Entry Hall

Materials: oil paint on canvas Dimensions: 12 X 15 inches Project Advisor: Tony Conrad and John Shimon Year of Graduation: 2023https://lux.lawrence.edu/artgallery_se2023/1002/thumbnail.jp

Comparative Studies of Cross-Cultural Poetics: Robin Coste Lewis and Timothy Yu

My use of the term cross-cultural refers to poetry that arises from cultures and ideologies other than the hegemonic ones, which in this paper means African American poet Robin Coste Lewis’s 79-page long narrative poem “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” and Asian American poet Timothy Yu’s collection of parody poems—100 Chinese Silences. Inspired by Jahan Ramazani’s book about transnational poetics, this paper aims to challenge a mononationalist way of reading cross-cultural poetry by suggesting new approaches to do so. A mononationalist way of reading cross-cultural poetry has been influenced by the residues of a literary paradigm that assumes the binary of British and American literatures and upholds the accompanying white-centric values. The danger of a mononationalist perspective lies in a less-fluid reading of all literature and dismissing cross-cultural poetry’s agencies to represent themselves. Through self-theorizing frameworks and “reverse discourse,” Robin Coste Lewis redirects language and gaze to her metaphorical art museum to appreciate black beauty in ways different from the beauty standards normalized by Western art constructions. Similarly, Timothy Yu’s parody poems of Billy Collins’s orientalism-saturated poems ask for a more nuanced context to understand the discourse of silence and Chinese American voices. This paper compares and contrasts Lewis’s and Yu’s approaches to recontextualizing language and discovering fluid ways of questioning preexisting constructions. Through such comparison, I can better appreciate poetry’s power as a form of resistance. Poetry builds kinship and allows “imaginative citizens” to live in worlds without borders where residues of violence are exposed

Piece 2

Materials: Oil Paint on Canvas Dimensions: 42 x 35 x1.5 Inches Project Advisor: Tony G. Conrad Year of Graduation: 2023https://lux.lawrence.edu/artgallery_se2023/1006/thumbnail.jp

Geophysical Survey of the Christ Evangelical and Reformed Cemetery, Germantown, WI BWT-0056

On October 18, 2022 Lawrence University conducted a geophysical survey on the southwestern side of the Christ Evangelical and Reformed Church cemetery (BTW-0056) in Germantown, Wisconsin. High-resolution magnetic data were conducted over a 20 meter by 40 meter grid to determine if unmarked interments were present in the cemetery. The survey identified a number of magnetic anomalies that appear to be consistent with the presence of unmarked interments. It is recommended that any ground disturbance in the cemetery proceed under the expectation that interments might be disturbed

Umkämpfte Erinnerungskultur: Historikerstreit 2,0, das Humboldt Forum und die neue deutsche Geschichte

The Humboldt Forum, a reconstructed Prussian palace, is uniquely entangled in the ongoing debates around Germany’s relationship with its colonial past. As early as 2007, NGOs such as “NoHumboldt21!” formed to protest the palace, which would house the state’s ethnography collection, entailing an estimated 500,000 stolen artifacts. Upon opening in 2020, the Forum had come to embody the controversy surrounding its construction. Words adorned the façade of the building contrasting enlightenment ideals with colonial exploitation and a permanent exhibition—“Berlin Global”—sought to address the nation’s colonial past. The Humboldt Forum can thus be conceptualized as a reactive object, one that resituates critique from engaged postcolonial activist groups in an institutional context, therefore synthesizing societal discourses on Germany’s relationship with colonialism. Given the Humboldt Forum’s embodiment of current societal discourses on colonialism, my research project asks: How does imagery in the Humboldt Forum’s “Berlin Global” exhibition integrate colonial atrocity into Germany’s historical narrative? Because historical narratives serve constitute their subjects’ understanding of self in a linear temporal order, my project therefore also asks: What effects does this narrative have on the German nation’s modern identity? Which trajectories does this narrative imply for the Republic? Which futures are enabled or precluded

Kind of Blue

This lecture on Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue was recorded in the Lawrence Chapel on March 1, 2023. The lecture was designed for students and faculty in the First-Year Studies program. This program, a multidisciplinary introduction to liberal learning, has been a cornerstone of the Lawrence curriculum since 1945. The lecturer, Mark Urness, is Associate Professor of Music at Lawrence. Professor Urness’s diverse performance experience encompasses orchestral, chamber, solo, and jazz playing. In addition to being awarded first prize in the International Society of Bassists Jazz Competition, he has also released Foreground, an unaccompanied jazz CD. Bass World magazine has described his playing as “completely in command of the instrument and the tunes, rife with good ideas, melodic instinct, and groove, not to mention killer intonation on the double stops and chords.” Prior to his appointment to the faculty of Lawrence University, Professor Urness taught at the University of Iowa, Coe College, and the University of Northern Iowa. He received a Master of Music in double bass performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a Bachelor of Arts in music from the University of Northern Iowa, and studied music and computer science at the University of Iowa

Leading Lawrence into the Future

In this matriculation convocation President Laurie Carter and Provost Peter Blitstein welcome students, faculty, and staff back to campus to mark the start of the new academic year

Lawrence, Spring/Summer 2023

https://lux.lawrence.edu/alumni_magazines/1120/thumbnail.jp