Institute for the Humanities
The Institute for the Humanities will host a varied group of Visiting Fellows in the coming academic year. During their residencies, these visitors will join the 13 U-M faculty and graduate student fellows in their weekly seminar, and either will give a public lecture or present their work in other forums.
Director Daniel Herwitz is pleased to note that this year’s group of visitors is a varied and exciting one. “It is also a group,” he adds, “that exhibits the institute’s range of activities, from its thematic interest in human rights to its deep embroilment in the arts, to its concern with traditional and non-traditional forms of humanistic scholarship.”
The Visiting Fellows are:
David Rieff, writer and journalist
In residence Sept. 14-20
Rieff, an American writer and policy analyst, has written widely on topics ranging from war, human rights and humanitarian assistance in Africa, to Third World immigration to the United States, to cultural issues. He covered the Bosnian war, spending extended periods of time in Sarajevo during the siege, and the Rwandan genocide. More recently, he has reported from Southwest Asia. He is the author of five books, including “Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World” and “Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West.” His new book, “A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in an Age of Genocide,” was published in October 2002. Rieff was awarded the first Haniel Fellowship in History and Public Affairs at the American Academy in Berlin. He currently is working on a book on terrorism, counter-terrorism and state power.
At noon Sept. 16, in the Pendleton Room of the Michigan Union, he will discuss “Humanitarian Intervention: Between the Revolution of Moral Concern and the New Imperialism.” Professor of law Catharine MacKinnon will serve as respondent.
Stephanie Jordan, dance, University of Surrey, Roehampton
In residence Oct. 26-Nov. 8
Jordan is a trained musicologist and dance historian. Her book “Moving Music” transformed the field of dance studies and brought the serious study of the history of dance to musicologists who have tended to overlook the dance component of the music they work on (Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” is a prime example). Jordan’s current project, a book about “Stravinsky and Dance,” has received the support of the Stravinsky Foundation in Basle.
During her visit, she will take part in a symposium cosponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies and the Department of Dance, called “From the Mariinsky to Manhattan: George Balanchine and the Transformation of American Dance.” In addition, she will give a talk, “Settling the Score: The Complications of the Choreomusical Canon,” at noon Oct. 28 in 540 Rackham.
Denise Riley, School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Norman Freehling Visiting Professor
In residence winter term 2004
Riley has a rich and varied background in European philosophy and political thought, including philosophy of language, poetry and poetics, and social and intellectual history. Her books include “War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and the Mother,” ” Am I That Name?’ Feminism and the Category of Women’ in History,” and “The Words of Selves: Identification, Solidarity, Irony.” Besides being a scholar, she is a poet, and in 1996, was writer-in-residence at the Tate Gallery, London. At present, she is working on a volume of her own essays on the “everyday emotionality” of language. It will cover such topics as “false consolation, the retrospective construction of truth, an inflated sense of presence, a defense of solitude, the nature of linguistic embarrassment, recovery from verbal attack, shyness, unease and guilt in speech, and the feeling of lying when you’re truth-telling.”
Riley will offer a course on “Stoicism: Fate, Uncertainty, Persistence.” She suggests that in a world of deepening uncertainty and political malaise, stoicism offers a hope of enduring with dignity, of finding stability in a relativistic world without having recourse to religious faith.
Marcia Kinder, School of Cinema-Television, University of Southern California
In residence Jan. 12-25, 2004
Kinder began her career as a scholar of 18th century English literature. Today, she chairs the Division of Critical Studies in USC’s School of Cinema-TV, where she has been teaching since 1980. Since 1997 she has directed “The Labyrinth Project,” an art collective and research initiative at USC’s Annenberg Center for Communication, producing interactive documentaries in collaboration with independent filmmakers. With Hungarian media artist Peter Forgács, Labyrinth created “The Danube Exodus: The Rippling Currents of the River,” an interactive installation that premiered at the Getty Center in Los Angeles in August 2002.
Also a cultural theorist and film scholar, Kinder has published more than 100 essays and 10 books, including “Playing with Power,” “Blood Cinema” and “Kids’ Media Culture.” In 2001, she was named a University Professor, an honor that has been bestowed on only 10 professors in USC’s history.
Albie Sachs, Justice of the South African Constitutional Court
In residence Feb. 1-14, 2004
Sachs long has been a leader in the struggle for human rights in South Africa and was a freedom fighter in the African National Congress. Twice he was detained without trial by the security police under the Apartheid regime. He describes his detention in “The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs,” which was made into a play in London. He also is the author of numerous books on issues of gender, the law and human rights. His most recent book, “The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter,” relates his recovery from an attempt by the South African security forces to kill him.
On Jan. 30, Sachs will deliver the Institute for Humanities’ Marc and Constance Jacobson Lecture, “A New Court for a New Democracy: Art, Memory and Human Rights Come Together in Building South Africa’s Constitutional Court.” This lecture is in conjunction the University’s winter 2004 theme semester, “Brown vs. the Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education.”
Margo Mensing, Art and Art History, Skidmore College
In residence March 14-21, 2004
Mensing is an artist on the faculty of Skidmore College, where she teaches fiber arts. Her work ranges across diverse media, from video to knitting, but the content always derives from her textile training and sensibility. She relies on her background in history for her narrative constructions that typically focus on the life and times of particular individuals, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, his wife Fanny Stevenson and his mother Margaret Stevenson. Many of her recent installations are collaborative, and she often works with community members.
In January-March 2004, the Residential College plans an exhibition of work from her recent projects, including three large drawings from “Banking on It,” made from punched circles from security envelopes.
Richard Wollheim, Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
In residence March 7-27, 2004
After attending Oxford, Professor Wollheim served for more than 30 years on the faculty of University College, London. In 1982, he came to the United States to teach at Columbia, moving to California in 1985 to teach at Berkeley and UC-Davis. From 1998-2002, he chaired Berkeley’s Philosophy Department.
The titles of his books give a flavor of his interest in philosophy, psychology and aesthetics: “Richard Wollheim on the Art of Painting: Art as Representation and Expression” (2001); “The Mind and Its Depths” (1993); “On Art and the Mind” (1974). His 1999 opus, “On the Emotions,” adduced the insights of literature and psychoanalysis, as well as philosophy, to support the thesis that emotions are “attitudes or orientations to the world,” that they are allied with the imagination but distinct from beliefs and desires.
Kim Anno, Art and Cultural Studies, California College of the Arts (CCA), San Francisco/Oakland
In residence April 11-17, 2004
A painter and public artist, Anno also serves on the faculty of CCA as associate professor of painting. Her painting is contemporary abstraction and is influenced by Ukiyo-e prints, the physical body, and Islamic and Asian architecture and calligraphy. She has shown her work nationally and in Mexico, Brazil, Hungary and Indonesia. She has received numerous awards, including a 2002 Fleischhacker Award from the Eureka Foundation. In 2003 she had a solo exhibit at Marcel Sitcoske Gallery in San Francisco, and published “The Mirror of Simple Souls,” an artists’ book in collaboration with Anne Carson, at One Crow Press in Minnesota.
During her visit, Anno will mount an exhibit of that work and, on April 13, she and Carson will offer a public conversation about their work together. She comes as the Paula and Edwin Sidman Fellow in the Arts.
