Category: lecture

UGA welcomes author and journalist Mellisa Fay Green to campus on April 19 to give the 20th Ferdinand Phinizy Lecture at 1:30 p.m. in the Chapel:

Greene's lecture on "The Literature of Fact and Why Good Writing Still Matters" is free and open to the public. A brief reception will follow.

"Like Melissa herself, her writing is brilliantly sensitive to the hilarious as well as the bittersweet. I am very grateful that she is joining the ranks of truly gifted writers who have come to campus as Phinizy lecturers," said James C. Cobb, Phinizy Lecture committee chair and the Spalding Distinguished Research Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of history.

Origins of the Phinizy Lecture date back to the UGA class of 1838 and the endowment epitomizes the legacy of private support: honoring the past by investing in the future. Green's lecture will be a treat, a wonderful afternoon on campus.

As part of its 'African Diplomat on Campus' series, the African Studies Institute presents a public lecture by HE Seydou Bouda on Tuesday, April 9 at 4 p.m. in room 480 of the Tate Student Center:

His Excellency, Ambassador Seydou Bouda has served as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Burkina Faso to the United States of America August 2011. A Development Economist, Ambassador Bouda has worked in the government of Burkina Faso in various capacities for almost 30 years. His positions have included, but are not limited to: Minister of Health, Minister of Public Service and State Reform, and Minister of Economy and Development. The Ambassador has a specific interest in economic and political development in Africa, as well as poverty reduction strategies.
Ambassador Bouda will be delivering the lecture on some of the significant development challenges facing African nations in the 21st century.

For more information, please contact Loretta Davenport at the African Studies Institute.

Tomorrow, Tuesday April 2, the Graduate School presents the 13th annual Mary Frances Early Lecture at 4 pm in the UGA Chapel.

The Speaker is Hank Klibanoff, a Pulitzer Prize winner and the James M. Cox, Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University.

In 2007, Klibanoff won the Pulitzer Prize in history for his book "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation." The book explores news coverage of civil rights from the 1930s through the late 1960s, particularly the impact of the black press, the Northern press, the Southern liberal and segregationist press, television and photojournalism.

The lecture honors Mary Frances Early, the first African American to earn a degree from UGA, and her legacy at the university. Early graduated with a master's degree in music education in 1962. She completed her specialist in education degree in 1967.

Also tomorrow afternoon is a Visiting Artist/Scholar Lecture in the Lamar Dodd School of Art by Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the High Museum of Art Michael Rooks 5:30 pm in room S151 of the school of art.

Rooks is also Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Prior to joining the High Museum in 2010, Rooks held curator positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, and the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Both of the terrific events are free and open to the public.

The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts presents a lecture by assistant professor of art Jon Swindler on Wednesday March 27 at 4 p.m. in room S150 of the lamar Dodd School of Art. The lecture, part of the 2012-23 Fellows Lecture Series in the Willson Center, is titled "This ≠ That: Mediation and Accumulation."

Swindler's talk will focus on
two recent printmaking-based
projects generated during an
artist residency in Venice, Italy.

A printmaker, Swindler is one of our great young art faculty members. And who among us doesn't love Venice? This should be good.

The Origins Lecture Series continues next week with the Origin of Life by series founder and chair of the division of biological sciences, Mark Farmer:

The origin of life remains one of the great unsolved mysteries in all of science.  Late in life Charles Darwin speculated that life may have begun in “a warm little pond” but today we think it more likely that the earliest life forms emerged in the dark depths of the early Earth’s oceans.  Even the simplest of cells is marvelously complex and for this reason there are those who feel that such complexity could not have arisen from natural processes.  In this lecture we will explore the transition from complex biochemistry to simple cells and offer explanations as to how the first free-living life forms emerged to eventually give rise to the riot of complex organisms we find today.

 7 p.m., Wednesday the 20th. These have all been a hit so far and this one promises to be no different. Get to the chapel early.

Bernie Lubell is an installation artist based in San Francisco who has long championed the power of human-machine interaction to unlock creative energy. If that sounds hokey, just consider one of his pieces:

It's that kind of human interaction that he has keyed into with his work, which he will discuss during a lecture at the Lamar Dodd School of Art on Tuesday March 19 at 5:30 p.m. in room S151.

His UGA lecture on "The Etiology of Innocence," which will begin with a detailed discussion of his room-sized heart simulation, is a tour of 13 of his interactive wood machines. In discussing their origins, implications and construction, Lubell will draw on the 19th century physiologies of Etienne Jules Marey and evolutionary theory, question the nature of time, explore the palpable contributions of touch and the importance of accidents and failure. Quantum entanglement, language, navigation, magic and the Marx brothers also figure in the exposition.

In addition to his lecture, he will meet with graduate students from various studios in the school of art and lead a workshop on failure, during which the students will build and present what Lubell describes as a "machine that fails at love."

Lubell has a distinguished list of exhibitions and science museum installations. Just the kind of experience students will enjoy and learn from, and it sounds like he remembers that all-important element of art and artmaking: fun. Mark your calendars.

Our favorite historian, B. Phinizy Spalding Distinguished Professor in the History of the American South James C. Cobb, kicks of the Global Georgia Initiative with a lecture at 4 p.m. in the Chapel on Jan. 29:

He will discuss "De-Mystifying Dixie: Southern History and Culture in Global Perspective."

"My hope is to demonstrate that much of the South's perceived weirdness relative to the rest of the United States falls away when it is viewed in global context," said Cobb of his Global Georgia lecture. "In other words, seen as ‘a part of the world,' it seems less ‘a world apart.' "

And then the very next day on the same Chapel stage, Cobb will present the 11th Annual Founders Day Lecture at 2 p.m.

Cobb's talk is titled "I Don't Believe I'd a' Told That! Understanding the South Through Humor."

"My predecessors at the podium have set a very high standard," said Cobb, a faculty member in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "I can only hope that, as we celebrate our university's rise to national and global prominence, my remarks will affirm the importance of staying in touch with its cultural roots as well."

Cobb is one of the foremost scholars of Southern history and culture and among the first to write broadly about the South in a global context.

Unusual but good for Cobb to make himself available for two important public lectures in two days. Don't miss either one.

Image: James C. Cobb.  Photo by Christopher T. Martin

History and openness sometimes clash when representing conflicting interests within a society. When a nation or continent with a rich history evolves to the point of honesty and openness about its past, some ugly chapters must be dealt with, even taught to its students, and often laws are put in place to codify how (and that) this should be done. These are called Memory Laws and several have emerged in Europe over the course of the last century. At the end of January, one noted authority on such laws will visit the Franklin College to speak at UGA:

Nikolay Koposov, currently a visiting professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, will present the lecture “Memory Laws in Europe: A New Civil Religion” Jan. 28 at 4:30 p.m. in the Larry Walker Room of the University of Georgia’s Dean Rusk Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

“Memory Laws in Europe” will provide a general overview on legislation dealing with historical memory, from post-war anti-fascist legislation through the lois mémorielles in France in the 1990s and up to contemporary battles over acknowledging the past in Eastern Europe and Turkey. The idea of memory laws emerged in France during debates over how to teach French colonialism.

Koposov’s lecture and visit to UGA is sponsored the department of Germanic and Slavic studies and the department of history in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; the School of Law’s Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy; the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts; and the School of Public and International Affairs.

The Shaheen lecture in the school of art brings renowned Byzantine art curator and scholar Helen C. Evans to campus:

Evans, the Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will present the 2013 Shouky Shaheen Lecture Jan. 17 at 5:30 p.m. in room S151 of the University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art.

The lecture, which brings an internationally recognized artist or scholar to campus each year, is free and open to the public.

“We are so very fortunate to have Helen Evans come to UGA at this moment, particularly on the heels of the most recent major exhibition,” said Asen Kirin, associate professor and associate director in the school of art. “The Byzantine era straddles the Middle Ages as well as east and west, and so presents a very rich crossroads of the most treasured works of art in the history of man. Evans’ expertise on this work is essential.”

A specialist in early Christian, Byzantine and Armenian art, Evans installed the Jaharis Galleries of Byzantine Art at the Metropolitan Museum in 2000, which were its first galleries dedicated to Byzantine art, and expanded the galleries in 2008. Her most recent exhibition “Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition” covered the seventh through ninth centuries and closed in the summer of 2012 after receiving glowing reviews in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the International Herald Tribune. The New York Review of Books’ Peter Brown, the leading scholar of this era, called it “magnificently conceived.”

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the the division of biological sciences will host a new lecture series on the UGA campus this spring: The Origins Lecture Series

Since mankind’s earliest days the story of our origins has been one of fascination and inspiration.  In an effort to share that story six of UGA’s leading scientists have come together to present the latest scientific findings on everything from our humble beginnings on the plains of east Africa to the formation of the universe itself.  The Origins Lecture Series is intended for the entire Athens community.  In clear and plain language these talks are geared for those who want to know more about who we are, how we got here, and possibly, where we are going.

We'll have much more to say about this in the coming weeks, including a preview of the first lecture in the series by Loris Magnani of the department of physics and astronomy on the Origin of the Universe on Wednesday, January 23. Congratulations and thanks to Mark Farmer, chair of our biological sciences division, for bringing this important lecture series to fruition.