Conversations in the Humanities: Biyi Bandele with Tuzyline Jita Allan

Nigerian-born playwright and novelist Biyi Bandele speaks with Tuzyline Jita Allan about his daring and politically-charged adaptation of the 17th century classic Oroonoko, a story of a journey from kingship to slavery, written by Aphra Behn, the first professional female author in Europe. Ooronoko, which was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, will have its US premiere at Theater for a New Audience in February. Biyi Bandele’s plays have been presented at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Court and Royal National Theatre, and his novels include The Sympathetic Undertaker and Burma Boy. Tuzyline Jita Allan is Professor of English at Baruch College, editor of Women Writing Africa, and author of Womanist and Feminist Aesthetics: A Comparative Review.

7540 - Thursday, January 31 6:30-7:30pm
First Come, First serve. No pre-registration permitted

The Shadow Army: Military Contractors, Citizenship, and the Law

What position do military contractors hold with regards to international law, domestic accountability? This interdisciplinary panel brings together scholars from the fields of law, anthropology, and philosophy to consider the myriad issues surrounding the growing reliance on privately paid soldiers: what for instance, is these soldiers relationship to the economy of sacrifice which under girds the American military’s obligation to its wounded and killed? Participants will include Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, Associate Professor, University of Buffalo Law School; Paul Kahn, Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities and Director, Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights, Yale University; Avril McDonald, Research Associate of the TMC Asser Institute and Lecturer in International Humanitarian Law at the University of Groningen. Modertaed by John Collins, Assistant Professor of Anthropplogy, Queens College.

7545- Thursday, February 28 7:00-8:30pm
First Come, First serve. No pre-registration permitted

Conversations in the Humanities: Joseph Lowndes and Kimberly Phillips-Fein

Joseph Lowndes, Political Science, University of Oregon, speaks with Kimberly Phillips-Fein, History, The Gallatin School, New York University, about the way that race, nationalism, and economics have shaped the history of the American right. Joseph Lowndes is the author of the forthcoming From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism, and he is the co-editor of the forthcoming Race and American Political Development. Kimberly Phillips-Fein has written for The Nation, London Review of Books, New Labor Forum, Baffler and is currently working on her first book, tentatively titled The Great Utopia: How American Business Fought the New Deal Order.

7541 - Thursday, March 13 7:00-8:30pm
First Come, First serve. No pre-registration permitted

Conversations in the Humanities: Sonny Rollins with Gary Giddins

Tenor saxophonist, composer, and jazz titan Sonny Rollins speaks with Gary Giddins about the history of music, jazz, and ideas. Rollins's long and prolific career began at the age of 11; he famously recorded with Bud Powell and rehearsed with Thelonious Monk while still in his teens. After working with the likes of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, he embarked on a series of historic albums that established him as one of the most influential musicians of the past half-century, often referred to by the title of his benchmark album, Saxophone Colossus; countless musicians imitated his virtuoso technique and approach to "thematic improvisation," and several of his pieces became jazz standards. Rollins is regarded by many as the greatest living figure in jazz. Gary Giddins, who has chronicled his career for more than 35 years, is the author of nine books, including Natural Selection, Weather Bird; Satchmo; Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams; and Visions of Jazz, for which he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

7542 - Wednesday, March 26 6:30-7:30pm
First Come, First serve. No pre-registration permitted

Conversations in the Humanities: Junot Diaz with Francisco Goldman

Writers Junot Diaz and Francisco Goldman discuss writing lives, through history and fiction. Junot Diaz is the author of Drown and The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which was awarded the Sargent First Novel Prize and was selected by Time and New York Magazine as the best novel of 2007. Franciso Goldman is the author The Long Night of White Chickens, which won the Sue Kaufman Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award, and The Ordinary Seaman, which was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Fiction Prize, the PEN/Faulkner award and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His most recent books are The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? and The Divine Husband.

7543 - Thursday, April 3 6:30-8:00pm
First Come, First serve. No pre-registration permitted

Rites of Return: Poetics and Politics

What is driving the contemporary obsession with the recovery of roots? Join us for a day of intense discussion and conversation with world–renowned scholars, writers, artists and curators exploring questions of origin and identity, national and cultural memory, “trauma tourism” and museums of conscience. The opening panel, which will take place at Columbia University on April 10th, will consider politics of national memory and return -- literal and figurative -- to Katrina and the closing keynote, will be given by Israeli journalist Amira Hass. Participants include writers Daniel Mendelsohn, Saidiya Hartman and Eva Hoffman, photographers Keith Calhoun, Chandra McCormick, and Susan Meiselas, and scholars Svetlana Boym, Marianne Hirsch, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Nancy K. Miller, Diana Taylor and Patricia Williams.

7544 - Friday, April 11 9:00am-8:00pm
First Come, First serve. No pre-registration permitted