“Arts of Transmission” conference examines relationships among ideas and cultures of communication

Poster: Click to download as PDF Resources: Panels at this international conference discuss papers to be published in Critical Inquiry (Autumn 2004). Since the papers will not be read at the conference, you should consult them in advance at: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CI/journal/roughcut.html or http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/features/specialarts.htm More Information: For more information, please call the Franke Institute for the Humanities at 773-702-8274, or see: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/institute/artsoftransmission

The “Arts of Transmission” is an interdisciplinary conference, in conjunction with a special issue of Critical Inquiry, that calls together experts from a range of fields to examine relationships among ideas and cultures of communication, past and present. This discussion conference takes place on Friday and Saturday, May 21-22 in the Swift Hall 3rd Floor Lecture Room at 1025 East 58th Street on the University of Chicago campus.

Speakers include guests from Australia, England, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as from universities in the U.S. and the University of Chicago. Participants include Ann Blair, Roger Chartier, Lorraine Daston, Elena Esposito, Peter Galison, John Guillory, Friedrich Kittler, Alan Liu, David and Judith MacDougall, Gregory Nagy, Mary Poovey, and Janice Radway. Conference panels address these topics: Forms and Media, Writing and Memory, Universal Languages, Institutions and Impediments, and Transmitting Arts.

Panels at this international conference discuss papers to be published in Critical Inquiry (Autumn 2004). Since the papers will not be read at the conference, you should consult them in advance at:
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CI/journal/roughcut.html
or
http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/features/specialarts.htm

Our age is preoccupied with questions about the ways of creating, transmitting, and appropriating knowledge. "The arts of transmission" as Francis Bacon called them, are those essential practices through which ideas are articulated, distributed, and passed on to our successors. As we try to understand the most important changes in our culture - whether in the crisis of education, the fluctuating fortunes of the information economy, or the ambivalent exhilaration of the digital revolution - we find ourselves returning to these practices. Bacon's "arts" are as urgent a concern now as at any moment since the advent of printing.

One reason is that these arts of transmission have multiplied many times over, embracing not just oral, manuscript, and print communication, but also broadcast, electronic, and digital media. The time may be past when we could comfortably invoke discrete concepts like print culture or digital culture, because the ways in which these forms interact have also ramified. Today the arts of transmission intersect across technologies in ways we have still to understand and with consequences we have yet to confront. As a result, authorship, reading, the concepts of information and communication themselves - the basic terms in which we think about creative work - are changing beyond recognition. Some aspects of this are relatively well known, such as the crisis of academic publishing and the bitter conflicts now raging over intellectual property. Others remain relatively unfamiliar. To understand our moment we shall need new perspectives, able to perceive common issues extending across otherwise deep historical, theoretical, and disciplinary rifts.

This conference is sponsored by Critical Inquiry, The Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Office of the Provost, The University of Chicago; and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information, please call the Franke Institute for the Humanities at 773-702-8274. If you would like lunch at the conference, please send an email to: franke-humanities@uchicago.edu

SCHEDULE FOR THE ‘ARTS OF TRANSMISSION’ CONFERENCE

FRIDAY, MAY 21 - SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2004

Please note: All events, unless otherwise specified, will take place in the Swift Hall 3rd Floor Lecture Room at 1025 East 58th Street on the University of Chicago campus.

FRIDAY, MAY 21:
8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Breakfast Refreshments

Swift Hall, 1^st Floor Common Room

9:00 a.m. Introduction

James Chandler, English, Cmtes. on History of Culture and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago

9:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Forms and Media

Moderator: Arnold Davidson, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, and Divinity School, University of Chicago

"The Arts of Contingency"
Elena Esposito, Sociology, University of Modena-Reggio Emilia
Respondent: David Wellbery, Germanic Studies, University of Chicago
Rejoinder by Professor Esposito

"Transmission of Archaic Greek Sympotic Songs: From Lesbos to Alexandria"
Gregory Nagy, Classics, Harvard University
Respondent: Danielle Allen, Classics, Political Science, and Cmte. on Social Thought, University of Chicago
Rejoinder by Professor Nagy

"Transcendental Data: Toward a Cultural History and Aesthetics of the New Encoded Discourse"
Alan Liu, English, University of Santa Barbara
Respondent: Mark Hansen, English, Princeton University
Rejoinder by Professor Liu

12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m Lunch for registrants

Swift Hall, 1^st Floor Common Room

1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Writing and Memory

Moderator: Amy Hollywood, Divinity School, University of Chicago

"Note Taking as an Art of Transmission"
Ann Blair, History, Harvard University
Respondent: Laurie Shannon, English, Duke University
Rejoinder by Professor Blair

"The Memo and Modernity"
John Guillory, English, New York University
Respondent: James Chandler
Rejoinder by Professor Guillory

3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Universal Languages

Moderator: Adrian Johns, History and Cmte. on Conceptual and Historical Foundations of Science, University of Chicago

"Languages, Books, and Reading from the Printed Word to the Digital Text"
Roger Chartier, Director of Studies, ƒcole des Hautes ƒtudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Respondent: Frances Ferguson, English, Johns Hopkins University
Rejoinder by Professor Chartier

"Type Specimens and Scientific Memory"
Lorraine Daston, Max Planck Institute, Berlin
Respondent: Candace Vogler, Philosophy and Cmte. on Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, University of Chicago
Rejoinder by Professor Daston

Please note: All events, unless otherwise specified, will take place in the Swift Hall 3rd Floor Lecture Room at 1025 East 58th Street on the University of Chicago campus.

SATURDAY, MAY 22

8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Breakfast Refreshments

Swift Hall, 1^st Floor Common Room

9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Institutions and Impediments I

Moderator: W.J.T. Mitchell, English and Art History, University of Chicago

"The Limits of the Universal Knowledge Project: British India and the East Indiamen"
Mary Poovey, English, New York University
Respondent: Sudipta Kaviraj, Political Studies, School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London
Rejoinder by Professor Poovey

"Research Universities, Periodical Publication, and the Circulation of Professional Expertise: On the Significance of Middlebrow Authority"
Janice Radway, Literature, Duke University
Respondent: Adrian Johns
Rejoinder by Professor Radway

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Institutions and Impediments II

Moderator: Francoise Meltzer, Comparative Literature, Romance Lang. & Lit. and Divinity School, University of Chicago

"Removing Knowledge"
Peter Galison, History of Science and Physics, Harvard University
Respondent: Marshall Sahlins, Anthropology, University of Chicago
Rejoinder by Professor Galison

"Universities: Wet, Hard, Soft, Harder"
Friedrich Kittler, Media History and Aesthetics, Humboldt University, Berlin
Respondent: Bill Brown, English and Cmte. on History of Culture, University of Chicago
Rejoinder by Professor Kittler

12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m Lunch for registrants

Swift Hall, first floor Common Room

1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Transmitting Arts
Note change in location: Film Studies Center, Cobb 306, 5811 S. Ellis Avenue
Moderator: James Chandler

Introduction to the film, Photo Wallahs
David MacDougall and Judith MacDougall, co-directors, Photo Wallahs; Filmmakers; Fellows, Australian National University, Canberra

Film Screening of Photo Wallahs

Discussion of Photo Wallahs
David MacDougall and Judith MacDougall
Dipesh Chakrabarty, South Asian Languages & Civilizations and History, University of Chicago
Tom Gunning, Art History and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago
Joel Snyder, Art History and Cmtes. on Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, Cinema & Media Studies, and Visual Arts, University of Chicago

Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance are requested to call 773-702-8274 in advance.

 

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040512.artoftransmission.shtml
Last modified at 03:05 PM CST on Monday, May 17, 2004.