Center for Humanistic Inquiry Symposium 2019 on “Wonder”
The second annual celebration of faculty creativity, bringing together artists and
scholars from Skidmore’s faculty who will share their latest work. Following on the
heels of last year’s successful Symposium on “Metamorphosis,” this year’s gathering will feature 20 faculty from across the disciplines who will
offer papers and performances on the theme of “wonder.” Connected to the sensation
of awe, to inspiration, and to the possibility of transformation, wonder is tied to
discovery and invention; it unites the humanities, the sciences, and the arts; and
it is tied to curiosity and, thus, to uncertainty.
One highlight of this year’s Symposium is the keynote speaker, Mary-Jane Rubenstein,
Professor and Chair of Religion, Affiliated Faculty in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality
Studies, and Professor of Science in Society at Wesleyan University. Prof. Rubenstein’s
research interests include continental philosophy, theology, gender and sexuality
studies, science and religion, pantheism, and the history and philosophy of cosmology.
She is the author of Strange Wonder: The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe (2009) and Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse (2014, both with Columbia University Press), and co-editor with Catherine Keller
of Entangled Worlds: Science, Religion, and New Materialisms (Fordham, 2017). Her latest book, hot off the press, is entitled Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters (Columbia, 2018).
Other highlights of the Symposium are tours of the two recently opened exhibits in
the Tang: “The Second Buddha,” to be led by Prof. Ben Bogin of the Asian Studies Program;
and “Like Sugar,” conducted by Prof. Sarah Goodwin of the English Department. Attendees
of the Symposium will be offered (in advance) the opportunity to participate in “Off
the Shelf,” a Tang-based performance conceived and directed by Profs. Carolyn Anderson
and Gary Wilson of the Theater Department.
The central image for this year's Symposium is from Sarah Sweeney, who explains her
series Still in the following way: In the photographic series Still I explore the paradox that arises when hundreds of tourist bodies armed with cameras
around their necks invade remote Icelandic landscapes hoping to capture a sense of
wilderness, isolation, and untouched space. Each photograph is constructed from dozens
of images of the landscape combined with images of tourists taken at the same location.
In each image I move and rotate the bodies, digitally repositioning them like theatrical
props or mannequins. In images that recall the immense landscapes and the frozen bodies
of the turn-of-the-century dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History, this
series asks what is owned or possessed when we photograph a foreign space.
The Center for Humanistic Inquiry Symposium 2019 is free and open to the public.
We would like to thank the following:
- President Philip Glotzbach
- Ian Berry, Rachel Seligman, and Sophie Heath, The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery
- Martin Mbugua and the Communications and Marketing Staff
- Chef James Rose, Bonnie Bertrand, and the Dining Services Staff
- Ben Bogin, Asian Studies Program, and Sarah Goodwin, English Department
- Carolyn Anderson and Gary Wilson, Theater Department
- Sarah Sweeney, Art Department