2024
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Guest lecture by Michał Murawski
Hegeman 204 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5 In Russian, the word for “world” (mir) has a double valence – it also means “peace.” Amid the devastation unleashed by the collapse of the USSR, a revanchist fantasy of a boundless “Russian world” (Russkiy mir) has gradually, but steadily, infiltrated the political and ideological mainstream. Russkiy mir denotes something like pax russica – an earthly realm which has been (or is yet to be) pacified by Russia by means of war. Today, this fantasy is steadily turning into material reality. This talk interrogates the forms and structures of Russkyi mir-in-the-making through the lens of “reconstruction” projects carried out by Russian (state and private) actors in places that the armies of the Russian Federation have laid to waste. Michał Murawski is an anthropologist of architecture and cities. He is Associate Professor of Critical Area Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. He is the author of Only to Hell: Architecture, Nature and Violence in Re-colonial Russia (MIT Press 2026, forthcoming); A Form of Friendship: The Museum on the Square (Museum of Modern Art Warsaw/Chicago UP, 2024); and The Palace Complex: A Stalinist Skyscraper, Capitalist Warsaw and a City Transfixed (Indiana UP, 2019). |
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Film screening and conversation with Galina Yarmanova and Masha Shpolberg
Ottaway Film Center 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Galina Yarmanova will present the short film "Щасливі роки" ("The Wonderful Years," 9 min.) alongside their research project on sexuality in late Soviet Ukraine. The film, created in collaboration with film director Svitlana Shymko, explores how the generation of their mothers coped with the mundane societal pressures to get married and raise children. "The Wonderful Years" draws on data from several research projects on sexuality and uses official Soviet reels alongside home videos from the Lviv Center for Urban History collection. After the screening, Yarmanova and Masha Shpolberg invite you to a discussion about film as a tool for activism and research, and how the feminist decolonial lens brings challenges to archival work. Galina Yarmanova is a Fellow at Bard College Berlin. They teach queer theory in Kyiv and Berlin and work with the community-driven project on activist history with the queer feminist collective samozvanky. |
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Nicole S. Maskiell, Associate Professor of African & African American Studies, Dartmouth College
The Pavilion at Bard Montgomery Place Campus 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 In my talk, I will highlight how foregrounding the names and stories of those enslaved by the Livingston Family uncovered a largely untapped social landscape that is, with every passing day, changing for the better. The importance of such stories remains relevant in a region dominated by the tales and tangible legacies of wealthy landholding families. I will explore the techniques used to pursue their lives as well as how it remains a work in progress to highlight the lives of the still largely uncredited builders, planters, sowers, millworkers, shepherds, and others who constructed and maintained the built environment attributed to wealthy elites in the Hudson Valley. Dr. Nicole S. Maskiell is Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Dartmouth College, and the author of Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry (2022). She has appeared on CSPAN, the podcast Ben Franklin’s World, and in a Historic Hudson Valley documentary film about the life and legacy of Margaret Hardenbroeck Philipse, an early female trader and enslaver. She is series editor for the upcoming book series Black New England from the University of Massachusetts Press, which highlights innovative research on the history of African-descended people in New England from the colonial period through the present day. Schedule of Events 2:00 pm "The Shifting Tides of New York Foodways in the early 19 th century" Lavada Nahon, Culinary Historian 3:00 pm "Interlude" Teatime 3:30 pm "Brought up at Ancram:" Tracing Diverse Stories in Livingston Valley" Nicole S. Maskiell, Dartmouth College 4:45 pm Guided Walk on the Grounds |
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Lavada Nahon, Culinary Historian
The Pavilion at Bard Montgomery Place Campus 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Layfette’s return visit in 1824 came at a time when dining in New York’s elite households was slowly shifting towards a more French approach to what was served. These changes impacted not just what was on the tables, but the equipment found in their kitchens, and the skills required of their cooks. Beginning with what was there before the Rev War, this overview of changing foodways will explore the who, what and when of things, and end with looking at what could have comprised the “rich and sumptuous” ball supper held in Layfette’s honor at Clermont. |
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Directed by Aditya Chopra
Weis Cinema 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Join us for the semester's final film in the South Asia Film Series! Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge is a sweeping romantic drama, the quintessential Bollywood love story. It follows Raj and Simran, whose love blossoms on a European vacation despite the constraints imposed by their families. Known for its memorable music and iconic scenes, the film has not only achieved critical and commercial success, but has become a cultural phenomenon, drawing viewers decades after its initial release in 1995. Run time 189 minutes Discussant: Professor Sucharita Kanjilal |
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Directed by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki
Olin 205 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Chairman Amin, a leader in a water-locked village in rural Bangladesh, enforces a ban on all images, condemning even imagination as sinful. As the clash between tradition and modernity intensifies, it impacts the lives of villagers, entwining them in a semi-triangle love story involving Chairman Amin's son, a village girl, and their connected employee.Discussant: Prof. Fahmidul Haq Please note this film location is different from the past films in this series. It will take place in Olin 205, not Weis Cinema. |
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Directed by: Madhu C. Narayanan
Weis Cinema 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Set in the lush fishing village of Kumbalangi in Kerala, India, this feminist film follows a working-class family of four brothers and the different ways they negotiate non-normative kinship, masculinity, mental health, love, and heartbreak. Considered a paradigm-shifting film in Malayalam cinema, it stars some of the industry’s most beloved actors, Fahadh Faasil and Soubin Shahir. Discussant: Professor Andrew Bush |
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Directed by Anand Patwardhan
Weis Cinema 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5 This award-winning documentary delves into the violent campaign to build a Ram temple by the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization Vishva Hindu Parishad at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India. An incisive examination of religious fervor, politics, and communal tension, this film is particularly relevant today as the temple was consecrated amidst widespread communal violence in January this year. This screening will be preceded by a discussion on religious nationalism—from India to Turkey—led by Professors Nabanjan Maitra and Karen Barkey. |
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Discussant: Professor Sucharita Kanjilal
Weis Cinema 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Directed by Mira Nair Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury star in this cult classic love story about a Ugandan-Indian woman and an African-American man. A complex portrayal of migration, diaspora, race, sexuality and postcolonial belonging, this film entered the Criterion Collection in 2022. Run time: 1h 58 min |