The Humanities Institute At Stony Brook University Presents Exhibition And Lecture On New York City Community Murals
Exhibition, November 2 - December 18, open M-F, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Humanities Institute Gallery, 1013 Humanities Building. Lecture by curator Jane Weissman, Wednesday, December 9, 4:00 p.m., 1008 Humanities Building.

Oct 27, 2009 - 1:51:56 PM

STONY BROOK, N.Y., October 27, 2009 - The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook presents Images of the African Diaspora in New York City Community Murals, a traveling exhibition that explores how African and Caribbean art, history, religion and myth have influenced mural themes and content. The show will be on view in the Humanities Institute Gallery, 1013 Humanities Building, Stony Brook University, from November 2 to December 18, and is co-sponsored by the Africana Studies Department. A lecture by Jane Weissman, the curator of the show, "Community Murals in New York City: Protest and Celebration," will be held on Wednesday, December 9th at 4:00 p.m. in 1008 Humanities, Stony Brook University. The lecture is made possible by the New York Council for the Humanities as part of their "Speakers in the Humanities" series.

The exhibition, whose images are bursting with color, examines the traditional meaning of diasporan images and symbols in the context of National Black Arts Movement, the artistic philosophy of Ghanaian artist Kofi Antubam, Adinkra and African fertility symbols, Ndebele house painting, Egyptian rituals, and representations of Jesus and his disciples as Blacks. The murals, from neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, also include references to African-American cultural figures, history and politics, the Caribbean slave trade, Ethiopian illuminated manuscripts and magic scrolls, and B'g'lanfini (mud cloth) fabric.

The West African Sankofa Bird presented in the murals flying forward while looking backward and carrying an egg in its mouth, symbolizing the future--reminds us that only by looking at the past can we understand who we are now and how to move forward. Included in the show are murals depicting and commenting upon recent immigration to the United States. "This beautiful exhibition is particularly timely," said E. Ann Kaplan, the Humanities Institute Director, as Stony Brook will be hosting an international conference on migration on November 12-13, presented by the Humanities Institute in collaboration with the Alfonse M. D'Amato Chair in Italian and Italian-American Studies. The exhibition coincides with the publication of Janet Braun-Reinitz and Jane Weissman's On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City, University Press of Mississippi, 2009. Weissman and Braun-Reinitz are longtime members of the Brooklyn-based Artmakers, an artist-run, politically oriented community mural organization that creates high quality public art relevant to the lives, work and concerns of people in their neighborhoods.

For immediate release Unsettled Concepts: Disturbing Memory and Emotion Friday, October 22, 2010 Humanities 1006 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook (HISB) is planning an interdisciplinary conference on the subject of memory and emotion. These two words - memory and emotion - we use every day with confidence. Yet, research in the cognitive sciences and the humanities is throwing into question received notions of how and what we remember and feel. "Different disciplines use the same words in quite distinctive ways, causing misunderstandings," explains John Lutterbie, Associate Professor of Theatre and the conference co-director. He adds, "In this symposium we ask scholars in very different disciplines to engage each other in conversation about how they use these concepts in their research. How are they used in Music? In Psychology? In Sociology? These are the questions that will be asked in this all-too-rare engagement between the arts, humanities and sciences." The event is aimed at members of the public interested in this topic, as well as faculty and students in the fields of Art, Music, Theater, Psychology, Philosophy, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, English, Neuroscience and Sociology.

"Our conference is unique in bringing together faculty in the social sciences, the humanities and the arts to consider ways emotion impacts memory and vice versa," says HISB director Professor E. Ann Kaplan and conference co-director. "This reflects one of HISB's missions, namely increasing networking across the College of Arts and Sciences so as to stimulate new kinds of knowledge and intellectual collaborations," she adds. The event is free and open to the public. The keynote speaker of the conference will be Richard Shusterman, Florida Atlantic University, whose recent book Body Consciousness examines what embodiment and body awareness mean for understanding the creative self. Panels will follow with talks by sociologist Patricia Clough, New York University, musicologist Richard Ashley, Northwestern University, psychologist Elizabeth Phelps, New York University, and Stony Brook professors Richard Gerrig, Judith Lochhead, Lutterbie and Kaplan.

The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook was established in 1987 to promote interdisciplinary research across the university. Through conferences, distinguished lecturer series, faculty and student seminars, exhibitions, film series, and performances, HISB stimulates new kinds of knowledge at the cutting edge of intellectual life. Its varied programs have built, and continue to build, bridges between the human sciences and the medical, technical and natural sciences, and to reach out to the local community.

For more information please contact Dr. Olivia Mattis, olivia.mattis@stonybrook.edu or 2-9957 or visit our website: www.stonybrook.edu/humanities.

STONY BROOK, NY, November 3, 2009-The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University, in collaboration with the Alfonse M. D'Amato Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, presents an international conference, "Migrations and Transnational Identities: Crossing Borders, Bridging Disciplines." The event will take place on the campus of Stony Brook University, in the Charles B. Wang Center and the Humanities Building on Thursday, November 12 from 1:00 to 5:30 p.m. and Friday, November 13 from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

'Given the centrality of migration in transforming cultures internationally, this conference serves as a launching pad for what we hope will become a college-wide initiative dealing with migrations in global perspective,' said Professor E. Ann Kaplan, Director of the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook
?Migration is not a marginal dynamic in the lives of nations, but what informs the birth, growth and transformation of societies," said Professor Peter Carravetta, the Alfonse M. D'Amato Chair.

"In this conference we intend to explore the relevance and significance of migrations in various parts of the world, and prospects for the 21st century," he added. The roster of speakers, representing a range of disciplines from painting to political science, includes: Angela Biancofiore (University of Montpellier), Norma Bouchard (University of Connecticut), Peter Carravetta (Stony Brook University), Juan Flores (New York University), Armando Gnisci (University of Rome), Iona Man-Cheong (Stony Brook University), Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel (Rutgers University) and Martin A. Schain (New York University). There will be two keynote speakers. Frederick Buell (Queens College, CUNY) will speak on "Im/migration and the Environment: Old Conflicts, Present Urgencies," and Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco (New York University) will close the conference with his lecture, "Rethinking Immigration in the Age of Global Vertigo." The conference is accompanied by a menu of related programming including a theatrical performance, "What Killed Marcelo Lucero?" on Thursday, November 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Wang Center Theater. This work, conceived and directed by Margarita Espada-Santos, Teatro Experimental Yerbabruja, is a provocative, bilingual production that explores the murder of a Salvadoran immigrant at the hands of teenagers on Long Island who singled him out because he was Hispanic.
"It is a strong and moving production," said John Lutterbie, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and the Associate Director for Community Outreach of the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook.

A film-and-discussion series, "Migrations On-Screen," features films introduced and presented by Stony Brook faculty. La Promesse (1996), to be screened on Friday, November 6 at 11:30 a.m. in Humanities 1008, introduced by Professors Kaplan and Professor John Lutterbie, is a film by the Belgian Dardenne brothers that is an uncompromising coming-of-age story and a look at a Europe in conflict over immigrants and their often harsh treatment. In This World (2002), to be screened on Friday, December 4 at 11:30 a.m. in Humanities 1008, introduced by Professor Gallya Lahav, is British director Michael Winterbottom's ambitious road movie in which two young Afghani cousins travel overland from Pakistan to the United Kingdom in search of a better life. An exhibition, "Images of the African Diaspora in New York City Community Murals," is on view in the Humanities Institute Gallery, Humanities 1013, from November 2-December 18, 2009, Monday-Friday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
In addition to funding provided by The Humanities Institute and the D'Amato Chair, the conference is co-sponsored by the FAHSS Interdisciplinary Award and the Department of European Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Additional sponsors include the Departments of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies; English; Hispanic Languages and Literature; Political Science and Theatre Arts; and the Long Island Unitarian Universalist Foundation. The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. For more information please go to www.stonybrook.edu/humanities or www.stonybrook.edu/eurolangs or call Olivia Mattis at (631) 632-9957.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 2011 CONFERENCE ON SUSAN SONTAG CO-PRESENTED BY THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AND THE HUMANITIES INSTITUTE AT STONY BROOK On Friday, March 4th, the City University of New York Center for the Humanities will host the conference The Scandals of Susan Sontag, in collaboration with Stony Brook University's Humanities Institute. The event will take place in the Skylight Room, CUNY Humanities Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York. The event will begin with Registration at 10:00 am, and is free and open to the public.

Susan Sontag's provocative career resulted in a body of artistic and intellectual work that is scorned as often as it is admired. This one-day conference brings together a renowned roster of scholars and critics to consider the impact of her work and life. The event is co-organized by Aiobheann Sweeney, Director of the CUNY Humanities Center and E. Ann Kaplan, Director of the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook. "The conference does not aim to glorify or make a saint out of Sontag," explains Kaplan. "It rather aims to take a steady look at just some of the many contributions to thought Sontag offered across a range of topics."

The event will feature the filmmaker Nancy Kates screening excerpts from her upcoming film, Regarding Susan Sontag. Other participants will include: Barbara Ching, University of Memphis; Lisa Diedrich, Stony Brook University; E. Ann Kaplan, Stony Brook University; Laura Kipnis, Northwestern University; Susie Linfield, New York University; Heather Love, University of Pennsylvania; Jose Munoz, New York University; Deborah Nelson, The University of Chicago; Elaine Showalter, Princeton University; Catharine Stimpson, NYU and Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor, Pennsylvania State University. The Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY, was founded in 1993 as a forum for people who take ideas seriously inside and outside the academy. The Center puts CUNY students and faculty from various disciplines into dialogue with each other as well as with prominent journalists, artists, and civic leaders to promote the humanities and foster intellectual community across the city. The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook was established in 1987 to promote interdisciplinary research. Its varied programs have built, and continue to build, bridges between the human sciences and the medical, technical and natural sciences, and to reach out to the local community. For more information please contact Aoibheann Sweeney, The Center for the Humanities, ASweeney@gc.cuny.edu or (212) 817-2006 or Olivia Mattis, Humanities Institute at Stony Brook, olivia.mattis@stonybrook.edu or (631) 632-9957.