Leo Bersani, writer and thinker on a wide range of subjects in literature,
art, and psychoanalysis, will deliver the Craig Owens Memorial Lecture at 5
p.m. Monday, Sept. 15, in the Gowen Room of Wilson Commons on the University of Rochester's
River Campus.
Presented annually by the Program in Visual and Cultural Studies of the University
of Rochester, the lecture on the best loved recent films of Spanish director
Pedro Almodóvar honors Owens, a founder of the doctoral program in Visual
and Cultural Studies. The lecture and a screening of Almodóvar's 1999
film All About My Mother (Todo Sobre Mi Madre) are free and open to the
public.
The author of The Freudian Body, Caravaggio's Secrets, and Homos,
among many other books, Bersani is considered one of our culture's leading radical
intellectuals. He is professor emeritus of French at the University of California
at Berkeley where he taught from 1973 to 1996. He also taught at Harvard University,
the Collège de France, and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
in Paris.
Continuing a long-term collaboration with Ulysse Dutoit, Bersani has recently
written a book on Darek Jarman's film Caravaggio, and he is pursuing
the study of film in a new book on directors Jean-Luc Godard, Terence Malick,
and Almodóvar. His lecture on All About My Mother is drawn from
this current work.
That film will be shown at 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 14, in room 125 of Meliora Hall
on the River Campus. All About My Mother tells the story of a mother's
search to find the father of her dead son. The film follows her as she interacts
with different women along the way.
The annual Craig Owens Memorial Lecture was established in memory of Owens,
who died of complications resulting from AIDS in 1990. He taught in the Department
of Art and Art History from 1988 to 1990. The lecture is made possible by the
College Dean's Office and is co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology,
Art and Art History, English, and Modern Languages and Cultures; the Susan B.
Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies; and the Film and Media Studies
Program at the University of Rochester.
For more information, contact (585) 275-9249.