BLOOMINGTON, IN — On April 4-5, 2024, the Center for Cultural Affairs’ (CCA) third and final Humanities in Cultural Affairs (HICA) workshop, “Can the Arts Change the World? New Perspectives on the Problems and Possibilities of Cultural Exchange,” will be chaired by Jane Goodman, Indiana University (IU), Professor of Anthropology.
The workshop will bring together four nationally and internationally based scholars of the arts: Michelle Bigenho (Colgate University, Professor of Anthropology, Africana & Latin American Studies, and Native American Studies, and Director of the Native American Studies Program), Kendra Salois (American University, Assistant Professor in Performing Arts), Dr. Fiorella Montero-Diaz (Keele University, Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology), and Maria Rijo Lopes da Cunha (University of Copenhagen, External Lecturer, Department for Arts and Cultural Studies).
According to Goodman, “Our workshop seeks to envision new ways of imagining cultural exchange through the arts with an eye toward mutuality, reciprocity, and respect. We ask: How can we imagine more collaborative forms of artistic exchange? What might such engagements look like? We take inspiration from the work of contemporary scholar-artists engaged in cross-cultural creative encounters including touring, performance, experiential classes, and related artistic events. The workshop critiques neocolonial legacies of international orders and ongoing settler colonialism within nation-states, considering how both have used cultural exchange to reinforce rather than eliminate hierarchies and exclusions. Instead, we examine the work of artists, non-state actors, and bottom-up initiatives that counter established orders.” Goodman continues by saying, “The workshop itself instantiates exchange, as we bring scholars and scholar-artists from institutions in the United States, Europe, and Scandinavia into dialogue with locally based musicians.”
The HICA program will run from late afternoon on Thursday, April 4, including a visit to the outdoor “First Thursdays” festival hosted on the IU Bloomington campus by the IU Arts and Humanities Council. The visit to the “First Thursdays” festival showcases a 45-minute performance from 7:15pm-8:00pm by Salaam, a local Middle Eastern musical group from Bloomington. The workshop continues on Friday, April 5, when participants will discuss their research on cultural exchange through the arts. The workshop concludes with a performance and discussion with Dena El Saffar and Tim Moore from Salaam. The events on Friday will take place in the Grand Hall at Indiana University’s Cook Center for Public Arts and Humanities.
The Humanities in Cultural Affairs workshop series at the CCA brings together interdisciplinary IU humanities scholars and faculty at the Center for Cultural Affairs at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs for a series of workshops designed to reconnect humanities scholars and practitioners with public policy in cultural affairs. The series is made possible by funding through the National Endowment for Humanities. To learn more, register here for the Humanities in Cultural Affairs series.
If you would like to attend the morning academic seminar discussion on Friday, April 5, 2024 from 9:00am-12:00pm, register here. Registration for the mini-performance by Salaam on Friday, April 5, 2024 from 1:00pm-2:30pm can be found at this link. The deadline for registration is Friday, March 29, 2024.
