September 20, 2007
Good Timing Makes Good Form: Evolution of Development in the Nematode Male Tail
David Fitch, Associate Professor of Biology

Heterochrony, or changes in the relative timing of development of different body parts during evolution, is thought to have played an important role in human evolution.  Using freeliving nematodes as a model system, we study the components and mechanisms that shape a part of the male copulatory apparatus, the "tail tip".  We find that genes governing developmental timing exquisitely control cell shape changes in Caenorhabditis elegans.  But are the same genes involved in the evolution of cell shape?

David Fitch is an Associate Professor of Biology at NYU, where he has taught Evolution and many other courses since 1993.  The research in his laboratory is focused on understanding the genetic and developmental mechanisms underlying the evolution of biological form using freeliving nematode worms as a model system.  However, the research done by the post-docs, graduate students, and undergrads in the lab spans developmental genetics, systematics, evolutionary biology, and, most recently, genomics. His lab maintains the largest and most comprehensive collection in the world of different rhabditid nematode species from around the globe. Fitch was awarded the Golden Dozen Teaching Award in 1999 and is an editor of www.wormbook.org, the online "bible" of C. elegans biology.

 
October 3, 2007
Love, Race, and War: Writing the Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Woman
Martha Hodes, Professor of History  

The American Civil War divided a nation, but it also divided families. Eunice Connolly, born white and poor in New England, watched as her brothers joined the Union Army while her husband fought and died for the Confederacy. Then, four years after the war, Eunice dared to marry a black man from the Caribbean. Eunice’s story is illuminated in 500 family letters, somehow spared from the trash heap, that show how grand themes of American history—racism, equality, freedom—were central to the lives of ordinary people in the past.

Martha Hodes, Professor of History at New York University, is the author of The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century. She is also the author of White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South, which won the Allan Nevins Prize for Literary Distinction in the Writing of History, and the editor of Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History. Hodes received her Ph.D. from Princeton University and also holds degrees from Harvard University and Bowdoin College. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, and the Whiting Foundation. Hodes serves as advisor for a variety of film projects, including two documentaries about lynching, and the PBS-TV series, “History Detectives.” At NYU, Hodes teaches courses on the Civil War, race, and the writing of history, and has directed the departmental Honors Program. In 2007, she was awarded the Golden Dozen Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at NYU.

 
October 16, 2007  
The Painter’s Cookbook: A Look Inside the Renaissance Artist’s Workshop
Dennis Geronimus, Associate Professor of Art History        

In the Renaissance, as today, art production was always a business, and an intensely competitive one at that. Venturing into a fifteenth-century painter’s virtual studio, we will identify the preconditions of image-making: that is, the mental and physical labor and dexterity requisite for the production of objects ranging from ornate wedding chests to monumental altarpieces. The question propelling our investigation will be “how.” How were apprentices trained in a Florentine workshop? How were various techniques exploited to create the visual artifacts one now admires on the walls of the Uffizi – and how can art historians, centuries since, trace the step-by-step evolution of their creation? What specific materials – mineral, vegetal, chemical – served as the main ingredients in the artist’s kitchen? Ultimately, our focus on the meticulous manufacture of the Renaissance art object will allow us to engage with a work by Giotto or Leonardo not as a masterpiece conjured by a mercurial genius but as the product of careful design, patience and not a little frustration.

Dennis Geronimus is associate professor of Italian Renaissance Art in the Department of Art History. He received his B.A. from Williams College and his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford. A former research fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (American Council of Learned Societies), he has published primarily on Florentine painting of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This past year saw the arrival of Professor Geronimus’s first book, Piero di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange (Yale University Press). His next book project will address with the themes of primitivism and the marvelous as expressed in Italian and Northern Renaissance painting and graphic arts during the age of exploration.

 
October 22, 2007
God in Translation: Cross-Cultural Recognition of Deities in the Biblical World
Mark Smith, Skirball Professor of Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Studies                    

In the ancient world, many cultures recognized the deities of other cultures.  This presentation will examine how this "translatability of divinity" operated in different cultures from the Late Bronze Age through the Greco-Roman period.  In all of these periods, empires played a major role in the functioning of the international translation of divinity.  These periods are also witness to reactions against such translation.  Such reactions against cross-cultural translation were acts of religious and political resistance to empire culture.  This situation of empires versus local powers, as it involves the conceptualizations of gods and goddesses, in some respect anticipates the situation of inter-religious contact today.

Mark S. Smith has been the Skirball Professor of Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University since 2000.  Prior to 2000, he taught at Yale University and Saint Joseph’s University. Professor Smith also served as visiting professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Professor Smith specializes in the Late Bronze Age texts and religion from Ugarit, Israelite religion and biblical literature. At present, he is the Editorial Chairperson of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series as well as co-editor of the Forschungen zum Alten Testament.  He is a two-time winner of New York University’s Golden Dozen Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching.  He is author of ten books and co-author and co-editor of four others, including: The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel; The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts; The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of God in Ancient Israel.  His current research project is this evening's subject, God in Translation: Cross-cultural Recognition of Deities in the Biblical World.

 
November 1, 2007
Elected Justice
Sanford Gordon, Associate Professor of Politics                  

In the United States, personnel in the criminal justice system are inescapably embedded in their political environment. This lecture reviews recent research by the speaker in two areas: how electoral incentives influence the sentencing behavior of trial judges in the American states, and whether partisanship influences corruption prosecutions at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Sanford C. Gordon is an Associate Professor of Politics. He received his B.A. from Cornell and Ph.D. from Princeton, and taught at the Ohio State University before moving to NYU in 2002. He has written on elected prosecutors and judges, corporate influence in government, the political origins of regulation, and the incentives of challengers in competitive elections. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, and has been published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Political Analysis, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization.

 
November 13, 2007
To Be a Playwright
Janet Neipris, Professor of Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts                   

Based on her recent book, To Be A Playwright, playwright and professor Janet Neipris of the Tisch School of the Arts examines some of the major questions confronted by the writer in the twenty-first century, both practical and ethical.

Janet Neipris, current head of Graduate Studies, Department of Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts, is the author of over twenty plays, produced nationally and internationally, including the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, Goodman Theatre, Chicago, Arena Stage, Wash. D.C., China Youth Arts Theatre, Beijing, and the National Theatre, London. She has taught playwrights in China, Indonesia, London, Prague, Florence, and South Africa. She also writes for screen and television. Her plays and letters are in the Harvard University Theatre Collection. Her plays are published by Samuel French and Broadway Play Pub. Awards include two NEA's in Playwriting, two Rockefeller Fellowships to Bellagio, and a current Humanities Initiative Fellowship to write a new play about South Africa, Senzeni Na.

 

December 3, 2007
Musical Cosmopolitanisms
Jairo Moreno, Associate Professor of Music             

The global restructuration of production, circulation, and consumption of popular music in the late 20th Century had innumerable unforeseen effects.  Among them is the reconfiguration of ways in which music functions as a sense-making mechanism for peoples within and across national borders.  At issue are the ways in which people feel, think and act beyond their particular societies – which goes by the name of cosmopolitanism.  Using the celebrated success of Colombian singer Shakira in the early 21st Century, this presentation discusses new South-North perspectives shaped by what I call emerging musical cosmopolitanisms.  

Jairo Moreno is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Music at NYU.  He is the author of a book on the history of music theory in Western Europe (1550-1830) and articles on jazz and music analysis.  He currently researches Latin American music in the U.S.  A former professional bassist, he received five Grammy Award nominations for his work with the late percussionist Ray Barretto in the Latin Jazz and salsa categories. 

January 31, 2008
Is Feminism Dead? (And Other Journalistic Dilemmas for a New Century)
Carol Sternhell, Associate Professor of Journalism   

Despite repeated obituaries in the national press – Time Magazine alone seems to run a "Death of Feminism" cover roughly every two years – feminist ideas continue to transform almost every aspect of our culture. This apparent contradiction – the "I'm not a feminist, but…" formulation – is itself a key gender story of the last several decades. As media scholars have suggested, most people hear "I'm not a feminist" – but the real news is in the but. From the "opt-out revolution" to the "mommy wars" to the "care crisis," mixed messages abound. Can journalism get this story right?

Carol Sternhell is Associate Professor of Journalism. As the department’s Director of Global Initiatives, she created and directs study-abroad programs in London, UK; Prague, Czech Republic; and Accra, Ghana. She was the founding director of the College of Arts and Science’s Women’s Studies major and has written about feminism, motherhood, and literature for a variety of publications, including The Village Voice, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Ms., and The Women's Review of Books. Before coming to NYU, she worked as an editor at Newsday, a general assignment reporter for the New York Post, and a freelance magazine writer. She began her journalistic career as an editor of The Harvard Crimson during the days of anti-Vietnam War protest, and served as faculty advisor to NYU's student newspaper, the Washington Square News, during the early years of our current war. She received a Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2005.

 
February 13, 2008
Clinical Molecular Imaging, From X-rays to MRI
Marc Walters, Associate Professor of Chemistry                  

Recent advances in biomolecular imaging have greatly enhanced the science of non-invasive diagnostics.  The imaging methods that most contribute to this progress are fluorescence, ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).  The effectiveness of these diagnostic tools often depends on image enhancing chemical agents (contrast agents) that associate with a particular tissue type.  This lecture will survey the prevalent imaging methods employed in the clinical setting.  Particular detail will be provided on MRI, which is noted for its high resolution images and the absence of ionizing radiation and its potentially harmful side effects.

Marc Walters is an Associate Professor of Chemistry.  He obtained his B.A. at City College of CUNY, a Ph.D. at Princeton University and carried out postdoctoral research at MIT before coming to NYU.  He has published numerous articles on study of electron transfer in iron-sulfur compounds related to proteins and on the characterization of phosphate minerals related to bone.  His most recent interests are in the development of contrast agents for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).  He is the current Chair-elect of the New Section of the American Chemical Society.

 
February 21, 2008
Our Global Carbon Conundrum
Tyler Volk, Associate Professor of Biology              

I will bring you up to date on the science and issues of policy about our biggest environmental problem.  The rise in CO2 is the focus, and I'll be looking at the rise of CO2 and fossil fuel emissions, interactions between the atmosphere and the other matrixes of the biosphere including life, CO2 during the ice ages, the future of CO2 as related to global economic growth and energy, and the potential for energy systems that do not emit CO2.

Tyler Volk is Science Director of the Environmental Studies Program and Associate Professor of Biology.  He conducts research on the Earth's biogeochemical cycles and has written three books: Metapatterns Across Space, Time, and Mind; Gaia’s Body: Toward a Physiology of Earth; and What is Death?: A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life.  His next book, CO2 Rising, is on the global carbon cycle and will be published in Fall 2008.

 
February 25, 2008
What’s Love Got to Do with It? The Political Economy of Contemporary Marriage Debates
Lisa Duggan, Professor of Gender and Sexuality and Director of the American Studies Program, Social and Cultural Analysis         

Debates about marriage run through multiple policy debates in the United States—over same sex marriage, welfare policies, and foreign aid goals and guidelines.  At issue is the enormous gap between the demographic reality of household formation today and the assumptions behind civil marriage law.  This gap, and the public ambivalence that accompanies it, also colors media portrayals of marriage—from the adventures of Britney Spears, to scandals surrounding politicians and preachers, to game and reality shows like The Bachelor.  Nearly all of this media focus on marital issues occludes the economic underpinnings of the institution of marriage.  A focus on the political economy of marriage, historically and currently, can change the conversation substantially.  For example, the question shouldn't be "Are you for or against gay marriage?" but rather "Does the legal institution of marriage still make sense for any of us?"

Lisa Duggan is Professor of Gender and Sexuality and Director of the American Studies Program in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU.  She is the author of Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence and American Modernity (2000) and The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy (2003).  She is co-author with Nan Hunter of Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture (1995), and co-editor with Lauren Berlant of Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and National Interest (2001).  She is currently at work on The End of Marriage: The War over the Future of State Sponsored Love.

 
March 11, 2008
The New Architecture of Japan: Urbanism, Anime, and Capital, and the Movement of Culture and History
Thomas Looser, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies 

As Japan began to emerge from a near decade-long recession, one of the first major projects to appear (2003) was a huge tower and shopping real estate complex in Tokyo—one that its developers said would reorganize daily life.  Though it is perhaps counter-intuitive to use a high-end architectural project to talk about subculture and counterculture, this counter-intuitivity is partly what is at issue in the buildings. The complex brings together upper-class consumption and counter-culture anime views using military technology, global branding and the “Superflat” art of Murakami Takashi. If this is in any way a new kind of center for Japan (as its designers claim), this lecture looks at what kind of center this is—how it situates and reintegrates basic frames of social identity (economic, technological, and artistic/aesthetic), and what this says more generally about culture and history today.

Thomas Looser earned his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and he taught at Emory and McGill before coming to NYU.  In addition to work on the cultural and historical anthropology of Japan, his research interests include critical theory, new media theory, and globalization, and he has published on a variety of related topics. He is currently Associate Professor of Japanese Studies in the Department of East Asian Studies and an editor of the new journal, Mechademia.

 
March 24, 2008
Rio’s Favelas in Recent Fiction and Film: Commonplaces of Urban Segregation
Marta Peixoto, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures

Rio's favelas, long a favored topic for fictional and documentary representation, have gained a new prominence in recent years in the wake of increased violence and social divisions.  Like other global cities, Rio faces several challenges: segregation, glaring social injustice, lack of civil and human rights for some of the people, violent clashes, fear for all the residents. This lecture asks whether it is possible for fiction and film to bear witness to these social crises without relying on commonplaces.  It examines different kinds of representation of impoverished, segregated spaces in fiction and film since the 1990s and speculates about their repercussions on the very crises they seek to register.

Marta Peixoto has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and has been teaching at NYU in the Spanish and Portuguese Department since 1991.  She is the author of books on Clarice Lispector and João Cabral de Melo Neto, as well as articles on Brazilian fiction, poetry and film.  She is working on a book that examines representations of urban segregation in Brazilian literature and film since the 1980s.