Museum

Lectures & Educational Programming

"Addressing Social and Political Issues: A Book Arts Workshop"

Wednesday, February 6th: 6-9 PM

DU Assistant Professor Alexander Mouton (Art).

Black Box Space, Burke Hall

This 3-hour workshop will introduce participants to the different forms books have taken throughout time, from scrolls and the codex to simple experimental structures. The meaning and significance of the Dafatir exhibition will serve as inspiration for creating spontaneous individual artists' books. Participants will be able to draw, collage, or print photographic images; create book pages from the work; and bind the books for a finished work that each attendee can take with them.

"The Great Divide:" A Gallery Talk

Thursday, February 7th: 7 PM

DU Assistant Professor Chris Barnard (Art)

Denison Museum, Burke Hall

Barnard will speak on his exhibition of paintings by the same name. A new faculty member in the art department, Chris Barnard has produced a series of paintings on the intersection of the southwestern US landscape and US military industries and bases located there. His work hovers between interest in traditional landscape, modernist painting, and political content.

Gallery Talk with Visiting Iranian Photographer Jamshid Bayrami

Tuesday, February 19th: 6 p.m.

Black Box Space, Burke Hall

Part of a week-long visit, Bayrami will be speaking on his exhibition of photographs on view through March 7th. Jamshid Bayrami's photos document major Islamic religious events, the lives of women in Iran, scenes from war torn locales like Iraq and Afghanistan, among other subjects.

Inaugural Book Club Meeting

Saturday, February 23rd: 3 p.m.

Buxton Inn

Book Selection: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

Synopsis: In THREE CUPS OF TEA: One Man’s Mission to Promote . . . One School at a Time Greg Mortenson, and acclaimed journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the unlikely journey that led Mortenson from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to successfully building schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to fight terrorism with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote villages in Central Asia.

Immediately following: Private Denison Museum Book Club Tour: Museum director Dr. Natalie Marsh will lead a special tour of the four winter exhibitions, leading a discussion on the ways the works on view elaborate aspects of the book selection’s narrative. Refreshments served.

"Afghan Narrative Traditions and War," Noon Hour Brown Bag Talk

Wednesday, February 27th

Margaret Mills, Professor, Ohio State University.

Herrick Auditorium

Dr. Mills is widely regarded as a leading specialist in the popular culture of the Persian and Farsi-speaking world. Her book, Rhetorics and Politics in Afghan Traditional Storytelling, won the 1993 Chicago Folklore Prize for best academic work in folklore. Mills will discuss the characteristics of Afghan narrative, relating oral traditions to the visual whenever possible.

War Rug Symposium

Wednesday, March 5th: 6-8 PM

Black Box Space, Burke Hall

Speakers will include:

Thomas Gouttierre, Dean of International Studies and Programs at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the University Medical Center, and as the Director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at UNO. A 10-year Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan, a Fulbright Fellow there, and former Director of the Fulbright Foundation in Afghanistan, Gouttierre has been actively consulted by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on International Relations regarding Afghanistan.

M. Homayun Sidky, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Miami University. Sidky, an Afghan-American, centers his research on ecological anthropology and the history and theory of anthropology of religion. Sidky is the author of Perspectives on Cultures: A Critical Introduction to Theory in Cultural Anthropology in addition to numerous articles and publications, including a recent article on American financing and instigation of the Soviet-Afghan war.

Bahram Tavakolian, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Denison University. Tavakolian has conducted field research with Sheikhanzai nomads in Afghanistan and written about cultural representations of the "fierce Afghan" and about Afghan women in Victorian literature and popular culture and also on the effects of such images on British colonial policy during the "Great Game".

Richard Herrmann, Director, Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State University. Dr. Herrmann the role of perception and imagery in foreign policy as well as on the importance of nationalism and identity politics in world affairs. His areas of interests include American foreign policy and the politics of the Middle East and Russia. During the late 1980s-early 1990s Dr. Herrmann worked in the Policy Planning Staff for with the Baker administration during George H.W. Bush’s presidency.

Discussant, Brenda Boyle, Associate Professor of English and Director, Denison Writing Center

Boyle has written extensively on the Vietnam war and teaches on the subject of languages and rhetorics of war. She will contribute to this discussion of the Afghan-Soviet war, what has been called "Russia's Vietnam," by commenting on the rhetoric surrounding Afghanistan during the past 30 years.

Moderated by Natalie Marsh, Denison Museum Director.

"29 Years: War Rug Imagery, Its History and Iconographic Shifts," Noon Hour Brown Bag Talk

Thursday, March 6th: Noon Hour Brown Bag Talk

Kevin Sudeith, War Rug Collector

Black Box Space, Burke Hall

New York based artist, collector and rug dealer Kevin Sudeith will talk about his ongoing fascination with war rugs.