Tuesday, March 07, 2006
"The Day of the Dead" is subject of 2006 International Studies colloquium
 The International Interdisciplinary Colloquium moves to Latin America this year with “The Day of the Dead: Ceremonies of Passage,” on Tuesday, October 31, 2006, the first day of the worldwide Day of the Dead festival. Pat Aakhus, instructor in English and director of International Studies, is project director for the colloquia. “We want to share experiences of global culture with the USI community and the Tri-state community, so we’re looking at our cultural inheritance from different parts of the world,” she said. The colloquium is attended by approximately 2,500-3,000 students, faculty, and staff; high school students from throughout the Tri-state; and members of the community. “We started out with one of the cradles of civilization, Athens, Greece, and then our inheritance from the Middle East in Mesopotamia. Now we’re going to Latin America, and in the future we’ll move to Asia.” “The Day of the Dead” will be the third annual International Studies colloquium. Past colloquia included “The Parthenon Project” in 2004 and “The Ram in the Thicket” in 2005. Faculty members present a series of 20-minute presentations from a variety of cultural perspectives, including art history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and literature, as well as creative medias such as original poetry, literary essays and visual art. “A subject doesn’t have to be approached in just one way; we can tap the richness of a subject by approaching it from different perspectives,” Aakhus said. “Students get an interdisciplinary approach to learning, and faculty get to learn from each other.” The Day of the Dead is richly celebrated in Latin America, but the festival also is observed in other parts of the world. About half of the presentations will focus on Latin American culture. Examples from other cultures include The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Day of the Dead traditions in Ireland and Rome, and a discussion of “voodoo death” and the neuroscience of fear. Aakhus said that though the colloquium will examine the culture of death, it’s not morbid. “It’s about celebrations and ceremonies of death, the idea of the spirit and return, and what different cultures have in common there,” she said. She said it’s appropriate that the Day of the Dead colloquium be held on Halloween. “The rituals of Halloween that we celebrate have their origin in ancient Day of the Dead ceremonies: the Roman Lemuralia; Samhain, from Ireland, Britain and France; and All Souls’ Day and All Saints’ Day in the Christian tradition. What they all have in common is reverence for the dead – in some cases an invitation to the departed spirits of family to visit, in other cases efforts to ward off unfriendly spirits. It’s about boundaries, hospitality, and the idea that there is life after death.” The colloquium is sponsored by International Studies and funded through a grant by the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence. |
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