Welcome
Welcome to Arts and Humanities Update, an electronic newsletter published during the academic year by the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University.
Faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to share news of current research projects, publications, conference presentations, teaching innovations, outreach connections, events, and awards. Call (517) 355-5633 or send a message to the editor.
Orhan Pamuk to Deliver College of Arts and Letters Signature Lecture
Monday, October 1,
7:30 p.m.
Pasant Theatre, Wharton Center for Performing Arts
Tickets: $20; available September 1 (free to MSU faculty, staff, and students with ID at box office only, limit two); call 1 (800) WHARTON or visit www.whartoncenter.com. Click here for a PDF copy of the flyer.
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, will present the 2007 College of Arts and Letters Signature Lecture as part of a series of events celebrating MSU’s Year of Arts and Culture.
Pamuk’s visit presents an exciting opportunity for the university community to interact with one of the most prominent novelists at work in the world today. Among his many highly regarded works are The White Castle (1991), The Black Book (1994), The New Life (1997), My Name is Red (2001), Snow (2004), and Istanbul: Memories and the City (2005). Pamuk’s speech at MSU is expected to touch on some of the issues raised during his Nobel lecture, in which he noted that “what literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity’s basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kind.” Read more...
Rception Honoring Excellence in Outreach
Arts and Letters Receives $26 Million from Eli and Edythe Broad for New Art Museum
MSU will be the home of a new world-class art museum focusing on modern and contemporary art thanks to a gift of $26 million from philanthropist and MSU alumnus Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe. The museum will be the new home of the university’s art collection, currently housed on campus in the Kresge Art Museum. Read more...
Rception Honoring Excellence in Outreach
MSU Launches "Year of Arts and Culture"
To recognize the critical role that arts and culture play in nurturing the human spirit and in preparing students for a global world, MSU will celebrate a "Year of Arts and Culture" during the 2007-08 academic year.
Coordinated by the Office of University Outreach and Engagement, the Year of Arts and Culture comprises activities that involve all arts and culture units and academic programs, cut across multiple disciplines, enrich the student experience, align with local economic development efforts, and engage the community.
Highlights will include the opening of MSU’s new Residential College for the Arts and Humanities, groundbreaking for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, the 25th anniversary of the Wharton Center, and the anniversaries of the MSU Museum and the Department of Theatre. For more information, visit the Year of Arts and Culture website or the College of Arts and Letters calendar.
Arts and Letters to Host Reception Honoring Excellence in Outreach and Engagement
The College of Arts and Letters will sponsor a reception honoring excellence in outreach and engagement on Tuesday, September 25, from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. at the Kellogg Center (Big Ten Room C). The event will feature displays of faculty and student outreach collaborations. All are welcome; please RSVP by Friday, September 14, to (517) 432-2479 or caldwell@msu.edu.
Research Funding Deadlines for Arts and Letters Faculty
IRPG: September 11 is the deadline for applications to the 2007 IRGP competition for funding 12/15/07 through 6/15/09. A PowerPoint presentation with A&L specifics is available here.
CFIT: September 14 is the deadline for applications for Cycle II (11/1- 4/30) of the College Fund for International Travel for travel abroad to conferences/events to present the results of research or creative activity.
Check the Research Funding Resources page for additional opportunities and deadlines.
Notables
Sally Helvenston Gray, director of the program in Apparel and Textile Design, has been named a Fellow of The Costume Society of America, the highest honor this organization offers to its members. The designation is given to those who have made significant contributions to the field of costume and fashion and demonstrated exceptional dedication, leadership, and service within the Society. Helvenston Gray's research has focused on expanding our knowledge of everyday dress in the nineteenth century and interpreting nineteenth-century women’s dress as social history. This has led her to investigate a variety of topics, including frontier dress, nineteenth-century apparel patents, plain sewing samplers, women’s cycling attire, work apparel, and specialized apparel for people with disabilities.
The 1,800 members of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities have chosen Hilde Lindemann, professor of philosophy, as their next president. The ASBH promotes the exchange of ideas and fosters scholarship, research, teaching, policy development, professional development, and collegiality among those engaged in clinical and academic bioethics and the medical humanities. She will become President-Elect at the organization's annual meeting in October and assume the presidency in 2008.
People and Programs in the News
Amy DeRogatis, associate professor of religious studies, discussed her research on evangelical Christian sex manuals with the Lansing State Journal. Read more...
Upcoming Events
All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
August 19 - September 28
MSU Museum
Department of Religious Studies and MSU Museum: "Picturing Faith: Religious America in Government Photography, 1935-1943"
"Picturing Faith" is a unique series of photographs showing the place of religion in American society through the lenses of some of America's most well-known photographers -- Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks. It also presents the work of equally talented but lesser-known photographers -- John Collier, Jr., Marion Post Wolcott, Russell Lee, Jack Delano, and Marjory Collins. Supported by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, the exhibition includes 45 black-and-white photographs gathered from the Library of Congress archives.
September 4 - October 14
Art Museum
The Paper Sculpture Show
The Paper Sculpture Show is an interactive exhibition that brings artists and visitors together by providing a hands-on art making experience. The exhibition consists of works by 20 artists, drawn on flat sheets of paper and stacked in the gallery space. The visitor chooses a project, takes the printed sheet, and cuts out and assembles the three-dimensional sculpture. As the weeks pass, the gallery spaces become filled with art work.
September 12
7:00 p.m., S107 South Kedzie Hall
Department of Art and Art History Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series: Massimo Vignelli
Design legend Massimo Vignelli will lecture in conjunction with a screening of Helvetica on September 13. Vignelli sees design as a tool that can span across different physical and cultural boundaries. His work is included in collections around the world, from MOMA in New York City to Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.
September 13
7:00 p.m., S109 South Kedzie Hall
Department of Art and Art History Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series: Film Screening of Helvetica
Sponsored jointly by the Department of Art and Art History and AIGA Detroit Chapter, this independent film explores typography, graphic design, and global visual culture as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.
September 16
4:30 p.m., Henry Center
Art Museum: Twilight in the Garden 2007
This event features silent and live auctions, hors d’oeuvres, dinner, and dessert. Proceeds benefit the Art Museum Facilities Fund to
build the future Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.
September 18 - 23
The Department of Theatre will present As Bees in Honey Drown by Douglas Carter Beane in the Arena Theatre (lower level, Auditorium Building) on Tuesday, September 18, at 7:30 p.m.;
Wednesday, September 19, at 7:30 p.m.;
Thursday, September 20, at 7:30 p.m.;
Friday, September 21, at 8:00 p.m.;
Saturday, September 22, at 8:00 p.m.; and
Sunday, September 23, at 2:00 p.m. Synopsis: Evan Wyler is a hot new young writer who is snatched up by a mysterious woman, Alexa Vere de Vere, who promises him connections, wealth, and supreme success. As her promises never materialize, the writer investigates Alexa’s past, which holds secrets both dark and hilarious. This satire of fame, art, and trendiness is an excellent introduction to the Year of Arts and Culture. Tickets are available at the Wharton Center Box Office or 1 (800) WHARTON.
November 7 - 9
The African American and African Studies Program will sponsor its second annual Black Religion and Spirituality in the 21st Century conference at the Kellogg Center. Read more...
November 9-11
The College of Arts and Letters will sponsor Gramsci Now: Cultural and Political Theory, An International Symposium at the East Lansing Marriott. The symposium commemorates the 70th anniversary of Gramsci's death and will bring together a number of distinguished scholars in fields throughout the humanities and social sciences. The topics to be discussed will range from the translation into English and editing of the Prison Notebooks; Gramsci’s ongoing importance to postcolonial theory, cultural studies, and economic and political theory; and Gramsci’s relevance to our understanding of the contemporary world, particularly the "new world order" that came into being following the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Read more...
Links
College of Arts and Letters website and events calendar
(to have your event included, send information to the editor)
- Year of Arts and Culture
- Department of Art and Art History news and events
- Art Museum news
- MSU Museum news
- Department of Theatre events
- College of Music news and events
- Department of History news and events
- American Indian Studies Program events
- Jewish Studies Program events
- Rhetoric and Writing news
- Center for Gender in Global Context news
- MSU Libraries events and exhibition calendar
- WKAR public broadcasting (radio and television)
- Michigan State University Press
- MSU Today