New Student Organization at UCR

The Living Poet's Society will be having one of its first meetings this Thursday from 6:00pm to 7:00pm in INTS 1006.

So why not celebrate with a poem written by a fellow southern Californian? Here is "Not Yours" by Shannon Garcia.

Not Yours.
That's what it says on my left wrist...
something i had tattooed on my flesh,
something simple to understand.
But lately, i find, when people read
they get mixed messages
jumping to conclusions and assumptions saying:
"Damn! That's mean" or
"I can see your not happy" or
"What a teeeeease!" or
"I feel sorry for anyone you've ever dated."
Not yours.
Not yours in the sense that this is not yours to interpret
because this is on my flesh and
mine belongs to my and my is I, so I am mine
and i can't possibly be yours.
Not yours in the sense that i am not an object to
contain confine possess or design...
We are women.
Born branded with the last names of men who raped our female ancestors
Wombs poisoned with their hunger
for power love and authority through acts of hatred
and yet we still bare their children
hoping that someday instead of war games
our sons will grow to choose compassion over consumption,
hugs over guns, and love
above all pride prejudice and vengeance.
And if i could doctrine a new last name it would be
NOT YOURS
and i would staple tape slap superglue it behind every woman's name
because how many times, how many times must we call our women
baby honey darlin sweet sugaaaaar bitch slut cunt whore
before we realize that this is the rape of our women's identity
a subsequent attack on her individuality
a bottle, a bow built around her insecurities
preventing her from obtaining what she is more than worthy of
bombs dropped on her mind, soul, body
because if this is the day and age of peace and equality
then i resist.
because if being a woman means
covering my flesh to help men resist temptation to rape me
with their eyes, hands...instead of proudly displaying my curves
as a dignified piece of art instead of a piece of meat
then a woman, i am not.
because if being a woman means
covering my eyes to the suffering of other women at any time
then a woman i am not.
because if being a woman means
controlling my estrogen levels is the only way to be
respected and successful
then a woman i am not
because if being a woman means raising sons that will hold guns
against other women and their babies
then a woman, i am not.
because if being a woman means i'm
a bitch because i resist any verbal or physical attack on my femininity
a slut because i refuse to marry
a dyke because i choose to love other women
and a shame because i refuse to bare children
in a world filled with chaos scorn and hatred
then a woman, i am not.
but i most definitely am
Not Yours.

Art History Catalogue

Useful for papers and the like! Straight from Professor Neville, and now I'm passing it onto the rest of you!

http://www.kubikat.org/mrbh-cgi/kubikat_en.pl

How To Help Haiti

Below is a list of links where you can go to help with earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.

It is unfortunate, however, that in the midst of a crisis when so many want to help, some people make things worse. Televangelist Pat Robertson, one of the richest personalities on television (with a net worth of nearly a $1,000,000,000.00), stated earlier today that Haiti made a pact with the devil and it therefore is now paying the consequences. It's funny how far people are willing to lie:



An ambassador to Haiti retaliated against Robertson's words:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Here are some orgs:

• American Jewish World Service; www.ajws.org
• Global Fund for Children; www.globalfundforchildren.org
• Grassroots International; www.grassrootsonline.org
• Lambi Fund of Haiti; www.lambifund.org/
• Madre; www.madre.org
• Rights Action; www.rightsaction.org

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Create a Store With Google Checkout

Street Photography: Documenting the Human Condition

Street Photography: Documenting the Human Condition - Part One of Three from Chris Weeks on Vimeo.

Street Photography: Documenting the Human Condition - Part Two of Three from Chris Weeks on Vimeo.

Street Photography: Documenting the Human Condition - Part Three of Three from Chris Weeks on Vimeo.

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

"The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net"

Talk by Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren at UC Berkeley:



For more on this pressing issue, and more about Professor Elizabeth Warren herself watch:

What To Do Over Winter Break

Ephemeral Art

An Example of an Honors Thesis Presentation

If you are thinking about going to graduate school, it is a good idea to consider doing an Honors Thesis, or any type of senior thesis/independent research project under the guidance of a professor. This will not only give you a feel for what you will be doing in grad school, but it will also give your professor(s) something to evaluate you with when they write your letters of recommendation. Moreover, many grad schools might not take you seriously if you have not done undergraduate research since most of today's applicants have done some type of research project.

You might remember Jane Arney's presentation last Spring at the Third Annual UCR Symposium for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity. Immediately after Jane's excellent presentation, Shawn Higgins presented his own Honors Thesis in a presentation titled "Materialism, Memory, and Self-Expression: Success in Caribbean-American Literature." Shawn graduated from UCR in the Spring of 2009 majoring in English and minoring in Asian Studies. He is now a graduate student at Columbia University.

Here is a recording of Shawn's presentation so that you can see what a great research project and its subsequent presentation looks like:

Shawn Higgins, "Materialism, Memory, and Self-Expression: Success in Caribbean-American Literature," UC Riverside Undergraduate from Shawn Higgins on Vimeo.

Drawn to Satire: John Sloan’s Illustrations for the Novels of Charles Paul de Kock

October 24, 2009 to March 29, 2010
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Art History Association co-founder and current UCR grad student Tia Vasilou was involved in curating this amazing exhibition at The Hungtington. Go if you get a chance!

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From 1903 to 1905, American artist John Sloan created 53 etchings to illustrate comic novels by French author Charles Paul de Kock. The books—satires of French society in the first half of the 19th century, full of slapstick violence—were a perfect subject for Sloan’s lively etching style of short, expressive lines and loose cross-hatching.


The project also seemed to inspire Sloan to look at 20th-century New Yorkers with the same satirical eye that de Kock trained on Parisians of the previous century. In the years directly following his work on the illustrations, Sloan produced a number of etchings featuring humorous vignettes of life in the streets, parks, tenements, and taverns of the busy metropolis.

A selection of Sloan’s etchings as well as related prints, drawings, and books will be on view in “Drawn to Satire: John Sloan’s Illustrations for the Novels of Charles Paul de Kock.”


The exhibition opens Oct. 24 and continues through March 29, 2010, in the Susan and Stephen Chandler Wing of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. The works on view, part of a major promised gift of John Sloan material from Gary, Brenda, and Harrison Ruttenberg, shed light on an important but little known aspect of the artist’s career. The Ruttenbergs’ Sloan collection is rich in preliminary drawings and early versions of the de Kock illustrations, inviting close study of Sloan’s working methods as he was becoming a prominent member of the band of urban realist artists known as the Ashcan school.

Click here for official site.

FACING Questions: Index, Gesture, Portraiture

Work-in-Progress Presentation by Professor Jeanette Kohl

December 3, 2009, @ 5:10 PM in Arts 333
Part of the Art History Department’s Work-in-Progress Series

This paper will explore the role of the face and facial reproductions in sculpted Renaissance portraiture. While in painting the truthful representation of a sitter’s likeness is a result of a translation from three-dimensional corporeality onto the two-dimensional picture-plane, portrait sculptures address, reflect, and reproduce the human body in a fundamentally different way. In re-thinking the interrelated acts of making and perceiving portrait busts with regard to their role in the production of ‘meaning’, the concepts of “index” (as developed by Charles Sanders Peirce and re-interpreted by Rosalind Krauss, Roland Barthes and others) and “gesture” (Giorgio Agamben, in re-interpreting Max Kommerell) will be introduced to the discussion. The question is if and how these tropes might be of heuristic value in sharpening our understanding of early modern portrait sculpture and its often times ambiguous status as a complex medium of reproductive, iconic and symbolic functions - of representation, re-personification and, sometimes, de-personification.

Oil of Los Angeles

Planning Session for the First Annual Emory Elliott Conference

Planning Committee for the First Annual Emory Elliott Conference
November 17, 2009 @ 2:15 PM
History Department Library

All students, faculty, and staff are invited and encouraged to participate.

The major goal of our project is to put together a large scale colloquium of academic research by year’s end. The scope of the colloquium will be regional, with invitations sent out to all the institutions of higher education in southern California.

It is absolutely critical that we begin now if we are to have a successful venture this year--we already have support from crucial faculty members.

However, now is time for the student body to show its ability and interest in its own education, to take an active role in the university's future, and to foster the development of discourse and critical thought.

Interesting Talk!

New York City maps, history, and urbanism: