Sinclair Bell: Fans, Fame and the Roman Circus

The Archaeological Institute of America Dallas--Fort Worth Society presents the AIA Dorinda J. Oliver Lecturer

Sinclair Bell

Fans, Fame and the Roman Circus

Thursday, February 28, 2013, 6:00 pm

Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University 5900 Bishop Blvd., Dallas, TX 75275

Museum phone: 214.768.2516
Free parking in Meadows Museum parking garage. Access on the corner of Bishop Blvd. and Schlegel. Easy to find. Free museum admission Thursdays after 5:00 pm.
AIA lectures are free and open to the public.

In the first century CE, the funeral for Felix, a charioteer of the Red team, made headlines when one of his fans immolated himself on his favorite’s funeral pyre. While an extreme example, fan behavior in ancient Rome is not unknown. Yet where charioteers assumed a highly-visible presence in Roman society and have been much studied, the fans whom they inspired remain largely overlooked and poorly understood. This paper demonstrates how the study of the sports fan, who sat at the fault line between staged spectacles and everyday life, can enlighten us in new ways about the centrality of the Circus to Roman culture.

Sinclair Bell is with the School of Art at Northern Illinois University, and holds his degrees from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cologne, Oxford University, and Wake Forest University. His areas of specialization are Etruscan and Roman Art and Archaeology, sport and spectacle in the ancient world, and materials culture studies. His most current publication (in preparation) is “The Roman Circus: A Cultural History”, and he is the recipient of a DAI/AIA Study in Berlin Fellowship.

Please JOIN the AIA and specify the Dallas-Fort Worth Society.
Membership helps sponsor our lectures!

Membership now includes Archaeology magazine. http://www.archaeological.org/membership/join

Kathy Windrow, President, Archaeological Institute of America, Dallas – Fort Worth Society

FaceBook  page: AIA Dallas-Fort Worth Society

“The Legend of Lord Eight Deer: An Iliad of Ancient Mexico”

AIA DALLAS – FT. WORTH SOCIETY in Partnership with

The Boshell Family Lecture Series on Archaeology at the DMA

John Pohl

“The Legend of Lord Eight Deer: An Iliad of Ancient Mexico”

Friday, August 17, 2012 at 9:00 pm

Late Night at the DMA

Horchow Auditorium, Dallas Museum of Art

1717 North Harwood, Dallas, TX 75201

This lecture is FREE to AIA members and AIA followers.  Tell DMA staff at the entrance you are with the AIA and you do not have to pay admission to the museum in order to attend the lecture. They are supposed to give you a wrist tag.  If you wish to visit the galleries, you do have to pay for museum entry. Arrive early!!

PARKING: Not free except to DMA members; $10 in advance to non-members. There are other parking options downtown. The DART light rail and the McKinney Avenue trolley provide alternate access to the museum.

Map, Driving Directions, and Visitor Information:

dallasmuseumofart.org/Visit/PlanYourVisit/index.htm#Map

General information during regular Museum hours (Tues—Sun: 11 am-5 pm and Thurs: 11 am-9 pm), call 214-922-1803

John Pohl is an authority on American Indian civilizations, and is currently the Curator of the Arts of the Americas at U.C.L.A.’s Fowler Museum. He received his degrees from UCLA (Ph.D.) and Hampshire College, and is co-curator of “Children of the Plumed Serpent: the Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico”. Dr. Pohl is an authority on American Indian civilizations, and his expertise is in American Indian art and writing systems as primary sources for reconstructing indigenous history. He has directed numerous archaeological projects in Central and North America, as well as Europe, and is noted for bringing the ancient past to life through innovative museum techniques. He served as a writer and producer for the eight hour CBS mini-series "500 Nations" on American Indian history as well as writing and designing a number of museums on North and Central American Indian peoples. His books include Exploring Mesoamerica, The Politics of Symbolism in the Mixtec Codices, and Aztecs and Conquistadores: The Spanish Invasion and the Collapse of the Aztec Empire.

This lecture focuses on a work of art featured in the Plumed Serpent exhibition at the DMA, the 15th century painted pictographic manuscript called Codex Zouche-Nuttall from Oaxaca, Mexico.  Preserved in the British Museum and never before exhibited outside that institution, it portrays the saga of a great Mixtec warlord who conquered much of southern Mexico between A.D. 1063 and 1115.   Displayed like a storyboard on the walls of royal palaces and performed by court poets, the stories of political intrigue, marriages, and murders would rival the works of Sophocles or Shakespeare.

FREE AIA lecture on The Roots of Buddhism in India, Saturday, April 14, at 2 pm, Dallas Museum of Art

Monica L. Smith

“The Roots of Buddhism in India”

Saturday afternoon, April 14, 2012, 2:00 pm

 

C3 Theater, Dallas Museum of Art
1717 North Harwood, Dallas, TX 75201

This lecture is FREE to AIA members and AIA followers. 

Tell DMA staff that you are with the AIA.

PARKING: Not free except to DMA members; $10 in advance to non-members. There are other parking options downtown. The DART light rail and the McKinney Avenue trolley provide alternate access to the museum.

Map, driving directions, visitor information: dallasmuseumofart.org/Visit/PlanYourVisit/index.htm#Map

General information during regular Museum hours (Tues—Sun: 11 am-5 pm and Thurs: 11 am-9 pm), call 214-922-1803

Monica L. Smith, Professor of Anthropology, University of California-Los Angeles, will look at how Buddhism began in the Indian subcontinent, right at the border of what is now India and Nepal. She will explore the origin of Buddhism and its effects on the population of the Early Historic period, starting in the 6th century B.C. just after the historical Buddha’s birth and life. For nearly a thousand years, Buddhism was the prevailing religious tradition in the subcontinent, providing a pulse of inspiration so strong that it was carried along the sea routes to Southeast Asia and the Silk Route to China, Japan, and Korea. The art and architecture of Buddhism underwent significant changes over time, providing insights on the way in which this religious tradition was adapted to the local circumstances of the people who adopted it.

Monica L. Smith has received grants from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and American Institute of Indian Studies.  Her research focuses on comparative modern and ancient urbanism, trade and economics in prehistory, archaeological method and theory, and the anthropology of food in South Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean. Since 1992, Monica Smith’s fieldwork has centered on the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in Orissa state in India. She has excavated in Bangladesh, Turkey, Tunisia, Madagascar, Egypt, Great Britain, Italy, and the American Southwest. Among her publications are A Prehistory of Ordinary People (2010); (with R.K. Mohanty) Excavations at Sisupalgarh, Orissa (2008); The Social Construction of Ancient Cities (Editor)( 2003); and The Archaeology of an Early Historic Town in Central India(2001).

Short bibliography on lecture topic (for lay reader):

Dalal, Anita     2007     National Geographic Investigates: Ancient India.  National Geographic, Washington D.C.

Kulke, Hermann and Dietmar Rothermund     2010     A History of India, fifth edition.  Routledge, London.

Schomp, Virginia     2009     Ancient India.  Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, New York.

JOIN the AIA and specify the Dallas-Fort Worth Society.  Membership helps sponsor our lectures!

Membership now includes Archaeology magazine.    http://www.archaeological.org/membership/join

FREE lecture sponsored by the Dallas-Fort Worth Society of the AIA

Lothar von Falkenhausen

“Archaeological Reflections on the History of Central Asia”

WHEN: Thursday, October 20, 2011, at 6:00 pm

WHERE: Jean and Bob Smith Auditorium, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University,
5900 Bishop Blvd., Dallas, TX 75275. Free parking in the Meadows Museum parking garage (access on the corner of Bishop Blvd. and Schlegel). Parking and museum auditorium are easy to find!

Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen is Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History and Associate Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. He obtained his MA in East Asian Studies and his PhD in anthropology from Harvard University, and has also attended the University of Bonn, Peking University, and Kyoto University. His specialty is East Asian archaeology, with an emphasis on the great Bronze Age of China (ca. 2000-200 BC), and his volume, "Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius" was awarded the SAA Book Award in 2009.

This lecture explores some of the grand themes in Central Asian archaeology in light of new scholarship.  As we begin to look more closely at the actual inhabitants of the region, we find that we may have to abandon currently widespread romantic notions emphasizing the role of long-distance trade and the prosperity it allegedly brought to the region.

PLEASE join the AIA.   Specify the Dallas-Fort Worth Society so your membership helps sponsor our lectures! Membership now includes Archaeology magazine.       http://www.archaeological.org/membership/join           

This AIA lecture is FREE and open to the public. Students are especially welcome!

Kathy Windrow, President, Dallas – Fort Worth AIA Society

kathyw@smu.edu

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FREE AIA Lecture - Thursday, Sept. 22, 6:30 at SMU

AIA – DALLAS – FT. WORTH SOCIETY

Dear AIA Members & Archaeology Enthusiasts,

Please join us for an AIA national lecture by archaeologist and geographer James S. Kus, who holds one of the 2011-2012 Stone Lectureships in New World Archaeology.

James S. Kus 

“Three Sites, Two New Museums, and an Interesting Indigenous Festival”

WHEN: Thursday, September 22, 2011, at 6:30 pm

WHERE: Robert J. O'Donnell Lecture-Recital Hall, Room 2130, above the Taubman Atrium in the Meadows School of Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX. Parking in the lot immediately south of the Meadows School (accessible from Hillcrest Avenue) is free and open to visitors after 6:00 pm that night.  Parking in the neighborhood across Hillcrest is OK at night. For other parking information and maps: http://www.smu.edu

James S. Kus is with the Department of Geography at California State University, Fresno. He received his M.A. in Geography from Michigan State University, and his Ph.D. in Geography from U.C.L.A. in 1972.  Kus specializes in Andean archaeology and geography and has conducted fieldwork in northern coastal Peru and central California.  Professor Kus has also served as Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Lima.  He has published extensively about Peruvian archaeology and geography in professional journals as well as encyclopedias. 

Most visitors to Peru travel only to Lima, Cuzco, and Machu Picchu. This talk introduces three other sites currently under investigation to give a taste of the rich variety of archaeological treasures in Peru:  Puruchuco, San Jose de Moro, and the Huaca de la Luna.  Puruchuco is an Inca administrative center and cemetery; the lecture focuses on some of the mummy bundles uncovered during salvage excavations there.  Moro is a Moche Period site (AD 0-800); a brief overview of the site focuses on several impressive burials as well as on evidence for ceremonial rituals.  Huaca de la Luna is a Moche site south of Moro; recent excavation at this site has revealed much information about the ceremonial rituals of the Moche culture, including human sacrifice.

This lecture also introduces two new museums in the Lambayeque region in northern coastal Peru.  One houses artifacts uncovered at the site of Sipan:  it is an absolutely amazing place – a spectacular design housing a magnificent collection of artifacts.  The other museum, also world-class, houses material of the Sican culture that was uncovered by a team led by Dr. Izumi Shimada at the site of Pampa Grande. 

Finally, the talk concludes with a brief look at one of the traditional festivals in Peru:  that of the Senor de Choquekillca in the town of Ollantaytambo (a World Heritage Center).  The Choquekillca festival (which takes place seven weeks after Easter each year) remains an authentic example of traditional Andean culture.  The festival is illustrated with both slides and videos taken during several different years.        

This AIA lecture is FREE and open to the public. Students are especially welcome!

Kathy Windrow, President, Dallas – Fort Worth AIA Society

kathyw@smu.edu

PLEASE join the AIA.   
Specify the Dallas-Fort Worth Society so your membership helps sponsor our lectures!

http://www.archaeological.org/membership/join   
Membership now includes Archaeology magazine.