An IPSY Symposium featuring

Stuart M. Frank, Senior Curator Emeritus, New Bedford Whaling Museum; Director, Scrimshaw Forensics® Laboratory; Director Emeritus, Kendall Whaling Museum

Anita Gonzalez, Professor of Theatre and Drama, University of Michigan

Eleanor Hughes, Associate Director of Exhibitions and Publications, and Associate Curator, Yale Center for British Art

Mary Isbell, Postdoctoral Associate in Interdisciplinary Performance Studies at Yale

Jason Mancini, Senior Researcher, Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center

Jason Shaffer, Associate Professor of English, United States Naval Academy

Friday, March 7, 2014
9:00-1:00
continental breakfast and light lunch provided
Whitney Humanities Center, Room 208

Schedule
8:30: Continental Breakfast
9:00 Joseph Roach, Opening Remarks
9:30 Jason Shaffer: “Theatre of War, 1812”
9:45 Mary Isbell: “Crossing the Line: Compulsory and Voluntary Shipboard Performance”
10:00 Eleanor Hughes: “Spreading Canvas: Marine Painting and Theater”
10:15 Q&A
Break
11:00 Stuart Frank: “Jolly Sailors Bold: Ballads and Songs of the American Sailor”
11:15 Anita Gonzalez: “Black Stewards, Sea Acts, and Vernacular Port Performance”
11:30 Jason Mancini: “Artifacts of Performance from the Indian Mariners Project”
11:45 Q&A
12:30 Lunch

Yale’s* Sound Studies Colloquium* continues this semester on the second Wednesday of each month. Please join us next *Wednesday, October 9*, as we feature *Richard Prum*, William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology
and Head Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. We meet in the Whitney Humanities Center, room B04 at 4:30pm. Prof. Prum will present the following talk:

*Bird Song and Aesthetics*
Bird songs form a diverse component of the sound-scape of most biological communities on the planet, and humans greatly admire this diversity. However, this diversity of song has evolved largely because bird songs are attractive to the birds themselves. Darwin originally proposed an aesthetic theory?sexual selection by mate choice?to explain the evolution of bird song and other ornamental traits. Darwin’s aesthetic view has been abandoned in favor of an adaptive model in which all ornaments are indicators of mate quality. In my research, I have described previously unknown bird songs, investigated the anatomy of the unique vocal organ of birds?the syrinx?and studied the physical mechanisms and evolution of non-vocal “feather songs.” In the talk, I will present diverse examples of bird songs and discuss avian acoustic culture through song learning. Lastly, I will introduce an aesthetic philosophy that attempts to unify the study of aesthetics across human and animals (from Mockingbirds to Mozart,
Warblers to Warhol, and Dunnocks to Duchamp). The goal is a non-reductive, ‘post-human’ analytical framework for aesthetics that will expand our understanding of what makes human aesthetic phenomema so extraordinary.

Prof. Prum offers an article as optional background for next Wednesday’s talk. Please contact joseph.clarke at yale.edu or lynda.paul at yale.edu for a copy of the article

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To subscribe to or unsubscribe from the sound studies email list, please visit
http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/soundstudies or write to
joseph.clarke at yale.edu or lynda.paul at yale.edu.

The Most Beautiful Thing in the World

Conceived and directed by Gabe Levey
October 3-5

One of the world’s most renowned motivational speakers is coming to the Yale Cabaret for three nights only. Come and discover the power of the YOUniverse! Part self-help seminar, part clown show, The Most Beautiful Thing in the World will open your mind, explode your heart, and change your life in 60 minutes, tops.

See http://yalecabaret.org/ for more information

NOH MASTER CLASS AND PERFORMANCE DEMONSTRATION

WITH IZUMI ASHIZAWA

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30^th, 4:00-5:30 PM

Underbrook Theater, Saybrook College, 242 Elm Street

Izumi Ashizawa is the artistic director of Izumi Ashizawa Performance.  She teaches at the State University of New York Stony Brook and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

Thursday, March 28, 2013   |  8 PM

Linsly-Chittenden Hall  |  Room 101  |  Open to the public

There Are Still So Many Things Left to Say

OMAR AMIRALAY, 1997

SYRIA | ARABIC WITH SUBTITLES | 49 MINUTES

The film was based on an interview with the late dramatist Saadallah Wannous a few months before he died of cancer. Wannous narrates his somber and relentless reflections – an adieu to a generation for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the source of all disillusion. The playwright recounts, with some regret for the lost opportunities that resulted, how the Palestinian struggle became a central part of intellectual life for an entire generation.

Followed by a discussion with Mohammad Al Attar, Dalia Basiouny, and Eyad Houssami with Ronald Gregg.