The Global Humanities Lecture Series

218 Humanities Center 

Professor Jane I. Guyer, The Johns Hopkins University

Anthropologist

“The question for academic, then, is how to build channels between the erudition that we must never abandon, that is our basic raison d’être in the great division of labor and the rapidly changing social context in Africa and the West.  There must be many answers . . . . But if we cannot address them and recreate a new phase in the very “modern tradition” of African Studies, we will enter, regardless of specific theory or conscious intention or genre of expression or even social composition of our membership, a new phase of orientalism, to the detriment of everyone.”

--Jane I. Guyer, “African Studies: A New Tradition?”

Jane I. Guyer is a Professor of Anthropology at The Johns Hopkins University.  She came to Johns Hopkins  from Northwestern University in 2002, having served previously on the faculties of Harvard and Boston University.  Her research career has been devoted to studying economic transformations in West Africa, particularly the productive economy, the division of labor and the management of money. Theoretically she focuses on the interface between formal and informal economies, and particularly the instabilities that interface gives rise to.  She is the author or editor of ten major research studies on family life, monetary policy, land use, and hunger in Africa.  Professor Guyer is a member of the The International Advisory Group to the World Bank and the Governments of Chad and Cameroon on the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development.  In 2009, Professor Guyer was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Guyer’s talk will address the importance of thinking about Africa in the context of the global humanities.

DeMeester Recital Hall Series

This Latin American program will feature the exotic and colorful chamber music of Brazillian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. A rare performance of his Sexteto Mystico will be presented along with other works by members of our woodwind, guitar, and piano faculty.

The Global Humanities Lecture Series

Humanities 218

Panel Discussion with York College faculty members Dr. Kwasi Sarfo, Dr. Javier Aguayo, Dr. David Fyfe, and Dr. Gabriel Abudu.

Africa and Latin America share not only a colonial past, they also share a postcolonial present and, more than likely, a postcolonial future, at least in the short term. The common legacy of European imperialism and colonization has created a series of persistent and far-reaching problems in such areas as the environment, economic development, education, politics, and cultural formation. What are the similarities and differences in the ways in which Africa and Latin American experience and address these problems? How will globalization help or hinder progress toward a shared sustainable future?   

This panel discussion will address the shared issues and concerns of thinking about Latin America and Africa in a global context.

Humanities 218

Fernand Léger. Man Ray. Paul Strand. Marcel Duchamp. Salvador Dalí. These men were some of the most important and influential avant-garde artists of the 1920s; indeed, their groundbreaking contributions to painting, photography, sculpture, and assemblage helped to define this key era in the history of 20th-century art. Lesser known, however, is the fact that they were also accomplished filmmakers who made equally vital contributions to experimental cinema at the same time.

Dr. Pamela Hemzik, a professor of art at York College, will trace the path taken by Léger, Ray, Strand, Duchamp, and Dalí from the gallery to the cinema during the 1920s, comparing and contrasting famous works of art they created over the course of this pivotal decade with the films that they made concurrently: Ballet Mécanique, Le Retour à la Raison, Manhatta, Anémic Cinéma, and Un Chien Andalou, among them. After her talk, Hemzik will also lead a question-and-answer session focusing on, among other things, the influence that these films continue to have on contemporary world cinema.

Perko Playpen Theatre

Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer is a comic masterpiece of two young men duped into mistaking the home of a country gentleman for an inn but eventually, after misunderstandings, intrigues, and discoveries, ending up with satisfactory conclusions to their love affairs. 

Perko Playpen Theatre

Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer is a comic masterpiece of two young men duped into mistaking the home of a country gentleman for an inn but eventually, after misunderstandings, intrigues, and discoveries, ending up with satisfactory conclusions to their love affairs. 

Perko Playpen Theatre

Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer is a comic masterpiece of two young men duped into mistaking the home of a country gentleman for an inn but eventually, after misunderstandings, intrigues, and discoveries, ending up with satisfactory conclusions to their love affairs. 

Perko Playpen Theatre

Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer is a comic masterpiece of two young men duped into mistaking the home of a country gentleman for an inn but eventually, after misunderstandings, intrigues, and discoveries, ending up with satisfactory conclusions to their love affairs. 

Perko Playpen Theatre

Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer is a comic masterpiece of two young men duped into mistaking the home of a country gentleman for an inn but eventually, after misunderstandings, intrigues, and discoveries, ending up with satisfactory conclusions to their love affairs.