Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology welcomes you to attend the 26th Jane Powell Dwyer Memorial Lecture, presented by Professor Allen F. Roberts of UCLA's Department of World Arts and Culture. This special talk takes place at 5:30 p.m. next Thursday afternoon, November 6th, 2008, at 5:30 p.m., in the Museum's Manning Hall Gallery, on Brown University's Main Green, with a reception to follow immediately.
A flyer announcing Dr. Roberts' talk is attached to this email. Please print it or forward it to your friends, colleagues, or staff who might be interested in the talk!
In his talk "Optical Innovation and Visual Piety in Senegal", Professor Roberts will discuss the use of modern imagery to capture, redefine, and reinvent representations of the sacred and the Holy by Senegal's Mouride communities. The Mouride Way is a mystical Islamic movement in Senegal that possesses a vibrant visual culture. In 2003, lenticular images were introduced to Senegal. Astonishingly, one image shifts from a portrait of the Mouride saint Amadou Bamba to an image of "the Prophet as a boy," underscoring their spiritual proximity. However, this latter image is derived from a photograph of a Tunisian boy taken in 1904 by Rudolph Lehnert as an Orientalist postcard, later reproduced in National Geographic (1914). Hereby hangs a tale of optical technologies, floating signifiers, the efficacy of images, and the materiality of pictures.
This lecture is supported by donations to the Jane Dwyer Memorial Lecture Fund, and the Friends of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. We look forward to seeing you next Thursday evening!
Best wishes,
Kevin P. Smith
Deputy Director/Chief Curator
Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology
Kevin_P_Smith@brown.edu
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