SHOWS

The Mourning Show

Presented by H. Peter Steeves

Tuesday, February 09
9:00 PM — 10:30 PM
Claudia Cassidy Theater
FREE

Running time: approx 1 hour, 35 minutes (no intermission)

Dr. H. Peter Steeves, Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University, will be offering a multi-disciplinary and multi-media presentation entitled “The Mourning Show.”  In investigating how, and for whom, we mourn, “The Mourning Show” will examine the nature of art and mourning, focusing especially on the relationships among language, representation, beauty, memory, and grief. Mourning’s work is confronting the death of the Other, and as such it places us in relation to our mortal world and our finite community. Prof. Steeves investigates what this means from a philosophic, scientific, and artistic standpoint, moving from the work of Edward Hopper to Francis Bacon, from William Shakespeare to Donald Hall, from Aristotle to Jacques Derrida—from painting to poetry to physics to philosophy and beyond. Writing especially, he argues, participates in the risks of mourning as it represents the lure of “closure.” Once a word is written down it can exist without its author: it points to our mortality, to a world continuing on without us. And yet, we write. And we paint, and we sing, and we dance, and we live. For all acts of creation point to this mortality, to the possibility and even the necessity of our eventual death—and the world still inexplicably continuing on. 

Please join us for an evening of live music, dance, theatre, and more, as Prof. Steeves examines the boundaries between life and death, mourning and madness, art and grief, performing and living.

This event is presented in conjunction with WNEP Theater’s The (edward) Hopper Project playing January 15 - February 21 at the Storefront Theater. All of WNEP Theater’s proceeds from tickets sales on Thursday, February 11 will directly benefit “The Mourning Show.”

This event is also supported by The DePaul University Humanities Center. 

Download the Mourning Show program [DOC]

View photos from this show