Lecture Series - Cultural Encounters / Encountering Cultures

[James M. Skidmore]

Cultural Encounters / Encountering Cultures

 

A series of ten public lectures by members of the Faculty of Arts at the
University of Waterloo

Winter Term 2010 – Mondays at 4:30pm – Arts Lecture Hall Room 113

 

Join your Faculty of Arts colleagues as they explore the interaction of
societies and cultures. 

Upcoming lecture:  Monday 1 March 2009, 4:30pm, Arts Lecture Hall Room 113
Mario Boido (Spanish and Latin American Studies)
"Our North is the South": Politics, Identity, and the Latin American
avant-garde
Around the turn of the 20th century, avant-garde movements were pushing art
in new directions, rethinking issues of representation and problematizing
their relationship to art history. In Latin America, avant-garde artists
returned from the almost mandatory stay in Europe poised to create a truly
Latin American art. They looked to develop a visual language capable of
expressing a “true” (more inclusive and less eurocentric) Latin American
identity and to rewrite the art history of the region. In my lecture I will
focus on the artistic projects of two of the most influential artists of the
time, Xul Solar (Argentina, 1887-1963) and Joaquín Torres-García (Uruguay,
1874-1949), making reference also to the Muralista movement in Mexico and
the Week of Modern Art in Brazil. Looking at specific examples I will
discuss the visual language each artist developed in relation to the
question of identity as well as its political and art historical
implications. I will conclude with an analysis of how MERCOSUR (Common
Market of the South) has incorporated the cultural discourse of Latin
American avant-garde art to articulates its project of regional integration,
especially through the Bienal del Mercosur (biennial art exhibition) and
TeleSur, Mercosur’s official TV station.

This lecture addresses the topic of “Cultural Encounters – Encountering
Culture” in two important ways. In Latin America the question of identity
has deep roots in the clash of cultures that resulted from the conquest and
colonization of the “new world” by European powers, and the search for a
true expression of Latin American identity can be described as a process of
democratizing and renegotiating the relationships between the Amerindian,
the African, and the European cultural legacies of the region. At the same
time, MERCOSUR’s relationship to the Latin American avant-garde highlights
the important role the arts play in re-imagining social structures,
challenging established norms and questioning dominant values.

Podcasts

After the lectures I conduct an interview with each presenters.  These
conversations are available as online podcasts – it’s like Radio Nacional in
Argentina, but without the updates on Maradona’s money and drug problems.

 

Interview with Andy McMurry (The Green and the Brown: Sustainable versus
Unsustainable Culture):  http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301/mcmurry.html 

Interview with Joan Coutu (Seeing from Afar: "Orientalism" and
Nineteenth-century Art): http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301/coutu.html 

Interview with David G. John (The Legend of Faust as a Mirror of European
Culture and an Example of Cultural Transfer):
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301/john.html 

Interview with Altay Coskun (Were the Romans Generous in Conveying their
Citizenship?): http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301/coskun.html 

Interview with Sheila Ager (West meets East: Greeks, Persians, and the Birth
of "Orientalism"): http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301/ager.html

Interview with Mat Schulze (Cultural Encounter of the Language Kind):
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301/schulze.html

 

 

Complete details at www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301.

 

 

 

James M. Skidmore

Chair of the Dept. of Germanic & Slavic Studies

Faculty of Arts / University of Waterloo

Waterloo, ON  N2L 3G1  CANADA

 

E | skidmore at uwaterloo.ca

W | www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~skidmore

W | www.germanicandslavic.uwaterloo.ca

T | 519.888.4567, x33687

F | 519.746.5243

 

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