Ullrich Langer will discuss classical conceptualizations of pleasure and their relationship to the literary work of art. In Langer’s conception, literature not only conveys pleasure, but mimics the very structure of pleasure. In this talk, he will examine connections between the literary pleasure of variety and the pleasure that is unconstrained activity, in selected French and Italian Renaissance literary texts, extending the discussion to these themes in pre-absolutist theories of royal sovereignty.
Ullrich Langer is a Professor in the UW-Madison department of French and Italian. He has published numerous books and articles, including Divine and Poetic Freedom in the Renaissance: Nominalist Theology and Literature in France and Italy (Princeton University Press, 1990), and Perfect Friendship: Studies in Literature and Moral Philosophy from Boccacio to Corneille (Droz, 1994). He is currently a Senior Fellow at the at the UW-Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities (2000-2005). Professor Langer is currently a senior fellow Institute for Research in the Humanities, and he will be Visiting Professor at the Centre d'Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance (Université de Tours) in January and May, 2003.
In the early 1920s, German painter Max Beckmann's most representative portraits were of strong women in his Frankfurt circles. From 1925-1937 he focused intensely on portraits of several male artists, scholars, and champions. A world-renowned specialist on Beckman’s work, Barbara Buenger will consider what he tried to convey of himself and his times in a few of those key works.
Barbara Buenger is Professor in the UW-Madison department of Art History, where she specializes in 20th-century European, 19th- & 20th-century German, and modern women artists; modern Italian art; modern European artists and design. She translated and edited Max Beckmann. Self Portrait in Words. Collected Writings and Statements, 1903-1950, (University of Chicago Press, 1997). Selected other publications include “Max Beckmann's 'Der Künstler im Stadt' (1927)” in Überbrückt: Ästhetische Moderne und Nationalsozialismus. Künsthistoriker und Künstler 1925-1937 (Walther König, 1999) and "Deconstructing Identity: Eva-Marie Schön's Origin of the Species" in Other Germanies: Questioning Identity in Women's Literature and Art (State University of New York Press, 1998). She earned a BA at Vassar College and a PhD at Columbia University.
“Oriental music" is a contemporary vocal-dance genre that is performed in Romania by Romani musicians. It is coded as a form of "Gypsy" music, and combines Romanian traditional and popular music with Romani, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Turkish elements, reflecting an eclectic but distinctly "oriental" (Middle Eastern) sound. This hybridized music is extremely popular among youth, working-class and rural Romanians, and Roms (Gypsies). It is rejected, however, by ethnic Romanian nationalists and intellectuals who seek to deny Romani, Middle Eastern, and southern Balkan cultural influences in Romania. In her talk, Margaret Beissinger will explore the conflicting identities and cultural confrontations generated by "oriental music" in post-communist Romania.
Margaret Beissinger is Assistant Professor in the UW-Madison department of Slavic Languages and Literature. She earned a PhD at Harvard University, and specializes in the oral epic, Balkan oral traditions, Romani (Gypsy) traditions and culture, gender issues in Balkan literature and traditional culture, and South Slavic and Romanian languages.
Classics department chair Carole Newlands will discuss two poems that address the display of animals in the Roman amphitheatre.
Carole Newlands is Chair of the Classics Department at the UW-Madison. She took her MA at the University of St. Andrews and PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught at UC Berkeley, Cornell, and UCLA. Her extensive list of publications includes translations of Peter Ramus’ Rhetoricae Distinctiones in Quintilianum (Northern Illinois University Press, 1986) and Brutinae Quaestiones (Hermagoras Press, 1993); Playing with Time: Ovid's Fasti (Cornell University Press, 1995) and Statius' Silvae and the Poetics of Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
