Afghanistan: Peace is at Hand or Alibi for Exit?
Todd Greentree, Ph.D., UNM
March 20, 2020 (Fri), 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Albuquerque Journal Auditorium
7777 Jefferson St. NE
Update as of 3/17: All AIA lectures are on hold until further notice.
This talk will focus on the United States and Afghanistan — What went wrong? What is the significance of the negotiations between the US and the Taliban? Are there parallels with the way the Vietnam War ended? What is the prognosis for peace? Why does Afghanistan matter? +More Info
Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America
Jonathan Freedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
March 20, 2020 (Fri) 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Albuquerque Journal Auditorium
7777 Jefferson Blvd. NE
UPDATE as of 3/13: This lecture has been postponed.
Dancing on the Volcano: The Duplicities of Weimar Cinema
Katrin Schroeter, Ph.D., UNM
April 5, 2020 (Sun) 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
UNM School of Architecture, George Pearl Hall Auditorium
Update as of 3/17: All AIA lectures are on hold until further notice.
The cinema and culture of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) presents, to this day, an opportunity to flaunt one’s assessment of Germany and its “soul”, a way to praise it, condemn it, excuse it, or defend it. As one of the most productive and successful eras of German Cinema, it started the careers of famed directors Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, and G.W. Pabst and addresses questions ranging from the role of urban space and the impact of technology on daily life to the construction of sexual difference and social alternatives. Join Katja Schroeter as she examines developments in Weimar cinema and the long-standing impact of Weimar cinema. +More Info
How Media is Affecting Ukraine and its Role in the World
Martha Dyczok, Ph.D., University of Western Ontario
April 24, 2020 (Fri) 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Albuquerque Journal Auditorium
7777 Jefferson Blvd. NE
Update as of 3/17: All AIA lectures are on hold until further notice.
Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election will likely make it into the textbooks. An actor with no political experience won a landslide victory without campaigning in traditional ways. He did not meet with voters, largely refused to give interviews, and made only two live media appearances at the tail end of the campaign. Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidency by using media in a new way: he played a character in a popular TV series. And he was business partners with one of country’s richest men, who owned one of the country’s most powerful media corporation that aired the show. This talk will look at how a virtual candidate became a real president. It will also provide an analysis of how media is affecting Ukraine and its role in the world. +More Info
Paris, The Ballets Russes and the Avant Garde
Judith Chazin-Bennahum, UNM
May 10, 2020 (Sun), 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
UNM School of Architecture, George Pearl Hall Auditorium
From 1909 to 1929 Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes scandalized, propagandized and revolutionized the performance and practice of ballet throughout Europe and the Western World. They symbolized the Roaring Twenties as their radical stance in music, decors and movement had been established and continued until Diaghilev’s death in 1929. Igor Stravinsky’s scores for Firebird (1910), Petrouchka (1911), and Rite of Spring (1913) helped to pave the way for modern music’s florescence. The brutal energy and powerful dancing of Vaslav Nijinsky as well as his jagged choreography transformed attitudes about ballet performance. Thee Ballets Russes brought contemporary ballet to America in the ‘30s where it has thrived for nearly 100 years. Join Judith Chazen-Bennahum as she chronicles the impact of Ballets Russes not only on dance but in the realms of visual art and stage design. +More Info
Impressionists and Post-Impressionists in Russia
Marina Oborotova, Ph.D., CFIS-AIA
June 14, 2020 (Sun), 3:00 – 5:00 p.m
UNM School of Architecture, George Pearl Hall Auditorium
Russia has one of the world’s best collections of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. It rivals the holdings of French museums especially when it comes to the masterpieces of Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. Far less well known is the fact that Russia had its own important school of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, painters whose works spanned the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century. How did it happen that Russia accumulated so many great works of the French impressionists and post-impressionists? Where can one see these collections? How does Russian Impressionism and Post-Impressionism differ from the French? What does it tell us about Soviet history? +More Info
The First and Most Accessible Impressionist: Monet & Giverny, Then and Now
Ann Harris Davidson
August 9, 2020 (Sun), 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
UNM School of Architecture, George Pearl Hall Auditorium
Claude Monet, the first Impressionist? Yes, Monet’s 1873 “Impression, Sunrise” painting, now in Paris’s Musée Marmottan Monet, caused critic Louis Leroy to dub (pejoratively) Monet and his fellow artists at their 1874 exhibition as “The Impressionists”. The most accessible Impressionist? Yes, Monet’s paintings are now found in public and private collections on all continents except Antarctica and in national galleries around the world. This presentation will cover Monet’s extraordinary life; his development as a “plein air” artist (and as a gardener); the groundwork he laid for further abstraction in art; his four decades of living at Giverny; his death in 1926 and his legacy of Giverny and the saving of it, making Giverny now one of France’s most visited sites outside Paris. +More Info
