Georgia Southern hosts 2019-20 A Moveable Feast lecture series in Savannah
Georgia Southern University will host the 2019-20 A Moveable Feast lecture series, featuring lectures and performances by distinguished faculty from the Statesboro and Armstrong campuses. The sixth annual series is presented by the College of Arts and Humanities, in cooperation with the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, and will kick off Oct. 10. All events will take place in historic venues throughout Savannah and are free and open to the public.
“Our Moveable Feast lecture series has offered the Savannah community the opportunity to experience the generosity of mind and spirit that a higher education rooted in the liberal arts extends to our students,” said College of Arts and Humanities Associate Dean Teresa Winterhalter, Ph.D. “Our faculty remain steadfast in the University’s aim to equip students to find purpose in their lives and to inspire them to remain attentive not only to their own well-being, but also to the well-being of all the others with whom they share the planet.”
Media may contact Jennifer Wise at (912) 478-2301 or jwise@georgiasouthern.edu for interview and image requests.
The schedule of events is listed online and follows:
Thursday, Oct. 10
The Jepson Center for the Arts, 6 p.m.
207 West York St.
Portrait of the Icon as a Young Woman: Photography and the Making of Stardom
Amanda Konkle, Ph.D., Department of Literature, Film Studies
Bridget Conn, Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art
The persona of the celebrity thrives on the tension between images of the public and private, or the performed and the authentic self. This tension is frozen in time in “Portrait of the Artist,” an exhibit of photographic portraiture currently on display at the Jepson Center for the Arts. In this lecture, Conn will discuss the various methods of creating portraits of the real person behind the star persona, dispelling the idea that a photographer needs to only be in the right place at the right time to capture a compelling image. Behind-the-scenes photos of stars as they are on set often reveal how the stars see themselves, rather than the roles they are scripted to play. As Konkle will discuss, this was true for Marilyn Monroe, whose final film role put her in the position of confronting the star persona she had crafted through poised and polished photos with a raw, exposed version of herself as a young woman rather than as a star. Together they will explore how stars are often seen as a fantasy created by the ocular proof of the camera’s lens.
Sunday, Nov. 3
The Mansion on Forsyth Park, 5 p.m.
700 Drayton St.
Harnessing the Shadows: Ghosts, Vampires and Undying Relationships to Our Past
Alena Pirok, Ph.D., Department of History
Kendra R. Parker, Ph.D., Department of Literature
During the Halloween season, Pirok and Parker will embrace the shadows that represent our deepest fears in the beautiful Mansion on Forsyth Park. Pirok will examine the relationship between the Southern Gothic literary tradition and the development of Savannah’s ghost tourism, a development that has earned Savannah the claim of being the most haunted city in the country. She will explore how Savannah streets are not haunted by individual specters, but largely by a mythical vision of its own past. Parker will continue to trace how mythical recollections of an antebellum South, packed with its own tormented history, contribute to the post-emancipation stereotyping of black people as vampiric predators. Together they will illustrate how stories of hauntings, vampires and things undying shape images of the past, the experiences of the present and apparitions of the future.
Thursday, March 5, 2020
The Temple Mickve Israel, 6 p.m.
20 East Gordon St.
Breaking Gendered Boundaries in Our Bones and Our Crimes
Virginia Estabrook, Ph.D., Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Kate Perry, Ph.D., Department of Political Science and International Studies
Profound expectations are often held about gender that construct judgements about the political and personal worth of others. This lecture will explore two distinct cases in which the rigidity of these expectations informs the way others respond to both historical and contemporary figures. Estabrook will focus on Savannah’s own Casimir Pulaski, whose remains have now been confirmed to have been buried beneath the monument in Monterey Square. Focusing on the forensic attributions of anthropologists, she will explore the complex issues that surround the history, anatomy, gender and myth-making unearthed in the bones of this Revolutionary War general.
Perry will shift the focus to contemporary issues and discuss the ways global norms about gender influence perceptions of and responses to gendered bodies. She will outline the experiences of women involved in human trafficking, discuss women as victims, perpetrators, law enforcement officers, non-governmental organization workers and academics, and emphasize how the roles these women inhabit intersect with global norms about gender, political power and security. Together these scholars will urge everyone to reconsider the boundaries of gender and see the worlds that are possible when they break them.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Savannah Cultural Arts Center, 6 p.m.
Ben Tucker Theater
201 Montgomery St.
Shakespeare Near the Park
Faculty from the Departments of Theatre, Music and Literature
The College of Arts and Humanities celebrates William Shakespeare’s birthday by sharing in a musical feast, where faculty from the Departments of Literature, Theatre and Music will delight in three acts. The literature faculty will begin with a short introduction to Shakespeare and offer brief background sketches for each of the selected scenes the troupe will perform throughout the gala. Act I will comprise of the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” followed by a musical performance of “Tonight” from “West Side Story.” Act II will begin with the wooing scene from “The Taming of the Shrew,” paired with a rendition of “I Hate Men” from “Kiss Me, Kate.” The celebration will close with “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and a grand finale from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera, “Falstaff.”
Georgia Southern University, a public Carnegie Doctoral/R2 institution founded in 1906, offers 141 degree programs serving nearly 26,500 students through nine colleges on three campuses in Statesboro, Savannah, Hinesville and online instruction. A leader in higher education in southeast Georgia, the University provides a diverse student population with expert faculty, world-class scholarship and hands-on learning opportunities. Georgia Southern creates lifelong learners who serve as responsible scholars, leaders and stewards in their communities. Visit GeorgiaSouthern.edu.
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