Free and open to the public. Join the UB Humanities Institute for the first Scholars@Hallwalls talk of the 2017-18 year. All talks begin at 4pm with complimentary wine and hors d'oeuvres. The last two decades of Yugoslav socialism produced some of the most politicized and radical artistic experimentation in the Balkan region, which situated questions […]

Lindsay Brandon Hunter, Theatre & Dance This talk considers the process by which stage performances are rendered into digital video (as in the National Theatre’s popular NT Live series), examining the potential of such products to translate theatre for a multifarious screen audience. Exploring how such translations act didactically to reify, conserve, or even construct […]

Nicholas Lustig, Geography Professor Lustig examines the origins of the recently constructed mass-surveillance centers in urban police departments. These centers are multimillion-dollar intelligence hubs intended to overhaul information infrastructures and expand surveillance capabilities. Lustig’s talk discusses the early programs in New York City and Baltimore, analyzes the varied pathways of diffusion of these centers, examines […]

Katja Praznik, Arts Management Professor Praznik will discuss the variegated forms of the paradox of unpaid artistic labor, which she defines as the contradiction between the prestige and perceived exceptionality of artistic work and the injustice of the precarious, often unpaid labor that sustains it. She examines specific historical regulation of artistic work in the […]

Richard Cohen Capitalism is not merely an economic system but represents also a devaluation of all values, with money, a means, serving as the only "value." As such capitalism destroys all alternative value, undermining the dignity and solidarity of persons. In view of such capitalist nihilism, fascism promises to restore lost values, but in fact […]

James Beebe In “Healthy Skepticism vs. Denialism: How to Tell the Difference,” Philosophy professor James Beebe will draw upon insights from skeptical traditions in both the ancient and the modern worlds in an effort to understand what distinguishes healthy, constructive doubt from crude denialism. He will consider the role that humanistic disciplines can play in […]

Amy Graves Monroe This talk argues for a deep connection between the rise of Pascalian probability, the interest in automata, the use of theater machines, and Aristotelian ideas of dramatic verisimilitude (i.e., likelihood) and catastrophe. As an interpretation of Aristotle, the Classical unities of time, place and action seek to formalize the circumstances of a […]

Julia Jamrozik Julia Jamrozik will discuss the research project “Growing up Modern” which she began with Coryn Kempster in 2014. Through original interviews and photographs the project documents the memories and retrospections of children who grew up in some of the most iconic buildings of the early 20th century, such as the Tugendhat Villa in […]