For its first installment of the 2020 Spring Puppet Forum Series the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will host "Walt Whitman and Lively Materiality" with Professor Jane Bennett on Thursday, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs.
Dr. Bennett, of Johns Hopkins University, is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary political theorist and philosopher best known in the puppetry world for her work on "the material world in performance," especially her influential bestseller "Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things." Drawing from her forthcoming book "Influx and Efflux: Writing Up with Walt Whitman, Professor Bennett" will speak at the Thursday Puppet Forum about Whitman's sense of "lively materiality" and the implications such ideas for puppetry studies and other subjects. Co-sponsored by UConn’s departments of Philosophy, Political Science, and English, the UConn Humanities Institute, and UConn’s American Studies program.
Jane Bennett is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Her recent essays have appeared in "Grain/Vapor/Ray" (on Kafka's Odradek), "Evental Aesthetics" (special issue on Vital Materialism), and "MLN" (on mimesis). She is the author of "Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things" (2010); "The Enchantment of Modern Life" (2001); "Thoreau's Nature" (1994), and "Unthinking Faith and Enlightenment" (1987). Her forthcoming book this spring is called "Influx & Efflux: Writing up with Walt Whitman."
Admission to this event is free (donations greatly appreciated!), and refreshments will be served. Come early, and experience our puppet exhibitions, as well as the video resources in our library nook. Forums will be broadcast via Facebook Live. For more information or if you require an accommodation to attend a forum, please contact Ballard Institute staff at 860.486.8580 or bimp@uconn.edu.
For more information, contact: Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at 860.486.8580 or bimp@uconn.edu