The Scholar’s Vaudeville
Hosted by the Haines Sisters
In the Humanities Center’s final fall 2013 event in our “Radical Interdisciplinarity” series, the most radical mash-up of genres and disciplines comes to DePaul as the century-old tradition of vaudeville meets contemporary academia. Originally derived from voix de ville (“the voice of the city”), vaudeville literally gave voice to the myriad ways in which the city was alive from the late-19th century until the Great Depression. With this event, the Humanities Center, in conjunction with Chicago artists The Haines Sisters, will give voice to the tradition once more, simultaneously letting academia find its place in the Chicago chorus. Traditional variety acts will be juxtaposed with scholarly mini-lectures as ten different scholars and performers make their way to the stage over the course of ninety minutes. Artistic performance will be taken seriously—as it truly should be. And academic research will be taken to be fun—as it truly should be. An evening of music, history, magic, math, rhetoric, clowning, and more combine to form “The Scholar’s Vaudeville”!
The event runs from 6:00PM-7:30PM; a reception follows from 7:30PM-8:00PM.
Speakers and performers to include:
- Les Soubrettes (a family-friendly burlesque troupe)
- Christine Skolnik (Writing, Rhetoric, Discourse, DePaul) – Rhetoric and Magic in the Anthropocene
- Alexander Knapp (a jazzy juggler)
- Rachel Shteir (The Theater School, DePaul) – In Praise of Contrarianism, or Not Agreeing
- Andrew Suozzo (Modern Languages, DePaul) – The History of the French Presence in Chicago
- Denim Dan (the Craigslist Cowboy)
- Greg Scott (Sociology, DePaul) – Swindle: A Sociological Take on Taking
- Tricky Ol’ Puss (a magician)
- Steve Stanhope (Mathematics, DePaul) – Statistics and Medical Reports
- The Haines Sisters