Month: January 2018

Repertory and Performance: Contemporary Dance from Global Perspectives (DANC 378, Sec 01).

Mon/Wed 2.50- 4.20pm at the Cross Street Studio. 

This interdisciplinary course aims to understand contemporary dance and the moving body from global perspectives. It draws from a range of approaches to aesthetics and choreography, politics, and understandings of culture-at-large. Students will spend the majority of class time collaborating and learning various movement possibilities. In addition, they will also learn by viewing, discussing, and writing. There will be several guest classes with instructors representing the world of global contemporary dance today. The course is a combination of studio and lecture and will also include critical discussions of scholarly writing, watching and analyzing choreographic sequences on film, participating in guest master-classes, and attending on and off campus performances (including seeing performances in New York City).

This is a hybrid course focusing on studio and lecture components that relate to a range of subject areas and disciplines including (but not limited to) Dance, Film Studies, Anthropology, Eurasian Studies, African-American Studies, Theater, South Asian Studies, East Asian Studies, FGSS, History, and Music. Students will engage with multiple cultural practices, values, and traditions, and will learn to articulate a synthesized understanding of common aesthetic trends, structures, and ideologies.

Previous dance experience is NOT necessary.

https://iasext.wesleyan.edu/regprod/!wesmaps_page.html?stuid=&facid=NONE&crse=009742&term=1181

English 373

From Courtly Love to Cannibalism: Medieval Romances

New time: MW 2:50-4

Romance is the narrative form of medieval sexualities and courtly love, but it also gives literary shape to social worlds in which a queer protagonist loses gender, skin color changes with religion, and a dog might be the hero of a tale. We will begin with texts that date from the Romance’s origins in 12th-century France and continue with the form’s development up to the well-known Middle English texts of the 14th century, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight set at King Arthur’s court. Some of the topics we will consider are Romance’s engagement with the religious and ethnic conflicts of the Crusades, theories of good and bad government, and of course, Christian mysticism and the Holy Grail.

Readings:

Béroul, Romance of Tristan
Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances
Marie de France, Lais
Aucassin and Nicolette
The Quest of the Holy Grail
Romance of Silence
Song of Roland
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Orfeo (Online)
The King of Tars (Online)
Richard Coer de Lyon (Online)

Each year in March, the Patricelli Center awards three $5,000 Seed Grants and a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant to students pursuing social impact projects or ventures. The 2018 applications are now open.

Full information and application links —> http://www.wesleyan.edu/patricelli/grants/index.html

Application help and questions answered —> December 11-13 at noon in Allbritton 022 or anytime via http://bit.ly/PCSEadvising

2018 application deadline —> January 28

FIST232/MDST232 Obscure Enigma of Desire

Jeff Rider

MW 10:50AM-12:10PM; FISK210

This course is an introduction to the study of the ways we create meanings when we read texts. It will focus on several deliberately obscure literary texts from twelfth-century France and will examine them in the light of the classical and medieval concepts of enigma, the marvelous (wonderful), fabula, and allegory as well as some modern theoretical works about how we understand narratives. We will seek to understand why deliberate obscurity is an important part of literature and how medieval authors created narratives that seem particularly meaningful precisely because they are obscure. We will consider why we feel these texts have meaning and the ways in which we make them meaningful to us.

This course will be co-taught in parallel with a course (in English) on the same subject offered at the Charles University in Prague by Professor Lucie Dolezalova. About half of the classes will be conducted together with the class in Prague through teleconferencing and Professor Dolezalova will teach one week of the course at Wesleyan and meet with students while she is here.

Call for Submissions of Art/Performance on Disruption/Disaster

The College of the Environment Think Tank is inviting proposals for creative work on the theme of “Disaster” and the ways in which humans confront or survive disasters, to be shared with the public on Friday, March 2, 2018 in the Memorial Chapel as part of an event hosted by the COE Think Tank.
Below is the description of the themes we are working with.
Proposals can be submitted for the creation of new work, or for existing work.

We are able to offer $200 honoraria. In addition to sharing the work at the March 2 event, we will ask you to talk about your project in 8-10 minute presentation with time for audience to respond and ask questions.

Proposals are due by Thursday, February 1, midnight.
Submit to: Katja Kolcio – Kkolcio@wesleyan.edu
Selection will be determined by Tuesday, February 6.
Work must be completed by Monday, February 26 and the event will take place Friday, March 2, afternoon-evening.

Please include:
Your full name
Wesleyan University Email Address
Your Wesleyan University P.O Box # (for payment purposes only)
Your Wesleyan University ID # (for payment purposes only)
Your class year and major(s) if you have declared.
Are you an international student? (for payment purposes only)
A 300 word (maximum) description of the work. A sample of the work or other relevant work if such exists.
A description of the format and technical requirements (Performance? Exhibit? Video? Music? Etc?)

THEME: FROM DISRUPTIONS TO DISASTERS: A LENS ON THE HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIP
Since its inception, the Earth has had a violent history of disruption and disasters. Volcanic eruptions, transformations of the atmosphere, meteoritic collisions, mass extinctions, moving glaciers, plagues, disease, wars, politics and belief systems are but some of the perturbations, natural and otherwise, that disrupt the dynamic processes of the earth and all life that has lived on it. Natural and anthropogenic perturbations across a range of scales set the Earth, ecosystems and human communities onto different courses. While disruptions and disasters have been an integral part of the history and evolution of the planet, the relationship between humans and their environment continues to evolve as perturbations shift in frequency, magnitude and type. These perturbations arise from both non-anthropogenic and anthropogenic sources. But there is also a growing human-environment interaction that leads to disruptions and disasters at a variety of scales. While some of the anthropogenic factors depend upon technological advances (e.g., nuclear radiation) other factors are ancient (e.g., the use of fire to clear large areas for agricultural purposes, such as in Ukraine, Indonesia or South America).

Our current world offers a series of profound challenges to humanity. We are pushing our world towards a tipping point of climate change by our changes to the carbon cycle and use of fossil fuels. The social-political-ethnic-religious theater of rivalries and conflict intensifies as the environmental stage rotates. The biochemical machinery of humans and the biological world is now constantly challenged by exposure to a bewildering array of microbes, chemical, and other disturbance agents—to which, humans and other Earth inhabitants must continually adapt. In all of this, the human-environment relationship is cyclical. Both parts of the relationship manifest change in the other setting up an ever changing dynamic.

The 2017-2018 College of the Environment Think Tank will focus upon how humanity will confront and take measure of the human-environment relationship from diverse perspectives of biochemistry, ecology, socio-political-religious, somatics, art, and embodiment.

Thank you,

2017-18 Think Tank Members
Katja Kolcio, Chair and Professor of Dance
Ishita Mukerji, Professor of Integrative Science and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
Marguerite Nguyen, Assistant Professor of English and East Asian Studies
Eiko Otake, Menakka and Essel Bailey ’66 Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the College of the Environment
Helen Poulos, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environment Studies