AIC Perspicuous Representations Lunchtime Discussion Series
What: “What is Space?”
Where: Alumni Reading Room
When: Mon., March 19, 12:30-1:45
Please join us for the next AIC lunchtime discussion in the Perspicuous Representations series. We will be dedicating our discussion to the question “What is Space?” We are pleased to have faculty presentations by:
Emily Beall, Dept. of English and Humanities
Suzanne Verderber, Dept. of English and Humanities/Program in Critical and Visual Studies
Prof. Beall will be speaking on the relation between poetry and space, and Prof. Verderber will offer a short presentation on Baroque conceptions of space.
Students, staff, and faculty are all invited. Lunch will be served.
What is Space? What is the history of the concept of space? When did space become a concept ‘proper to’ certain disciplinary and artistic formations? Is there a phenomenology of space? That is to say, is space something experienced? Or does space make experience possible? How is space conceived differently according to different artistic practices? Is space in painting the same as space in architecture? Is space in poetry the same as space in sculpture? What is the relation between ‘digital space,’ so called, and ‘real space’ (so called)?
Emily Beall is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington.Currently on leave, she teaches freshmen English at Pratt. Her primary research interests include 20th century experimental poetries, contemporary poetics, and the relationship between modern dance and contemporary poetry.
Suzanne Verderber has taught courses in medieval,Renaissance, and baroque culture, as well as in critical theory, literature and writing. She has published on French medieval author Marie de France, French essayist Michel de Montaigne, and is currently working on a book entitled Power, Repression, and the Emergence of the Individual in the Middle Ages. She has also recently translated two books, Jean-Michel Rabaté’s The Ethics of the Lie, and Charles Enderlin’s, The Lost Years: Radical Islam, Intifada, and Wars in the Middle East, 2001-2006.
About the Series:
A “perspicuous representation” is a “clear overview.” Coined by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, it is a practice of showing how a concept’s meaning takes on different forms according to the context in which that concept is used. Wittgenstein thus defines meaning ‘as use.’
Perspicuous Representations is a series of discussions dedicated to investigating basic concepts in the life of the Institute, concepts that lie at the heart of our practice but are seldom defined. The AIC’s goal is to show how these basic concepts take on different–sometimes antagonistic, yet legitimate–meanings in different disciplinary contexts. The aim is to make visible the life of the concept and the practices in which it is created, crafted, and worked on.
Previous concepts treated include: communication; criticality; practice, and; interdisciplinarity. The AIC is currently in the process of organizing an Institute-wide exhibition based on this program of questioning, titled Perspicuous, to take place Fall 2007.
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