Cross-Cultural
New Oriental Institute Curated by Graduate Student
Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer, a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations studying Egyptology, curated "Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt," which is on display at the Oriental Institute Museum until July 28, 2013. A variety of events accompany the exhibit, including a free public symposium on November 10 and a free guided tour with Bailleul-LeSuer on November 14.
From the article:
The exhibit includes several mummified birds along with 40 artifacts that emphasize how omnipresent birds were in ancient Egyptian culture. Those birds included ducks, ibises and other waterfowl as well as eagles, vultures and falcons, as well as more exotic birds such as ostriches. Some birds lived in the wild along the Nile while others were domesticated.
The exhibit primarily showcases objects from the Oriental Institute, many of which have never been exhibited, such as the legs for a folding stool that are beautifully inlaid in ivory in imitation of duck heads, the mummy of an eagle with remains of gilding, and a small bronze coffin topped with a figure of a falcon wearing a crown.
To learn more about the exhibit and register for affiliated events, please visit the Oriental Institute's Special Exhibit Events website.
'Invisible Man' Adaptation among Honors for Court Theatre
Court Theatre won three awards at the 44th annual Equity Jeff Awards ceremony on October 15. From the theatre's fifteen nominations, Invisible Man (in association with Christopher McElroen Productions) earned the New Adaption (Play) award, Larry Yando won the award for Actor in a Principal Role (Play) for his portrayal of Roy Cohn in Angels in America, and Timothy Edward Kane received the Solo Performance honor for his work in An Illiad. Ken Warren, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor in English, served as adviser to this first-ever stage production of Invisible Man.
From the article:
"I’m also thrilled that Court’s world-premiere adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, adapted by Oren Jacoby, was awarded a Jeff for Best New Adaptation. A product of close collaboration between Court Theatre’s artists and University scholars like Ken Warren, Invisible Man’s continuing success in Chicago and beyond is a testament to what Court and the University of Chicago can achieve in partnership," Newell added.
Read the full article here.
UChicago to Host Conference on Algonquian Studies
The University of Chicago will host the 44th Annual Algonquian Conference at the Gleacher Center from Friday, Oct. 26 to Sunday, Oct. 28. Sixty-five papers on all aspects of the Algonquian peoples represent fields such as linguistics, language revitalization, history, anthropology, sociology, music, and art, and a third of the papers have an Algonquian author or co-author. Participants come from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan.
The conference is sponsored by the Division of the Humanities, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Adolph and Marion Lichtstern Fund of the Department of Anthropology, the Division of the Social Sciences, the Department of Linguistics, the Center for the Study of Race, Culture and Politics, the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture, and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma Cultural Resources Office. The Newberry Library and the Chicago Field Museum are also hosting affiliated events.
The full schedule and paper abstracts can be found here.
Laura Letinsky's Food Photography Featured in the 'New York Times'
Laura Letinksy, Professor in Visual Arts and the College, was recently featured in the New York Times discussing her work as it relates to "the problem of the illusion of perfection." Letinksy's food photography, which depicts meals and place settings in varying states of chaos and has been featured in magazines such as Bon Appétit and Martha Stewart Living, departs from the "perfectionist aesthetic" that viewers might expect designers such as Martha Stewart to promote. From the article:
Ms. Letinsky, who grew up in Manitoba, said her interest in food sprouted from her fascination with still lifes, which she said were overlooked and considered as “B movies” of their time. Her book Hardly More Than Ever, which features photographs taken from 1997 to 2004, presents images of scattered cake crumbs; rinds of a blood orange whose juices have caked onto porcelain; and a chocolate bunny whose turquoise wrapping has been peeled off and his head bitten off. They are incomplete stories, and viewers are left longing to meet Ms. Letinsky’s missing revelers. “I want the pictures to have a kind of tension,” she said.
Read the article here. Letinsky's latest exhibition of photos will run at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City until October 20.
