Why is a 200-year-old play about a wager with the devil so relevant now? What European language will gradually disappear during the coming decade? Can a “teachable” lesson be gleaned from the arrest of Henry Louis Gates this past summer in Cambridge?
And what’s the secret to understanding a seemingly inscrutable poem?
These are among the questions that University of Chicago faculty will answer during the 31st annual Humanities Day on Saturday, Oct. 24.
The oldest event of its kind in Chicago and the inspiration for the citywide Chicago Humanities Festival, the University’s Humanities Day will feature more than 25 faculty members presenting lectures and leading discussions across the Hyde Park campus.
In addition to showcasing some of the world’s foremost scholars in literature, language, religion, philosophy, history, music, art and drama, Humanities Day also offers guided museum tours, film screenings and concerts.
The goal of the free, annual open house is to celebrate the humanities and to share the work of scholars with the general public. “Our faculty members have the distinctive ability to make humanities scholarship vital and central. Their engagement and enthusiasm bring our friends and alumni back to campus for Humanities Day each autumn,” said Martha T. Roth, Dean of the University’s Humanities Division.
And few are better known for making the life of the mind accessible than this year’s keynote speaker. David Wellbery, Professor of Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature, has a nearly fanatical following among UChicago students.
Wellbery will deliver his presentation, “Who is Faust?” from 11 a.m. to noon at Mandel Hall. The author of two studies that are considered classics in German literary history, Wellbery has spent much of his career studying Johan Wolfgang Goethe. He has written two books on Goethe’s poetry and numerous scholarly articles on aspects of his work, but it was his 2005 essay for “A New History of German Literature”—and Wellbery’s own struggle to make sense of “Faust”—that stimulated his Humanities Day presentation.
“Faust” took Goethe nearly 60 years (1772-1832) to complete and is arguably the supreme achievement of one of the greatest writers of the Romantic era. In his lecture, Wellbery will examine why philosophers from Hegel to Santayana and writers from Thomas Mann to Paul Valéry have considered the play such a profound statement about the human condition and why the Faust is still so compelling today.
The day is organized in three sessions, beginning at 9:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Highlights include:
The Stoic Path to Happiness: Not all cultures have thought individual happiness should be the aim of life, but for the ancient Greeks and Romans, attaining this elusive goal was the main purpose of practicing philosophy. Classicist Shadi Bartsch will look at one school of ancient philosophers, the Roman Stoics, their unique perspective on getting to one’s “happy place” and its feasibility for humans today.
Some Shtick from “Tricky Dick” and the Circulation of the U.S. Presidential Image: Linguist Michael Silverstein will return for his popular analysis of political communications. Silverstein will focus on a specific incident from Richard Nixon’s presidency—and the article reporting on this incident—to show how “message” and U.S. electoral politics is uneasily joined to the institution of news reportage.
20 Years After the Wall: The communist regimes of Eastern and Central Europe fell one after another in the autumn of 1989. In honor of this historic anniversary, Robert Bird, Associate Professor in Slavic Languages, will lead a panel discussion reflecting on the nature of Soviet communism, the Cold War that it helped to engender and the legacy of totalitarianism in contemporary European culture.
Mixing Musical Worlds for India’s Silver Screen: Music plays an extraordinarily important role in the South Asian films. Ethnomusicologist Kaley Mason, a specialist in South Asian cinema, will discuss the creative musical work behind the scenes in India’s commercial film industries, from Bollywood in the north to Malluwood in the south.
How to Read a Hard Poem? What does one do when confronted with a poem that seems, on first sight, unintelligible? Richard Strier, an expert in Shakespeare and the Renaissance, will show that without any outside information, one can grasp the meaning of poems that seem hopelessly difficult. The sample hard poem: a work from the notoriously abstruse American poet Hart Crane.
What Would Rossini Want? Philip Gossett, a musicologist who is arguably the foremost authority on 19th-century Italian opera, will discuss one of the most exciting discoveries in the world of classical music scholarship—a new critical edition of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, which reveals for the first time the composer’s ornamentation for the opera. From material in The New Critical Edition of Il barbiere di Siviglia and Ornamenting an Early Nineteenth-Century Opera, it’s now possible to know not only what Rossini may have thought was appropriate to introduce, but also what singers of his time actually performed.
Olympian Art: Proposals for Munich ’72: Art historian Christine Mehring will show some of the proposed art projects for the 1972 Munich Olympics. Mehring will discuss some of the questions organizers confronted, given the unique historical circumstances: What did it mean, for instance, for the Games to return to Germany, which had last hosted the event under National Socialism? What was the relationship between the architectural designs and their Munich site?
Colonization and the Expansion of European Languages: Winners and Losers: The colonization of the world has entailed not only the spread of languages, but also competition among them. Linguist Salikoko Mufwene, who latest book applies evolutionary theory to language change, will look at the linguistic legacy of European colonization: Why has English prevailed in some places, but not in others? Why are some European languages thriving, while others are dying?
In addition to the lectures, the Smart Museum of Art will offer docent-led tours of its current exhibition “Heartland”; the Committee on Creative Writing will present the work of faculty members Srikanth Reddy, Megan Stielstra and Garin Cycholl; and the Department of Cinema and Media Studies will host a screening of Jacques Tati’s 1949 film Jour de Fete.
The Music Department’s Philip Bohlman and his wife Christine Wilkie Bohlman will lead a performance, bringing to the stage the final work from the concentration camps and the Holocaust, The Chronicle of Life and Death of the Flag-Bearer Christoph Rilke (1944).
The University’s Civic Knowledge Project will host a discussion, in conjunction with South Side arts and education organizations, about the vital role the humanities can play on the South Side of Chicago, especially for people in difficult circumstances.
For a complete list of the events and times, visit http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanitiesday. Seating is limited, and advanced registration is required.
—Prof. Kunle Odunsi
