![]() At age 90 Yayoi Kusama continues to produce interactive, infinity-like spaces, as well as paintings and sculptures. She represented Japan in 1993 at the 45th Venice Biennale to much critical acclaim. Her work gained widespread recognition in the late 1980s following a number of international solo exhibitions, including shows at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England, which both took place in 1989. Since then Kusama has made more than 20 unique rooms. ![]() Building on the repetition found in her paintings and sculptures, this artwork used mirrors to create an illusion of infinite space. In 1965 Kusama produced her first Infinity Mirror Room. In the mid-1960s, she lived in New York where she became an important avant-garde artist by staging groundbreaking and influential happenings, events, and exhibitions. She presented her first solo show in Japan in 1952. Her highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.īorn in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama’s work has been featured widely in both solo and group exhibitions. There’s an extraordinary amount of good sci-fi literature that I’d love to read with students.Yayoi Kusama's work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. For myself, I’ve wanted to teach a course in religion, philosophy and science fiction for ages. I love taking student requests, so I often create courses based on student interest. What would be your dream course to teach? Just because we’re studying “religious” themes doesn’t mean we always have to be serious!ģ. More generally, it’s important to me that students experience the study of religion and philosophy not just as weighty but also as creative, funny and ironic. Studying Judaism means being attentive to a set of big questions through the lens of a minority community and tradition, so it’s also a good way to study more dominant cultures through a different set of eyes. These public debates tend to be pretty uninformed, though my classes invite students to think about these themes in much more sophisticated ways. I’ve come to think that questions about Jews and Judaism are, for better or worse, pretty foundational in western politics, philosophy and culture consider how many recent American public conversations have revolved around antisemitism, Israel, cultural representation or religious freedom. Of course, sometimes you have to sit by yourself to read and write - that’s part of the job of being a student or teacher - but I’m always thinking about debates I’ve had or questions students have asked. Teaching in the humanities means that I’m always getting to sit with other people and work through questions that we care about, pressing one another to be more creative and precise in our interpretations and arguments. I believe in “thinking together” about hard and important questions and texts I think much less clearly or carefully by myself. I love to read, but my best learning experiences have almost always been social and communal. People often imagine studying the humanities as a very lonely pursuit: a single person sitting alone in a room with a book. We asked Professor Filler a few questions about her career in education. During Winter Term, she taught Religion and Violence as well as Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Jewish Tradition. This past Fall Term at W&L, Filler taught two courses, American Judaism and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Her research focuses on modern Jewish and continental philosophy, political and ethical theory, and classical Jewish texts. Her work has been widely shown in solo exhibitions across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours from Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario. ![]() “Teaching in the humanities means that I’m always getting to sit with other people and work through questions that we care about, pressing one another to be more creative and precise in our interpretations and arguments.”Įmily Filler joined the Religion Department at Washington and Lee University as an assistant professor in fall 2020. 128 Following 1 Artworks 1 About Emily Filler is a visual artist based in Toronto, Ontario. Search Feature Stories Campus Events All Stories Stories by DisciplineĮmily Filler, assistant professor of religion
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