Symposia
October 19, 2009
Symposium: Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick,
Joyce Goodfriend (Professor of History, University of Denver); Karina Corrigan (H.A. Crosby Forbes Curator of Asian Export Art, Peabody Essex Museum); John Guy (Curator of South & Southeast Asia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
2:00 pm–5:30 pm
Lecture Hall, 38 West 86th Street, New York, NY
RSVP required to academic-events@bgc.bard.edu or 212.501.3019
Presented in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage
of discovery and celebrating the lasting legacy of Dutch culture in New
York, this exhibition (and catalogue) explore(s) the world of a fascinating
woman, her family, and the possessions she accumulated over an eventful
lifetime. Margrieta van Varick was born in 1649 in the Netherlands, but she
spent many years at the extremes of the Dutch world-in Malacca on the Malay
Peninsula and in Flatbush, now part of Brooklyn. She arrived in New York in
1686 with her husband, a Dutch Reformed minister, and set up a textile shop,
bringing with her an array of objects from the Far East and Europe. Her shop
goods, along with her household furnishings, were meticulously recorded in
an estate inventory made after her death in 1695. The inventory lay
forgotten for more than two hundred years but was rediscovered in the
twentieth century, pointing the way to new research into the histories of
New York City, the Dutch overseas trading empire, women, and material
culture. Although to date it has been impossible to link specific objects to
the items in Margrieta's inventory, representative objects serve as
springboards to discussions by a group of more than thirty leading curators
and scholars. The intense investigation of the past by this wide group of
scholars holds up a mirror to present-day New York and serves as a reminder
of a vanished world.
For additional information contact Alex Phelan, phelan@bgc.bard.edu.
Monday, October 19 and Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Symposium: Thalassography and Historiography
6:00 pm–8:00 pm and 9:00 am–5:00 pm
Lecture Hall, 38 West 86th Street, New York, NY
RSVP required to academic-events@bgc.bard.edu or 212.501.3019
This two-day symposium will bring together scholars of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Mediterranean, China, and Black Seas, to address the following question: "Has - or does - a thalassographic frame open up methodological and historiographical questions or horizons that have been - or will be - important for new ways of studying the human past?"
For additional information contact Alex Phelan, phelan@bgc.bard.edu.
Thursday, February 4 and Friday, February 5, 2010
Symposium: The Artifact in the Age of New Media
6:00 pm–8:00 pm and 9:00 am–5:00 pm
Lecture Hall, 38 West 86th Street, New York, NY
RSVP required to academic-events@bgc.bard.edu or 212.501.3019
New media has transformed our access to collections in the humanities. But how has our interpretation and presentation of artifacts changed? This day-long symposium will feature presentations by leading practitioners in the university, library, and museum worlds to showcase new developments in this rapidly changing field. We will be discussing such topics as the nature of digital collaborations within and between institutions, what digital scholarship involving material culture looks like and will look like, the role of digital media in the training of material culture/art history scholars, and digital media and the changing nature of exhibitions among other issues.
For additional information contact Alex Phelan, phelan@bgc.bard.edu.
Thursday, April 15 and Friday April 16, 2010
Symposium: Secondhand Culture: Waste, Value and Materiality
6:00 pm–8:00 pm and 9:00 am–5:00 pm
Lecture Hall, 38 West 86th Street, New York, NY
RSVP required to academic-events@bgc.bard.edu or 212.501.3019
Secondhand culture has been defined as anything that has entered the market for a second time. Expanding this category to include waste, Secondhand Culture: Waste, Value and Materiality, will explore the ways in which objects ranging from clothing to collectibles to trash have been constructed and experienced. Scholars of Dramatic Arts, History, Media and Communications, Geography, and Art and Design History discuss this vital new area at the intersection of consumerism, material culture studies, cultural geography, and artmaking.
For additional information contact Alex Phelan, phelan@bgc.bard.edu.
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