Humanities Day 2021 - Session 3

Queer Medievalism (Virtual Session)

christinev — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 16:33:31 +0000

Presenter:

In-Person & Virtual

In person and live streamed: A growing body of scholarship has brought important attention to the co-opting of the Middle Ages by white supremacist myths of national origin. But in what ways has or can the medieval offer a resource for political projects of resistance and liberation? This session will explore how and why queer theorists, artists, and writers re-signified the medieval in the face of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s. And it will ask how these aesthetic, political, and even spiritual strategies may inform contemporary responses to the inequities the COVID-19 pandemic rendered more acute.

Queer Medievalism

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:12:30 +0000

Presenter:

Kris Trujillo

Session 3

In-Person & Virtual

In person and live streamed: A growing body of scholarship has brought important attention to the co-opting of the Middle Ages by white supremacist myths of national origin. But in what ways has or can the medieval offer a resource for political projects of resistance and liberation? This session will explore how and why queer theorists, artists, and writers re-signified the medieval in the face of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s. And it will ask how these aesthetic, political, and even spiritual strategies may inform contemporary responses to the inequities the COVID-19 pandemic rendered more acute.

The Wild Man in the Green Swamp and Other Stories about Race in America (Virtual Session)

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:11:20 +0000

Presenter:

C. Riley Snorton

Session 3

Virtual

Virtual Only: Narratives about swamp people and swamp things punctuate the story of the New World, from the maroon communities constituted by Native peoples and formerly enslaved Africans beginning in the early 16th century to the first Asians (Filipinos) to arrive in the US, who settled in the swamps surrounding modern day New Orleans in 1763. As a place that is neither land nor water but both, the swamp functions as the grounds—as the “terra infirma”—for a series of considerations about difference, change, time, life, and death. In this session, the presenter explores each of these themes through tracing a figure who was called by many names but most commonly the “Wild Man of the Green Swamp,” which made national news in 1975.

Discovery of an Unknown Iron Age Kingdom in Turkey

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:10:04 +0000

Presenter:

James F. Osborne

Session 3

In-Person

In 2019, the presenter had the great fortune to be part of an archaeological team that made a remarkable discovery: a hieroglyphic royal inscription authored by Hartapu, a mysterious king from the early first millennium BCE. Named one of the Top 10 Discoveries of the year by Archaeology Magazine, this inscription, which was deciphered by colleagues at the University of Chicago, established the nearby site as a hitherto completely unknown capital city. In the text, Hartapu even claims to have conquered the kingdom of Phrygia (of King Midas fame), which, if true, would make his kingdom one of Iron Age Turkey's most powerful. This session will describe the cultural and historical setting of Turkey during the Iron Age and then present the exciting discoveries that have completely changed our understanding of the geopolitical composition of this time and place.

**This presentation is sold out.**

Architects, Gardeners, Mapmakers, Photographers: Writers Working in Their Cities

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:07:12 +0000

Presenter:

In-Person

The writers on this panel will talk about various approaches to writing about cities, with a particular emphasis on writing about Chicago. How do writers create inner and outer landscapes real enough to get lost in? How do writers look to (and sometimes become) architects, gardeners, mapmakers, and photographers to work toward new stories, essays, and poems?

**This presentation is sold out.**

Early Black Cinema in Chicago: Lost and Found

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:05:08 +0000

Presenter:

Allyson Nadia Field

Session 3

In-Person

In 1916, the Ebony Film Corporation was formed in Chicago with the goal of producing short comedies featuring all-African American casts. While white-capitalized, the company hired an African American producer, Luther J. Pollard, as its President and General Manager. The film’s comedies were aimed at general audiences and focused on the slapstick comedy popular in the mainstream industry. What were Pollard’s ambitions? How did he understand his work in relation to the constraints around Black representation in the broader American film industry? Until recently, very little information about the company has been known to survive, and scholars of African American film history have long puzzled over Pollard’s involvement with Ebony. Through new material the Chicago Film Archives discovered about Pollard, the presenter discusses the work of Ebony, its relation to other Black filmmaking companies, and the Chicago-based film industry of the 1910s.

Songs of Exile and Return

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:00:59 +0000

Presenter:

Philip V. Bohlman

Session 3

In-Person

In the final chapter of its “Babylon Project,” the New Budapest Orpheum Society explores the transformation of exile to return—the powerful chronicles that grow around dispossessed peoples. Throughout human history exile has taken many forms, resulting from the tragic loss of homeland, as well as the human suffering that accompanies a pandemic. In its Humanities Day performance, the New Budapest Orpheum Society weaves songs of return, ancient and modern, from diverse cabaret repertories, into narratives of reckoning with the lived histories we increasingly witness in our own past and present.

Kris Trujillo

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 20:10:24 +0000

Presentation:

Queer Medievalism

Session:

Session 3

Comparative Literature

Kris Trujillo specializes in medieval Christian mysticism, Latinx literature, and queer theory. His writing has appeared in English Language Notes, postmedieval, and Representations. Currently, he is working on two book projects. The first examines the significance of the Divine Office to the genre of mystical poetry. The second tracks the concept of ecstasy from early Christianity to contemporary queer theory. Trujillo is Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago.

James F. Osborne

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 20:08:43 +0000

Presentation:

Discovery of an Unknown Iron Age Kingdom in Turkey

Session:

Session 3

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

James F. Osborne is an archaeologist who studies the ancient Middle East. His research focus lies in the Bronze and Iron Ages of Turkey and surrounding regions and includes thematic interests in spatial analysis and the built environment, monumentality, and territoriality. Among other book projects, he is the author of The Syro-Anatolian City-States: An Iron Age Culture, recently published by Oxford University Press and the co-editor with Jonathan M. Hall of The Connected Iron Age: Interregional Networks in the Eastern Mediterranean, 900-600 BCE, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. Osborne is Assistant Professor of Anatolian Archaeology at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute and in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

Stephanie Soileau

jsjoyce — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 20:06:13 +0000

Presentation:

Architects, Gardeners, Mapmakers, Photographers: Writers Working in Their Cities

Session:

Session 3

Creative Writing

Stephanie Soileau is the author of the short story collection Last One Out Shut Off The Lights (Little Brown & Co., 2020) and the novel Should The Waters Take Us forthcoming from Little, Brown & Co. Her work has also appeared in Glimmer Train, Oxford American, Ecotone, Tin House, New Stories from the South, and other journals and anthologies, and has been supported by fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program at Stanford University, the Camargo Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She is Assistant Professor of Practice in the Arts in the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago.