IDS public lecture series fall 2019

The Intra-Disciplinary Seminar (IDS) public lecture series, designed as an introduction to some of the most pressing questions driving contemporary thought and practice, consists of lectures by artists, theorists, scientists, activists, writers, and other practitioners involved in the arts from positions that embody an interdisciplinary approach or that imply new uses for disciplinary traditions. Each lecture is part of The Cooper Union’s Intra-Disciplinary Seminar (IDS). The seminar and series are organized by Leslie Hewitt and Omar Berrada.

This year’s IDS is organized along three general directions that include: “Expansion,” which considers ways of knowing within an expanded field, including entanglements of human, animal, plant, and machine; “Counterpoint,” which studies how perception and politics interact in polyphonic ways; and “Dreamwork,” which examines the active role of imagination in strategies of resistance and survival. 

Fall 2019 IDS public lectures

September 17
Fanny de Chaillé, The Disorder of Discourse

September 24
Scholastique Mukasonga, After Genocide: Writing as Survival

October 1
Jessica Krug, Fugitive Modernities: Black Political Imagination and Radical Silence

October 8
Faustin Linyekula, Dialogue with Ruins

October 15
Mika Rottenberg, Culture Declares Emergency: A Discussion

October 22
Bouchra Khalili, Calling the Ghosts: On Bearing Witness to the Future

November 5
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Saltwater Apprenticeship: Black Being Beyond the Human

November 12
Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, Architecture of Migration

November 19
Patty Chang, Hysterical Geographies and The Wandering Lake

December 3
Shannon Mattern, Urban Algorithms

December 10
Hettie Jones, How I became Hettie Jones

December 17
Emanuele Coccia, Metamorphic beings: Nonhuman Life in the Human Body and Spirit


IDS lectures take place on Tuesdays at 7 pm. They are free and open to the public.


The Cooper Union’s School of Art
Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture, and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences. The School of Art is firmly committed to a generalist curriculum that encompasses all the fundamental disciplines and resources of the visual arts. Each student is educated not only in specific disciplines, but also in the complex interrelationships of all the visual vocabularies. This philosophic premise relates to all the objectives of the School of Art and is the foundation upon which all teaching, creative work, service and research are based. The Studio curriculum along with the Art History and General Studies components of the BFA program all have as their goal the acquisition of communication skills, the development of critical perspective, and the mastery of the materials and intellectual premises of the study of societies and people. Throughout eight semesters, students become socially aware, historically grounded, creative practitioners. They are taught to be critical analysts of the world of contemporary visual communications, art, and the culture at large.

General support and funding
The IDS public lecture series is part of the Robert Lehman Visiting Artist Program at The Cooper Union. We are grateful for major funding from the Robert Lehman Foundation. The IDS public lecture series is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Fanny de Chaillé’s performance is presented in partnership with Crossing the Line Festival and The Invisible Dog Art Center.

Faustin Linyekula and Bouchra Khalili’s lectures are presented in partnership with the Open Society Foundations.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ lecture is presented in partnership with the Oral History Workshop Series at Columbia University and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.