FR 481: Dreams of the new in Postwar France
Wednesdays 4-6:40 p.m.
Room TBA…will be on north campus and likely in a seminar room
Professor Fernanda Negrete
Open to all majors….no prerequisites!
Registration #: 23546
A number of French writers, thinkers, and artists after
World War II proposed radical notions of the
new. They decided that the only way to revive language, space, and time,
after these key elements of symbolic life had collapsed under the traumatic
events of the Holocaust, was to begin creative work at “degree zero”: by
starting without the guidelines and standards left behind by cultural
traditions in a world that had fallen apart. In other words, these French
authors, through experimental fiction, theory, cinema, and theater confront the
destruction of the collective and of its very stage to ask what it means to
think and write, to make an artwork, or to build and inhabit a city after it
has been shattered by human acts of violence.
To think “the new” also entails
asking what it means to remember, dream, and repeat. In colloquial speech we
talk about “our dreams” as our great wishes and projects for the future. For
its part, Freudian dream theory —where dreams refer to the productions we carry
out in our sleep— claims that a dream is the fulfillment of a wish. But what
happens when the future “our dreams” envision has been shattered? What kinds of
wishes are left? And how do we understand nightmares here? Freud himself asked
this question by thinking of (WWI) war veterans’ insistent nightmares, and
discovered an important function of repetition in the unconscious, which is
especially relevant when the work of remembering faces the obstacle of trauma.
This unique sense of unconscious repetition was key for both psychoanalysis and
the French authors who developed New Wave cinema, the New Novel, “writing
degree zero,” as well as other new conceptions of community (Freud, Agamben,
Nancy, Blanchot, Guattari, Oury and Guattari) and the subject of unconscious
desire.
This seminar will involve
discussions in different formats (roundtable, small groups) around texts,
films, plays, viewings, invited lectures. Evaluation will be based on consistent
attendance and participation supported by preparation, and on mid-term and
final papers (5-6 pages for the midterm, 9-10 pages for the final).
MHIRT Introduction
The San Diego State
University Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research
Training program (SDSU MHIRT) is a component of the national MHIRT program
funded by the National Institutes of Health. We provide international training
experiences to students from health disparity backgrounds with a goal of
encouraging such students to pursue careers in biomedical, clinical, and
behavioral health research. The ultimate mission of the MHIRT program is for
MHIRT trainee alumni, through their careers as researchers and medical
professionals, to work to reduce, and eventually eliminate, healthcare
disparities in the United States.
The
SDSU MHIRT Program is always interested in receiving applications from
exceptional candidates. In addition to meeting the below criteria, we are
looking for applicants with a high level of emotional maturity,
professionalism, and dedication to improving the research and outcomes of
populations affected by health disparities post matriculation. To be eligible
for the MHIRT program you must, at minimum, meet the following criteria: You
must be a US citizen or permanent resident.
- You
must come from an NIH specified minority group underrepresented in
biomedical research. (Please visit our Program Overview page for more
information).
- You
must have a GPA of 3.0 or higher.
- Undergraduate
applicants must have junior or senior class standing at your institution.
Previous undergraduate research experience is highly recommended.
- Master’s
students must have previous research experience in the area of our MHIRT
training programs.
- You
must show a commitment to pursuing a career in research, public health, or
another field, focused on health disparities.
TH 425-Media and Performance Seminar
Professor Lindsay Hunter
Registration #: 301130
Mondays and Wednesdays 3-4:20 p.m.
188 Alumni Arena
Course description: This course will consider various forms of mediated and
intermedial performance in order to examine the particular habits,
possibilities and affinities of performance in mediatized contexts.
Possible areas of focus include television and televisual performance,
intermedial theatre, and performance in video gaming and in online contexts.
For Spring 2020, we will consider the ways
representational media’s power to dissemble and intersects with the theatrical
urge toward enacting the artificial to produce the phenomenon of hoaxing, in
which a constructed falsehood masquerades as true and actual. Though the
concerns of this course are perhaps best demonstrated by the contemporary
phenomenon of “deepfakes”—that is, video doctored by artificial intelligence so
that it appears to document happenings that never occurred—the use of
representational media to present the fraudulent as real is hardly new.
Victorian spirit photography, allegations of faked moon landings, and
purposefully misleading journalism all point to the facility media possess,
even in a pre-digital era, to enact misrepresentation on a large scale. The
easy manipulability of digital media, however, certainly brings concerns about
hoaxing, fraudulence, and representational dishonesty into new territory, requiring
us to refine our critical perspectives: what separates the hoax from mere
untruth or disingenuousness, or from the artifice and illusion of
theatre? In an effort to better parse the unique possibilities and
affordances of the hoax, we will investigate its performative nature—that is,
its manifesting in the world through enactment—as well as the ways deception
and representation collude in the hoax’s constitutive acts.
Consider taking an Honors seminar this spring! There are three courses offered and they are all open to ANY major and there are NO Prerequisites for these courses for Honors scholars.
CSE 410: Algorithms have arrived. What’s Next?
registration #: Please contact Tim Matthews for registration into this course at trm7@buffalo.edu
Professor Atri Rudra
214 Norton Hall
Algorithms make decisions in all parts of our
lives, starting from the mundane (e.g. Netflix recommending us movies/TV
shows), to the somewhat more relevant (e.g. algorithms deciding which ads
Google shows you) to the downright worrisome (e.g. algorithms deciding the risk
of a person who is arrested committing a crime in the future). Whether we like
it or not, algorithms are here to stay: the economic benefit of automation
provided by algorithms means companies and even governments will continue to
use algorithms to make decisions that shape our lives. While the benefits of
using algorithm to make such decisions can be obvious, these algorithm
sometimes have unintended/unforeseen harmful effects.
This class will look into various algorithms in use in real life and go into
depth of both the societal as well as technical issues. For students who are
more technologically inclined, the hope is that this course will open their
eyes to societal implications of technology that such students might create in
the future (and at the very least see why claiming “But algorithms/math
cannot be biased” is at best a cop-out). For students who are more
interested in the societal implications of algorithms, the hope is that this
class will give them a better understanding of the technical/mathematical
underpinnings of these algorithms (because if you do not understand, at some
non-trivial level, how these algorithms work you cannot accurately judge the
societal impacts of an algorithm).
Overall the hope is that students who will build the technology of the future
will be equipped to grapple with societal implications of their work (note that
we are not saying that folks building technology need to be activists but when
presented with two viable technical options they would pick one that has more
societal benefits) and students who will be the future decision-makers can make
more informed decisions on how algorithms can impact others (note that we are
not saying that decision makers should create algorithm themselves but they should
be able to understand how algorithms interacts with real life data).
Pre-requisites: Section A1 (which is for CSE majors) has a pre-requisite
of CSE 331 OR CSE 474. Section A2 (which is meant for non-CSE majors) has no
formal pre-requisites (besides being a junior in their major). For both
sections, willingness to think beyond your usual boxes and openness to
unfamiliar ideas will be crucial.
Tentative Logistics
The main graded component for the students will be a project that the students
will be working on over the semester. The students will form groups of size 2-3
(depending on class size) and explore application of algorithms on some segment
of society. Ideally, the group should not have everyone from the same school.
The students are expected to come up an impact of the chosen algorithm in the
said segment of society that has either not been studied before or has received
little attention (either in popular media or academic research). The group is
supposed to identify a potential research question that can be investigated
further (some initial suggestions will be provided). The mini project will have
three main components: (1) a written report, (2) a YouTube video and (3) a demo
of a prototype. The students will submit a preliminary version of the report by
the middle of the semester so that they can get feedback from the instructor
that they can use towards their final report, video and prototype. Tentatively,
the final report should be up to 10 pages and the video up to 10 minutes long.
Each group will also meet with the instructor every week for a short (<= 10
mins) update on their progress in the last week. This is to ensure that the
groups are making sufficient progress as the semester moves along.
Students in Section A1 are expected to be the main contributors in their group
of building the prototype while students in Section A2 will be the primary
contributors in their group to looking into the societal implications of their
project. Students in two sections will be graded differently on the prototype
based on their primary contributions.
Every week, the class will focus on one segment of society (e.g. criminal
justice system or human resources (i.e. hiring)) and discuss the impact of
algorithms on that segment of society OR will talk about a stage in the
algorithm development pipeline. Students will be expected to participate in the
in-class discussion. Whenever possible, we will have domain experts (e.g.
someone from law school talking about the criminal justice system) come and
talk during the week.
Depending on the class size, the last week (or two) will be used to screen the
videos that various student groups have submitted and the groups will
answer any question or address any comments/thoughts that the class might have.
All this feedback will be incorporated in the final report and prototype, which
will be due in the finals week. We will use the final exam time for demo of the
prototypes.
Any followup
Questions?
If you would like to know more about this course, please stop by for Atri’s Honors College office hours from 2-3:20pm on Thursdays in Capen 106C. If that does not work, please feel free to email atri@buffalo.edu
The American
Institute of Indian Studies welcomes applications for its summer 2020 and
academic year 2020-2021 language programs. Programs to be offered include Hindi
(Jaipur), Bengali (Kolkata), Punjabi (Chandigarh), Tamil (Madurai); Marathi
(Pune), Urdu (Lucknow), Telugu (Hyderabad), Gujarati (Ahmedabad), Kannada
(Mysore), Malayalam (Thiruvananthapuram), Mughal Persian (Lucknow), Sanskrit
(Pune) and Pali/Prakrit (Pune). We will offer other Indian languages upon
request. For summer Hindi we require the equivalent of one year of prior Hindi
study. For summer Urdu, we require the equivalent of one year of either Hindi
or Urdu. We can offer courses at all levels, including beginning, in other
Indian languages for the summer. Summer students should apply for FLAS or other
funding if available at their institutions to cover the costs of the program.
Funding for Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu is available through the U.S.
State Department’s CLS program (see www.clscholarship.org). AIIS has some funding available for
summer students who cannot procure their own funding. This funding is allocated
on the basis of the language committee’s ranking of the applicants. AIIS will
award language fellowships, on a competitive basis, to academic year and fall
semester students, which would cover all expenses for the program. Those
eligible for these fellowships are U.S. citizens or permanent residents who
will have had the equivalent of at least two years of prior language study by
September 2020. AIIS offers Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu and other languages at
all levels for the fall and academic year although fellowships would only be
available for students who will have had the equivalent of two years of prior
language study by the beginning of the program.AIIS will offer
funding to masters students to complete a capstone project of their choosing
upon completion of the summer program. The application deadline is December
31, 2019. Applications can be downloaded from the AIIS web site at www.indiastudies.org.
For more information: Phone: 773-702-8638. Email: aiis@uchicago.edu.
The Emergency Department of the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital is
recruiting new Research Associates to help the principal investigators on
subjects’ enrollment. The studies the RAs will be involved with include
randomized drug trials, survey studies, trauma studies, chart review studies
etc.
This position will offer the RA a unique opportunity to learn about how to
conduct clinical studies and gain some valuable experience with patient
family’s interaction in an ED setting.
This is a volunteer position, no payment or benefit will be
offered.
The research associate’s job duties include:
- Screening, consenting
and enrolling eligible patients in studies
- Conducting phone
follow-ups
- Data collection and data
entry
Requirements:
- Pre-med undergraduate
students who have interests in pursuing MD, DO, nursing, PA, PT, or other
medical related program.
- Can commit at least
two years for this position.
- Can work at least 4-5
hours/week (day or evening time) from Monday to Sunday.
- A dedicated hard worker.
Please send your resume to the study coordinator Dr. Haiping
Qiao. Her email address is hqiao@upa.chob.edu
Learn more about the hundreds of study abroad
programs available to UB students. UB faculty and staff will be
representing their faculty-led study abroad programs. Additionally,
representatives from other SUNY campuses will be on site to
advertise the study abroad programs they sponsor (and which are
available to UB students). Come chat with students who have studied
abroad and learn how you can fit studying abroad into your degree
program at UB!
Thursday, September 26, 2019
11:00AM – 2:00PM
Student Union Lobby
The Division of Behavioral Medicine is looking for 3-5
highly motivated undergraduates to work as research assistants in the Fall 2019
semester.
We have several exciting projects that are looking for
students to help with laboratory experiments and clinical field studies.
Projects include examining how low-active people can increase their physical
activity, working with adults to improve impulsivity, and working with
overweight adults in a clinical weight-control program.
For more information about our lab please visit our website:
http://buffalobehavioralmedicine.org/
We are looking for individuals with the following
qualifications: Organized and detail oriented, highly motivated,
independent, strong GPA, good communication skills, ability to interact with
families and the ability to solve problems independently. Students will be
asked to do a variety of tasks including prepping materials, recruiting adults
and families for studies, entering data (excel) and there is a possibility of
working with families to collect data.
To apply: please send your resume and the answers to the questions below to dbmstudentapply@gmail.com. Please make sure that Fall 2019 is in the subject line of the email. We are hoping to quickly fill our positions and will interview students on a first come, first served basis.
Please
fill out the Following information:
Full
Name:
Name
you would like to be called:
Email:
Phone
Number:
Overall
GPA:
Major
GPA:
- What
year are you in school?
- Do
you have any prior research experience?
If so, with whom?
- What
do you want to do when you graduate?
- How
do you feel this research experience will benefit you?
- How
would you describe your communication skills?
- What
are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Are
you interested in continuing to work in the Winter/spring semester?
- What
is your availability for this summer? (please list all commitments)
- If
you have any previous experience with biometric measurements (blood pressure,
etc), please describe here:
The UB
Department of Theatre and Dance is seeking deck(stage) crew, fly crew, and
dressers for their productions this semester. This is a 1- to 2-credit
opportunity in the 7-week course TH235, so the add/drop date is not until
mid-October. It also counts as an Honors experience, and it is a
fulfilling way to potentially give your GPA a boost.
The
pre/co-requisites are:
TH106 (Intro to
Technical Theatre) or significant prior theatrical experience (like high school
stage crew or CFA stagehand work)
Attendance is
100% mandatory for this course, so you will need to check your schedules
meticulously to ensure you are fully available for at least 1 full show’s set
of rehearsals and performances. “Guys and Dolls” has one “on
school time” performance in the mid-morning, but you will receive as many
excusal letters as needed for that
morning. The full schedule of dates and times for each show can
be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-JgLaGcF6KBU1lRa0dpems4bE0zaXhmLTRGTHduU09HUnZV/view?usp=sharing
Please let me
know if you have any questions about registration, scheduling,
responsibilities, or anything else you may think of. If you are
interested, please email me at hswollan@buffalo.edu with your name, major, and a
brief description of any prior theatre experience you have, including whether
you’ve taken TH106.
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer’s Buffalo office is currently
seeking intern candidates for the fall 2019 semester. Please feel free to share
this opportunity with your students.
Students who wish to apply should be in good academic
standing and have an interest in government, political science or public
policy. Applicants should apply via the Internship portal on Senate Schumer’s
website (https://www.schumer.senate.gov/students/internships).
Please direct any questions to Courtney Ball at Senator
Schumer’s Buffalo office, by email courtney_ball@schumer.senate.gov
or by phone at (716) 846-4111.
