Oxford University’s SaÏd Business School welcomes leading experts for a series of lectures and discussions on art, museums, their relationship and value to society.
On Monday 2 May, Professor Thomas Struth, Oxford’s first Humanitas Visiting Professor in Contemporary Art, gave a symposium on ‘picture making’.
A second lecture on ‘the abodes of the muses: theorising the modern art museum’ will be given by Professor Glenn D Lowry, the University’s first Humanitas Visiting Professor in Museums, Galleries & Libraries. Professor Lowry is Director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Professor Struth is a world renowned photographer.
On Thursday 5 May, Professor Struth will lead one of two seminars, ‘Do pictures contribute to identity and cultural difference?’ His guests alongside Professor Lowry will be James Lingwood, Co-Director of Artangel and Charlotte Cotton, Creative Director of the London Galleries at the National Media Museum.
Professor Lowry will host a second debate on 5 May, ‘The museum and the artist,’ with guests Professor Struth, Neil MacGregor, Director of The British Museum and Penelope Curtis, Director of Tate Britain.
The Humanitas series, organised by the Humanities Division, continues in June at Lady Margaret Hall which will host four presentations by Egyptologist, Professor Jan Assmann, Humanitas Visiting Professor in Interfaith Studies 2011.
His topics will be ‘Religion and the (Un)translatability of Cultures’ on Monday 20 June, ‘Religio Duplex in an Age of Globalization’ on 21 June and ‘Akhnaton, Moses and the Origins of Monotheism’ on 22 June, all starting at 5pm. His symposium on 23 June, Religious Violence and its Roots’, starts at 4pm. Other speakers will be Professor Jan Bremmer (History of Religions, Groningen), Professor Gudrun KrÄmer (Islam, Free University Berlin) and Professor David Gellner (Anthropology, Oxford). All four events will take place in the Talbot Hall.
Professor Assmann is Honorary Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at the University of Konstranz. His specialisms include ancient Egyptian religion, literature and history, cultural theory and memory; the reception of Egypt in Europe; and historical anthropology.
Humanitas is a series of Visiting Professorships at Oxford and Cambridge intended to bring leading practitioners and scholars to both universities to address major themes in the arts, social sciences and humanities. It was created by Lord Weidenfeld and is managed and funded by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue with the support of a series of generous benefactors.
Further information can be found by following this link.