Center for Advanced Study - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign : events : millercomm lecture series : fall 2004

CAS/MillerComm Lecture Series

Fall 2004

Support for this series as a whole is provided by:
Office of the Chancellor, Office of Equal Opportunity and Access, Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, The Center for Advanced Study, George A. Miller Programs Committee and Peggy Harris Memorial Fund, The Council of Deans, and The Graduate College.

		Stereotypes of Jews in Twentieth Century Cinema August 31, 2004 Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center 919 West Illinois Street, Urbana University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Omer Bartov George A. Miller Endowment Visiting Professor and Krouse Family Visiting Scholar, UIUC, and John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History, Brown University
Using still images, Omer Bartov focuses on varying ways Jews have been represented in cinema: as perpetrators in anti-Semitic films, as victims in Holocaust films, as heroes, especially in Hollywood films on the establishment of Israel, and as anti-heroes, mainly in Israeli films that make the "Jew" Nazi-like and the Arabs as Jew-like victims. Omer Bartov focused on the following films: The Golem The Pawnbroker Don't Touch My Holocaust Korczak All but Don't Touch My Holocaust are available through the Urbana Free Library Sponsored by: Program in Jewish Culture and Society In conjunction with: Department of Anthropology, Department of History, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Program for the Study of Religion, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, Unit for Cinema Studies, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory Omer Bartov was on WILL-AM radio's call-in program, FOCUS-580. Listen to the archived interview here.

		Kinsey and the Future of Female Sexuality September 9, 2004 Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum 600 South Gregory, Urbana University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Elizabeth Grosz Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University
Elizabeth Grosz explores Alfred C. Kinsey's researches on female sexuality, not as sociological, psychological or physiological contributions, but as part of an emerging philosophy of difference. The relevance of Kinsey's work for feminist revisions of female sexuality has been clear since the 1960s. However, there is much in his work that both anticipates and welcomes a more post-modern understanding of the relations between sexuality, power, and knowledge. Sponsored by: Gender and Women's Studies Program In conjunction with: Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Department of Anthropology, Department of Kinesiology, Department of Political Science, Department of Psychology, Department of Sociology, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Institute of Communications Research, LGBT Advisory Committee, Medical Scholars Program, Office of the Chancellor, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory Elizabeth Grosz was on WILL-AM radio's call-in program, FOCUS-580. Listen to the archived interview here.

		China's Rural-Urban Migrants: Equal Opportunities? September 21, 2004 Tuesday, 4:00 p.m. Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center 919 West Illinois Street, Urbana University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Wu Qing George A. Miller Visiting Professor, UIUC, Professor emerita, Beijing Foreign Studies University, and People's Deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress
Approximately 100 million people have migrated from rural areas to the cities of China since the transition reforms began in the late 1970s. Laws restricting internal migration still exist and limit the ability of the migrant children to get education. Wu Qing is presently fighting for the rights of rural-urban migration migrants to education in the city: supporting a bill that passed that gives the children the right to enter public schools without paying extra fees; helping improve schools that the migrants have set up; and registering migrants for services. Sponsored by: Center for East Asian And Pacific Studies Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program In conjunction with: Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of Educational Policy Studies, Department of Human and Community Development, Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology, Department of Urban Regional Planning, East Asian Exchange Program, Gender and Women's Studies Program, International Programs and Studies

			Russian-US Relations in the Coming Decade September 23, 2004 Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum 600 South Gregory, Urbana University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Susan Eisenhower Chairman and Senior Fellow, The Eisenhower Institue, Washington, D.C.
In the aftermath of the USSR's collapse, US-Russian policy is bein transformed around new areas of agreements and conflict. Commonalities such as free-market capitalism, and a recent joint emphasis on fighting terrorism are at odds with disagreements concerning NATO expansion, missile defense, and increasing American dominance across the globe. Renowned Russian Studies expert Susan Eisenhower will analyze the dynamics of recent US-Russian relations within this emergent, politically charged environment. Sponsored by: International Program and Studies Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security In conjunction with: Center for Global Studies, Department of Journalism, Department of Political Science, Institute for Government and Public Affairs, Global Crossroads Living-Learning Community, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, Spurlock Museum Susan Eisenhower was on WILL-AM radio's call-in program, FOCUS-580. Listen to the archived interview here.

The Uncanny, the Queer, and the Creepy: Fictions of Artificial Life
September 28, 2004
Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Third Floor, Levis Faculty
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ross Chambers
George A. Miller Endowment Visiting Professor, UIUC and Professor of French, University of Michigan

Ross Chambers talks about the fictions of "artificial life" and what they have to do with contemporary concerns around cloning, genetic modifications and the like, including monsters, automata, vivisected animals and illusions. His questions include "How do these figures interpellate vs. non-artificial humans? Why are the men always scary monsters, the women alluring but unpossessable because 'heartless'"? He also diagnoses something he calls "pseudophobia," along the axis of the monstrous and the glamorous.

Sponsored by:
Department of French

In conjunction with:
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Contemporary French Civilization, Department of Anthropology, Department of English, Foreign Language Building, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Program in Comparative and World Literature, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory

Family, Gender and State in the Middle East and South Asia
October 7, 2004
Thursday, 7:30 p.m.
Third Floor, Levis Faculty
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Suad Joseph
Department of Anthropology, University of California at Davis

The Middle East and South Asia offer fertile ground for comparative analysis of family/state relations. Both are multi-ethnic and -religious regions in which family has become a site for codifying these differences in law written largely on the bodies of women. Both regions have active women's movements struggling within and against the state, using international conventions and localized cultural discourses, to advance their agendas within and against "the" family. In both regions, one cannot but see "the" family as political.

Sponsored by:
Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

In conjunction with:
Center for African Studies, Center for Global Studies, Department of Anthropology, Department of Economics, Department of English, Department of French, Department of Human and Community Development, Department of Linguistics, Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology, Gender and Women's Studies Program, Global Crossroads International Living-Learning Community, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, International Programs and Studies, Program for the Study of Religion, Program in Comparative Literature and World Literature, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program

Suad Joseph was on WILL-AM radio's call-in program, FOCUS-580. Listen to the archived interview here.

Iraq: From Sanctions to Occupation and Resistance
October 21, 2004
Thursday, 4:00 p.m.
Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tariq Ali
Writer, journalist and filmmaker

Tariq Ali has been an outspoken critic of the American occupation of Iraq and the larger U.S. administration agenda for proliferating democracy in the Middle East through an Iraqi beachhead. Here he reviews themes developed in Bush in Babylon to explain how current U.S. policy in the Middle East may be having precisely the opposite effect than Washington intends.

Sponsored by:
Department of History

In conjunction with:
Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Unit One

Tariq Ali was on WILL-AM radio's call-in program, FOCUS-580. Listen to the archived interview here.

Android Dreams and Transnational Care Work
October 22, 2004
Friday, 4:00 p.m.
Room 314, Illini Union
1401 West Green Street, Urbana
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Nancy Folbre
Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Nancy Folbre addresses the changing "care sector" of the economy, including the declining supply of unpaid labor and the difficulty of increasing labor productivity in jobs that require emotional and personal contact. Efforts are underway to develop robots that can help meet the personal care needs of the elderly. She explains why these efforts are unlikely to succeed and discusses alternatives, such as transational migration of women from developing countries. These solutions, however, pose problems of their own.

Sponsored by:
Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program

In conjunction with:
Asian Law, Politics, and Society Program, College of Law, Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Center for Global Studies, Center for International Business Education and Research, College of Applied Life Studies, Cross-Campus Initiative on Aging, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, Department of Anthropology, Department of Community Health, Department of Economics, Department of Educational Policy Studies, Department of Human and Community Development, Department of Sociology, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Disability Research Institute, Division of Rehabilitation-Education Services, Gender and Women's Studies Program, International Programs and Studies, Migration Studies Group, Nursing Institute, School of Social Work

Water and Its Publics: Social Action Across Spaces and Scales
November 4, 2004
Thursday, 7:30 p.m.
Third Floor, Levis Faculty
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Amita Baviskar
Department of Sociology, University of Delhi, India

From the conflict about the upper run of the Salt Fork river in eastern Illinois to the battles over the Narmada Dam in India, hydropolitics (conflicts over property, distribution and use of water) are at once local and global. Baviskar argues that contemporary crises around water expose the limits of conventional conceptions of a "public" concerned with safeguarding ecology and equity. These crises afford opportunities for alternative imaginings of social action that transect spaces and scales.

Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

In conjunction with:
Center for African Studies, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Center for Global Studies, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department of Landscape Architecture, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, Department of Sociology, Transnational Seminar, Environmental Council, European Union Center, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Program, Illinois Water Resources Center, International Programs and Studies, Russian, East European, Eurasian Studies Center, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program

Amita Baviskar was on WILL-AM radio's call-in program, FOCUS-580. Listen to the archived interview here.

		Music Libraries and Archives in the Cultural Chemistry of America November 16, 2004 Tuesday, 4:00 p.m. Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum 600 South Gregory, Urbana University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Alan Jabbour Director retired, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
America's music transforms our experiences into potent messages inspiring social justice, enlivening collective action, and reflecting chemistries of our nation's collective social fabric. Alan Jabbour discusses the roles archives, libraries, and heritage centers play in the preservation of music and the promotion of America's diverse cultures. He also touches on such topics as traditional fiddling in rural American and oral tradition as a preserver of community identity and cultural heritage. Sponsored by: Sousa Archives and Center for American Music In conjunction with: Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, School of Music, Spurlock Museum, University Library This talk is part of a month-long celebration at UIUC highlighting all music in America including events recognizing the sesquicentennial of John Philip Sousa's birth. For more information please contact www.library.uiuc.edu/sousa or call 244-9309. Alan Jabbour was on WILL-AM radio's call-in program, FOCUS-580. Listen to the archived interview here.

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