The Davies Forum at the University of San Francisco is a challenging intellectual program that focuses on values in public life.The continuing theme of the Davies Forum "The Search for values in Contemporary America," promises a refreshing examination of the turbulent state of American Society in the Last half of the 20th century and the present.
This Fall’s Davies Forum, Embodied Activism: Dance, Subjects, and Mobilization in Contemporary American Society, is being co-taught by Drs. Michelle LaVigne and Megan Nicely, and uses dance as a means to explore American social and political values in action. By taking bodies in motion as the object, tool, and perspective for study, this seminar addresses how subjectivity, communication, and aesthetics emerge from and are lived out through our actions. Participants explore how social values are embodied and mobilized, causing us to question how certain bodies get recognized as a part of political processes and social discourses while others remain unmarked. This inquiry proceeds along two intersecting paths – theory and practice. We not only read theoretical texts, but also explore ideas through their own bodies in studio-based exercises. Public lectures underscore the theoretical tracks in the seminar while public performances direct attention toward particular expressions that confront and question American social norms, values, and actions in the world.
Throughout the Fall various guests will visit the
University of San Francisco to share their views on these issues. For more
information about these events, please see our Events page.