"The Life of Andrew the Fool: Poetics as the Path to Knowledge in Byzantino-Russian Tradition"
Priscilla Hunt, Five College Associate, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Date and Time: Wednesday, March 3 at 5:00 P.M.
Location: 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive
Sponsors: Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, CREECA, University Lectures Committee, Religious Studies Program
About the lecture:
This presentation explores the mystical conception of knowledge that expressed the sanctity of the empire and ruler in Byzantium and medieval Russia. The transcendental and participatory nature of this knowledge guaranteed that poetic structures rather than analytic reasoning be its key instruments of expression. This lecture will demonstrate that the 10th century Byzantine Life of St. Andrew the Fool offers a paradigm of Christian gnosticism in which the fool is the alter-ego of the emperor. On a symbolic level, the protagonist experiences an inner gnostic journey to Wisdom that was also symbolized in key Byzantine iconographic compositions and in imperial rites and processions. The Life of Andrew the Fool elucidates key cultural values that continued to sanctify the Russian state until its westernization at the end of the 17th century.
About the speaker: Priscilla Hunt is a Five College Associate at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She received her Ph.D. in Russian Literature with a minor in Intellectual History from Stanford University. Hunt’s work examines the symbolic systems that express the cultural identity of early Russia. She has examined a variety of texts, including hagiographical, iconographical and ritualized behavior to understand how poetic structure embodies culturally specific models of the self, the state, history and the world. Throughout her career, Hunt has published numerous conference papers, book reviews, and articles. Her most recent articles include: “Premudrost’ v Zhitii protopopa Avvakuma,” “Piataia chelobitnaia Avvakuma k tsariu i ritual’nyi protsess,” and “The Wisdom Iconography of Light: The Genesis, Meaning and Iconographic Realization of a Symbol.”
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"The Ecclesia Militans and the Catholic Nation in Modern Poland"
Brian Porter-Szűcs, Assistant Professor of History, University of Michigan
Date and Time: Thursday, March 4 at 4:00 P.M.
Location: 1418 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
Sponsor: CREECA, Department of Theatre and Drama, University Lectures Committee
About the lecture: Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, Catholicism was reconfigured in order to retain significance in a modern world that appeared to be unrelentingly hostile, and in Poland the path along which the Church became modern traversed the ideologically and theologically rocky ground of the nation. Secular Poles had recourse to a well-developed narrative of progress and modernization, but that worldview generally predicted that religion would fade in significance. Faced with these claims, some Catholics advocated a truly conservative response: a thorough repudiation of modernity’s social, political, and cultural transformations. But contrary to what many historians have presumed, this was not the only, or even the most common reaction. Catholicism had its own modernity, its own appropriation of the rhetoric of progress, and its own distinctive responses to the social and political changes of the past century. Unfortunately, these entailed a distinctive use of the rhetoric of nationalism, often in its most extreme forms. Even as the Catholic reforms of the mid-20th century culminated in a shift from the “Ecclesia Militans” to the “People of God,” the Polish Church remained enmeshed in an ideological and theological militancy that continues to have wide-ranging consequences.
About the speaker: Brian Porter-Szűcs is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. In 2006, he was awarded the LSA Excellence in Education Award by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. His most recent publications include “Hetmanka and Mother: Representing the Virgin Mary in Modern Poland,” Contemporary European History 14:2 (May 2005): 151-70; and “Anti-Semitism and the Search for a Catholic Modernity,” in Robert Blobaum, ed., Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005). His book, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), will appear soon in a Polish translation published by Pogranicze Press. Porter-Szűcs’s fields of study include the following: modern Eastern Europe; 19th- & 20th-century Poland; 19th- and 20th-century Roman Catholicism; and modern European intellectual
history.
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International Festival
at the Overture Center for the Arts
Date and Time: Saturday, March 6 from 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.
Location: Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State Street
CREECA-related events:
YID VICIOUS: Rich traditions of Yiddish dance music with new musical ideas
11:25 A.M. on the CUNA Mutual Group Stage, Overture Hall Lobby, Level I
UW-MADISON RUSSIAN FOLK ORCHESTRA: Russian and Eastern European folk music on authentic instruments
12:35 P.M. in the Capitol Theater, Level I
ANTHONY BUKOSKI: A reading by the author from the short story collection "North of the Port" about a family of Polish émigrés
on their journey to belonging in American culture
1:15 P.M. in the Wisconsin Studio, Level III
SERGEI BELKIN: Traditional folk songs from around the world on the accordion
1:45 P.M. on the Rotunda Stage, Lower Level
ŽAIBAS LITHUANIAN DANCERS: Lithuanian folk dances
1:45 P.M. in the Capitol Theater, Level I
VESELIYKA: Madison’s own Balkan music ensemble playing music of Bulgaria and
its neighbors on traditional folk instruments
3:40 P.M. in the Wisconsin Studio, Level III
TRI BRATOVCHEDKI: Acappella songs from Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Slovakia
4:10 P.M. in the Promenade Hall, Level II
The full performance schedule can be found at
www.overturecenter.com/community/international-fest/performance-schedule.
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"Anton Chekhov: The Ups and Downs of a Playwright's Reputation"
Laurence Senelick, Professor of Drama, Tufts University
Date and Time: Thursday, March 11 at 4:00 P.M.
Location: Mitchell Theatre in Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue
Sponsor: CREECA and the Department of Theatre and Drama
About the lecture: The Department of Theatre and Drama will host a small reception in the lobby of Vilas Hall after the lecture.
About the speaker: Laurence Senelick is the Fletcher Professor of Oratory in the Department of Drama and Dance at Tufts University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Professor Senelick’s expertise includes: theatre history; Russian theatre; history of popular entertainments; sex and gender in performance; theatre iconography; and culinary history. In 2008, he translated “Love and Intrigue” by Friedrich Schiller. He has translated and edited numerous works throughout his academic career. His most recent book was published in 2000 and is titled The Changing Room: Sex, Drag, and Theatre. Professor Senelick received numerous awards in addition to the 2008 Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools Graduate Teaching Award and the Graduate School award for Distinguished Graduate Teaching. The Changing Room received Honorable Mention for the Freedley award of the Theatre Library Association for best theatre book of 2000.
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"Patriarchy, Oligarchy, and Sobornost' in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church"
Paul Valliere, Professor of Religion, Butler University
Date and Time: Thursday, March 18 at 4:00 P.M.
Location: 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive
Sponsor: CREECA
About the lecture: This lecture will examine the theory of sobornost' ("conciliarism") and its current practice in the Russian Orthodox Church. The talk will address recent decision-making in the Russian Orthodox Church concerning sobornost' and problems of unity and disunity in the church, especially with regard to Ukraine.
About the speaker: Paul Valliere is a professor of religion and McGregor Professor in the Humanities at Butler University. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. His specialties are Russian Orthodoxy, the history of Christianity, and modern religious thought. Professor Valliere is the author of several books, most recently Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov--Orthodox Theology in a New Key.
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Romanian Film Festival
Date and Time: Thursday, March 18, through Saturday, March 20
Location: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Lecture Hall, 227 State Street
Sponsors: Romanian Cultural Institute and CREECA
About the event: The fourth edition of the Romanian Film Festival in Madison will showcase two feature film debuts by directors highly acclaimed
for their short film work, Hooked (Adrian Sitaru) and The Happiest
Girl in the World (Radu Jude), as well as Corneliu Porumboiu’s latest
film, Police, Adjective. Romanian film critic Irina-Margareta Nistor will be available for a question-and-answer session
during the festival.
Admission is free and all films will be presented in Romanian with
English subtitles. The festival was organized with the support of the UW student
organization From Romania. For more information and a full schedule, please visit http://uwromania.rso.wisc.edu/ROFILM/ and the festival's Facebook page. Also, please check out the Capital Times article on the festival.
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Day in East and Central Europe
For High School Juniors and Seniors
Date and Time: Wednesday, March 24 from 8:30 A.M. until 12:00 P.M.
Location: Great Hall of Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, Madison WI
Sponsor: CREECA
About the event: Teachers of high school juniors and seniors: Day in East and Central Europe, CREECA's annual mini-conference, will take place March 24, 2009.
Registration is required for this event. To register, please contact Nancy Heingartner, CREECA outreach coordinator at outreach@creeca.wisc.edu or (608) 265-6298.
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"Bride Abduction in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Marking a Shift
Towards Patriarchy through Local Discourses of Shame and Tradition
"
Cynthia Werner, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Texas A&M University
Date and Time: Thursday, March 25 at 4:00 P.M.
Location: 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive
Sponsor: Central Asian Studies Program and CREECA
About the lecture: The apparent revival of non-consensual bride abduction in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is somewhat
surprising 70 years after the Soviet state banned the practice and introduced sweeping
legislation to emancipate women. Professor Werner uses local discourses of shame and tradition to
explain changing marriage practices and to mark a shift towards greater patriarchy in post-Soviet
Central Asia. Discourses of shame are mobilized by local actors in support of the popular view that a
woman should ‘stay’ after being abducted. Furthermore, in Kyrgyzstan, where bride abduction is increasingly
re-imagined as a national tradition, women and activists who challenge this practice can be viewed
as traitors to their ethnicity. In post-Soviet society, these discourses of shame and tradition have
helped men assert further control over female mobility and female sexuality.
About the speaker: Cynthia Werner received her Ph.D. from Indiana University. Professor Werner’s research is focused on economic and political transition in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Her current research projects include gender, migration and the Kazakh diaspora in Mongolia, as well as women’s experiences in contemporary Mongolia and Central Eurasia. She is the author of numerous articles and policy briefs on topics such as bride kidnapping and the perception of nuclear risk in Kazakhstan.
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