Robert Bird (1969-2020)
The Gray Center is saddened by the recent news of the passing of our friend and colleague Professor Robert Bird who taught in the Departments of Cinema and Media Studies and Slavic Languages and Literatures. From 2017 through 2019, Robert Bird collaborated with artist Cauleen Smith on a Gray Center Mellon Collaborative Fellowship project called Give it or Leave it, which examined the relationship between film and revolution through the historical figures of Paul and Eslanda Robeson. Not only a Mellon Collaborative Fellow, Professor Bird was also an active participant in many of our programs including our journal Portable Gray, our speaking series SIDEBAR, and curated the Autumn 2018 Cinema 53 series with Cauleen Smith.
You can read a remembrance of Robert Bird by Zachary Cahill, the Gray Center's Director of Fellowships and Programs on Critical Inquiry's blog here: https://critinq.wordpress.com/2020/09/22/robert-bird-1969-2020-a-remembrance/
UChicago News:
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/robert-bird-prolific-scholar-russian-literature-and-film-1969-2020
Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, Robert Bird's main area of interest was the aesthetic practice and theory of Russian modernism. His first full-length book Russian Prospero (2006) is a comprehensive study of the poetry and thought of Viacheslav Ivanov. He was also the author of two books on the film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky; Andrei Rublev (2004) and Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema (2008). His translations of Russian religious thought include On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Reader (1998) and Viacheslav Ivanov's Selected Essays (2001). His biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky is forthcoming from Reaktion Books in their series Critical Lives. In 2011, he was involved in three exhibitions of Soviet graphic art, including Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary, for which he has edited the catalogue, compiled in part from contributions by graduate students. Robert Bird was one of the curators for Revolution Every Day opening at the Smart Museum of Art in 2017.
You can watch a video of Robert Bird and Cauleen Smith discussing their work together here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=7jwgCWGVmvo&feature=emb_title
You may read Moscow Diaries, a co-authored piece with Cauleen Smith from our Spring 2019 issue of Portable Gray, here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/704273?mobileUi=0#
Art in America reviews the Smart Museum exhibition Revolution Every Day which features work by Gray Center Fellows Robert Bird and Cauleen. Smith
https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazines/revolution-under-review/
Sidebar is back!!! The Gray Center will be hosting a conversation with artist, Cauleen Smith and Robert Bird (University of Chicago, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, The Department of Cinema Media & Studies ) to discuss manifestos, utopian visions, cinema of/for the future, and their work on the upcoming exhibition Revolution Every Day at the Smart Museum of Art.
As part of the closing of the Smart Museum exhibition Revolution Every Day, Russian poet Kirill Medvedev will perform selections of his work, followed by a discussion with exhibiting artist Cauleen Smith and exhibition curators Robert Bird, Zachary Cahill, and Christina Kiaer.
On the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Cinema 53 presents revolutionary films and films about revolution, co-curated by artist Cauleen Smith and UChicago film scholar Robert Bird. This evening’s screenings feature Finally Got the News (Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman & Peter Gessner with League of Revolutionary Black Workers, 1970, 55m), Congo Oye: We have come back (Bill Stephens, Paul and Carole Roussopoulas with Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, 1971, 45m) and will be followed by conversation with Bird, Smith, Jonathan Flatley and Matt Peterson.
On the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Cinema 53 presents revolutionary films and films about revolution, co-curated by artist Cauleen Smith and UChicago film scholar Robert Bird. This evening’s screening features Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983, 90m), and will be followed by a conversation with Bird, Smith and UChicago film scholar Kara Keeling.
On the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Cinema 53 presents revolutionary films and films about revolution, co-curated by artist Cauleen Smith and UChicago film scholar Robert Bird. This evening’s screening features Putney Swope (Robert Downey Sr., 1969, 85m), a scathing, hugely energetic and scattershot satire, and will be followed by a conversation with Bird, Smith and Northwestern University film scholar Aymar Jean Christian.
