From the Chair

The relationship between “academia” and art is seemingly, forever fraught. Until quite recently, what we call art was historically in service to (depending on the epoch) religion, mythology, class/social strata, storytelling, and then the needs of architecture and all...

From the Chair

There is a 16th century Kabbalistic story that describes how all of the light in the world was originally contained in ten vessels. However, it seems that the vessels were too fragile to contain so much energy, and they quickly broke apart, sending sparks and light...

From the Chair

I’m feeling grateful for the health of our community and I am also feeling a lot of anger for things I cannot control. I feel, quite literally, stopped in my tracks, forward motion seems all but halted and, while working hard to adapt to this new reality, I am...

From the Chair

We are deeply inside of a historical moment now, made vividly aware of the minutiae of the moment via 24/7 news and streaming media. So much so that it is, for me, overwhelming. I am also very aware of the aggregation of mediated images of the Covid-19 crisis into a...

From the Chair

In 1992, the Choreographer Bill T. Jones lost his partner Arnie Zane to HIV/AIDS. Shortly thereafter, as he moved through his own grief and still in the crisis days of the AIDS epidemic (and HIV positive himself) he initiated a series of what he called Survival...

From the Chair

Dear Friends, I hope you are all safe and healthy. I must admit these last couple of weeks have knocked the wind out of me. I have written an essay a week for almost five years now—no matter what—an essay a week. But in the last two weeks I had nothing to share. We...