Bauhaus: Art and Design for the Future
Dr. Susanne Riedel, Associate Professor of Art History, UNM
January 12, 2020
The BAUHAUS is one of the most innovative, interdisciplinary, and influential art schools of the 20th century. Artists from international backgrounds and with broadly diverse views worked together to shape a new way of living, and use art to evoke a new way of thinking for the modern world. Susanne Riedel will take us on a historical journey of BAUHAUS artists and ideas and address how BAUHAUS influenced art, architectural trends and art education in the decades since its demise.
The Demographic Imperative – Growing Old and Loving It: Japan Turns Gray and We, Too
T.R. Reid, Award-winning Journalist
January 24, 2020
With more than a quarter of its population over 65, Japan is making major economic and cultural adjustments to deal with the flood of kōreisha (高齢者)– “upper age persons.” This brings some problems; the nation now has more deaths than births every year. But many kōreisha are having the time of their lives –growing old and loving it. And the economic impact has been minimal. As other wealthy democracies, including the U.S., face the same demographic transition, Japan can teach us how to turn gray with humor and grace.
Jazz Meets Classical Music
Karl Hinterbichler, Ph.D., UNM
February 9, 2020
The Roaring Twenties: jazz meets the classical world or was it the classical world meeting jazz? This was a time of tremendous change both in classical and popular music. In the first few decades of the 20th Century there were a large number of composers such as Strauss, Mahler, Puccini, and Rachmaninoff, still hanging on to 19th century romantic musical ideals. Others argued that those times had passed and a radically new musical language was needed to express a changing world. Radicals such as Schönberg, Berg, Webern, and Varese, wanted to completely do away with the lush romantic language and replace it with completely new concepts. There was also a third way emerging, with many classical composers still clinging to traditional tonal practices but finding inspiration in the idioms of jazz and the new popular dances of the Roaring Twenties. But how can these be incorporated into a classical style?
Breaking Carbon’s Grip: Pathways to a Clean Energy Future for the US, New Mexico and the World
Melanie Kenderdine, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
February 21, 2020
Continents are on fire. Glaciers are melting. The impact of mankind’s “carbon footprint” is driving climate change with growing and increasingly dire consequences. Deep decarbonization by mid-century is essential but two thirds of the countries that signed on to the Paris Agreement are not meeting their targets. Also, clean energy technologies to enable a low carbon future will use significantly higher amounts of metals and minerals than conventional energy sources; many of these resources are not found in the US, raising a range of new energy security concerns for the planet’s survival. Melanie Kenderdine’s talk will help us better grasp the problem and consider possible solutions.
Women Fashion Designers and the Birth of Modern Dress
Cassidy Zachary, Ph.D. candidate, UNM
March 8, 2020
Lady Lucile Duff Gordon is perhaps most famous for surviving the Titanic, but she was also responsible for revolutionizing fashion at the dawn of the 20th century, one of a handful of pioneering fashion designers such as Madeleine Vionnet, Jeanne Lanvin and Jeanne Paquin who designed corset-optional clothing for the modern woman. Join us as fashion historian Cassidy Zachary chronicles this era of fashion modernization, a time when women designers redefined the shape of fashion and women redefined themselves.
Russian History’s Turning Points: From the Vikings to Gorbachev
Marina Oborotova, Ph.D., CFIS-AIA
March 13, 2020
Riddle, mystery, enigma. The 1200 year history of Russia is a series of questions for which there have never been clear and definitive answers. How could a state and nation arise in the inhospitable environment of the great Eurasian plain, exposed to the constant sweep of peoples, armies, and diverse cultures? How has Russia endured? What can her extraordinary, tumultuous and tragic past tell us about her future?Join Marina Oborotova on an exciting virtual sailing through 1200 years of Russian history; through the ups and downs, sharp turns, great victories and horrible defeats. The talk will be illustrated with images of famous Russian paintings, sculptures and architectural complexes.
