CULTURE, RELIGION AND THE POLITICS OF CHANGE
SPRING 2009
CENTER FOR MEDIA, CULTURE AND HISTORY
CENTER FOR RELIGION AND MEDIA

SCREENING/ ARTIST’S TALK

Thursday/ January 29/ 6-8 PM
The Great Room, 19 University Place

At Home with Their Books
Artist's Talk with Elena Climent

Screening: Writers' Rooms: The Making of a Mural  Marcia Rock (2008, 30 min)
Introduction, Una Chaudhuri (English,NYU), Discussion with Marcia Rock (NYU, Journalism) and Elena Climent.

NYC-based Mexican artist Elena Climent discusses her 5-part mural painted on the walls of 19 University Place, depicting the writing spaces of famous NY writers Washington Irving, Edith Wharton, Zora Neale Hurston, Jane Jacobs and Pedro Pietri.

Followed by a reception and viewing of the mural

Co-Sponsored by:
Anthropology, English, Journalism
_________________

SCREENING/DISCUSSION
In Search of Bene Israel

Friday/ February 6/ 4-6PM
Kevorkian Center Screening Room
50 Washington Square South at 255 Sullivan Street

In Search of Bene Israel Sadia Shepard (2008, 36 min)
Documentary filmmaker and writer Sadia Shepard grew up in the US with a Muslim mother, Christian father and Jewish grandmother. In 2001 she journeyed
to India to connect with her grandmother’s Indian Jewish community. This film-and her acclaimed 2008 book ,The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked
Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and A Sense of Home—offer an account of what she discovered.

Post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

Click here to view a copy of the event flyer

Co-sponsored by NYU's Hagop Kevorkian Center
_________________

LECTURE/ SCREENING
Friday/ February 13/ 3-7pm
The Kevorkian Center, 50 Washington Square South at Sullivan Street

Female Trouble: Women's Representation in Iranian Cinema
Hamid Naficy (Communications, Northwestern)
A leading scholar on exilic and diasporic cinema and media, Naficy examines the ideological work surrounding the filmic representation of women and their participation as filmmakers in this new era of Iranian cinema.

Followed by a screening of
Under the Skin of the City Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (2004, 92 minutes)
Tuba, a mother of four, faces challenges to her way of life when her oldest son sells the family home for a foreign work visa. When his plans crumble, Tuba takes drastic measures to save her house and her son.
After-film discussion with Hamid Naficy

Co-sponsored with NYU's  Hagop Kevorkian Center

Hosted by The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University.

Click here to view a copy of the event flyer
_________________

SCREENING/DISCUSSION
Friday/ February 27/ 4-6:30PM
5 Washington Place, Room 101

A Jihad for Love Parvez Sharma (2007, 81 min)
Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma filmed in twelve countries and nine languages, often in nations where government permission to make this film was not an option.

Post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

Co-sponsored by Law and Society Program of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences CSGS, SCA, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Kevorkian Center

Click here to view a copy of the event flyer

_________________

SCREENING/ DISCUSSION
Friday/ March 6/ 2-5:30PM
Cinema Studies Screening Room
721 Broadway, 6th floor

Devoted to discipline: religion, education and punishment in prison

The Dhamma Brothers: East Meets West in the Deep South Jenny Phillips, Anne Marie Stein, Andrew Kukura (2008, 76 min)

A 10-day meditation retreat held in an Alabama men’s maximum-security prison makes a decisive difference in several lives.

A post-screening discussion with filmmaker Jenny Phillips, will be followed by a roundtable exploring the paradoxes of discipline as religion, college education and punishment in American prisons. Do religious practices and education programs simply serve the punitive regime of the prison, rendering inmates manageable? Or are they the lifeline for moral integrity and dignity of the individuals who live inside?

With Tanya Erzen (OSU), an anthropologist researching the role of faith-based initiatives in southern prisons, and Daniel Karpowitz (Bard), a lawyer and academic director of the Bard Prison Initiative in New York state. Moderator: Angela Zito, (NYU)

Co-sponsored by Cinema Studies (Tisch), SCA, CSGS, and Religious Studies.

Click here to view a copy of the event flyer
_________________

FILM FESTIVAL
March 26-29
National Museum of the American Indian,
U.S. Custom House/One Bowling Green

4th Native American Film + Video Festival

Celebrating 30 years of screening outstanding Native film and media.

For more information: http://www.nmai.si.edu/
_________________

WEINER LECTURE
Thursday/ April 2/6-8PM
Hemmerdinger Hall, 100 Washington Square East

Three Modalities of Ethics
Webb Keane (Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan)

Co-sponsored by Anthropology
_________________

SCREENING/ DISCUSSION
Thursday/ April 9th/ 6:30-10PM
Cantor Film Center, Theater 101
36 East 8th Street

Take Out Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou (2008, 87 min.)
This film presents an unvarnished view of a day in the harsh life of Ming Ding, an illegal Chinese immigrant and deliveryman for a NYC Chinese take-out shop.
Post screening discussion with the filmmakers.

RSVP at apa.rsvp@nyu.edu or 212.992.9653 or visit www.apa.nyu.edu.

Co-sponsors: The Center for Media, Culture & History, The Museum of Chinese in America.

Click here to view a copy of the event flyer
_________________

DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
Thursday/ April 23/ 6-8PM
Casa Italiana, 24 West 12th Street

Jews, God, and Videotape:  Religion and Media in America
Jeffrey Shandler (Rutgers University) 

From cantors’ early sound recordings to contemporary Hasidic outreach on the Internet, American Jews have become much more than the “people of the book”
during the past century. Drawing on his lively new book, Jews, God, and Videotape (NYU Press), Shandler argues that such engagements with media of all kinds have become central to defining contemporary religiosity not only for Jews but more broadly.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology
_________________

SCREENING/ DISCUSSION
Friday/ May 1/ 4-6PM
721 Broadway, Screening Room 006

Sync or Swim Cheryl Furjanic (2008, 90 min.)
An in-depth look at a marginal sport: U.S.A.’s top synchronized swimmers endure rigorous training and overcome unthinkable obstacles to compete for Olympic glory. Click here to view event flyer.

Post screening discussion with the filmmaker.

________________________________________________________

PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE
All events are co-sponsored by Cinema Studies (TSOA), Anthropology and Religious Studies and are free and open to the public. Seating is limited and on a first-come basis. Persons with a disability are requested to call 212-998-7608 for assistance.

Archive of past events at the Center for Media, Culture and History