Duke scholar, photographer to appear in Frostic lecture series

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—A noted scholar from Duke University and an internationally known photographer are visiting Western Michigan University this month to speak in the Frostic School of Art Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series.

Ranjana Khanna, the Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women's Studies and professor of English, women's studies and literature at Duke University, will speak Thursday, Nov. 13, while Garth Lenz, an internationally renowned photographer known for his photos depicting environmental consequences of oil exploration, will speak on Thursday, Nov. 20. Both lectures begin at 5:30 p.m. in Room 2008 of the Richmond Center for Visual Arts and are free and open to the public.

Ranjana Khanna

Khanna works on Anglo- and Francophone Postcolonial theory and literature, as well as film, psychoanalysis and feminist theory and has published widely on those topics. She is the author of "Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism" and "Algeria Cuts: Women and Representation 1830 to the Present." Khanna's new book projects, "Technologies of Unbelonging" and "Asylum: The Concept and the Practice'" in part are the result of work with the artists Mona Hatoum and Isaac Julien.

Garth Lenz

In his presentation, titled "The True Cost of Oil," Lenz will discuss his work documenting the environmental consequences of oil exploration in Alberta, Canada. Drawing from images spanning 20 years, "The True Cost of Oil" illustrates and contrasts the beauty, diversity and biological significance of Canada's boreal forest with the world's largest energy project, the Alberta Tar Sands.

The project is placed in the context of the world's greatest remaining forest and most effective carbon sink. The size, impact and far-reaching consequences of this project are illustrated by a series of images which have received the highest photographic honors internationally and been featured in the world's leading publications, museums and galleries.

The Richmond Center is staging a series of lectures throughout the fall semester in conjunction with its exhibition schedule in support of the thematic approach to its calendar of events.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/art/exhibitions/visitingartists/.

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