Chiasmi 2013

Challenge us with your thoughts, & we will challenge you to bring something dynamically engaging. Show & tell! Projection! Music! Eye contact! Inflection! Accents! Photos! Objects in Lit & the Arts Body as object Digital vs Analogical Manuscripts, Print & the New Media Commodification of literature Cultural Property Consumerism Paraliterature Corpus/Corporeal/Ethereal Compelling Panelists Follow Panelists bring: Projections Prezis Film clips Sound bytes Bits & pieces to pass & exhibit Moderators: Take notes & silently raise questions on a white board during the presentations Lunch: Low-to-no-waste, sustainable, yummy. At the end of the day we will pass the voter's box through the audience. We asked ourselves a couple of questions about Humanities Conferences in general when planning this year's Chiasmi ... CHIASMI is a graduate student conference brought to you by grad students in Italian Studies at Brown & Harvard Universities. We've lost the interest of the culture to & of whom we are speaking. This year the students of Brown and Harvard have a new vision "Cultural conferences lack logic, they have become rhetorical." - Pier Luigi Sacco in Italia Reloaded Our vision for Chiasmi 2013... Call for papers! Keynote Speaker: Greetings. "Eureka!" "Why not engage the audience and challenge the presenters to express their ideas in a new way? Usually I just read from my paper at a conference, leaving the listeners feeling overwhelmed by my, I must admit, extremely complex arguments. But I shan't leave them mired in abstraction anymore!" Nothing too jarring. It's time for a change of conference format. Just a tweak here, some sparkles there ... & the proverbial voilà! University of Oregon's Sergio Rigoletto: Asst. Professor of Italian and Cinema Studies + = But projected crowd & enthusiasm for prospective Keynote. Eugene - Boston Catered sustainably, locally, & by a low to no-waste company. Saturday begins with Breakfast WELCOME ADDRESS: “And the winner of a 50$ GC to Deastore Libri for most compelling hands-on or visual aid is ______ !” But without your help ... + = Michael Hardt will stay in Durham "The Medium is the Massage! ... Innovate. ... 'For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them’ -Milton” *The crowd won't cheer because there will be no crowd because Michael Hardt will not have come. Breakfast Lunch & = Trash :( Our grad student presentations will be lackluster and same-ole because we won't be able to afford a projector or sound system. Another conference. Another useless rhetorical gathering. No Change. No cultural initiative. Professor Erspamer will have to change his speech. And when we vote for most compelling presentation ... "And the winner of our leftover pizza is ______!" Bring film, bring noise, bring jokes! Above all, bring an exciting presentation. Help us renew enthusiasm in the humanities' graduate student conference. Thank you. FRONT BACK TBD See the CALL FOR T-SHIRTS! Coming soon to our website. CHIASMI 2013 Make a stand for or against consumerism: accept or refuse your souvenir t-shirt. & the winner of the Harvard Book Store $50 Gift Certificate for best presentation is ________! But without you, the presenter, Chiasmi 2013 won't be innovating or investing in change & dynamic dialogue... Sunday's post-conference "Satellite" events: MORNING Guided cultural tour of Boston's North End AFTERNOON Film screening & presentation at Harvard Film Archive & a fond farewell D(issertation)ocumentary presentation of Sweep Roll Float by Adam Muri-Rosenthal. We've flirted with self-referentiality. & how do we garner interest & support from students in other cultural & non-cultural fields? But not anymore! Like: why does it feel like we humanists are talking to ourselves sometimes? How do we entice a more diverse audience to investigate culture with us? Cultural Materials / Material Culture Benvenuti! For further details, the exact schedule, & contact information please investigate our website: chiasmiconference.com We students say. A multimedial production Brought to to you by Yours Truly & Co And the Keynote Presentation! 1. Meet & Mingle 2. Some curatorial curiosities 3. Opening remarks And off to dinner. Friday Night, March 8th