Past Events

The 2014–15 Tucker-Boatwright Festival of Literature and the Arts featured a yearlong series of exhibitions, student research projects, lectures, performances, poetry readings, video and movie screenings, artist residencies, and more. The following events took place as part of the festival.

Mark Dion

Mark Dion's art installations and large-scale public works examine how dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our undersatnding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. This event was part of the Department of Art and Art History Lecture Series, and was co-sponsored with the Anderson Gallery, where Mark Dion's work is on view from Sept. 5–Dec. 7, and the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media, School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University.

PARK(ing) Day

Students transformed parking spaces on campus in C-Lot and near UR Downtown as part of this worldwide promotion of creativity, civic engagement, critical thinking, generosity, and play.

Matt Coolidge

Matt Coolidge is the founder and director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), a nonprofit art and research organization dedicated to the increase and diffusion of knowledge of how lands are apportioned, utilized, and perceived.

Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives on Landscape

This exhibition in the Harnett Museum of Art, University Museums, featured work by approximately 25 contemporary, international artists who examine, challenge, and redefine the concept of landscape, while also drawing attention to humanity’s hubristic attempts to relate to, preserve, and manage the natural environment.

Rachael DeLue

Princeton art historian Rachael Z. DeLue, co-editor of Landscape Theory, considers the intersections of art and science in her work on landscape painting. Part of the Department of Art and Art History Lecture Series.

Elizabeth Kolbert

New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert discusses her major book, The Sixth Extinction, about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. Presented by the Modlin Center for the Arts in partnership with the 2014–15 Tucker-Boatwright Festival and the Global Environment Speaker Series.

Natalie Jerimijenko

Natalie Jeremijenko is an associate professor of art at New York University, and directs the xdesign Environmental Health Clinic. Her work explores the opportunity new technologies present for nonviolent social change. Part of the Department of Art and Art History Lecture Series.

Alan C. Braddock

Alan Braddock is the Ralph H. Wark Associate Professor of Art History and American Studies at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of Thomas Eakins and the Cultures of Modernity, and co-editor of A Keener Perception: Ecocritical Studies in American Art History. Part of the Department of Art and Art History Lecture Series.

17th–Century Dutch Landscapes: Museum Studies Seminar Exhibition

Organized by University Museums and curated by students enrolled in the Museum Studies Seminar, the exhibition in the Harnett Museum of Art, University Museums, examined the theme of landscape through works by 17th–century Dutch artists, including Hendrick Goudt, Esaias van de Velde, Adriaen Verboom, Johannes Ruischer, Jacob van Ruisdael, Antonie Waterloo, and Rembrandt van Rijn.

Susan Stewart

Susan Stewart is both an accomplished poet and a highly regarded critic. Her five books of poetry have been accompanied by six critical volumes on poetry, literature, aesthetics, and folklore. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the MacArthur Foundation. Her fourth book of poetry, Columbarium, received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and her critical book Poetry and the Fate of the Senses received the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism as well as the Christian Gauss Award for Literary Criticism from Phi Beta Kappa. She teaches poetry and aesthetics at Princeton University and directs its Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts. Part of the of the English Department's Writers Series.

Clybourne Park

A spin-off of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, this cutting-edge satire takes a stab at race and landed property in an imaginary Chicago community. The play begins in 1959 as a “negro” family moves into awhite neighborhood. In Act Two, circa 2009, we visit the same house as gentrification sets in and the roles are swapped. Have things really changed? Internationally acclaimed, award-winning theatre director Chuck Mike follows up his 2011 production of A Raisin in the Sun by staging Bruce Norris’ superlative sequel on the Modlin stage. Clybourne Park is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.