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a statue of a woman with a bouquet of flowers

Ruey-Shiann Shyu. Life and Death. 1995.

The 2023 Spear Lecture: Despina Stratigakos (University at Buffalo)

4/5, 5:30 pm, List 120


Stratigakos’ research explores how power and ideology function in architecture, whether in the creation of domestic spaces or of world empires. Her talk is titled, “Hitler and the North: How Nazi Architects and Planners in Occupied Norway Envisioned a Nordic Empire” This event is co-sponsored by Visual Arts.


There will be a reception to follow.

Learn more.

HIAA Graduate Student Q&A Lunch

4/17, 12:00 pm, 271 Thayer Street


Please join HIAA graduate students for a Q&A panel on their pathways to the PhD program and beyond. Lunch will be served, registration required.


RSVP by April 4th.

PhD Candidate Oliver Coulson Frick-IFA Symposium Lecture

4/14, 9:30 am, on Zoom


Coulson’s research considers the impact of the Lollard heresy on the art and architecture of late-medieval England. His will explore the idea that an unusual prevalence of angel sculptures in the roofs of churches in East Anglia is connected to fears about the spread of Lollardy in the region.


Register.

Trip to the MFA Boston to see “The Five Senses,” Michaelina Wautier

4/22, 1:30 pm, Huntington Ave Entrance, MFA Boston


Join HIAA Professor Jeffrey Muller and the Early Modern World and HIAA DUGs on a trip to the Boston MFA to view the ongoing exhibition Michaelina Wautier and ‘The Five Senses.’ The show was curated by six Brown HIAA doctoral students alongside those of the MFA’s Center for Netherlandish Art.


Students, register with rachel_moss@brown.edu by April 12th.

The Total Art of a Plantation Society

4/7, 6:00 pm, Rochambeau House Music Room


This talk considers two art forms from mid-19th-century Cuba both understood to be “total works of art,” even as they were situated in a society and landscapes constructed and riven by racialized slavery: 1) Cuban panoramas and 2) performances by what may have been participants in the Yoruba theater known as Alarìnjó.


Learn more.

43rd Annual Student Juried Exhibition

3/18-4/16, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts


The 43rd Annual Student Juried Exhibition will be on view at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. This year’s exhibition is juried by Lani Asunción and Xander Marro.


Learn more.

Vital Signs: The Visual Cultures of Maya Writing

Every Sunday, 4/16-5/21, 2:00 pm, National Gallery East Building Auditorium and YouTube Live


Brown Professor Stephen Houston, Dupee Family Professor of Social Sciences, Professor of Anthropology, and HIAA Affiliate has a number of upcoming Andrew Mellon Lectures, which explore the complex system of Maya writing from ancient Mexico and Central America in a six-part series.


Learn more and register.

Advising period for fall pre-registration begins April 1


Make sure to meet with your advisor to plan for next year's courses!


View HIAA Fall ‘23 courses.

Engaged Research Mini-Grants (Summer 2023)


The Swearer Center invites current Brown students in any concentration or field to apply for grants, up to $500, to support collaborative research expenses.


Applications due April 3rd. Apply.

Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research


This annual prize recognizes undergraduate students who demonstrate exceptional sophistication and originality in research initiatives.


Applications due April 7th. Apply.

Teaching with Primary Sources: A Workshop for Graduate Students

4/3 2:00-3:30 pm and 4/5 4:00-5:30 pm, John Hay Library, Lownes Room


Join Brown University Library staff for a hands-on session to learn how to incorporate primary sources, from the John Hay Library and beyond, into your teaching.


Register.

HIAA Roundtable: Oliver Coulson

4/6, 12:00 pm, Zoom


Please join us for a roundtable led by Oliver Coulson, a current PhD candidate in the department. His talk will echo his upcoming IFA-Frick Symposium lecture.


Zoom link.

Call for Papers: Premodern Unfreedoms: Global Approaches to Exploitation, Enslavement, and Trafficking (University of Illinois)


This interdisciplinary conference aims to interrogate the state of the field for slavery, and broader practices of unfreedom and trafficking, in the global premodern world. Contact chloe3@illinois.edu with questions.


Submissions due May 1st to premodernunfreedoms@gmail.com.

Hervé Télémaque, Toussaint Louverture à New York, 1960. Photo: Zachary Balber


Anthony Bogues, Brown University Professor of Africana Studies, HIAA Affiliate, and Director of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, will take part in the ICA Miami’s Spring Semester 2023 lecture series, “The Arts of Haiti,” which accompanies its exhibition, “Hervé Télémaque: 1959–1964.”


Bogues’ session, titled, “Towards an Alternative Caribbean Aesthetic: Art, History and Memory,” will explore the various formulations of the aesthetic that emerged within the Caribbean and… the ways in which Caribbean cultural practices have troubled the meanings of the aesthetic while practicing an alternative formulation of an “aesthetic regime” (ICA Miami).


The painting above is currently on display in the ICA Miami exhibition, and it joins over a dozen paintings from the first five years of the artist’s career.


About the artist, the ICA Miami writes, “As one of the preeminent painters of the postwar period... Télémaque has been at the forefront of a number of modes that characterize contemporary art… In 1957, when François Duvalier came to power in Haiti... Télémaque moved to New York City from his native Port-au-Prince to become an abstract painter. What he found in America, aside from artists with whom to dialogue, like the painter Julian Levi, was a deeply segregated society that racialized his body in a way that he had not experienced in Haiti.”


Learn more and register.