meaning of silk as commodity, gift, tribute, and status symbol in a diachronic and transcultural perspective. The goal is to enhance our understanding of the economic and sociopolitical dimensions of trade in antiquity.

scientific interests include the handling of the fear of divine loss as reflected by socalled lamentations—literary cultic texts that were in use in ancient Mesopotamia since the twentieth century BC. She has published a book (Wie die Sonne tritt heraus, 2010), and several articles on this topic. Her current project focuses on the mechanics of administration of royal power as exemplified by the palace organization of the ancient administrative capital Nuzi that flourished in the fifteenth/fourteenth century BC in the region of modern Kirkuk (Northern Iraq).

D AV I D RUSSELL

David Russell is Associate Professor in English at the University of Oxford. He received his PhD in English Literature from Princeton University in 2011 and since then his research and teaching have been supported by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, and by postdoctoral fellowships at the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University and the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University. His book project, A Literary History of Tact: Sociability, Aesthetic Liberalism and the Essay Form, identifies the development of an ethic and aesthetic of tact in nineteenth-century Britain. His second project is called Learning from Experience: Aesthetic Education and Literary Criticism. He has work published or forthcoming in ELH, Raritan, and Victorian Studies.

ANNE LÖHNERT

Anne Löhnert received her PhD in Assyriology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany), where she holds a position as Research Assistant. Her

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2012–13

CESARE BIRIGNANI

Cesare Birignani received his PhD in Architectural History and Theory from Columbia University in 2012, with a dissertation on the planning of early modern Paris. His main research bears on the practices developed by the Paris police to control, discipline, and manage the city as well as on a corpus of texts produced from the end of the seventeenth century until the Revolution under the rubric of “police science.” The theorists of the ville policée, he argues, turned the city into a new, complex object of knowledge: the discourse of police was the first critical effort to understand and come to terms with the modern urban condition. His current projects also include a critical edition of L’homme tel qu’il devrait être, the last, unpublished treatise by the French architect and theorist Pierre Patte, and the research project “Architecture and Magnificence,” which explores a range of festivals and collective events—from Renaissance royal entries to Olympic opening ceremonies— as moments that produce both ephemeral spaces and political subjects.

DAMIEN

political regimes and lives. A current book project on “The Concert of Nations” explores music-making’s contributions to the conception of international relations and the practice of diplomacy. He has received a doctoral fellowship from the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (Cornell University) and the Franklin Research Grant (American Philosophical Society). With Jean-Michel Bardez, he is the coeditor of the book series Musique/Pouvoirs published by Delatour (France).

DA N I E L LOICK

Daniel Loick received his doctorate from Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany), where he is now Visiting Professor for Critical Social Theory. His main research interests are in the areas of ethics, social and political philosophy, especially modern political theory, critical theory, and poststructuralism. His first book Kritik der Souveränität (2012) is a radical critique of state-inflicted violence in all its different forms and aims at developing a notion of non-coercive law. His current project addresses the relationship between right and subjectivity through an investigation of “pathologies of juridicism,” claiming that the legal sphere fundamentally contaminates the way in which we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world so that our (inter-)subjectivity becomes ethically deformed, distorted, or deficient.

MAHIET

Damien Mahiet received his PhD in Music at Cornell University in 2011 and holds an MA in Political Thought from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (France). He served as Program Coordinator of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies at Cornell University and taught at Denison University. His research centers on the role music has played and continues to play in the constitution of Western

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JULIA NG

Julia Ng received her PhD in Comparative Literary Studies from Northwestern University in 2012 with a dissertation on Walter Benjamin’s mathematical revision of the formal possibility of Kant’s perpetual

peace project. Her research, which centers on the early twentieth-century afterlives of late eighteenth-century political and literary theory, examines the selfconsciously impossible character of Kant’s projection of the just society. Fictions and failures, she argues, accompany and precede every determination of possibility imposed by the self-organization of embodied subjectivity, and ironically make possible alternative theories of political agency that do not rely on the presumption that human beings can build a world in which they protect themselves from every conceivable threat. Her current project, “Body, Force, Right: Towards a Literary Theory of Posthumous Life,” tracks a change between 1800 and 1900 in the conception of “life” that exceeds what is deemed “possible” for human subjectivity, uncovering a cosmic perspective on the meaning of the word “life”—life at its bare minimum, or as Heidegger put it, “life as it bodies forth”—in the “posthumous work” of Kant, Novalis, Nietzsche, and George.

MICHAELA SCHÄUBLE

Michaela Schäuble is Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology at Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), where she also received her PhD in 2010. She studied comparative literature and social anthropology at Tübingen (Germany) and Yale, and holds an MA in Visual Anthropology from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at Manchester University (UK). In 2011–12 she was a EURIAS fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna (Italy). She has authored numerous articles on the impact of violence on memory politics, the gendered character of ethno-nationalist discourse, and post-war transition in the former Yugoslavia. In her forthcoming book Narrating Victimhood: Gender, Religion and the Making of Place in Post-War Croatia (Berghahn Books), she addresses

the politics of ambiguous Europeanness and (in)subordination in the Balkans. Michaela is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has published widely on documentary films and on the role of fiction and animation in ethnographic cinema. In her current project “‘The Art of Controlled Accident’: Corporeal Cinematography in Ethnographic Films on Trance and Spirit Possession (1940s–1960s),” she investigates the corporeal and sensory dimensions of religious ritual practice and embodied spiritual experience in early ethnographic documentary films, comparing audiovisual material from West Africa, Haiti, and Italy.

2013–14

MIRIJAM BRUSIUS

Mirjam Brusius holds a master’s degree in Art History from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. Her main research areas include the history of museums, collecting, and visual representation in nineteenthcentury Europe and the Middle East. She is currently working on a book project concerning the meaning of Middle Eastern archaeological objects during the transition period on their way to Europe when the finds seemed to have “no status.” The project investigates the subsequent processes of canonization and decanonization these objects caused upon their arrival in the leading museums of London, Paris, and Berlin. Additional projects include articles on the history of photography in the Middle East, and a monograph on the archive and scholarly practices of the British pioneer of photography W.H.F. Talbot. She is co-editor of William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography (Yale University Press 2013).

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CLAIRE EDINGTON

Claire Edington received a PhD in the History and Ethics of Public Health from Columbia University in 2013. Her dissertation, a social history of psychiatry and mental illness in French Indochina, examines how ideas about what it meant to be abnormal, as well as normal enough to return to social life, were debated among psychiatrists, colonial authorities, and the public throughout the early decades of the twentieth century. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and the Mellon Foundation. While at Columbia, she also pursued interests in contemporary policy-making around HIV and drug use in Southeast Asia, and helped train public health researchers in Vietnam on the use of social science theory and methods. Her work has appeared in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Journal of Global Public Health, and Journal of Health Policy, Politics and Law. She is currently an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego.

leading a research group at Konstanz University (Germany) on revolts in early modern Europe as communicative events, dealing both with communication in, and communication on, revolts. In revolts, the extension of communicative spaces, initially for the sake of organization, had cathartic effects on the very conceptions of social justice and political order held by participants, which forced governments into justification of their rule. However, once authorities managed to repress resistance, they tried to enforce a policy of damantio memoriae in order to push away the burning question of legitimacy the revolt had raised. Commentators, analysts, and political advisors therefore referred almost exclusively to revolts having taken place abroad or in a distant historical past. The research group thus explores ensuing chains of cross-border representations and concomitant processes of cultural translation of revolt experience. The hypothesis is that cross-border representations had a major impact not only on public and learned debates concerning the legitimacy of rule and/or a possible right to resist, but also on governments’ further preventive policies towards real or impending revolts. At Harvard, he focused on the impact of the English revolt (i.e., Puritan Revolution, Civil War) on political debates and struggles within the countries of the European continent.

M A LT E GRIESSE

DA N I E L A HAHN

Malte Griesse received a PhD from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris in 2008. In his book, Communiquer, juger et agir sous Staline. La personne prise entre ses liens avec les proches et son rapport au système politicoidéologique (Peter Lang 2011), he deals with the evolution of personal ties under Stalin. Drawing on a wide range of private documents such as diaries, memoirs, and correspondences, he challenges the oft quoted atomization thesis and offers a new interpretation of Stalinist terror and the notorious show trials. Currently, he is

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Daniela Hahn received a PhD from Freie Universität Berlin with a dissertation on movement experiments in art and science around 1900. From 2005 to 2010, she was a Research Associate at the Collaborative Research Center “Performing Cultures” and at the Center for Movement Research at Freie Universität Berlin. From 2011 to 2013, she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the International Graduate School “Interart Studies.” Her research and teaching is dedicated to performance

and visual art situated within socio-cultural and science-historical contexts, focusing on documentary art, artistic research, and the intersections between art and science. Her book, Epistemologien des Flüchtigen. Bewegungsexperimente in Kunst und Wissenschaft um 1900, was published in the fall of 2013. In her current research project, “After the Fact. Politics of the Document in Contemporary Art,” she investigates the concepts of the document that underpin the documentary in art and its changing condition in the era of digital images. The project seeks to illuminate the processes of producing and circulating documents within artistic practices, as well as the aesthetic and epistemological procedures which define documentary modes in art and their claims to facticity.

KYRILL KUNAKHOVICH

Kyrill Kunakhovich received a PhD in History from Princeton University in 2013. His book manuscript examines the development of a distinctive socialist culture in two major cities of the Soviet Bloc: Kraków in Poland and Leipzig in East Germany. In the aftermath of World War II, local officials used art to build a new socialist society. They transformed both artistic styles and popular habits at the city level, but gradually came to treat culture as a consumer good. His research explores the interconnections of art, politics, and society, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Current projects include a transnational history of the variety show and a study of UNESCO’s cultural policy. He is also the co-editor of a volume on The Global 1989.

AMIT SHILO

Amit Shilo has a PhD in Classics from New York University (2012), where he worked as a Language Lecturer (2012–13). His research engages the mixtures of politics and theology in ancient Greek tragedy and Plato, the Hebrew Bible, and the modern world. His dissertation, entitled “The Tablet Writing Mind of Hades: Poetics of the Afterlife in the Oresteia,” analyzes the variety of afterlife conceptions in Aeschylus’s trilogy and their ethical and political implications. It argues that the Oresteia provides one of the earliest examples in Western thought of afterlife judgment as an ethical counterpoint to nationalistic collective violence. At Harvard, he revised his dissertation for publication and developed a contrast with the Jewish tradition, especially modern Zionism and its literary critiques. His article on the afterlife in Greek tragedy and Plato appeared in ThéoRèmes and he has presented papers at the American Philological Association. To further Classics through technology, he manages the Libanius Translation Project and the Ancient Greek Social Media Project. He is also a National Humanities Program Scholar for the Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives program, and received the Phillip Lockhart Fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (2007–08).

2014–15

SAMUEL M. ANDERSON

Samuel M. Anderson holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles. His project, “Celebrity, Violence, and the Mystic Arts,”

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explores the shared aesthetics of spectacular public performances staged by militias, NGOs, healers and herbalists, initiatory societies, and political parties in post-war Sierra Leone. Traversing these various social spheres in the company of a former militia commander turned popular touring showman, this research describes a continuous process of mutual reformulation between celebrities and their specta tors. Through such spectacles, Sierra Leoneans steer transitions into and out of various forms of violence, as crowds are called together for many ends: to judge, to heal, to educate, and–most importantly in the post-war context–to effect personal and social transformation. Anderson uses visual ethnography of diverse performances to reinterpret the relationships between violence and its aesthetic representation. His other research interests include postcolonial subcultures, urbanism, medical anthropology, and transnational Islam, and his work has been funded by the Social Science Research Council and the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation.

HIBA BOU AKAR

Hiba Bou Akar is Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Middle Eastern Studies at Hampshire College. Bou Akar received her PhD in City and Regional Planning with a designated emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University of Beirut (AUB) and master’s degree in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has published on the geographies of planning and war, the question of urban security and violence, and on the role of religious political organizations in the making of the city. She is the co-editor of “Narrating Beirut from its Borderlines” (2011) and the special issue “Security in/of the City” in the journal City & Society (2012). At present, she is

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working on a book manuscript entitled “Planning Beirut: For the War Yet to Come,” focusing on the spatial politics of Beirut’s post-war frontiers. Bou Akar is the co-editor of a leading online electronic journal on urban issues in the Middle East, Jadaliyya Cities. She has also worked as an architect and planner, and as a research consultant with local NGOs and international UN organizations in the Middle East.

THIEMO BREYER

Thiemo Breyer holds master’s degrees in Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and Historical and Social Anthropology from the Universities of Freiburg and Cambridge. He received a doctorate (2010) and a habilitation (2014) in Philosophy from the University of Freiburg. After being a Research Assistant at the Karl-JaspersChair for Philosophy and Psychiatry and Coordinator of the research project “Embodiment as Paradigm for an Evolutionary Cultural Anthropology” at the Marsilius Kolleg of the University of Heidelberg, he was appointed to a Junior Professorship for Transformations of Knowledge at the University of Cologne (2014). His main areas of research are phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and philosophical anthropology. He is currently co-editing a number of volumes, including Phenomenology of Thinking (Routledge) and Normativity in Perception (Palgrave Macmillan). His research project at the Center was devoted to investigating various forms of visibility and their implications for the attribution of social statuses to individuals and groups. The connections between visibility and empathy on the basis of an embodied approach to perception and interaction are at the core of the analysis.

ALEX FAT TA L

Alex Fattal received a PhD in Anthropology as well as a secondary field in Critical Media Practice from Harvard University in 2014. His book manuscript, Guerrilla Marketing: Information War and the Demobilization of FARC Rebels, examines the way the Colombian state deploys elaborate marketing campaigns and targeted intelligence operations to urge guerrillas to abandon the armed struggle. Based on two years of ethnographic research, the book illuminates the structures of surveillance and spectacle that undergird Colombia’s armed conflict, and theorizes the intersection of capitalism and counterinsurgency. He is also a videographer and photographer whose projects have featured in film festivals, art galleries, and advocacy settings. As a postdoctoral fellow he revised his book manuscript and edited a documentary about former combatants from the FARC. The documentary was filmed in a truck transformed into a giant camera obscura. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the WennerGren Foundation, the US Institute for Peace, and Fulbright IIE; and published by American Ethnologist, Anthropological Quarterly, Public Books, and Sensate.

JOSEPH FRONCZAK

Joseph Fronczak received a PhD in History from Yale University in 2014. His dissertation, “Popular Front Movements: Antifascism and the Makings of a Global Left during the Depression,” is a transnational history of the interwar world’s political economy. It takes, however, an unconventional approach to political economy, connecting popular politics—the

everyday, local self-assertions of common people—to the world economy. To make sense of the global reach of fascism and antifascism between the World Wars, the dissertation suggests that these two political forms worked as the popular politics of the global economic order. An article, “Local People’s Global Politics: A Transnational History of the Hands Off Ethiopia Movement of 1935,” was published in Diplomatic History.

RAM N ATA R A J A N

Ram Natarajan received his PhD in Anthropology from New York University in 2014. His research and teaching focus on violence, memory, human rights, and law. His current project, “The Power of Memory,” is an ethnographic inquiry into the social worlds of officers accused of committing suppressive violence in service of Argentina’s 1976–1983 military government. This project also investigates how Argentina’s ongoing use of trials to hold the military accountable for the country’s human rights violations has produced new forms of interpersonal violence and conciliations with the law. The Andrew Mellon Foundation/Social Sciences Research Council, the Fulbright-Hays Program, the National Science Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation have supported his research.

2015–16

K O N S TA N Z E BARON

Konstanze Baron studied Modern History and Modern Languages (French) at Queen’s College, Oxford University (BA 2000, MSt 2001) and at Université Denis

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Diderot Paris VII (DEA 2002) before moving on to Konstanz, where she obtained her PhD in 2010 after having qualified in the DFG-Graduate Program “Figuren des Dritten/Figures of the Third” and having collaborated at the Center of Excellence “Kulturelle Grundlagen von Integration/ Cultural Foundations of Integration.” From 2009–2015 she was a full-time Research Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center for European Enlightenment Studies (IZEA) in Halle. Her book on Denis Diderot, exploring features of literary anthropology in the genre of the “character tale,” was published in 2014 with Wilhelm Fink Verlag. In June 2015, Baron took up a position as Assistant Professor (Akademische Rätin) at the Romance Literature and Languages Department at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.

M AT T H E W H . BAXTER

Matthew H. Baxter received a PhD (2013) in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley with a dissertation titled, “For SubContinental Political Theory: On the Non-Brahmin Self-Respect Critique of Gandhian Self-Rule.” This work focuses on the Non-Brahmin Cuya-Mariyātai Iyakkam (Self-Respect Movement) during the 1920s and 1930s, draws on colonial, missionary, and Tamil archives from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, and situates articulations of political theory joining South India and Western Europe. Part of this focus involves the limits and possibilities of Gandhian non-violence when addressing structural hierarchies during the interwar period globally—both everyday and extraordinary. His interest in Tamil-speaking South India began as a Shansi Fellow in Madurai, Tamil Nadu from 2000–2002; his subsequent research has been made possible through generous support, including multiple Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships, an American Institute for Indian Studies fellowship, and a Fulbright-Hays DDRA

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fellowship. From 2012–2014 he served as the Associate Editor for South Asia at the bimonthly journal Asian Survey and from 2014–2015 as a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University’s Center for Cultural Analysis.

NILS BOCK

Nils Bock is Lecturer in Medieval History at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany. He studied history and archaeology at the Universities of Trier (Germany), Bologna (Italy), and Toulouse (France). He received his doctorate in medieval history in 2012 from WWU Münster, with a dissertation on the heralds in late medieval German Empire focusing on their communicative function for the nobility (“Die Herolde im römisch-deutschen Reich,” 2015). His current project is a study of the integration and interaction between politics and economy in the Middle Ages. The main focus is the activities of Italian merchants and trading companies in France between 1250 and 1350. This period is characterized by an expansion of the use of money, of credit and debt on the one hand, and severe financial, economic, political, military, and social crises leading to deep societal changes, on the other. It is likely that the society had to face problems at a new level resulting from processes of wealth redistribution. This raises the question of how society responded to individual and collective indebtedness.

ZAIN LAKHANI

Zain Lakhani holds a PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania (2014). Her current project, “Becoming Sexual

Subjects: Rape and the Political Meaning of Violence in the Age of Human Rights,” explores the relationship between sexual violence, human rights, and the politics of border control. Specifically, her work examines the intersection of gender and human rights language within the politics of immigration, asylum administration, and anti-trafficking policy over the second half of the twentieth century. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, including grants from the Charlotte Newcomb Dissertation Fellowship Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the AAUW. She holds a BA, Honors from Queen’s University in Canada, and was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Human Rights at the University of California at Berkeley.

QUENTIN (TRAIS) PEARSON

Quentin (Trais) Pearson received a PhD in History from Cornell University in 2014. His current project, “Politics of Dismemberment: Siam and Its Subjects,” is a study of law, medicine, and sovereignty in semi-colonial Siam (Thailand). Based on neglected documents from the National Archives of Thailand, the project examines transnational and cross-cultural debates over the value of human lives and limbs. When Siamese subjects were injured or killed by new technologies or foreign residents in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Bangkok, demands for restitution and justice were channeled through legal institutions and the bodies were subjected to legal and medico-legal scrutiny. Such interventions transformed the bodies of Siamese subjects into fertile grounds for asserting Siamese sovereignty. Prior to arriving at the Mahindra Humanities Center, Trais taught in the History Department at Wheaton College (MA) as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian History. His research has been supported by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as the National

Science Foundation. His work has appeared in the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, and an article is forthcoming in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine.

MÓNICA SA L AS - L A N DA

Mónica Salas-Landa received a PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University in 2015. Her project “Living among a Field of Ruins: (In)Visible Residues of Violence and Revolution” combines an archival approach with ethnographic research and examines the afterlife of the material traces left by post-revolutionary state interventions in the northern lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. Through an engagement with the agentive and affective qualities of decaying oil infrastructure, ethnological photographs, agrarian documents, and the debris left by the development of an archaeological site, her project demonstrates how these scattered objects—disregarded, negated, cherished, or reified—continue to shape the political sensibilities of those who live amid what she conceives to be the concrete residues of violence and dislocation. As a postdoctoral fellow with the Mahindra Humanities Center, Salas-Landa launched research into her second project: an ethnographic investigation into the Mexican state’s handling of drug-related violence. By focusing on the forensic and bureaucratic practices through which resurfacing human remains are being constituted and negotiated as persons and things, subjects and objects, meanings and matter, she seeks to render visible not only current processes of mourning and historicization, silencing and assertion, but also longstanding processes of violence normalization. Her research has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Cornell’s Latin American Studies Program, as well as Mexico’s Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT).

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MIRA RAI WA I T S

Interdisciplinary Dissertation Completion Fellows 2 011 –1 2

Mira Rai Waits holds a PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her research and teaching focus on spatial and postcolonial theory, modern architecture and urbanism, visual culture studies, and human rights. Her current project, “Producing the Prison: Space, Labor, and Representation,” explores the architectural history of British colonial prisons in India. This project also examines the manner in which everyday acts of non-nationalist prisoner resistance contributed to the production of the prison space in order to argue for the recognition of a geography of everyday violence that conditioned the larger ethos of the penal experience. She has published on the relationship between capitalism and architecture in the colonial Indian prison system. Her work has been funded by the University of California President’s Program and she was the recipient of the 2014 Margaret Mallory Award for Best PhD Dissertation at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Katherine Lee / Music “Encounters with SamulNori: Narratives, Circulations, and the Cultural Politics of a South Korean Percussion Genre, 1978–2008” Matthew Sussman / English “Stylistic Virtue in Nineteenth-Century Fiction” 2 01 2 –1 3

Alvaro Santana-Acuña / Sociology “The Making of a National Cadastre (1793–1833): Shifting Platforms of Knowledge and Organizational Change in France” Benjamin Woodring / English “‘Oft Have I Heard of Sanctuary Men’: Asylum, Security, and Liberty in Early Modern England” 2 01 3 –1 4

Stephen Tardif / English “Forms of Life: Self-Creation in Victorian Literature” Bernardo Zacka / Government “Bureaucratic Agency: An Inquiry into the Everyday Moral Life of Frontline Public Workers” 2 01 4 –1 5

Sakura Christmas / History “The Cartographic Steppe: Spaces of Development in Northeast Asia, 1895–1945” Tae-Yeoun Keum / Government “The Mythic Tradition in Platonism: Political Myth from Plato to Ernst Cassirer” 2 01 5 –1 6

Charrise Barron / African and African American Studies “The Platinum Age of Gospel” Emily Harrison / History of Science “Infant Science: Leona Baumgartner and the Makings of the Global Problem of Infant Mortality”

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Musings from the Center’s Staff D I R E C TO R

CO O R D I N ATO R

Homi K. Bhabha

O F P U B L I C AT I O N S A N D P R O G R A M S

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time E X E C U T I V E D I R E C TO R

Steven Biel I will not believe that all that was must be, that all the shameful drama of the past must be done again today before the sunlight sweeps the silver seas.” — W.E.B. Du Bois A D M I N I S T R ATO R

Mary Halpenny-Killip As you find a rhythm Working you, slow mile by mile, Into your proper haunt Somewhere, well out, beyond...” — Seamus Heaney, “Casualty” A S S I S TA N T TO T H E D I R E C TO R

Margaret Harrison Traveler, there is no road; only a ship’s wake on the sea.” — Antonio Machado

Neal K. Adolph Akatsuka A good ham and cheese sandwich is really every bit as good as a crème brûlée—in fact, it’s better than a crème brûlée. Each form requires its own form of intelligence and passion.” — Milton Glaser, Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight E V E N T S CO O R D I N ATO R

Sarah Razor Make a small mark, nothing sublime.” — Anne Carson U N I V E R S IT Y-W I D E S E M I N A R CO O R D I N ATO R

Andrea Volpe Thought is no longer theoretical. As soon as it functions it offends or reconciles, attracts or repels, breaks, dissociates, unites or reunites; it cannot help but liberate and enslave. Even before prescribing, suggesting a future, saying what must be done, even before exhorting or merely sounding an alarm, thought, at the level of its existence, in its very dawning, is itself an action— a perilous act.” — Michel Foucault, The Order of Things

Advisory Committee Paul Buttenwieser Rita Hauser Glenn Lowry Yo-Yo Ma Anand Mahindra Anne Rothenberg

We warmly thank staff members who worked with us from 2011 to 2016: Balraj Gill, Shannon Mackey, Kevin Herwig, Suzanne Smith, and Jane Acheson.

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ONLINE INFORMATION

Weekly emails from the Mahindra Humanities Center include listings of seminars and other events sponsored by the Center. Please let us know if you would like to be added to our email list. Additionally, a full and up-to-date calendar of events can be found on our website: mahindrahumanities. fas.harvard.edu PRE-CIRCULATED PAPERS

For some seminars and events, copies of the relevant documents are made available to participants in advance. They can be accessed from our website. DIRECTIONS

The Barker Center is bordered by Prescott, Harvard, and Quincy Streets. Enter the courtyard from Quincy Street, opposite the Lamont Gate. The Barker Center is the large brick building facing the Faculty Club. The Mahindra Humanities Center administrative offices are located on the first floor in rooms 135 and 137. Other administrative offices, postdoctoral fellows’ offices, and the Mahindra Humanities Center’s lounge are located next to the Barker Center in the Warren House. To locate Mahindra Humanities Center seminars and events, please consult the postings in the Barker Center main lobby.

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PARKING

Parking is available at no charge for Mahindra Humanities Center seminars and events only that take place after 4 pm, on a spaceavailable basis, at the Broadway Garage, located on Felton St. between Cambridge St. and Broadway St. All parkers should identify themselves as participants in the particular seminar or event you plan to attend at the Mahindra Humanities Center. Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard Barker Center 12 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 617.495.0738 ph 617.495.0730 fx humcentr@fas.harvard.edu mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu PHOTO CREDITS Photography © Parul Agarwal, Alamy, Gordon Bae, Tony Baggett, Bartsadowski, Betsey Biggs, Matthew Brady, British Library Collections, Tia Chapman, Jon Chase/Harvard, Harry CH Choi, Lygia Clark, Matt Craig/Harvard, Corbis, Marina Zagulyaeva Culligan, Federico Chicco Dodi, DPA Picture Alliance Archive, Efried, Elmirex, Mary Evans Picture Library, Sergil Figurmyl, Tom Fitzsimmons, Fretted Americana, Fotolia, Getty Images, Sebastian Gomez, Evgeny Gorbunov, Benjamin Grimm, GVS, Robert Hainer, Dinendra Haria, Harvard University, Harvard University News Office, Heritage Image Partnership, Pierre Holtz/UNICEF, Saffron Huang, Justin Ide, ITAR-TASS Photo Agency, Jordieasy, Bella Kadife, Wendy Kaveney, Mark Kelsey, Gigi Kisela, Jan Kranedonk, Laura Kreuger, Alexa Kutler, Madeline Lear, Jared Leeds, Library of Congress, Rose Lincoln/Harvard, Michael Nagle, National Portrait Gallery London, Svetlana Nikolaeva, Giuseppe Masci, Ninette Maumus, Anne McDonough, Keith Mindham Photography, Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard, Moviestore Collection Ltd., Mari1408, Ave Mario, Gregory Markopoulos, Master1305, Aessandro Mattiacci, Museum of Modern Art, Andrew Ostrovsky, Laura Passavanti, Sean Pavone, PhotoMorphic Ltd., Wang Ping, Mikhai Popov, Poppix Media Ltd., Steve Pyke, President and Fellows of Harvard College, Redswept, Sarah Reid, Salko3p, Figurniy Sergey, Neil Setchfield, Oleg Shishkov, Kris Snibbe/Harvard, Jose Ignacio Soto, TT Studio, Weerayut, Ai Wei-Wei, Wikicommons, Witthaya, John Wreford, University of Maryland

Right: Kazemde George ’12

Mahindra Humanities Center events and seminars are open to faculty, graduate students, and other interested individuals.

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