Byzantine Archaeology: New Approaches, New Discoveries

March 22 2010, Monday, 4:00pm, Room 9205

Joachim Henning, Professor at Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften, Abteilung Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, will speak on "Excavations at Pliska, Capital of the First Bulgarian Empire."

This lecture series aims to introduce some of the most important projects currently underway in Byzantine archaeology, a rapidly developing field of interdisciplinary studies dedicated to the interpretation of the material remains of the former Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire (c. 330-1453 CE). By combining traditional textual interpretations with archaeological analyses of artifacts, human and organic remains, architecture, and settlements, Byzantine archaeology has ultimately revealed entire landscapes. The speakers are paired with respondents from the CUNY faculty from a variety of disciplines. All events will be moderated by Eric Ivison, Professor of History at the Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island, CUNY.

New Visions, New Activism, New American Poetry: Margaret Randall in Conversation

March 22nd 2010, Monday, 6:30pm, The Skylight Room (9100)

The poet, political activist and publisher Margaret Randall helped shift the frame of New American Poetry beyond the US with her own political activism and by publishing El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn (1962-1969), a forum for innovative writing from all parts of the Americas featuring the work of major poets from the United States, Canada and Latin America in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Join her and the Graduate Center’s Ammiel Alcalay, Professor of English and Comparative Literature in a conversation about her work and El Corno Emplumado, then on the cutting edge of independent publishing and now an archival treasure.

Co-sponsored by the Ph.D. Program in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages and the Doctoral Students Council

All in the Family?

An Interdisciplinary Conference on Kinship and Community
March 25th-26th, 2010

For a full schedule and venues, please download the Program (PDF).

Have alternative forms of collectivity eclipsed the normative family? What are the problems and promises of new family formations? What is the business of families? How have technologies altered notions of reproduction, and in what ways is natality tied to forms of non/human association? Can househusbands be unhappy? What is responsible parenting? How does death reunite or reform kinship, personally or politically? Join us for this provocative symposia with renowned scholars from a variety of fields: Carlos Ball (Law, Rutgers School of Law), Herman Bennett (History, the Graduate Center, CUNY), Kimiko Hahn (Creative Writing, Queens College), Lynne Huffer (Women’s Studies, Emory), Kathleen Gerson (Sociology, NYU), Cindi Katz (Environmental Psychology and Geography, the Graduate Center, CUNY), Nancy K. Miller (English, the Graduate Center, CUNY), Jennifer Morgan (Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU), Kelly Oliver (Philosophy, Vanderbilt), Gabriele Schwab (Comparative Literature, UC Irvine), and many others.

Organized by the 2010-2011 Resident Mellon Fellows, Alyson M. Cole, Associate Professor of Political Science, Queens College and the Graduate Center, and Kyoo Lee, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College. Co-sponsored by philoSOPHIA: A Feminist Society and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Sean Jacobs

"Afrikaner Identity, Globalization and the Post-Apartheid Public"
March 25th 2010, Thursday, 6:15pm, Room 9206/7
Sean Jacobs is a professor in The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs, Media & Culture Concentration. Among other books, he has co-edited Thabo Mbeki's World: The Politics and Ideology of the South African President, and is working on a book on the intersection of mass media, globalization,and liberal democracy in postapartheid South Africa.

Precirculated paper and suggested reading will be posted here shortly.

Byzantine Archaeology: New Approaches, New Discoveries

April 6th 2010, Tuesday, 4:00pm, Room 9205

Alessandra Ricci, Professor in the Department of Archaeology and History of Art, Koç University, Istanbul, will speak on "Metropolitan Legends: Excavation and ArchaeoPark at the Byzantine Monastery of Satyros (Küçükyalı) at Istanbul."

This lecture series aims to introduce some of the most important projects currently underway in Byzantine archaeology, a rapidly developing field of interdisciplinary studies dedicated to the interpretation of the material remains of the former Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire (c. 330-1453 CE). By combining traditional textual interpretations with archaeological analyses of artifacts, human and organic remains, architecture, and settlements, Byzantine archaeology has ultimately revealed entire landscapes. The speakers are paired with respondents from the CUNY faculty from a variety of disciplines. All events will be moderated by Eric Ivison, Professor of History at the Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island, CUNY.