2019-2020 | Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities | Case Western Reserve University

Digital Parenting: The Ugly Truth Behind the Datafication of Childhood
March 20th, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. Building on empirical research, this lecture by Andra Siibak, Professor in Media Studies and Programme Director of the Institute of Social Studies at the University of Tartu, will illustrate how the data religion cultivated by the tech industry, popular press, marketing discourses and general societal expectations of a “responsible parent” have normalized the constant techno-gaze of parents, feeding into the “data-veillance” of children.
Concert by the Garni Duo
March 21st, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. Is truth experienced from the humanistic perspective of music a legitimate voice? Is the truth of emotion in music dependent on culture/time or, may it be a cross-cultural expression and understanding? Can works of music be in any way true or false? Experience the representational power of music with the Garni Duo, made up of Suren Bagratuni on the cello and Hrant Bagrazyan on the piano.
The Truth of the Buddhist Doctrine of Emptiness: Is it relevant in helping us discern truth in our lives and the world
March 23rd, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. The Buddhist doctrine of emptiness strikes people as mysteriously intriguing and inviting. However, it can be misunderstood to mean “nothingness” or “voidness.” Such misunderstanding leads to lethargic indifference toward life and the world. Rather than non-engagement and acceptance, emptiness offers an opposite response and results. In this lecture, Kenneth Tanaka, an author, editor, scholar and editor, will consider the issue of truth in our time from the Buddhist value of Emptiness. The traditional Buddhist Heart Sutra chant will begin the session to help open a door to emptiness.
Screening and Discussion: American Creed
March 26th, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. In the documentary film, American Creed, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy come together from different points of view to investigate the idea of a unifying American creed. Their spirited inquiry frames the stories of citizen-activists striving to realize their own visions of America’s promise across deepening divides. The screening will be followed by a Community Conversation about American ideals and identity facilitated by John Grabowski, Krieger-Mueller Joint Professor in History at CWRU and Historian and Senior Vice President for Research and Publications at the Western Reserve Historical Society.
Nine Lives
March 27th, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. Nine Lives is a multi-disciplinary artistic response to the 2015 shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Created by Kent State University composer/musician/educator Chris Coles in collaborations with instrumentalists, a vocalist, an emcee and a visual artist, this project invokes the genre-crossing history of Africans American music. The event will also include a tribute to James Baldwin, several pieces by area students and an inter-generational celebration of Cleveland jazz.
Truth be Told: How to spot Bunk and stay sane in the Age of Euphemism
March 30th, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. In this time of “fake news” and “bad blood,” how might we still believe? In this talk, award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue’s gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers, from P.T. Barnum to the present. Young traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Finding that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion—race being the most insidious American hoax of—Young ultimately reveals the dangers of disbelief and the enduring power of art.
Digital Connoisseurship – Truth and the Multiple Lives of Art Objects?
April 1st, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. People often talk about fakes and forgeries – they seldom ask if a painting or an object is as it should be, true to itself. Digital technologies in virtual and physical forms are now allowing this question to come into focus. They are changing our approach to the preservation and conservation of the material evidence of the past. These ideas will be discussed by Adam Lowe, founder of the multi-disciplinary workshop Factum Arte in Madrid, built around a team of artists, technicians and conservators dedicated to digital mediation. The work of Factum Arte is internationally renowned for setting new standards in digital documentation that are redefining the relationship between originality and authenticity.
2020 Joseph and Violet Magyar Lecture: The Privilege to be Small
April 6th, 2020

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED BY THE SPEAKER. Acclaimed Hungarian film director and screenwriter Ildiko Enyedi discusses the truth about how her unique and rather lonesome language influences Hungarian culture. Enyedi won the Golden Camera award for “My 20th Century” at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. In 1992, she was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. Her 1994 film “Magic Hunter” was entered into the main competition at the 51st edition of the Venice Film Festival. Enyedi’s 2017 film “On Body and Soul” premiered at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Bear. The film went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Her latest film, “The Story of My Wife,” based on the novel of the same name by Milán Füst, will be released in 2020.
Fragments and Traces—Destroying, Restoring, and Interpreting the Buddhist Caves of Longmen
April 7th, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. In this talk Fletcher Coleman, Visiting Teaching Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Design at the University of Notre Dame, will explore the removal, restoration, and subsequent interpretation of Chinese Buddhist sculpture from the Longmen Grottoes at the turn of the twentieth century. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Longmen Grottoes were “rediscovered” for the West in the 1890’s. Uniquely positioned as a site of study, collecting, and teaching in Asia and the West, the Longmen Grottoes offer a distinctive lens on the birth of the discipline of East Asian art history in the United States. Professor Coleman is the 2020 Hildegarde and Elbert Baker Visiting Scholar in the Humanities.
Faculty-Work-in-Progress: The Sounds of Jewry in Early 20th Century American Popular Media
April 14th, 2020

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. How do the melodies associated with ethnic groups go from familiar tunes to musical stereotypes? In this talk Daniel Goldmark, Professor in the Department of Music, looks at how concerns over assimilation and identity politics often had a musical manifestation, discussing how the music associated with turn of the century American Jewry was cultivated and shaped largely by the evolving mass-media/entertainment industry: vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, theatre, Broadway, and film, both live-action and animated. By 1927, which marked the appearance of the most famous Jewish-themed film to date, The Jazz Singer, the sound of American Jewry was not only cliché, it was a stereotype.