Humanities Center

t h eHumanitiesc e n t e r

in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

harvard university

B A R K E R C E N T E R12 QUINCY STREET

CAMBRIDGE, MA 02138

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DIRECTORMarjorie Garber

ADMINISTRATORMary Halpenny-Killip

OFFICE MANAGERShannon Greaney

EVENTS COORDINATORMary Elizabeth Wilkes

Seminar meetings for September 2003.Seminars not meeting in September will resume in October.

AMERICAN LITERATUREAND CULTUREChair: Werner Sollors, John Stauffer

Victor Grossman (journalist).

“From Harvard Yard to Berlin Wall”

Tuesday, September 23, 5:00 p.m., Room 133.

BUDDHIST STUDIES FORUMChair: Robert Gimello

Junhyung Rhi (University of California).

“Pious Dedication and Wondrous Vision: Images of

Mahayana in Gandharan Art”

Monday, September 15, 4:00 p.m., Room 133.

ECOLOGY/TECHNOLOGY/CYBERNETICSChair: Verena Conley

Emily Apter (New York University). “Netlish?

The Language Politics of Translation and Digital Code”

Monday, September 15, 5:00 p.m., Room 114.Reception to follow.

HISPANIC CULTURESChairs: Luis Cárcamo-Huechante,Mary Gaylord

Raquel Chang-Rodriguez (The Graduate

Center, City University of New York).

“Contiguidades culturales: Cuba y ‘La Florida del

Inca (1605)’”

Monday, September 29, 6:00 p.m., Room 133.

HISTORY OF THE BOOKChairs: Ann Blair, David D. Hall, Leah Price

David Henkin (University of California,

Berkeley). “Solitary, Intimate, and Exclusive: The Myth

of Private Reading” with response from LeonJackson (University of South Carolina).

There will be a pre-circulated paper (for

details go to www.fas.harvard.edu/~humcentr).

Monday, September 29, 5:00 p.m., Room 114.

MEDIEVAL STUDIESChairs: Beverly Kienzle

Carolyn Muessig (University of Bristol).

“Education in Medieval Nunneries in the Twelfth and

Thirteenth Centuries: Continuity or Rapture?”

Co-sponsored with Divinity School.

Monday, September 29, 4:15, Room 133.Reception to follow.

MODERN GREEK LITERATURE AND CULTUREChair: Panagiotis Roilos

John Chioles (New York University).

“Cavafy and His Meta-Phrases”

Thursday, September 25, 6:00 p.m., Room 133.

PHILOSOPHY, POETRY, AND RELIGIONChairs: Martin Cohen, Peter Sacks

Jean-Luc Marion (La Sorbonne).

“Phenomenon of Eros”

Wednesday, September 24, 7:00 p.m., Room 110.

RENAISSANCE STUDIESChair: Tom Conley

Wendy Hyman (Harvard University).

“Death, Celibacy, and Seduction in Measure for Measure”

Thursday, September 25, 4:00 p.m., Room 133.

The Humanities Center will host an

informational meeting for interested

graduate students wishing to apply to

coordinate the Humanities Center’s AY03/04 Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference.

This session is also for students wishing to

learn more about the Humanities Center’sInterdisciplinary DissertationCompletion Fellowships.

Please meet on Wednesday, October 1, 2:00-3:00 p.m., in Barker 133.For more information, call 495-0738.

GRADUATE STUDENTSHUMANITIES CENTER INTERDISCIPLINARY INITIATIVES

INFORMATIONAL MEETING

AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTUREChair: Werner Sollors, John StaufferA forum for current directions in AmericanStudies research in a comparative internationalperspective. The focus in 2003-04 will be onliterature and the contexts of cultural history andon such topics as immigration and ethnicity, race,and the languages of America.

THE AMERICASChair: Doris SommerCulture and history of the Americas, North and South, from a comparatist vantage point,including such issues as race, regionalism, andnationality, as well as considerations of literarytexts. Scholarship from both Hispanic andAnglophone traditions will be presented in each session.

ASIAN CULTURAL STUDIES WORKSHOPChairs: Daniel Botsman, Eileen Cheng-yin ChowThe workshop aims to facilitate interdisciplinaryconversation on the study of ‘Asia’ in the academytoday. This year we will focus on the theme of“picturing Asian histories,” and explore the role of images in history, as well as the presentation of history in visual culture. Speakers will includescholars, creative writers, artists, and filmmakers.

BIOGRAPHYChair: Helena LewisUsing visual media as well as the written word,scholars are engaged in expanding the boundariesof biography to include related forms such asautobiography, memoir, the diary, and collectivebiography. Invited speakers from many disciplineswill focus not only upon individual lives, but willdiscuss the theoretical, methodological, andethical dimensions of biography and interpret the role of the biographer.

BUDDHIST STUDIES FORUMChair: Robert GimelloThe Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum has beenoperating for nearly two decades to provide avenue where scholars of all aspects of Buddhism atHarvard and surrounding institutions can cometogether to exchange and discuss work at theforefront of this fast-growing field. The Forum,like the field, is interdisciplinary by its verynature, and scholars and participants bring to the discussion approaches as diverse as classicalphilology, intellectual history, anthropology, arthistory, literary studies, and religious studies. We also hear work on Buddhist traditions fromthe entire vast geographic spread of this immense,religion, including South, Southeast, Central, andEast Asia.

CELTIC LITERATURE AND CULTUREChairs: Patrick K. Ford, Tomás Ó CathasaighSeminar topics include aspects of the Celticliteratures from ancient to modern times. Inaddition, the seminar topics seek to makeconnections with other European literatures,both medieval and modern, as well as folkloreand oral tradition.

CHINA HUMANITIES SEMINARChair: Paul RouzerCovering the whole span of Chinese experiencepredating the modern era, this seminar addressesall aspects of Chinese civilization — literature,history, philosophy, religion, art history, and theperforming arts.

CIVILIZATIONS OF ANCIENTGREECE AND ROMEChairs: Albert Henrichs, Richard F. ThomasConsidering topics reflecting the entire range ofclassical studies, this seminar will examine Greekand Roman literature, philology, history, religion,archaeology or philosophy, the application ofliterary and cultural theory to classical texts, and various other aspects of classical literature and culture.

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ABOUT THE HUMANITIES CENTER

THE HUMANITIES CENTER

provides a locus for

interdisciplinary discussions

among Harvard faculty, faculty from

other area institutions, and graduate

students in a variety of fields. It

presently sponsors thirty-two

ongoing faculty/graduate student

seminars; it also supports lectures,

conferences, workshops, and

informal occasions for the exchange

of ideas and the sharing of scholarly

work.All faculty and students from

Harvard and other area institutions,

and independent scholars in the

greater Boston area, are welcome.

E X E C U T I V E C O M M I T T E E

Homi Bhabha Joaquim-Francisco Coelho Tom Conley Patrick K. Ford Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Barbara Johnson Gregory NagyStephen OwenKatharine Park Eric Rentschler Judith RyanKay Kaufman ShelemaySusan Suleiman Maria TatarJan Ziolkowski

DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL HUMANITIES CENTER SEMINARS ACTIVE IN THE COMING YEAR

If you would like to be placed on an email list that will alert you to the activities of specificseminars, please send your email address to ouroffice <humcentr@fas.harvard.edu> and we willadd your address to the respective lists.

The Humanities CenterS E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 3

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COGNITIVE THEORY AND THE ARTSChairs: Alan Richardson, Elaine ScarryPoetry, music, and painting are all products of theimagination, and also make visible the way theimagination works. This seminar draws on theverbal, visual, and auditory arts, as well as modelsand findings from the mind sciences, to deepenour understanding of aesthetic processes andartifacts. We are concerned with the ways art, neuroscience, and cognitive theory illuminateone another.

CROSS-CULTURAL POETICS AND RHETORICChairs: Tom Conley, William GranaraA seminar for those interested in comparativeapproaches to native traditions (Arabic, Chinese,Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, and others).

DISCIPLINE PROBLEMSChair: Julie Buckler, Marjorie GarberA discussion of methodological, disciplinary, andinterdisciplinary working conditions of scholarsin various academic fields, with an emphasis onprofessional development, particularly forgraduate students and junior faculty. Are therecentral issues and assumptions in a disciplinethat require no justification? What are the rulesof evidence and conventions of interdisciplinarywork?

ECOLOGY/TECHNOLOGY/CYBERNETICSChair: Verena ConleyThis seminar focuses on the relations betweenecology and technologies. Emphasis will beplaced on relations between the humanities andthe technosciences, on the transformations ofculture, politics, and the arts under the impact ofglobalization, technological change, and rapidurbanization of time and space. Presentations will range from theoretical discussions ofecological and technological issues to specificreadings in fiction and film.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYLITERATURE AND CULTUREChairs: Lynn Festa, Susan StavesMembers of the seminar and invited speakerspresent works-in-progress for discussion. Topicsrange widely in eighteenth-century studies,drawing on literature, literary theory, history, and the arts.

ETHNOMUSICOLOGYChairs: Virginia Danielson, Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Richard Wolf This seminar provides a forum to consider recent research on the ethnography of music inethnomusicology and related disciplines. Speakerswill address theoretical issues and repertoriesdrawn from music cultures around the world.

FILM THEORY/FILM HISTORYChair: Eric RentschlerThis forum showcases work that evaluatesprevious approaches to the cinematic medium andassesses the changing shapes and novel agendas ofcurrent developments. Speakers in the seminarprobe the history of film theory, the theory of filmhistory, and the initiatives, opportunities, andchallenges of contemporary film studies.

FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE STUDIESChairs: Alexia Duc, Virginie Greene, Christie McDonaldAn interdisciplinary discussion group concernedwith French languages, peoples, ideas, literatures, and cultures, from the Middle Ages to thetwenty-first century.

GENDER AND SEXUALITYChairs: Brad Epps, Mari RutiThe seminar is designed to foster interdisciplinarydialogue on the significance of gender andsexuality for a diverse array of issues such ascitizenship, immigration, globalization, and thelaw; concepts and practices of the family; pleasure,desire, and corporeality; religion, morality, andethics; psychology and psychoanalysis; medicineand public health; militarism and violence;academicism and activism.

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HUMANITIES CENTERSEMINARS, 2003-2004

American Literature and Culture

The Americas

Asian Cultural Studies

Biography

Buddhist Studies Forum

Celtic Literature and Culture

China Humanities Seminar

Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome

Cognitive Theory and the Arts

Cross-Cultural Poetics and Rhetoric

Discipline Problems

Ecology/Technology/Cybernetics

Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Ethnomusicology

Film Theory/Film History

French and Francophone Studies

Gender and Sexuality

Hispanic Cultures

History of the Book

Medieval Studies

Modern Greek Literature

Music and Its Audience

Philosophy, Poetry, and Religion

Politics, Literature, and the Arts

Psychoanalytic Practices

Renaissance Studies

Romantic Literature and Culture

Shakespearean Studies

South Asia Humanities

Victorian Literature and Culture

Visual Representation and Cultural History

Women and Culture in the Early Modern World

DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL HUMANITIES CENTER SEMINARS ACTIVE IN THE COMING YEAR

The Humanities CenterHISPANIC CULTURES Chairs: Luis Cárcamo-Huechante, Mary GaylordThe seminar will focus this year on the status ofliterature and culture in Spain, Latin America, the Caribbean, and United States Latinocommunities. Sessions will address the complexrelations between language, poetry, and society;literature and mass culture; gender, sexuality, andcultural representation; and the tropes ofeconomic and symbolic imagination, across time.

HISTORY OF THE BOOKChairs: Ann Blair, David D. Hall, Leah Price Addressing the production and consumption ofprinted matter in Europe and America from theRenaissance to the present day, this seminar willpurse a variety of particular topics, includingauthorship, reading, publishing and the materialityof texts.

MEDIEVAL STUDIESChairs: Beverly KienzleA forum for the presentation and discussion of scholarly papers in medieval studies, withemphasis on comparative and interdisciplinaryapproaches. Working closely with Harvard’sCommittee on Medieval Studies and inconjunction with the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, the seminar fostersdialogue between established medievalists, both local and visitors, and graduate students.

MODERN GREEK LITERATURE AND CULTUREChair: Panagiotis Roilos Presentations, which vary in discipline andtheoretical approach, situate Modern Greekstudies within a comparative context: ancient and medieval Greece, Western, Balkan, andMediterranean cultures.

MUSIC AND ITS AUDIENCEChairs: Sean Gallagher, Karen Painter,Christoph WolffInterdisciplinary in nature, the seminar exploresmusical repertoires and dimensions of private andpublic music-making from the perspectives ofcomposer, performer, and listener. Topics will bedrawn from the entire span of European andAmerican music history, with speakers frommusicology, history, philosophy, sociology, culturalstudies, and other areas.

PHILOSOPHY, POETRY, AND RELIGIONChairs: Marty Cohen, Peter SacksThis seminar explores ways philosophy canbenefit from a fuller encounter with theprofusion and varieties of experience evidenced by art and religion, as well as ways art andreligion can be informed by modes ofphilosophical knowing and not-knowing.

POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE ARTSChairs: Svetlana Boym, Susan SuleimanIn this seminar, literary and artistic works areanalyzed in terms of their cultural and politicalsignificance or effects, and the ways in which such works have reflected or reacted to importanthistorical and political events.

PSYCHOANALYTIC PRACTICESChairs: Humphrey Morris, Frances RestucciaThe dispersion of psychoanalytic theory beyondthe clinical setting into academic culture is at the same time an expansion of the field ofpsychoanalytic practice. This year’s seminar willcontinue to consider differences and articulationsamong the various psychoanalytic practices ofclinicians as well as literary and cultural critics.

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GENERAL INFORMATION

THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

of the Humanities Centerincludes listings of seminars

and other events sponsored by theHumanities Center. All are open tofaculty, graduate students, and otherinterested individuals. Seminar meetingstake place at the Humanities Centerunless otherwise indicated.

In many seminars, copies of thepapers are circulated to participants in advance of the meeting.They can beobtained by sending in a paper requestform to the office or by calling theHumanities Center at 617-495-0738.Please call this number also forinformation about upcoming eventsincluding any cancellations or changes.In order to receive pre-circulatedpapers, please see the instructions on the paper request form.Humanities Center email address ishumcentr@fas.harvard.edu.Humanities Center webpagehttp://www.fas.harvard.edu/~humcentr

DIRECTIONSThe Barker Center is bordered byPrescott, Harvard, and Quincy Streets.Enter the courtyard from QuincyStreet, opposite the Lamont Gate.TheBarker Center is the large brick buildingfacing the Faculty Club.

The Humanities Center administrativeoffices are located on the first floor inrooms 136 and 135.

To locate Humanities Center seminarevents, please consult the postings in theBarker Center main lobby.

DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL HUMANITIES CENTER SEMINARS ACTIVE IN THE COMING YEAR

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PARKINGParking is available at no charge forHumanities Center seminars only, on aspace available basis, at the BroadwayGarage, located on Felton St. betweenCambridge St. and Broadway.The garagecloses at midnight All parkers shouldidentify themselves as participants in aseminar at the Humanities Center (theguard’s list of events does not includethe names of individual seminars) andshould arrive close to the time that theseminar begins. If the garage is full,which is more likely prior to 4:00 p.m.,ask the attendant to direct you toanother Harvard parking facility. Pleasecontact the Humanities Center forinformation on parking for conferencesand weekend events.

CHANGES IN ADDRESS AND ZIP CODEIf your address or zip code has changed,please contact us at 617-495-0738 orvia email at humcentr@fas.harvard.edu.

PRE-CIRCULATED PAPERSWe are delighted to announce that we have changed our policy on pre-circulated papers. Beginning inSeptember 2003, all pre-circulatedpapers will be available on our website free of charge. Please visitwww.fas.harvard.edu/~humcentr forfurther details.

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RENAISSANCE STUDIESChair: Tom ConleyFocused on the early modern period in Europe, the seminar explores a range of topics and issues at the intersection(s) of history, literature, music,philosophy, politics, popular culture, history ofscience, and visual arts. This year’s seminar willcontinue its work on space and subjectivity andincludes papers on English, Spanish, Italian, andGerman cultures and to work on relations ofgeography and nationhood.

ROMANTIC LITERATURE AND CULTURE Chairs: Sonia Hofkosh, Ann Wierda RowlandAddressing a range of late eighteenth- and earlynineteenth-century texts and contexts, this seminaroffers various theoretical, comparative, andinterdisciplinary approaches to British romanticstudies. Formats will include presentations, work-in-progress discussion, and young scholar panels.

SHAKESPEAREAN STUDIESChairs: William Carroll, Coppélia KahnDesigned to explore the broadest range ofapproaches to Shakespeare’s texts, including post-structuralist, feminist, traditional, andperformance-based criticism, the seminar will also consider the relation of Shakespeare’s plays to Early Modern culture.

SOUTH ASIA HUMANITIES SEMINARChair: Sharmila SenDiscussions in this seminar center onsubcontinental nations, Indian Ocean cultures, andthe South Asian diaspora. The forum is designedto encourage scholarly dialogue across disciplineson topics related to South Asia.

VICTORIAN LITERATURE AND CULTUREChairs: James Buzard, John PickerThis seminar will discuss works-in-progress of invited speakers and members, taking aninterdisciplinary approach to topics in literature,history, art, science, and popular culture.

VISUAL REPRESENTATION AND CULTURAL HISTORYChair: Ewa Lajer-BurcharthA forum for current research and debate on visualrepresentation for those working in art history,literature, history, and cultural studies. Areas offocus include problems of visual representation in new cultural history, gender studies, gay andlesbian studies, post-colonial culture, and culturalsemiotics.

WOMEN AND CULTURE IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLDChairs: Diana Henderson, Marina LeslieThis seminar considers how gender is implicated in the formation of the political, social, andartistic cultures of the Early Modern period.Topics addressed include religious and allegoricalrepresentations of and by women; the economicand legal status of women in specific communities;representations of male and female bodies inliterature, art, and science; and applications ofcompeting theories of gender, sexualities, andfeminisms.

DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL HUMANITIES CENTER SEMINARS ACTIVE IN THE COMING YEAR

The Humanities Center

6

ABOUT THE HUMANITIES CENTER

THE HUMANITIES CENTER

provides a locus for

interdisciplinary discussions

among Harvard faculty, faculty from

other area institutions, and graduate

students in a variety of fields. It

presently sponsors thirty-eight

ongoing faculty/graduate student

seminars; it also supports lectures,

conferences, workshops, and

informal occasions for the exchange

of ideas and the sharing of scholarly

work.All faculty and students from

Harvard and other area institutions,

and independent scholars in the

greater Boston area, are welcome.

E X E C U T I V E C O M M I T T E E

Homi BhabhaJulie BucklerJoaquim-Francisco Coelho Tom ConleyPatrick K. FordHenry Louis Gates, Jr.Alice JardineBarbara JohnsonGregory NagyStephen OwenKatharine ParkLeah Price Eric RentschlerJudith RyanKay Kaufman ShelemaySusan SuleimanRichard F.ThomasMaria TatarJan Ziolkowski

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THE HUMANITIES CENTER IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCESHARVARD UNIVERSITYBarker Center, 12 Quincy StreetCambridge, Massachusetts 02138