Spotlight on the Arts
The University of Georgia spotlights its arts programs and venues during an annual nine-day festival that includes concerts, theater and dance performances, art exhibitions, poetry readings, film festivals, discussions on the arts and creativity, and more.
2022
The 2022 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held throughout the month of November.
More information on the festival, including the full schedule of events, can be found at arts.uga.edu.
Exhibition: Anina Major and Tamika Galanis
Sept. 17 – Nov. 30, Lyndon House Arts Center
“The Ties That Bind: The Paradox of Cultural Survival amid Climate Events,” an exhibition of sculpture by Anina Major and photography by Tamika Galanis, was on display at the Lyndon House Art Center from Sept. 17 through Nov. 30, 2022. The exhibit was a partnership between the Lyndon House and the Willson Center, with accompanying events held during Spotlight on the Arts.
This exhibition originated on St. Helena Island, SC during an artist residency in which the artists examined cultural identity and sustainability through environmental relationships. Galanis and Major are both from The Bahamas and now based in Atlanta and New York City respectively. Both multimedia artists’ work interrogates popular conceptions of place: Major’s through investigating “the relationship between self and place as a site of negotiation,” and Galanis’s by examining “the complexities of living in a place shrouded in tourism’s ideal during the age of climate concerns.”
The artists’ work inspired by this residency explores notions of life in the Sea Islands of South Carolina and The Bahama Islands.
Lecture and Conversation: Scott Hershovitz
Nov. 3, Peabody Hall
Scott Hershovitz, director of the Law and Ethics Program and professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan, will give a talk followed by a discussion about his 2022 book Nasty, Brutish and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids, an NPR Best Book of 2022. The book uses deft storytelling and a sharp wit to show what philosophy is; why kids are the best philosophers of all; and how they can teach us to puzzle through revenge, rights, consciousness, the size of the universe and other daunting mysteries most grown-ups learn to ignore.
This event was presented by the department of philosophy, the Willson Center, and the Jere W. Morehead Honors College.
FAMILIAR: Christy Bush in Conversation with Chris Black
Nov. 3, Ciné
Photographer Christy Bush discussed her book Familiar (Bitter Southerner, 2021), along with other topics from her life and career, with writer, brand consultant, and podcaster Chris Black in this informal public conversation hosted by the Willson Center.
A celebration with live music followed the conversation.
From the publisher: A rebellious punk rock kid from Atlanta, Christy Bush moved to Athens in the early ’90s and fell in with a well-known group of creatives and musicians. Those were heady days in Athens, Georgia, and Christy took her camera with her everywhere, snapping pictures, “so she wouldn’t forget.” Familiar is a visual feast… a look through Christy’s lens at the last three decades from Athens to NYC to Los Angeles and around the world. Her rock and fashion photographs are stunning. The images of her muses, documenting their coming of age stories in the South, are jaw-dropping.
From the foreword by Michael Stipe: “There is a simple truth evident throughout. Many of these subjects are family, people that she has gathered together and created a life with. Her documentation of that life is shown in both its rawness and in the more theatrical glamour of the staged and unstaged. It challenges us to look in different ways. It is a delight to be invited inside this life.”
Bush’s work was on display in the ATHICA@Ciné gallery throughout the month of November. She is represented by Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta.
The Critical Response Process in Action: A webinar in celebration of the release of Critique Is Creative
Nov. 4, Online event
Over the course of 30 years, Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process (CRP) has transformed the practice of feedback in arts, education, and civic life. Both a structured method and a flexible set of principles, CRP is now the focus of its first in-depth study in book form.
This event was held in celebration of the release of Critique Is Creative: The Critical Response Process in Theory and Action, with co-authors Liz Lerman and John Borstel and some of the 21 contributors to the book’s exploration of CRP and its applications. With samples from the book and lively conversation, the session touched on such topics as:
– What is meant by “good feedback” and how can it enhance creative process?
– How do feedback principles like relationship-building, agency, and inquiry function in teaching and learning?
– How can changes in the ways people give and get feedback impact current-day reckonings of equity, justice, and consent?
Presented by Wesleyan University Press and Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, in association with Alternate ROOTS, American Lyric Theater, Cultural Pluralism Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO), Dance & BMore, Dance Exchange, Green Music Center at Sonoma State University, Rising Youth Theatre, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Willson Center.
Conversation: Anina Major and Tamika Galanis
Nov. 10, Online event
Artists Anina Major and Tamika Galanis took part in a live virtual conversation about their exhibition “The Ties That Bind: The Paradox of Cultural Survival amid Climate Events.” Galanis and Major joined moderator Angela Dore, research coordinator of Culture and Community at the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District, a partnership initiative of Penn Center and UGA’s Willson Center, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
“The Ties That Bind,” an exhibition of sculpture by Anina Major and photography by Tamika Galanis, was display at the Lyndon House Art Center through Nov. 30, 2022. The exhibit was a partnership between the Lyndon House and the Willson Center.
This exhibition originated on St. Helena Island, SC during an artist residency in which the artists examined cultural identity and sustainability through environmental relationships. Galanis and Major are both from The Bahamas and now based in Atlanta and New York City respectively. Both multimedia artists’ work interrogates popular conceptions of place: Major’s through investigating “the relationship between self and place as a site of negotiation,” and Galanis’s by examining “the complexities of living in a place shrouded in tourism’s ideal during the age of climate concerns.”
The artists’ work inspired by this residency explores notions of life in the Sea Islands of South Carolina and The Bahama Islands.
UGA Arts Lab Conversation
Nov. 16, Online event
Recipients of UGA Arts Lab Faculty Fellowships and Graduate Assistantships took part in a public conversation with Nicholas Allen, Baldwin Professor in the Humanities and director of the Willson Center.
The participants were Faculty Fellows Aruni Kashyap (English & Creative Writing), Grace Jun (Lamar Dodd School of Art), and Melissa Harshman (Lamar Dodd School of Art); and Graduant Assistants Amaro Neto (Hugh Hodgson School of Music), Sayantika Mandal (English), and Abhijit Sarmah (English).
An Evening with Jay Bolotin
Nov. 17, Online event
Filmmaker, artist, and musician Jay Bolotin took part in an evening of film, music, and conversation presented by the Willson Center.
Bolotin presented segments from his motion picture in progress The Book of Only Enoch, featuring the voice of actor Brad Dourif; a brief segment of his theater piece The Darktown Sermons, a combination of animation and live song featuring the voice of musician and actor Will Oldham; and his 23-minute short film The Silence of Professor Tösla, a collaboration with the Mexican essayist and cultural critic Ilan Stavans which won the prize for best animation at the Fall, 2020 Prague Independent Film Festival. He engaged in conversation about his work with Nicholas Allen, Baldwin Professor in Humanities and director of the Willson Center, and with the audience.
The segments Bolotin presented were created using a new technique of building physical, sculptural space and inserting composited, manipulated graphite drawings. As a musician, he has been championed by Kris Kristofferson, Mickey Newbury, and Merle Haggard, among others, and released a self-titled album on Commonwealth United Records in 1970. Delmore Recording Society released an album of new recordings by Bolotin in 2006, and a compilation of previously unreleased 1970s recordings in 2018.
Bolotin’s work will be the subject of an exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art in 2024, with exact dates and details yet to be finalized.
2021
The 2021 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held throughout the month of November.
More information on the festival, including the full schedule of events, can be found at arts.uga.edu.
Conversation: Creature Comforts Artist in Residence Noraa James
Nov. 4, 1 pm, virtual
Noraa James, the Creature Comforts Brewing Co. Artist in Residence for 2021, will take part in a conversation on art and community in Athens with Creature Comforts hospitality manager Madeline Blankenship and Mark Callahan, artistic director of Ideas for Creative Exploration and associate academic director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at UGA.
Advance registration for the event, which will be conducted via Zoom webinar, is required and available here.
James is a painter, photographer, and graphic designer whose work is an imaginative exploration into many topics of the beauty and sublimity of Blackness through the scope of Afro-surrealism and Afro-futurism. Originally from Norfolk, Virginia, he came to Athens in January 2020. This conversation will focus on ways to create equitable opportunities to build meaningful relationships between marginalized creatives and the art world’s gatekeepers in Athens.
Creature Comforts launched its Artist-in-Residence program in the summer of 2020 as part of its Get Artistic initiative. The three-month residency provides an Athens-based artist with access to workspace and materials, as well as a $5,000 stipend to support their work and to cover the full tuition of an artist-focused certificate program prior to the start of the residency.
Cinema Roundtable: New French Cinema – Beyond Borders
Nov. 5, 12 pm, virtual
New French Cinema: Beyond Borders – French Women Filmmakers and Global Perspectives,” a Willson Center Cinema Roundtable.
Advance registration for the event, which will be conducted via Zoom webinar, is required and available here.
The event is also part of France-Atlanta 2021, an annual series of high-caliber events, centered on innovation and designed to foster transatlantic cooperation and exchange in the fields of science, business, culture and humanitarian affairs. The series is co-organized by the Consulate General of France in Atlanta and the Georgia Institute of Technology, under the high auspices of the Ambassador of France to the United States, the Governor of Georgia and the Mayor of Atlanta.
This event presents three movies from the 2021 Young French Cinema program as well as a virtual roundtable discussion with the filmmakers. All three films were created by women writer-directors and feature characters from outside of France. The End of Love (À Coeur battant) by Keren Ben Rafael is set in France and Israel; The Skies of Lebanon (Sous le ciel d’Alice) by Chloé Mazlo takes place in Beirut; and Should the Wind Drop (Si le vent tombe) by Nora Martirosyan follows a French inspector in Nagorno-Karabakh. The roundtable discussion will focus on storytelling, gender, and French culture beyond France’s borders. Participants will also include Kelley Conway, chair and professor of film in the department of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The three films will be available for free online viewing beginning five days before the event. To view the films during that time, first open this spreadsheet. Then, under the name of the film you wish to view, copy the first unique “discount code” on the list with no name in the field beside it. (NOTE: You will need to scroll down the page in order to find all three films.) Enter your own name in the field to indicate that the code has been claimed. Finally, navigate to the viewing page of the film you want to watch (links on spreadsheet and above), click the button marked “Unlock for free,” and enter your code. Once you enter the viewing code, you will have five days to watch the film. Once you begin watching the film, you will have 48 hours to finish it.
This event is organized by the University of Georgia’s Film Studies Program and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, Unifrance, and Athens Ciné, with the support of the Atlanta Office of the Cultural Services of the Embassy of France in the United States and the Alliance Française of Atlanta.
The Willson Center Cinema Roundtable meets to discuss topics of film history, criticism and theory. Richard Neupert, Wheatley Professor of the Arts, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, and film studies coordinator in the department of theatre and film studies, organizes and moderates one roundtable each semester.
Premiere Screening and Conversation: Athens Hip Hop Harmonic
Nov. 5, virtual
The Athens Hip Hop Harmonic is a collective of local Hip Hop artists and University of Georgia music faculty/students that seeks to use music to celebrate the intersection of our musical, cultural, and racial identities. This session features the world premieres of co-created, boundary-breaking works by three pairs of Hip Hop artists and UGA faculty composers, with a live narrative and audience Q&A focused on the artistic inquiry and creative process that built this collaboration.
This event is part of the a2ru 2021 National Conference, “Sharing Stories: The Case for Art.”
Dublin Book Club Conversation: Nicholas Allen and Fiona Stafford on Archipelago: A Reader
Nov. 11, virtual
A virtual conversation in celebration of the publication of Archipelago: A Reader (The Lilliput Press), edited by Fiona Stafford and Nicholas Allen, Professor in Humanities and director of the Willson Center.
Archipelago, the magazine, is one of the most important and influential literary magazines of the last twenty years. Bringing together established and emerging artists in creative conversations, the magazine has contributed to a transformation of the study of islands, coasts and waterways. Archipelago: A Reader brings together poetry, prose, and visual art, including newly commissioned work. Editors Nicholas Allen and Fiona Stafford are joined by a panel of contributors, Moya Cannon, Andrew McNeillie, and Deirdre Ní Chonghaile to discuss their pieces in the collection, the uniqueness of writing about place and people, and legacy of Archipelago.
This virtual event is presented by the Dublin Book Festival and The Museum of Literature Ireland.
Prints and Poetry: Native American Art and Literature at the Georgia Museum of Art
Nov. 11, GMOA
This event celebrates a partnership between the museum and the department of English at UGA, centered on the exhibition “Collective Impressions: Modern Native American Printmakers.” Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, curator of American art, will present an overview of the show, followed by a roundtable conversation about Indigenous poetry and artmaking with LeAnne Howe (Choctaw), Eidson Distinguished Professor in American Literature, and Christine Lasek-White, assistant director of creative writing. In spring 2021, Howe and Lasek-White worked with UGA graduate students to produce recordings of Native poetry published in the “Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry” (2020), which Howe edited with Joy Harjo (Muscogee) and Jennifer Elise Forester (Muscogee). These recordings complement prints in the “Collection Impressions” exhibition, and visitors can listen to the poems while inside the gallery.
Adam Gopnik: “Reconnecting the Arts and Sciences”
Nov. 17, UGA Chapel
Adam Gopnik is a writer for The New Yorker and the author of several notable books. He has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism three times, the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting and the Canadian National Magazine Award Gold Medal for arts writing. Gopnik’s work has been anthologized many times, in “Best American Essays,” “Best American Travel Writing,” “Best American Sports Writing,” “Best American Food Writing” and “Best American Spiritual Writing.” He received the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Republic.
Presented as the College of Environment and Design’s HGOR Lecture, co-sponsored by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, and the Willson Center.
Cinema Roundtable: “American Triptych” and the Art of Collaboration
Nov. 17, virtual
This event brings together five UGA faculty from the Grady and Franklin Colleges to discuss their recent work on the short film “American Triptych,” written and directed by Booker T. Mattison (Entertainment and Media Studies). As the movie’s press book explains, “Three American lives are radically changed during the tumultuous summer of Covid-19. ‘American Triptych’ dramatically explores food insecurity, homelessness, xenophobia, and police brutality – all exacerbated by a nation divided and a rising tide of uncertainty.”
In addition to Mattison, participants include producer Shandra L. McDonald, art director Julie Ray, costume designer Ivan Ingermann, and editor Bryan Gunnar Cole (all from Theatre and Film Studies). All five panelists are involved in teaching within UGA’s new MFA program in Film, Television, and Digital Media.
This roundtable on “American Triptych,” which is due out in December 2021, allowed panelists to discuss their creative collaboration and the process of movie making in Georgia. The panel is moderated by Richard Neupert (Film Studies).
Reading and Conversation: Athens Poet Laureate Jeff Fallis
Nov. 17, virtual
Jeff Fallis, newly appointed Poet Laureate of Athens, Georgia, gave a reading and took part in a conversation with Ed Pavlić, Distinguished Research Professor of English and African American studies, about his work, his laureateship, and the role of poetry and literary arts in the community.
Fallis has lived in Athens for most of the past 25 years and earned his Ph.D. in English at UGA. He is currently an instructor in composition and world literature at Georgia College. Fallis’s poems and other writing have appeared in American Poetry Review, James Baldwin Review, The Oxford American, and many other publications. He has written the introduction to a forthcoming collection by the late Athens poet John Seawright.
Fallis was named to the two-year laureateship by the Athens Cultural Affairs Commission in August 2021.
Identity through Sound
Nov. 18, Ciné
Identity through Sound is a project aiming to showcase how identity and upbringing can be inspiration to composition. By understanding the unique perspectives behind each composer’s piece, people can begin to reflect on the importance of self-expression through composition.
This premiere will showcase five solo piano works, performed by pianist Zaira Castillo. These works have been written by UGA and Athens-based composers of the BIPOC community. Alongside the solo works, there will be corresponding documentary videos by composers entailing their upbringings navigating the world of music and composition as people of color. This event will be followed by a Q&A session with the composers shortly after.
This project hopes to inspire conversations around the need to showcase more music of underrepresented people, especially those in the classical contemporary field.
Panel Discussion: Perspectives on “Whitman, Alabama”
Nov. 18, virtual
This Zoom panel discussion moderated by Valerie Boyd (Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence and associate professor of journalism at the University of Georgia) will also feature filmmaker Jennifer Crandall and Cody Marrs, professor of English at UGA. Co-organized by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. This event is a UGA Signature Lecture. Register on the museum’s website.
Conversation: Jill Sonke, Maryrose Flanigan, and Nicholas Allen
Nov. 30, 4 pm, virtual
“Art, the Pandemic, and Public Health,” a conversation between Jill Sonke, director of the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida; Maryrose Flanigan, executive director of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru); and Nicholas Allen, Professor in Humanities and director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at UGA.
Advance registration for the event, which will be conducted via Zoom webinar, is required and available here.
Sonke is currently serving as Senior Advisor to the CDC Vaccine Confidence and Demand Team on the COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Task Force. She is also an affiliated faculty member in the University of Florida School of Theatre & Dance, the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases, the Center for African Studies, the STEM Translational Communication Center, and the One Health Center. Sonke serves on the editorial board for Arts & Health journal and as a consulting editor for Health Promotion Practice journal. She is also director of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab at UF, and the national initiative Creating Health Communities: Arts + Public Health in America.
2020
The 2020 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held November 4-20.
Video of many of these virtual events can be found here.
Virtual Exhibition: Shelter Projects
Autumn 2020 (and ongoing), Willson Center website
The Willson Center, in partnership with the Graduate School, the UGA Arts Council, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and Flagpole magazine, awarded 34 micro-fellowships in its 2020 Shelter Projects program. The $500 fellowships supported graduate students and community-based artists and practitioners in the creation of shareable reflections on their experience of the COVID-19 pandemic through the arts and humanities.
The funded projects were selected by a committee representing the sponsoring UGA units and Flagpole from among more than 100 proposals representing more than 25 departments, schools, and colleges across the university, as well as the Athens and Georgia communities at large. Selected proposals included projects in music, film/video, theater, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, poetry, short stories, publishing, and other media.
The projects were shared in a virtual exhibition on the Willson Center website as part of the 2020 Spotlight on the Arts festival.
Julian Hoffman in Conversation with Nicholas Allen and Lisa Bayer
Nov. 4, virtual
Julian Hoffman, author of The Small Heart of Things: Being at Home in a Beckoning World and the recently released Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places (both published by the University of Georgia Press), spoke with Willson Center director Nicholas Allen and UGA Press director Lisa Bayer.
Hoffman is the author of The Small Heart of Things: Being at Home in a Beckoning World (Georgia), which won the 2012 AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction and the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature. He was also the winner of the Terrain.org Nonfiction Prize and has written for EarthLines, Kyoto Journal, Beloit Fiction Journal, Briar Cliff Review, Flyway, Redwood Coast Review, Silk Road Review, and Southern Humanities Review.
Cinema Roundtable: “Wartime Suspense in Dunkirk and 1917: A Conversation with Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell”
Nov. 6, virtual
This Willson Center Cinema Roundtable brought together two of the world’s most renowned film scholars, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, both of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to discuss storytelling in two important recent films. It was presented by the Willson Center and the department of theatre and film studies.
Leading figures in the field of film studies, Thompson and Bordwell are the authors of innumerable books and articles both separately and together, including the textbooks Film Art and Film History. On their influential blog, Observations on Film Art, they point out that “the war film bristles with a lot of narrative possibilities,” and suspense is at the heart of that genre’s appeal, resulting from specific narrative and stylistic choices. This conversation confronted two recent high-profile war films, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, with its scrambled time-scheme, and Sam Mendes’s 1917, with its long takes for the illusion of near real-time storytelling. The roundtable outlined how these two very different films with their opposing plot strategies and visual styles both develop stunning effects for their audiences.
Silas Munro: “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America”
Nov. 11, virtual
This presentation and discussion by Silas Munro, associate professor of communication arts, Otis College of Art and Design, was hosted by Ideas for Creative Exploration with the support of the Willson Center.
Munro is a partner of Polymode, a bi-coastal design studio, and Chair Emeritus at Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has emerged as one of the most exciting practitioners of community-engaged design and as an influential scholar known for his contributions to W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America, published by Princeton Architectural Press in late 2018. The project has been featured in articles in Smithsonian Magazine, The New Yorker, and Black Perspectives (African American Intellectual History Society).
Panel Discussion: “Cool Town: The Past and the Future of Athens Music”
Nov. 12, virtual
Grace Elizabeth Hale, author of the 2020 book Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture, was joined for this conversation by Vanessa Hay, lead singer of Pylon; David Barbe, longtime Athens musician, producer, and director of UGA’s Music Business Program; and Montu Miller, community activist and key organizer and promoter of the Athens hip-hop scene. The discussion was moderated by Dave Marr, Athens musician and communications director of the Willson Center.
Hale’s book describes how Athens in the late 1970s and 1980s found itself at a new generation’s artistic vanguard, birthing bands like the B-52s, R.E.M., and other influential groups and becoming the most important model for the small, deeply local bohemias that together formed ’80s indie culture. In the years since, Athens has remained a musicians’ town, a small community filled with people performing not just indie rock but also hip-hop and other genres.
Idea Lab Conversation: Arts + Funding
Nov. 13, virtual
Brandon LaReau, Ph.D. student, artist, and activist, gave an informal overview of the ways the federal government has attempted to provide relief funding to artists and venues forced out of work due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“Weird Realism in Short Stories”: A Reading and Conversation with David Hayden and Laura van den Ber
Nov. 16, virtual
A reading by David Hayden and Laura van den Berg exploring the weird in short fiction. Georgia Review editor Gerald Maa led with introductions, and Nicholas Allen, director of the Willson Center, facilitated a conversation between the authors.
Hayden was born in Ireland and lives in England. His writing has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Granta Online, Zoetrope: All-Story, The Dublin Review, AGNI, and A Public Space. His work has also appeared in the anthology Being Various: New Irish Writing (Faber, 2019), edited by Lucy Caldwell, and has aired on BBC and RTÉ radio. His first book, Darker with the Lights on, was published by Transit Books in 2017.
Van den Berg is the author of two story collections and the novels Find Me (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015) and The Third Hotel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018), which was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. She is the recipient of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bard Fiction Prize, and a PEN/O. Henry Award, and a two-time finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her third collection of stories, I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux is now available.
Lecture and Concert: Nancy Felson and Live Canon Ensemble – “Old Victories, New Voices”
Nov. 19, virtual
This lecture concert was led by UGA Professor Emerita Nancy Felson and performed by the Live Canon Ensemble. It featured new writing by Live Canon poets and new music by composer Alex Silverman and lyricist Helen Eastman. The event was sponsored by the UGA Classics Department (Felson Fund) and by the Willson Center.
In the fifth century B.C., Pindar of Thebes wrote odes to celebrate the victories of great athletes at the pan-hellenic games. He celebrated their prowess by re-telling the myths of ancient Greece in a way that elevated the athletes’ status and suggested that they, like the heroes of old, would be glorious forever. But the mythic women had little to say. Instead, they were frequently abducted or maligned. In this lecture concert, learn more about some of those silenced women in new music and poetry.
“Water, Immersion, and Community in Sarah Cameron Sunde’s ‘Durational Performance with the Sea'”: An Artist Talk and Panel Discussion
Nov. 19, virtual
Interdisciplinary artist Sarah Cameron Sunde’s immersive video works investigate the human relationship with water, connecting her viewers with the natural landscape and with large scale environmental phenomena.
For this program, Sunde was joined by UGA faculty from the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the College of Environment and Design and Marine Sciences for a conversation about art, environment and global community.
An exhibition of Sunde’s work, “36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea,” was on view at the Georgia Museum of Art from Sept. 19, 2020, through Jan. 17, 2021. This program was co-sponsored by the GMOA and the Willson Center as a collaboration with the Coasts, Climates, the Humanities and the Environment Consortium.
Fred Moten in Conversation: “BLUE(S) AS CYMBAL”
Nov. 20, virtual
Fred Moten teaches Black Studies, Critical Theory, Performance Studies, and Poetics in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. His latest books are all that beauty (Letter Machine Editions, 2019) and consent not to be a single being (Duke University Press, 2017-2018).
Moten has served on the editorial boards of Callaloo, Discourse, American Quarterly and Social Text; as a member of the Critical Theory Institute at the University of California, Irvine; on the board of directors of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York; and on the advisory board of Issues in Critical Investigation, Vanderbilt University. Moten has been the Whitney J. Oates Fellow in the Humanities Council and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University, the Sherry Memorial Visiting Poet at the University of Chicago and a Visiting Artist at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College. In 2016 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Stephen E. Henderson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry by the African American Literature and Culture Society.
This lecture was sponsored by the Willson Center in association with the 21st Century Faculty Research Cluster.
2019
The 2019 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held November 6-17.
The GA Incarceration Performance Project presents: By Our Hands
Nov. 8-17, Fine Arts Theatre
A first-of-its-kind endeavor, “By Our Hands” was a cross-institutional theatrical experience between Spelman College, the University of Georgia, librarians, archivists, students, professionals, incarcerated individuals, and community partners. The Georgia Incarceration Performance Project incorporated scenes directly from Georgia history to negotiate the relationship between incarceration, race, and the impact of forced labor through dance, media, and dramatic performance.
“By Our Hands” was developed and directed by Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin (Theatre and Film Studies, and the Institute for African American Studies), Emily Sahakian (Theatre and Film Studies, and Romance Languages), Julie Johnson (Spelman College), and Keith Bolden (Spelman College). Free public performances were presented at UGA’s Fine Arts Theatre and at Spelman as part of their Theater & Performance and Spelman Dance Performance & Choreography programs.
The production was made available free to the public with the support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Willson Center, the Ferman Fund, the McCay Fund, the Franklin Excellence Fund, and the University of Georgia Office of Service-Learning through the David A. and Evelyn A. Knauft Endowment for Service-Learning.
Closing Reception for Photography Exhibition: Baci from Cortona
Nov. 7, Lamar Dodd School of Art
The Willson Center hosted a closing reception for the exhibition Baci from Cortona, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the UGA Cortona Study Abroad Program. In 1970, the University of Georgia Studies Abroad Program in Cortona (UGA Cortona) was initiated. The vision and devoted efforts of its founder and director, John D. Kehoe, rooted UGA’s presence in Cortona. Together with city officials of Cortona, the relationship between UGA and Cortona has since transcended the moniker of “study abroad,” achieving a cultural, social, and human understanding between two cities and their people. The Baci from Cortona project came to fruition thanks to 50 years of continuous friendship, inclusion, and cultural exchange. The exhibit conveyed passion and sincerity through images created by the Cortona and UGA communities. An open call solicited the submission of photographs expressing memories, relationships, and experiences resulting from the wonderfully human interaction between two cultures. What emerged from the images was not simply a walk down memory lane, but something far more significant: the enriching impact of a 50-year old relationship, cultivating lifelong friendships and learning opportunities. The exhibition spoke to the past and future connections between UGA and Cortona.
2018
The 2018 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held November 1-10.
Photo Exhibition – “Au cœur de mai 68”
October-November 2018, Jackson Street Building
Au cœur de Mai 68 commemorated the 50th anniversary of France’s iconic May 1968 protests through a series of 43 previously unseen photos by French photographer Philippe Gras, discovered after his death in 2007.
May 1968 still plays an important role in France’s collective memory and continues to fascinate abroad as well. Gras’ photos reveal the uncertainty and hope that characterized the demonstrations in the streets of Paris. These photos, simultaneously empathetic and distant, highlight the improvisational and organic nature of the uprisings, as well as the important role played by slogans and propaganda.
This event was co-organized by the Circle Gallery, the College of Environment and Design, the Alliance Française d’Atlanta, the Institut Français, the Association des Amis de Philippe Gras, Films des Quatre Planètes, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
In conjunction with this exhibition, the Alliance Française d’Atlanta screened filmmaker Dominique Beaux’s The Odd Spring of May 1968, a beautifully woven series of interviews which tell the story of the protests through the eyes of politicians, police and those “on the other side of the barricade. The screening took place at the Alliance Française d’Atlanta.
The exhibition and screening were part of France-Atlanta 2018, a series of events centered on innovation and designed to foster cooperation between France and the U.S. Southeast in the scientific, business, cultural, and humanitarian domains. It was presented under the high auspices of the Ambassador of France to the United States, the Governor of Georgia, and the Mayor of Atlanta, with the support of French and French-American associations in Atlanta.
a2ru National Conference
November 1-3 2018, UGA Center for Continuing Education
The annual national conference of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) was held on the UGA campus and in other Athens, Ga. venues Nov. 1-3, 2018 with the theme of Arts Environments: Design, Resilience, and Sustainability.
a2ru is a partnership of more than 40 institutions committed to transforming research universities in order to ensure the greatest possible institutional support for interdisciplinary research, curricula, programs and creative practice between the arts, sciences and other disciplines. UGA’s membership in a2ru is made possible by the UGA Arts Council, the Office of the Provost, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the Lamar Dodd School of Art, and the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) through the Willson Center.
Among the conference plenary speakers was the artist Rebecca Rutstein, the Willson Center’s 2018 Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding. Rutstein is an artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, installation, and public art and explores abstraction inspired by science, data and maps. She has exhibited widely in museums, institutions and galleries, and has received numerous awards including the prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts.
Rutstein took part in a discussion on “Expeditions, Experiments, and the Ocean: Arts and Sciences at Sea” with oceanographic researcher Samantha Joye, Athletic Association Professor of Arts and Sciences in the UGA department of marine sciences, and had work on exhibit in the Georgia Museum of Art and the Lamar Dodd School of Art.
The conference closing event was an evening of performance and art curated by Moogfest on the theme “Human and the Machine,” featuring technologically innovative music, installations, and demonstrations. Tickets were free. An audio/visual work by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, originally created for Moogfest in 2017 and never before shown in Athens, was featured in the event. The piece, titled “Jeremy Dance,” combines Stipe’s original music and video of the late Athens artist Jeremy Ayers. Music performances included Author & Punisher, the one-man industrial metal project of mechanical engineer Tristan Shone, and Lauren Sarah Hayes, a Scottish musician and sound artist who builds and performs with hybrid analog/digital instruments.
2017
The 2017 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held November 2-12.
Willson Center / Waffle House Tailgate with Stewart and Winfield
November 4, Willson Center for Humanities and Arts
Tailgate party before the UGA-South Carolina football game with complimentary food from Waffle House and music by UGA alumni Winfield Smith (class of ’93, English), Stewart Marshall (class of ‘91, English) and other special guests. The party began three hours before kickoff.
Screening: “Dr. Strangelove” with Post-screening Discussion
November 8, Ciné
The Willson Center and the School of Public and International Affairs presented a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire Dr Strangelove. Matthew Auer, Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs, took part in a post-film discussion on nuclear proliferation and public discourses on nuclear war.
Screening and Discussion – “Dawson City: Frozen Time”
November 9, Ciné
Dawson City: Frozen Time, a meditation on cinema’s past from Decasia director Bill Morrison, pieces together the bizarre true history of a long-lost collection of 533 nitrate film prints from the early 1900s. Located just south of the Arctic Circle, Dawson City was settled in 1896 and became the center of the Canadian Gold Rush that brought 100,000 prospectors to the area. It was also the final stop for a distribution chain that sent prints and newsreels to the Yukon. The films were seldom, if ever, returned. The now-famous Dawson City Collection was uncovered in 1978 when a bulldozer working its way through a parking lot dug up a horde of film cans. Morrison draws on these permafrost-protected, rare silent films and newsreels, pairing them with archival footage, interviews, historical photographs, and an enigmatic score by Sigur Rós collaborator and composer Alex Somers. Dawson City: Frozen Time depicts the unique history of this Canadian Gold Rush town by chronicling the life cycle of a singular film collection through its exile, burial, rediscovery, and salvation.
The film was presented with an introduction by Margaret Compton, media archives archivist in the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection. The event, sponsored by the Film Studies Program in the department of theatre and film studies, the UGA Libraries, and the Willson Center, was free and open to the public.
Reception for “In The Shadow Of The Sea,” Photographs by Sean Dunn
November 10, 6:00pm, Ciné – 234 W Hancock Ave, Athens, GA 30601
Reception for local photographer and musician Sean Dunn, whose two exhibits – at the Willson Center, Nov. 1 through Dec. 20 and Ciné Nov. 10 through Dec. 1 – were culled from photographs taken in Cuba in 2016.
Book launch for “Athens Potluck” by Jason Thrasher
November 12, Nuçi’s Space
Reception for local photographer and community supporter Jason Thrasher to celebrate the publication of Athens Potluck, his first photography book documenting the Athens music scene. Featuring readings by musicians featured in the book.
Athens Potluck is a “stream of consciousness” journey through the wildly diverse music scene of Athens, Georgia. Thrasher chose the first of 33 musicians to be photographed at home, with each subsequent artist choosing the next, creating a rare glimpse into the interconnected and often private lives of Athens musicians.
2016
The 2016 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held November 1-12.
Kimiko Hahn – Poetry Reading
November 1, 2:00pm, Georgia Museum of Art
Kimiko Hahn, the author of eight collections of poetry, will read from her most recent collection, “Toxic Flower” (W.W. Norton, 2010), illustrating connections between scientific study and poetry. The Southeast Consul General of Japan will provide introductory remarks on “Tradition and Poetry in Japan: Tanka and the Imperial Family.” The reading concludes the NEA Big-Read “Poe-Tober” in Athens.
This event is co-sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art, the departments of genetics and plant biology, Athletic Association Professor Julie Luft, the Center for Asian Studies, the Japanese Consulate in Atlanta, and the Willson Center, in partnership with Dr. Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor of Language and Literacy Education and “Poe-Tober” in Athens.
Jacknife Lee – Public Conversation with David Barbe
November 3, 4:00pm, UGA Chapel
The internationally renowned music producer (R.E.M., U2, Taylor Swift, Snow Patrol, Weezer) is the inaugural Willson Center / Terry College Music Business Program Visiting Fellow. He will take part in classes and a recording studio session with students, have a public conversation with MBUS Director David Barbe, and perform a DJ set at the 40 Watt Club in downtown Athens on November 4th at 9:00pm.
Fortunato Ensemble
November 3, 6:00pm, Ramsey Concert Hall
D’Anna Fortunato, mezzo-soprano; Peter H. Bloom, multiple flutes; and Mary Jane Rupert, piano, have concertized together for more than 20 years and have toured as a vocal chamber ensemble across the United States. The Fortunato Ensemble will make its debut at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music with a Gala Vocal Chamber Concert, featuring the premiere of a new work written for the occasion by UGA Professor Adrian P. Childs. Other selections will include duets by J.S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn (with UGA Professor Stephanie Tingler, soprano, joining the ensemble), and music by Mozart, Schubert, and Elizabeth Vercoe.
Emily Greenwood – “The School of Athens, now: Democracy, Rhetoric, and the Fractured Citizen Body, from Classical Athens to the present”
November 4, 3:30pm, Dean Rusk Hall, Larry Walker Room, 4th floor
Emily Greenwood is currently a Classics scholar at Yale, after receiving her BA, MPhil and PhD from Cambridge University. Her career began as a research fellow at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and continued with her position at the University of St. Andrews as a lecturer in Greek. Her research interests include ancient Greek historiography, Greek prose literature of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE and the theory and practice of translating the ‘classics’ of Greek and Roman literature. Dr. Greenwood has received numerous accolades, including the Runciman Award in 2011, in addition to being an author, editor and contributor to over 40 publications.
David Haughey – Lecture
November 7, 3:00pm, Lyndon House Arts Center
David Haughey is an artist living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is currently creating a body of work for solo exhibition at The Belfast School of Art, opening January 2017. He has shown work in conjunction with The Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast, in Venice, at La Casa Di Corto Maltese, as well as the Royal Ulster Academy Annual exhibition, and at Void Gallery, Derry, in an exhibition curated by Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger. His work has been shown at numerous other group and solo exhibitions.
Barry McGovern – “Reading from Samuel Beckett’s Letters”
November 7, 7:30pm, CINÉ
Barry McGovern (born 1948) is an Irish stage, film and television actor, and will be giving an in-depth reading of the letters of Samuel Beckett. McGovern is a former member of the RTÉ Players and the Abbey Theatre Company. He has worked in theatre, film, radio and television, as well as written music for many shows, and co-written two musicals and directed plays and operas. He is known internationally for his award-winning one-man Beckett shows I’ll Go On and Watt, which the Gate Theatre presented at the 1985 and 2010 Dublin Theatre Festival, respectively. McGovern revived I’ll Go On for a run at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, CA for the Center Theatre Group in 2014.
1616 / 1916 / 2016: Shakespeare in Ireland Symposium – Tom Magill lecture: “Revenge or Reconciliation? Creating a Film Adaptation of ‘The Tempest’ in Northern Ireland”
November 9, 1:30pm, Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries
Tom Magill is an ex-prisoner who transformed his life through arts education while in prison for violence. While incarcerated he met his enemy, an IRA Volunteer —and his enemy became his teacher. In 2007 he directed Mickey B, an award-winning feature film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, cast with prisoners from Maghaberry maximum-security prison in Northern Ireland.
The lecture is part of 1616 / 1916 / 2016: Shakespeare in Ireland, a symposium celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and 100 years since the Easter Rising, sponsored by the department of English, the department of theatre and film studies, the department of comparative literature, the Willson Center, the Graduate School, and the Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries
1616 / 1916 / 2016: Shakespeare in Ireland Symposium – Staged reading from the works of Lady Augusta Gregory
November 9, 2:45pm, Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries
Students of Fran Teague, University Professor of the Arts in the departments of English and theatre and film studies, will perform a staged reading of “Spreading the News” and “The Rising of the Moon” by Lady Augusta Gregory. Gregory was an early 20th century Irish playwright, a central figure in the Irish Literary Revival that also included Wiliam Butler Yeats. The student performers are from Teague’s class “How To Read A Play.”
The reading is part of 1616 / 1916 / 2016: Shakespeare in Ireland, a symposium celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and 100 years since the Easter Rising, sponsored by the department of English, the department of theatre and film studies, the department of comparative literature, the Willson Center, the Graduate School, and the Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries.
1616 / 1916 / 2016: Shakespeare in Ireland Symposium – Nicholas Grene lecture: “Irish Shakespeares: 1916 to 2016”
November 9, 4:00pm, Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries
Nicholas Grene is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Trinity College Dublin, where he taught for 36 years.
His talk, “Irish Shakespeares: 1916 to 2016,” recounts the uneasy history of Irish Shakespeares from 1916 to 2016. In April 1916 the British Empire Shakespeare Society staged Hamlet as part of the Shakespeare Tercentenary celebrations. In the period since 1922, Shakespeare, the canonical writer of the former colonial power, has been an uneasy presence in Irish theatre. For many years, Anew McMaster continued the tradition of touring the plays round Ireland, initially with those pretend Irishmen Hilton Edwards and Micheal Mac Liammóir in his company. An adventurously modernist King Lear was staged at the Abbey in 1928, directed by the playwright Denis Johnston. There have been some successful productions of the comedies with a specifically Irish dimension, such as the 1990s musical Comedy of Errors, or the 2006 Taming of the Shrew given a contemporary Irish setting. But many Irish productions have struggled to find an appropriate idiom for Shakespeare. Nicholas Grene’s paper will explore a range of Irish stagings of the plays down to the award-winning DruidShakespeare of 2015 and the Abbey’s 2016 production of Othello.
Kim Mawhinney – “Art Can Tread Where Words and Politics Often Can’t’: Curating the Troubles Legacy”
November 10, 4:00pm, Georgia Museum of Art, M. Smith Griffith Auditorium
Kim Mawhinney, Head of Art, Ulster Museum, Belfast, examines the challenges and consequences of using art to engage the public with the legacy of Northern Ireland’s recent past. Art of the Troubles, 2014, and Colin Davidson: Silent Testimony, 2015, were two landmark exhibitions demonstrating the Ulster Museum’s ongoing commitment to helping the public explore, understand and respond to the 30-year period of Northern Ireland’s history known as the Troubles.
Cinema Round Table – “Nat Turner’s Rebellion and the (New) Birth of a Nation”
November 11, 4:00pm, Location TBD
The Birth of a Nation is a provocative new movie on every level. Nate Parker writes, directs, and produces the film, in addition to starring as Nat Turner. His movie won both the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and its Audience Award. The movie has been celebrated for its powerful treatment of religion and slavery, though concerns over Parker’s own personal history accumulated as the movie approached its national release. As Variety’s review states: “The Birth of a Nation will provoke a serious debate about empathy, the morality of retaliatory violence, and the ongoing black struggle for justice and equality in this country.” This panel will address the themes, style, and reception of Parker’s adaptation of Nat Turner’s story
The Willson Center Cinema Roundtable panel includes Valerie Babb (Institute for African American Studies and English), Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin (African American Studies and Theatre and Film Studies), Ed Pavlic (English and Creative Writing), and Christopher Sieving (Theatre and Film Studies). Richard Neupert (Coordinator, Film Studies) hosts the roundtable. The roundtable is free and open to the public, which will be invited to join the discussion.
Willson Center – Waffle House Tailgate
November 12, 3 Hours prior to UGA/AU game, Willson Center
Tailgate at the Willson Center three hours before the football game vs. Auburn with catering courtesy of Waffle House.
Music by UGA Alumni band Winfield Smith of Stewart and Winfield (English, UGA ’93), Ansley Stewart of the Terry College Music Business Program (M.A., Journalism, UGA ’15), and Scotty Nicholson (Music Composition, UGA ’97).
2015
The 2015 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held November 6-15th.
Abderrahmane Sissako at France-Atlanta
November 6, 7:00pm – November 7, 7:00pm, various locations in Atlanta, GA
The internationally acclaimed filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako will visit Atlanta for two days of events including film screenings, student workshops, and an audience forum as part of France-Atlanta, a two-week series of events designed to foster cooperation between France and the U.S. Southeast in the scientific, business, cultural, and humanitarian domains. It is presented under the high auspices of the Ambassador of France to the United States, the Governor of Georgia, and the Mayor of Atlanta, with the support of all of the French and French-American associations in Atlanta.
Willson Center – Waffle House Tailgate
November 7, 9:30 am, Willson Center
Tailgate at the Willson Center before the football game vs. Kentucky with catering courtesy of Waffle House. Music by Winfield Smith of Stewart and Winfield (English, Class of ’93), Ansley Stewart of the Terry College Music Business Program (M.A., Journalism, UGA ’15), and Scotty Nicholson (Music Composition, UGA ’97).
Screening – “Vertigo”
November 9, 7:30pm, Cine
The Willson Center presents a special screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece Vertigo with an introduction by Philip McGowan of Queens University Belfast. The film, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, was voted #1 on the British magazine Sight and Sound‘s 2012 decennial list of the greatest films of all time. Philip McGowan teaches American Literature at Queen’s University Belfast, with interests in twentieth-century poetry, contemporary fiction, as well as in film, most recently the American movies of Alfred Hitchcock. He also has wider interests in Puritan and revolutionary America, the American nineteenth century, westerns, and crime fiction and how these connect with contemporary manifestations of American identity.
Screening – “Salt of the Earth”
November 10, 7:30pm, Cine
The Salt of the Earth, directed by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, is a 2014 French-Brazilian biographical documentary about the Brazilian photographer and conservationist Sebastião Salgado. The film won the Special Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 87th Academy Awards. It won the 2014 Audience Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, the 2015 Audience Award at the Tromsø International Film Festival, and the César Award for Best Documentary Film at the 40th César Awards. A public reception with catering from The National will begin at 6:30 p.m.
Screening – “Raise the Roof”
November 11, 6:00pm and 8:30pm, Cine
Raise the Roof is a 2014 documentary film that follows artists Rick and Laura Brown to Sanok, Poland, as they begin rebuilding Gwoździec, a magnificent eighteenth-century wooden synagogue that was destroyed by the Nazis. Their vision inspires hundreds of people to join them, using their hands, old tools and techniques to bring Gwoździec’s history, culture, science, and art back to life. Rick and Laura Brown will be present to introduce the film and answer questions from the audience. A public reception will include refreshments from The National. The evening’s events are presented in partnership with the Athens Jewish Film Festival. Note: There will be two screenings of the film, at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. The reception will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Conference: “Appropriation in an Age of Global Shakespeare”
November 12 – 14, UGA
2014
The 2014 Spotlight on the Arts festival was held November 6-14th.
David Daley – Willson Center-Grady College Digital Media Fellowship Lecture
November 7, 10:10 am, Grady College, first floor, studio 1
David Daley, editor-in-chief of Salon.com, will visit the University of Georgia for the second time as the inaugural Willson Center – Grady College Digital Media Fellow. His visit is co-sponsored by the Willson Center and the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Daley was culture editor and executive editor of Salon, an online journal of news, politics, culture, technology and entertainment, before being named editor-in-chief in 2013. He is the former features editor of Details magazine, and the former lifestyles manager of the Louisville Courier-Journal. He is also editor of the online literary journal FiveChapters.
Spotlight • Slingshot
November 8, 4 pm – 9 pm, College Square, downtown Athens
The Willson Center and the Music Business Program of the Terry College of Business present a special Spotlight on the Arts installment of the Slingshot festival of music, electronic art, and technology. Spotlight • Slingshot is a free public concert on College Square in downtown Athens featuring five acclaimed local and national acts, many including UGA graduates and attendees.
Nels Pearson – “Beckett’s Crossing”
November 10, 3 pm, Miller Learning Center, room 148
Dr. Pearson of Fairfield University specializes in Twentieth-Century British Literature, Literacy Modernism, and Irish Literature with a focus on modernism in its historical and political contexts, especially Irish and British modernism as they relate to imperialism, nationalism and national identity, and debates surrounding the concept of cosmopolitanism. His articles have appeared in ELH, Modern Fiction Studies, Twentieth Century Literature, Irish University Review, Conradiana, European Joyce Studies, Studies in Scottish Literature, and The Victorian Newsletter. He is the co-editor of Detective Fiction in a Postcolonial and Transnational World (Ashgate, 2009), and he is completing a book entitled Irish Cosmopolitanism: Location and Dislocation in James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen and Samuel Beckett.
Barry McGovern – Performances from Samuel Beckett
November 10, 8 pm, Ciné
Barry McGovern (born 1948) is an Irish stage, film and television actor. He will give a performance of the poetry and prose of Samuel Beckett in a special appearance sponsored by the Consulate General of Ireland in Atlanta. McGovern is a former member of the RTÉ Players and the Abbey Theatre Company. He has worked in theatre, film, radio and television, as well as written music for many shows, and co-written two musicals and directed plays and operas. He is known internationally for his award-winning one-man Beckett showsI’ll Go On and Watt, which the Gate Theatre presented at the 1985 and 2010 Dublin Theatre Festival, respectively. McGovern revived I’ll Go On for a run at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, CA for the Center Theatre Group in 2014.
Panel Discussion – “Surviving Outside the Box”
November 11, 7 pm, Ciné
The Willson Center hosts a panel discussion with local visual artists moderated by Dana Bultman, associate professor of Romance languages and Willson Center associate academic director for public programs. Panelists include Andy Cherewick, Jill Biskin, and Jim StipeMaas.
Been in the Storm So Long: Remembering 1864 and 1964 in 2014
November 15, 8 pm, Margaret Mitchell House, 990 Peachtree Street Northeast, Atlanta, GA 30309
Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Rickey Bevington hosts a stellar line-up of local scholars, poets, artists, and musicians in a far-reaching roundtable discussion of the coincident anniversaries of the 1864 Battles of Atlanta and 1964 Civil Rights Act. Panelists include U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey; artist Robert Morris; singer-songwriter Caroline Herring; and historians Robert Pratt, Brett Gadsden, and Joseph Crespino. Come join this important public forum on how our divisive past can be transformed into collective meaning. Sponsored by the Atlanta History Center, the UGA History Department, the Woodruff Library at Emory University, and the Willson Center.
2013
Virginia Mary Macagnoni Willson Center Fellows Symposium
November 7, 2 pm, Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries Building, Room 277
Willson Center Faculty Research Fellowship recipients participate in one of two Virginia Mary Macagnoni Fellows Symposia on campus during the academic year. The Fall 2013 Symposium includes six Willson Center Fellows whose research is connected to the fine arts, and is presented in conjunction with the University of Georgia’s 2013 Spotlight on the Arts festival.
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The participants and the titles of their research projects are:
- Rachel Gabara, Associate Professor of Romance Languages: Reclaiming Realism: From Documentary Film in Africa to African Documentary Film
- Jamie Kreiner, Assistant Professor of History: The Premodern Pig
- Nicolas Morrissey, Assistant Professor of Asian Art: The Buddhist Caves at Pitalkhora, Western India
- Thomas Peterson, Professor of Italian: Italian Representations of America (1935-1965)
- Susan Rosenbaum, Associate Professor of English: Imaginary Museums: Surrealism, American Poetry, and the Visual Arts in New York, 1920-1970
- Emily Sahakian, Assistant Professor of Theatre and French: Dramatic Disconnects: Slavery’s Legacy in French Caribbean Theatre by Women
The Virginia Mary Macagnoni Prize for Innovative Research was established by Dr. Virginia Macagnoni, Professor Emeritus in the College of Education, to be awarded annually to the top-ranked recipient of the Willson Center Research Fellowship. The Macagnoni Prize provides a $2,000 stipend to enable scholars and artists to expand their understanding of the world through travel, attendance at conferences, purchase of vital tools or archival materials, and use of other resources relevant to their work. In 1967 Macagnoni became the first woman to join the faculty of the University of Georgia College of Education.
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Art Opening – “Seen/Unseen”
November 9, 6pm., ATHICA, 160 Tracy St., Athens, 30601
The Georgia Virtual History Project and Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (ATHICA) will present “Seen/Unseen,” a two-week exhibition dedicated to public history and the local past of Athens, Georgia. Co-curated by Hope Hilton of ATHICA and Christopher Lawton, executive director of GVHP and a history instructor at UGA, the show will include digital media projects by UGA and Athens Academy history students. The opening reception on November 9 will be part of the Willson Center’s programming for the university’s 2013 Spotlight on the Arts festival.
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“Seen/Unseen” is designed to be a groundbreaking gallery experience that explores the intersections of art, history, performance and technology to connect Athens’ past with its present. The exhibition, according to Lawton, “will challenge what time has made invisible and reclaim historical, geographical, and intellectual spaces for long-forgotten people, stories, and events.
“This collaboration presents a unique opportunity to both reshape the way we talk about local history and unveil a radically new technological and educational model,” Lawton said. “More importantly, inclusion in this exhibition will provide UGA and Athens Academy students with an unprecedented experience that can significantly help propel them into future academic and professional endeavors.”
The GVHP is an effort to use new and interactive technologies to record the history of the state of Georgia and make it available to multiple audiences, from eighth-graders and the general public to college students and academic professionals. It is aligned with the eHistory project of the UGA Digital Humanities Lab, a Willson Center Faculty Research Cluster.
“Bayou Maharajah” – Documentary
November 11, Ciné, 234 West Hancock Avenue, Athens, 30601
Bayou Maharajah explores the life and music of New Orleans piano legend James Booker, the man Dr. John described as “the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced.” A brilliant pianist, his eccentricities and showmanship belied a life of struggle, prejudice, and isolation. Illustrated with never-before-seen concert footage, rare personal photos and exclusive interviews, the film paints a portrait of this overlooked genius.
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The Athens premiere of Bayou Maharajah will take place on November 11 at Ciné as part of UGA’s Spotlight on the Arts festival. The documentary was directed by UGA alum Lily Keber and produced by Nate Kohn, professor of telecommunication arts in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and associate director of the Peabody Awards. Both will attend the premiere to introduce the film and participate in an audience Q&A session after the screening.
Hank Lazer and Andrew Raffo Dewar – Poetry/Music Duo
November 11, 6pm., Hugh Hodgson School of Music, Dancz Hall, Room 264
Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE) will host Hank Lazer, Andrew Raffo Dewar, and representatives of Creative Campus, a student-centered arts advocacy organization at the University of Alabama, for two days of performance and conversation about the role of the arts in a research university. The duo will give a performance of music and poetry at 6 pm Monday, Nov. 11 in Dancz Hall, Hodgson School of Music, Room 264, and take part in the ICE Conversation Series at 9:30 am Tuesday, Nov. 12 in the ICE Office, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Room S160. Both events are associated with the 2013 UGA Spotlight on the Arts festival.
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Hank Lazer and Andrew Raffo Dewar have been exploring the improvisational performance of poetry and jazz, working mostly with texts from Lazer’s handwritten Notebooks project. At times, the performances involve music that supports, illustrates, or reiterates elements of the written and spoken text. At other times, the balance shifts in the direction of the text as a mere suggestion and the music becomes the dominant element of the new composition that results from the interaction of words and music.
Lazer is Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where he is Executive Director for Creative Campus and edits the Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series for the University of Alabama Press. Over the past fifteen years, Lazer has collaborated with various jazz musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, and visual artists in seeking new ways to present poetry. Lazer’s seventeenth book of poetry N18 (Complete), a handwritten book, is available from Singing Horse Press.
Andrew Raffo Dewar (b.1975 Rosario, Argentina) is a composer, improviser, soprano saxophonist and ethnomusicologist. Since 1995 he has been active in the music communities of Minneapolis, New Orleans, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, performing his work internationally. Dewar had the good fortune to study with a number of masters of contemporary music, such as Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Alvin Lucier, Bill Dixon, and has also had a long involvement with experimental and traditional Indonesian music. Dewar is Assistant Professor in New College and the School of Music at the University of Alabama.
A student-centered arts advocacy organization, Creative Campus is dedicated to building relationships that will serve as a voice for the cultural arts. The interns at Creative Campus—48 students with various majors and personal backgrounds—work with students, faculty, and community members in order to engage the University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa with innovative ideas. Over the past few years, projects and events have included a student art publication, an interdisciplinary speaker series, an experimental jazz concert series, a student film festival, and the Druid City Arts Festival. By developing collaborative relationships with a wide range of community partners, interns not only learn how to work as a team but also build skills in ideation, organization, design, collaboration, marketing and media production which cultivates a skill set and sense of professionalism that translates into any field of work.
Karima Bennoune – “Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism”
November 14, 4 pm, UGA Chapel
Karima Bennoune’s new book, Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, was released by W.W. Norton & Company in August 2013. The book addresses resistance to fundamentalism in Muslim majority contexts. The field research for this book took her to many countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Mali, Niger and Russia.
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Bennoune’s publications have appeared in many leading academic journals, including the American Journal of International Law, the Berkeley Journal of International Law, the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, the European Journal of International Law, and the Michigan Journal of International Law. They have been widely cited, including on Slate, in the Nation magazine, the Dallas Morning News, and the Christian Science Monitor, as well as by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and the UN Special Rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism. Her article, “Terror/Torture,” was designated one of the top 10 global security law review articles of 2008 by Oxford University Press.
She has lectured around the world, including at Harvard Law School, NYU School of Law, UC-Berkeley School of Law, the University of Virginia School of Law and the Yale Law School in the U.S., as well as for the UN Department of Political Affairs, the University of London, the London School of Economics, the University of Oslo, the Feminist Leadership Institute in Senegal, CODESRIA (The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) and the Second Istanbul Conference on Democracy and Global Security. Making frequent media appearances, Bennoune has spoken on Fox TV, National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio, the Australian Broadcasting Service, CBC-Radio, HuffPost Live, and “The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour,” and has been interviewed by the International Herald Tribune and the Guardian.
This event is co-sponsored by the Willson Center, the University of Georgia School of Law, the Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy, the African Studies Institute, and the Georgia Society of International Law.
A special Spotlight on the Arts festival presentation in the Willson Center’s Global Georgia Initiative.
Everyday People: The Film, Television, and Video Work of Jim McKay
November 15 – November 18, Ciné, UGA Fine Arts Balcony Theatre, Tate Center Theatre
The Willson Center, in partnership with Whatever It Takes Athens, will present a four-day festival dedicated to the films, television work, and music videos of Jim McKay, a director, writer, and producer who lived and worked in Athens during the late 1980s and early 1990s. C-Hundred Film Corp., the production company that McKay formed with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe during that time, remains an active partnership to this day.
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McKay met R.E.M. when they opened for Gang of Four in New York City in June of 1981, then returned to his Boston College radio station, WZBC, in September with the 7″ “Radio Free Europe” single in-hand. He and the band stayed in touch and six years later, McKay moved to Athens at Stipe’s urging, with the promise of “plenty of good restaurant jobs” to be had. Sure enough, soon he was washing dishes at the Bluebird Cafe.
McKay was already at work on his first film/video project, a documentary called Lighthearted Nation. He and Stipe, who himself was diving into numerous film projects related to or independent of R.E.M., formed C-Hundred, which was housed at Prince Avenue and North Newton Street. Together, along with cohort Tom Gilroy, they started the Direct Effect PSA project and produced music videos for local bands like Pylon and Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, as well as R.E.M., and distributed short film collections by Jem Cohen and James Herbert. In 1989, McKay and Stipe collaborated on Tourfilm, a feature-length concert film documenting R.E.M.’s world tour for the album Green.
McKay served on the board of Community Connection and was also involved in historic preservation issues during his time in Athens. He lived in Athens from 1987-1989 and 1991-1993, at which time he moved to New York City to begin work on his first feature film, Girls Town, which was shot in 1995. Girls Town received the Filmmakers Trophy and a Special Jury Prize for Collaboration at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.
McKay’s second feature as a director was Our Song (1999), which premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, played at the New Directors/New Films festival the same year, and was distributed theatrically in the U.S. by IFC Films. His third feature, Everyday People (2004), was selected as the Opening Night Film of New Directors/New Films 2004 and played at festivals around the U.S. before being broadcast on HBO. His fourth feature, Angel Rodriguez, co-written with Hannah Weyer, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September, 2005, had its U.S. premiere at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and was broadcast on HBO in Fall, 2006.
McKay has directed episodes of numerous television shows, including “The Wire,” “Big Love,” “Hung,” “In Treatment,” “Treme,” “Boss,” “Breaking Bad,” “Rectify,” “The Good Wife,” “Blue Bloods,” “Law and Order,” “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” “Law and Order: SVU,” “New Amsterdam,” and “Gossip Girl.”
He served as a producer on American Movie, (directed by Chris Smith and Sarah Price), Spring Forward (Tom Gilroy), Scars (James Herbert), Stranger Inside(Cheryl Dunye), Backward Looks, Far Corners (Christopher Munch), Tree Shade (Lisa Collins), La Boda and Escuela (Hannah Weyer), Brother to Brother(Rodney Evans), Room (Kyle Henry), Memorial Day (Josh Fox), Mosquita Y Mari (Aurora Guerrero), Fourplay (Kyle Henry) and Me at the Zoo (Chris Moukarbel and Valerie Veatch).
McKay was a Rockefeller Fellow in 2003 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004. In 2005, he was a recipient of the Lincoln Center Martin E. Segal Award.
His haiku have been published in The Haiku Year (Soft Skull Press, NY, 1998); Snapshots 12 (Snapshots Press, Liverpool, 2006); Noon – Journal of the Short Poem (Noon Press, Tokyo, 2006); Haiku, Not Bombs (Booklyn Press, NY 2008), and Rensselaerville Festival of Writers Haiku Project, Special Edition (2013).
McKay and special guests, including David Daley, editor-in-chief of Salon.com, will introduce screenings and participate in post-film Q&A sessions, as well as in a panel discussion on the UGA campus.
All proceeds from the festival will go to Whatever It Takes, a nonprofit initiative whose mission is to fight poverty in Athens through support for public education and families. Tickets for screenings and events at Ciné will be available through www.athenscine.com. More information on tickets to all events will be available soon. The November 18 1:25 pm panel discussion is free and open to the public.
The festival schedule is as follows:
FRIDAY, NOV. 15
- 7:30 pm • CinéLab • Opening event: fundraising reception for Whatever It Takes with music videos screening and memorabilia exhibit
- 8:30 pm • Ciné • Screening of Tourfilm with intro and Q&A featuring David Daley
SATURDAY, NOV. 16
- 4 pm • Ciné • Screening of Girls Town with intro and Q&A featuring Jim McKay
- 7:15 pm • Ciné • Screening of Everyday People with intro and Q&A featuring Jim McKay
- 9:30 pm • Little Kings Shuffle Club • Screening of “Treme” episode “Saints” with intro by Jim McKay
SUNDAY, NOV. 17
- 2 pm • Ciné • Screening of Our Song with intro and Q&A featuring Jim McKay and Tim Johnson
- 4:30 pm • Ciné • Screening of Angel Rodriguez with intro and Q&A featuring Jim McKay
MONDAY, NOV. 18
- 1:25 pm • UGA Fine Arts Building, Balcony Theatre • Panel discussion on working in the film and television industries featuring Jim McKay, David Daley, and Nate Kohn
- 8 pm • UGA Tate Center Theatre • Screening of American Movie with intro and Q&A featuring Jim McKay
