DEADLINE EXTENDED: Forum on Forms of Seeing (Extended to May 23)

DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR APPLICATIONS: APPLY BY MAY 23

New York University

Forum on Forms of Seeing

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS & APPLICATIONS

Spring 2012

FORUM DESCRIPTION

The Graduate School of Arts and Science and the Institute of Fine Arts are pleased to invite nominations and applications for a specialized interdisciplinary forum for graduate students whose work addresses modes of visual representation and their products. Focused on the ways in which cultures give form to visual experience, the Forum on Forms of Seeing aims to bring together students from a wide range of graduate programs. Applications are encouraged from students who have strong historical and/or theoretical interests in images and visuality in the broadest sense, and who wish to become closely familiar with other disciplines concerned with visual representation.

Over the past few decades, many disciplines have become interested in “visuality” as a wider natural and cultural phenomenon that includes not only the traditional fine arts but imaging practices of all kinds, from cinema and popular print culture to digital reality techniques and scientific modeling. Anthropology, Philosophy, History, Literary Criticism, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience have taken significant interest in the concept of the visual, and relatively young disciplines such as Cinema Studies and Visual Studies or Visual Culture put visual representation at the center of their research. Art History itself has become more cognizant of the limitations of traditional medium‐bound definitions of the image, and has taken up a more fluidly‐defined visuality as one of its central problems. Reflecting the dramatic expansion of visuality as a category for scholarly inquiry, the Forum invites applications for membership from any NYU graduate program. 

 

How images in different periods and cultures imitate, model, render, or critique the world and our visual apprehension of it, for their makers and for their viewers, will be of central interest to the Forum. This historical and comparative approach may profitably be complemented by a philosophical understanding of the image as record of, or model for, acts of seeing. The creation, dissemination, function, signification, efficacy, duration, destruction, and demise of images will be welcome topics for the Forum.

MEETING FORMAT

Membership in the Forum on Forms of Seeing will be for one academic year, commencing in September 2012 and ending in April 2013. All eight members will present and critique work in progress during monthly, moderated lunch sessions, scheduled on Fridays, from 12–3 p.m., at Washington Square and the Institute of Fine Arts. The meetings will culminate in a one‐day event at the end of the semester, showcasing the year’s presentations. Members are expected to attend every session and to participate in the end‐of‐year symposium. A stipend of $500 is distributed per semester.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

To apply for membership in the 2012‐13 Forum on Forms of Seeing, please provide a one‐page statement of your scholarly interest in visual representation and the relevance of interdisciplinary debate about visuality for your graduate work. Your application should include a current transcript (unofficial is fine), CV, and a recommendation by a NYU faculty member. Please submit your completed application electronically by end‐of‐day Wednesday, May 23 to Anna Antoniak (anna.antoniak@nyu.edu).

For more information, please visit the Forum on Forms of Seeing blog at

blogs.nyu.edu/blogs/bms247/forumonformsofseeing/

The Forum on Forms of Seeing is supported by the Office of the Provost, the Graduate School of Arts and Science, and the Institute of Fine Arts and its Alumni Association.

Foucault Society April 12 Colloquium: Kelsey Borrowman, "Plasticization, Necrophilia, Foucault"

Kelsey Borrowman

"Plasticization as Necrophilia:
Death, Decomposition and the Inorganic in Foucault"

Thursday, April 12, 2012

7:30-9:30pm

CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Room 5409
New York, NY

Open to the public.

Suggested donation: $5

Wine and light dessert will be served.

RSVPs are appreciated. Email: foucaultsocietyorg@gmail.com

For abstract and speaker bio, see below or go to our website: www.foucaultsociety.org

Abstract:

Throughout his work, Foucault wrestles with the notion of biopolitics, which can be defined broadly as the politics of and over life. This essay investigates the politics of death within life, specifically concerning the concept of plasticization, in order to illuminate contemporary society’s desire for an inorganic “body.” I root the discussion within The Birth of the Clinic and Foucault’s analysis of the development of a new concept of “death.” Just as we understand life as permeable by death, I propose that the dying or decomposing body, a remnant of the living body, is death permeated by life. I expand Susan Bordo’s discussion of plasticization to include not only forms of body modification like plastic surgery, but also the broader societal pressure to "look young." I propose that plasticity–an obsession with the non-decomposing, un-aging body–is, by definition, necrophilia. In the paper’s final section, I turn to the implications of my argument for biopolitics. Should we view plasticization as part of a technology of governing bodies? Connecting Foucault and Bordo, I argue that it is through plasticization as necrophilia that the sovereign regains a “right” to life and death. As a consequence, we see that death is not the last remaining region of freedom from the sovereign. Plasticization entails new techniques of power and makes already established techniques more prominent and invasive. Following Bordo, who addresses claims that the feminine body is not of political concern, I show the extent to which plasticization is political by illuminating how our obsession with the “dead” body has given the sovereign a new “right” over life.

Speaker Bio:

Kelsey Borrowman is a Master of Arts candidate in the Philosophy & Arts program at Stony Brook University. She has presented versions of her paper, "Plasticization as Necrophilia," at the Foucault Circle annual conference in Buffalo, NY; the NY Society for Women in Philosophy workshop (SWIPshop) in NYC; and the Radical Foucault conference at University of East London.

DSO Forum (with Pizza) This Friday, 2/17, Noon - 2:00 PM

Hey everyone,

The D.S.O. Forum is back this semester. We'll have our first meeting this Friday, the 17th from high noon 'til 2pm in the Map room.

There will be free pizza!

This week we'd like to talk about the presidential election. So if you'd like, bring an article or editorial loosely pertaining to American politics to discuss. If you don't feel like talking politics that's fine too. Just come, eat, and hang out; it's very casual!

Here's a couple of articles Valentine and I at the D.S.O. thought were worth discussing... Eurozone leaders 'call of Greece crisis talks' and Repulsive Progressive Hypocrisy, by Glenn Greenwald.

And If you wouldn't mind, please RSVP at dsonyu@gmail.com (so we know how much pizza to buy).

See you on Friday!
Scott
Draper Student Organization

Humanities Initiative: October Events

Grant-Writing for Graduate Students in the Humanities:

A Panel Discussion

Wed. October 12, 2011

5:30pm

20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor

Join us to discuss how to identify grant opportunities and how to prepare a successful proposal for project and research in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Speakers include: ProfessorsEmily Martin (Anthropology), Ara Merjian (Italian), Helen Nissenbaum (Media, Culture, and Communication), and Guy Ortolano (History), and doctoral candidates Maggie Popkin (IFA) andReynolds Richter (History). Dean Lauren Benton (Dean for Humanities, FAS) will moderate. This event is co-sponsored by the NYU Humanities Initiative, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the FAS Office of the Dean for Humanities.

RSVPs are required. To reserve your place, please visit: http://bitly.com/grantwriting_panel_nyuhi.

A reception will follow. This event is free and open to the public.

Michael Stoller

The Place of American Libraries Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Wed. October 19, 2011

5:30pm

20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor

From the tiny, little-used collections that accompanied the classical curriculum of early 19th century American colleges to the closed-stack libraries that first supported graduate research to the burgeoning open-stack repositories of the Cold War era and the digital gateways of the 21st century,Dr. Michael Stoller (Director of Collections and Research Services, NYU’s Division of Libraries) discusses the ways that academic libraries have grown and evolved to meet the changing needs of this country’s research universities. Stoller took his PhD in medieval history at Columbia University and has written extensively about the importance of collaboration between scholars and librarians in shaping the library of the 21st century.

RSVPs are required. To reserve your place, please visit: http://bitly.com/michael_stoller.

A reception will follow. This event is free and open to the public.

Call for Applications: The Graduate Forum

THE GRADUATE FORUM
New York University

Sponsored by the

Graduate School of Arts and Science Dean’s Office

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Spring 2011

The Graduate Forum, now entering its tenth year, is accepting applications from students across New York University for participation beginning in September 2011.

The Graduate Forum was established to encourage interdisciplinary inquiry into intellectual and moral problems, to question the foundations of the disciplines, and to experiment in translating basic research into a language accessible to a variety of audiences without oversimplification. Over the course of their tenure Forum members become part of an intellectual community that fosters creative cross-disciplinary discourse. At monthly dinners held during the academic year, Forum members make formal presentations of their work and enjoy genuinely interdisciplinary dialogue in sessions moderated by Acting Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science, Malcolm Semple, joined by Assistant Dean for the Office of Academic and Student Life, Kathleen Talvacchia, and facilitated by Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra, a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature, and an alumna of the Graduate Forum.

Graduate students interested in participating in the Forum should submit an application by Tuesday March 8, 2011. Applications should consist of a letter of no more than 500 words describing your interest in the Forum and why you would make a good member, a curriculum vitae and a copy of your graduate transcript (unofficial copies are accepted). In addition, all nominations should include a letter of recommendation from at least one NYU faculty member who can comment on the student’s ability to contribute to the Forum. Students whose work addresses modes of visual representation and their products in any culture or period should consider applying to the more specialized Forum on Forms of Seeing, which is co-sponsored by GSAS and the IFA.

Considerations for selection include a promising academic record, the capacity for innovative thinking, the ability to contribute to interdisciplinary inquiry, and an interest in the new technologies of education. Each Forum member will be paid an honorarium of $500 per semester for her or his active participation. Student membership in the Forum is for a term of two academic years, unless a student graduates earlier. The Forum strongly encourages applications from students of diverse racial, ethnic, national and/or cultural backgrounds. Please refer to our website ( www.nyu.edu/ graduate.forum) for more information on past and present members as well as our meetings.

Nominations for membership beginning in the 2011 academic year will be due on Friday, March 11, 2011. They should be submitted electronically to Anna Antoniak at anna.antoniak@nyu.edu. The selection process may include interviews conducted in early April by current Forum members. Dean Semple will extend offers for membership by late April for a term to begin at the September 2011 Graduate Student Forum meeting.

Call for Applications: Forum on Forms of Seeing

New York University

Forum on Forms of Seeing

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS & APPLICATIONS
Spring 2011

Forum Description

The Graduate School of Arts and Science and the Institute of Fine Arts are pleased to invite nominations and applications for a specialized interdisciplinary forum for graduate students whose work addresses modes of visual representation and their products. Focused on the ways in which cultures give form to visual experience, the Forum on Forms of Seeing aims to bring together students from a wide range of graduate programs. Applications are encouraged from students who have strong historical and/or theoretical interests in images and visuality in the broadest sense, and who wish to become closely familiar with other disciplines concerned with visual representation.

Over the past few decades, many disciplines have become interested in “visuality” as a wider natural and cultural phenomenon that includes not only the traditional fine arts but imaging practices of all kinds, from cinema and popular print culture to digital reality techniques and scientific modeling. Anthropology, Philosophy, History, Literary Criticism, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience have taken significant interest in the concept of the visual, and relatively young disciplines such as Cinema Studies and Visual Studies or Visual Culture put visual representation at the center of their research. Art History itself has become more cognizant of the limitations of traditional medium-bound definitions of the image, and has taken up a more fluidly-defined visuality as one of its central problems. Reflecting the dramatic expansion of visuality as a category for scholarly inquiry, the Forum invites applications for membership from any graduate program at NYU.

How images in different periods and cultures imitate, model, render, or critique the world and our visual apprehension of it, for their makers and for their viewers, will be of central interest to the Forum. This historical and comparative approach may profitably be complemented by a philosophical understanding of the image as record of, or model for, acts of seeing. The creation, dissemination, function, signification, efficacy, duration, destruction, and demise of images will be welcome topics for the Forum.

Meeting Format

Membership in the Forum on Forms of Seeing will be for one academic year, commencing in September 2011 and ending in April 2012. All eight members will present and critique work in progress during monthly, moderated lunch sessions, scheduled on Fridays, from 12 – 3 p.m., at Washington Square and the Institute of Fine Arts. The meetings will culminate in a one-day event at the end of the semester, showcasing the year’s presentations. Members are expected to attend every session and to participate in the end-of-year symposium. A stipend of $500 is distributed per semester.

Application Procedure

To apply for membership in the 2011-12 Forum on Forms of Seeing, please provide a one-page statement of your scholarly interest in visual representation and the relevance of interdisciplinary debate about visuality for your graduate work. Your application should include a current transcript (unofficial is fine), CV, and a recommendation by a NYU faculty member. Please submit your completed application electronically by end-of-day Monday, April 4 to Anna Antoniak at anna.antoniak@nyu.edu.

The Forum on Forms of Seeing is supported by the Office of the Provost, the Graduate School of Arts and Science, and the Institute of Fine Arts and its Alumni Association.

NYU Graduate Forum Call for Self-Nominations

THE GRADUATE FORUM
of NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Sponsored by the
Graduate School of Arts and Science Dean’s Office

CALL FOR SELF-NOMINATIONS Spring 2010

The Graduate School of Arts and Science is proud to announce the continuation of an innovative program for graduate students across New York University launched in January 2001.The Graduate Forum was established to encourage interdisciplinary inquiry into intellectual and moral problems, to question the foundations of the disciplines, and to experiment in translating basic research into a language accessible to a variety of audiences without oversimplification. Over the course of their tenure (two years or until graduation, whichever is shorter), Forum members develop a warm intellectual community that fosters creative cross-discipline discourse. At monthly dinners held during the academic year, Forum members have an opportunity to make formal presentations of their work and enjoy genuinely interdisciplinary dialogue in sessions moderated by Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science, Catharine R. Stimpson, joined by Assistant Dean for the Office of Academic and Student Life, Kathleen Talvacchia, and facilitated by Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra, Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature and alumna of the Graduate Forum.

Graduate students interested in participating in the Forum may either nominate themselves or be nominated by their school dean, department chair, or director of graduate studies. Students whose work addresses modes of visual representation and their products in any culture or period should consider applying to the more specialized IFA Forum, which is co-sponsored by GSAS and the IFA. Nominations should consist of a letter of no more than 500 words stating why and how you would make a good member of the Forum, a curriculum vitae and a copy of your graduate transcript. Self-nominations should include a letter of recommendation from at least one NYU faculty member who can comment on your ability to contribute to the Forum.
Criteria for selection include a promising academic record, the capacity for innovative thinking, the ability to contribute to interdisciplinary inquiry, and an interest in the new technologies of education. Each Forum member will be paid an honorarium of $500 per semester for her or his active participation. Student membership in the Forum is for a term of two academic years (unless a student graduates earlier). The Forum strongly encourages students from diverse racial, ethnic, national and/or cultural backgrounds to apply. Please refer to our website www.nyu.edu/ graduate.forum for more information on past and present members as well as our meetings.

Nominations for membership beginning in the 2010 academic year will be due on Tuesday, March 23, 2010. They should be submitted electronically to Anna Antoniak at anna.antoniak@nyu.edu. It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that all materials reach us by the due date. The selection process may include interviews conducted in early April by current Forum members. The Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science, Catharine R. Stimpson, will extend offers for membership by late April for a term to begin at the September 2010 Graduate Student Forum meeting.

Forum on Forms of Seeing Call for Self-Nominations

THE FORUM ON FORMS OF SEEING
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS Spring 2010

The Graduate School of Arts and Science and the Institute of Fine Arts are pleased to invite nominations and self-nominations for a specialized interdisciplinary forum for graduate students whose work addresses modes of visual representation and their products. Focused on the ways in which cultures give form to visual experience, the Forum on Forms of Seeing aims to bring together students from a wide range of graduate programs. Applications are encouraged from students who have strong historical and/or theoretical interests in images and visuality in the broadest sense and who wish to become closely familiar with other disciplines concerned with visual representation.

Historically, the study of images has been the academic preserve of “fine arts,” as art history in America was termed in its earliest days. Over the past few decades, however, many other disciplines have become interested in “visuality,” as a wider natural and cultural phenomenon that includes not only the traditional fine arts but imaging practices of all kinds, from cinema and popular print culture to digital reality techniques and scientific modeling. Anthropology, Philosophy, History, Literary Criticism, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience have taken significant interest in the concept of the visual, and relatively young disciplines such as Cinema Studies and Visual Studies or Visual Culture put visual representation at the center of their researches. Art History itself has become more cognizant of the limitations of traditional medium-bound definitions of the image, and has taken up a more fluidly-defined visuality as one of its central problems. Reflecting the dramatic expansion of visuality as a category for scholarly inquiry, the Forum invites applications for membership from any graduate program at NYU.

How images in different periods and cultures imitate, model, render, or critique the world and our visual apprehension of it, for their makers and for their viewers, will be of central interest to the Forum. This historical and comparative approach may profitably be complemented by a philosophical understanding of the image as record of, or model for, acts of seeing. The creation, dissemination, function, signification, efficacy, duration, destruction, and demise of images will be welcome topics for the Forum.

Forum on Forms of Seeing Format

Membership in the Forum on Forms of Seeing will be for one academic year, commencing in September 2010 and ending in May 2011. All eight members will present and critique work in progress during monthly, moderated lunch sessions, scheduled on Fridays, from 12 – 3 p.m., at Washington Square and the Institute of Fine Arts. Honed papers will be presented during a one-day symposium at the Institute of Fine Arts in the spring of 2011. Members are expected to attend every session and to participate in the symposium; each will receive a stipend of $500 per semester.

Application Procedure

To apply for membership in the 2010-11 Forum on Forms of Seeing, please provide a one-page statement of your scholarly interest in visual representation and the relevance of interdisciplinary debate about visuality for your graduate work. Your application should include a current transcript (unofficial is fine), c.v., and a recommendation by a NYU faculty member. Please submit your completed application electronically by Tuesday, March 23 to Anna Antoniak at anna.antoniak@nyu.edu.

The Forum on Forms of Seeing is supported by the Office of the Provost,
the Graduate School of Arts and Science, and the Institute of Fine Arts and its Alumni Association.

Foucault Society Reading Group tomorrow

The Foucault Society, NYC

Winter 2010 Reading Group

Foucault(s) Beyond Foucault: Essays, Interviews, Lectures (1976-84)

Please join us as our Fall 2009 Reading Group continues into Winter 2010. The next meeting of the reading group will be on Friday, January 8, 7:00-9:30pm, at CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 5414.

We will discuss the following pieces:

Michel Foucault (1993 [1980]). “About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self” in Political Theory, 21(2): 198-227.

Michel Foucault (2005 [1981-2]). The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Lectures I & II. New York: Picador.

For a limited time, readings are available to reading group participants on GoogleDocs. For access instructions, please send an e-mail to: foucaultsociety2009@gmail.com.

This reading group is open to the public. New participants are welcome; you do not need to have attended every meeting to join us. Please come prepared with a question or section of the text to discuss with the group. Suggested Donation: $5/meeting. No one will be turned away for lack of ability to pay.

*****

Reading Group Schedule: Winter 2010

**All meetings will be held at CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 5414.

Date: Friday, January 8, 2010

Readings:

--Michel Foucault. 1993 [1980]. “About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self” in Political Theory, 21(2): 198-227.

--Michel Foucault. 2005 [1981-2]. The Hermeneutics of the Subject. New York: Picador. (Lectures I & II)

Date: Friday, January 29, 2010

Readings:

--Michel Foucault. 2006 [1983]. “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of a Work in Progress” in Essential Works, Vol. 1. New York: The New Press.

--Michel Foucault. 2006 [1983]. “The Ethics of the Concern for the Self as a Practice of Freedom” in Essential Works, Vol. 1. New York: The New Press.

Date: Friday, February 19, 2010

Readings:

--Michel Foucault: 2006. “What is Enlightenment?” in Essential Works, Vol. 1. New York: The New Press.

--Michel Foucault: 1986 [1983]. “Kant on Enlightenment and Revolution” in Economy and Society, 15(1): 88-96.

For more information or to register, please contact Reading Group Organizer, Aaron Weeks (Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center) at foucaultsociety2009@gmail.com.

For directions to CUNY Graduate Center, go to: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/about_gc/directions.htm

About the Foucault Society:

The Foucault Society is an independent, non-profit educational organization offering a variety of forums dedicated to critical study of the ideas of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) within a contemporary context. The Foucault Society is a 501 (c) (3) recognized public charity. As such donations are tax deductible under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code.

E-mail: foucaultsociety2009@gmail.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=12929420844

Website: www.foucaultsociety.org (Sorry -- not recently updated.)

News from the Draper Student Organization

DSO News

*Contact Myong at myc266@nyu.edu with questions or RSVP for any of the items below

1) Events this week:

DSO Salon / weekly socials

[every] Wednesday 9pm

at Grassroots Tavern

20 St. Marks Pl.

DSO Open Forum / informal discussion / refreshments provided

Thursday 8:30-9:15pm

KJCC Room 109, 52 Washington Sq. S.

2) Fall Semester schedule is up on the DSO Forum blog: http://dsoforum.wordpress.com/schedule/

Follow us on the blog, or request to join the DSO listserv.

3) For students writing the masters thesis this semester:

Join the Thesis Writers group for writing and morale support! Please respond ASAP for more details.

4) DSO is looking for help behind-the-scenes:

We need extra minds and hands to run DSO. Commitment can range from picking up food for one event, to hosting a Forum Series or session, to initiating a new event to meet student needs. Please respond with your interests and availability.

Draper Student Forums

During the 2008 - 2009 academic year, Draper student Myong Yee Chin initiated the Draper Forums--small, informal discussion groups for Draper students seeking discussion opportunities outside of classes. Myong describes the Forums below:

Draper Forums are small, informal discussion groups for Draper students to ask questions and exchange ideas. We began meeting in January 2009, once or twice a week, for about 45 minutes in the evening after class. Membership is open: any Draper student can join in at any time. So far, topics discussed have included interdisciplinarity, mapping, translation, and literature and science, as well as practical concerns for master’s students, such as how to present at an academic conference.

I started the Forums to address a lack of opportunities for Draper students to come together for serious, but unguarded, discussion. The Forums are also meant to create a greater sense of community for students within Draper. The meetings are low-obligation and do not require advance preparation. With very simple topic prompts, we aim for a free flow of conversation that does not find an outlet in courses or other formal academic venues.

The Forums will continue in the fall semester, possibly with adjustments or expansions to the format. We may create separate groups with thematic or formal definitions, such as a thesis writing support group. The development of the Forums largely depends on the people involved, so please feel free to give your input! We have opened a blog where you can find contact information, a meeting schedule, and recaps of previous meetings: dsoforum.wordpress.com.

Myong Yee Chin is a first semester Draper student who is also in the dual degree program at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science. Interested in researching the history of the book and book arts, Myong is a graduate assistant at Fales Library and is pursuing a concentration in Rare Books and Special Collections at Palmer. She will be taking over as the Draper Student Organization president for the upcoming 2009 – 2010 academic year.