Matthew Bernstein is Chair of Film and Media Studies at Emory University and a major authority on American cinema, the Hollywood studio system, and Southern cinema.

The Willson Center will host a reception to celebrate the publication of Downstream: A Witherston Murder Mystery by Betty Jean Craige, University Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and former director of the Willson Center.

As part of the UGA Spotlight on the Arts Festival, Barry McGovern, Irish stage, film and television actor, will give a reading of the poetry and prose of Samuel Beckett in a special appearance sponsored by the Consulate General of Ireland in Atlanta and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.

The UGA Arts Council is seeking graduate students to participate in the inaugural “4 minutes, 33 seconds: Spotlight on Scholarship” competition. The event, which will award two prizes of $433 each, will give the campus community insight into the scholarship and research in the arts conducted by University of Georgia graduate students.

For the competition, graduate students have 4 minutes, 33 seconds to describe their research. They can use up to 33 visual aid slides to help explain the topic. The event is scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10 in the Chapel, as part of the Spotlight on the Arts festival.

The Spotlight event is inspired by John Cage’s landmark 1952 composition 4’33,” which calls for a pianist simply to sit silently at a piano for exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Cage’s 4’33” challenged audiences to reconsider the function of art and the borders between traditional art disciplines and between artistic practice and philosophy.

Points will be awarded based on performance, originality and passion, as well as conciseness, comprehension, engagement, and ability to convey the research to a non-specialist audience. Sound and props are permitted.

Two winners will be chosen: one by a panel of faculty within and outside the arts and another chosen as an audience favorite. The winners will receive support for their research in the form of an award of $433 each.

Graduate students pursuing master of arts or doctorates in the arts must sign up by Oct. 17 Oct. 24 by emailing camiew@uga.edu and CC’ing your department’s Arts Council representative (a list of Arts Council representatives is available here). The email should contain your name, degree objective and a paragraph that clearly, succinctly and compellingly describes your research topic and its significance to a non-specialist audience. A subcommittee of the Arts Council will determine the participants.

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. The 2014 Spotlight on the Arts festival will be held Nov. 6-14.

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.

The inaugural research seminar,Cortona Seminar The Legacy of Classical Antiquity: Re-visioning the Past, explores the legacy of classical antiquity as the nexus of the visual and cultural history of Italy and its modern interpretations.

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced that Andrew Zawacki, associate professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program, has been recommended for an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship of $12,500. Zawacki is one of 20 recommended fellows for 2015.

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has announced that its 2014-15 fellowship competitions are now open. ACLS offers fellowship programs that promote the full spectrum of humanities and humanistic social sciences research and support scholars at the advanced graduate student level through all stages of the academic career. Comprehensive information and eligibility criteria for all programs can be found here.

Application deadlines vary by program:

September 24, 2014

• ACLS Fellowships (the central program)
• ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowships
• ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships
• Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowships
• Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowships for Recently Tenured Scholars

October 1, 2014

• Luce/ACLS Predissertation-Summer Travel Grants in China Studies
• Luce/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowships in China Studies
• Luce/ACLS Collaborative Reading-Workshop Grants in China Studies
• Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society (grants for planning meetings, workshops, and conferences)

October 22, 2014

• Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowships in American Art
• Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowships
• The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowships in Buddhist Studies
• The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships in Buddhist Studies
• The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Collaborative Research Fellowships in Buddhist Studies

November 1, 2014

African Humanities Program

January 14, 2015

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Visiting Professorships in Buddhist Studies

March 2015 (date TBA)

ACLS Public Fellows

The American Council of Learned Societies is the leading private institution supporting scholars in the humanities. In the 2013-14 competition year, ACLS awarded over $15 million to nearly 300 scholars worldwide. Recent fellows’ profiles and research abstracts are available here.

We are proud to announce the fifteen outstanding members of the UGA faculty who have been awarded Willson Center Research Fellowships for the next academic year.

We continue our series of profiles on the Willson Center’s Faculty Research Clusters with this month’s spotlight on the Athens Music Project, co-directed by Jean Kidula and Susan Thomas.

Thomas, associate professor of music and women’s studies, and Kidula, associate professor of music and African studies, are ethnomusicologists in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music who formed the research cluster to create a platform for research, creative development, and shared expertise in, about, and for Athens’ diverse musical communities.

The first annual Local Arts and Culture Business Summit will be April 17 at 11:30am in Tate Reception Hall. This public forum will allow local arts and culture business owners to share experiences, best practices, and advice for the best ways to support local arts entrepreneurs in the future.

We return to our series of profiles on the Willson Center’s Faculty Research Clusters with this month’s spotlight on Neuroimaging, Movie Trailers, and Spectator Cognition, co-directed by Tianming Liu, L. Stephen Miller, and Richard Neupert.

The Global Georgia Initiative was founded in 2013, and its inaugural speaker series featured distinguished guests from Athens and around the world. In its second year, Global Georgia will continue to showcase diverse artists, scholars and professionals from the local to the international.

The Willson CenterJosie Dixon and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences will sponsor a lecture on research publication at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 2 in room Q (second floor) of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.