Events

Radio / Rauhfaser / Television offers a provisional summation of Christopher Williams’s ongoing research into contemporary mutations of social realism. The exhibition is centered in part on the politically engaged theater of the German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz. Williams recently recorded Kroetz’s 1972 radio play Inklusive using vintage audio equipment from both East and West Germany, and the play will be broadcast on Chicago’s Lumpen Radio (105.5 FM) at several points during the show’s run. The strong sense of class consciousness in Kroetz’s work is hinted at in Williams’s use of Rauhfaser, a brand of German wallpaper steeped in social semantics. A single photograph and four hand-painted glass signs hang in the gallery alongside historical documents displayed in six purpose-built vitrines. Its modest scale notwithstanding, the exhibition has an almost manifesto-like quality to it, outlining Williams’s abiding interest in interrogating the way our visual culture is both staged and seen.

This exhibition is free and open to the public. Gallery hours: M–F, 9–4.

The John Hope Franklin Workshop Vivek Bald Cross-Racial Histories, Transmedia Stories: The Bengali Harlem Project

April 18, 11:30 AM The John Hope Franklin Room

This will be a hands-on session. No knowledge of Japanese is needed and participants will be examining Japanese books and manuscripts from the Edo period (1600-1868) with Peter Kornicki, the 2024 Paleography and the Book Visiting Professor. Whether you are interested in Japan or in the history of the book, this is a rare opportunity to come to grips with the trajectory that books followed in pre-modern Japan.

This will be a hands-on session. No knowledge of Japanese is needed and participants will be examining Japanese books and manuscripts from the Edo period (1600-1868) with Peter Kornicki, the 2024 Paleography and the Book Visiting Professor. Whether you are interested in Japan or in the history of the book, this is a rare opportunity to come to grips with the trajectory that books followed in pre-modern Japan.

This will be a hands-on session. No knowledge of Japanese is needed and participants will be examining Japanese books and manuscripts from the Edo period (1600-1868) with Peter Kornicki, the 2024 Paleography and the Book Visiting Professor. Whether you are interested in Japan or in the history of the book, this is a rare opportunity to come to grips with the trajectory that books followed in pre-modern Japan.

Join us for a presentation by 

Diane Alexander, PhD Assistant Professor of Healthcare Management, Wharton University of Pennsylvania

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

LECTURE ABSTRACT

How do people understand their connections to the world outside and inside of themselves? What do they do to give that understanding substance in practice? This is the prolegomena to a study of “learning,” as five fields of knowledge, theory, and practice that unfolded from the late 8th century into the Qing. Professor Bol is interested in conceptualizations of fields and norms of practice. The five fields—the physical world, living organisms, institutions, language, and behavior—were cumulative and contestatory. Cumulative because practice created an ever-growing body of artifacts that constituted a field. Contestatory because new conceptualizations challenged the work of earlier figures and contemporaries. Within a field there were shared modes of practice, but there were also problematics that cut across-fields and conceptualization from one field that penetrated others. Professor Bol’s project is also intended to broaden one’s practice of “intellectual history.”

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Peter K. Bol is the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His research is centered on the intellectual and social histories of China’s elites at the national and local levels from the 7th to the 17th century. He is the author of, “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China, Neo-Confucianism in History, and Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600, co-author of Sung Dynasty Uses of the I-ching, co-editor of Ways with Words, and various journal articles in Chinese, Japanese, and English.

CEAS LECTURE SERIES

The CEAS Lecture Series is an initiative that advances the University of Chicago’s Center for East Asian Studies’ mission in fostering dialogue and interdisciplinary collaboration. This annual public lecture series presents eminent scholars who concentrate on the study of East Asia in a variety of disciplines. For more information on the series, follow the link here: https://ceas.uchicago.edu/content/ceas-lecture-series-1

SPONSORSHIP

This event is co-sponsored with the University of Chicago Library.

PHOTOGRAPHY/VIDEOGRAPHY

Please note that there may be photography taken during this educational event by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies for archival and publicity purposes. By attending this event, participants are confirming their permission to be photographed and the University of Chicago’s right to use, distribute, copy, and edit the recordings in any form of media for non-commercial, educational purposes, and to grant rights to third parties to do any of the foregoing.

Join the Chicago Center on Democracy and the Center for Latin American Studies for a captivating movie screening featuring Dir. Santiago Mitre’s acclaimed film, “Argentina, 1985” (2022). The screening will be followed by a discussion led by UChicago Harris Professor Alicia Menendez. 

The film follows the true tale of courage and justice as a determined public prosecutor, alongside a youthful lawyer and their inexperienced legal ensemble fearlessly undertake the task of prosecuting the leaders of Argentina’s violent military dictatorship.

This captivating film promises to transport you to the tumultuous era of 1980s Argentina, offering insight into the complexities of Latin American history and the enduring struggle for democracy. 

Please RSVP for popcorn and refreshments!