5 FRIDAY Nowadays “courtesan” is just a fancy way of saying “hooker,” but centuries ago it referred to a prostitute distinguished by her beauty, refinement, and artistry. This weekend’s conference on The Courtesan’s Arts brings together historians, anthropologists, musicologists, and others to examine courtesan cultures such as those that thrived in ancient Greece, precolonial India, and Renaissance Italy. Sponsored by the University of Chicago and the Newberry Library, the three-day event includes talks illuminating the connections between the rise and fall of courtesan cultures and other forms of social change, such as industrialization and colonization. There’ll also be a performance of Italian courtesans’ music by the Newberry Consort and a demonstration of north Indian nautch dance by the Chitresh Das Dance Company. The conference starts today at 9:30 AM at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, and runs through Sunday, with other events at the U. of C.’s Franke Institute for the Humanities (in the Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th) and Fulton Recital Hall (in Goodspeed Hall, 1010 E. 59th). All the lectures are free; tickets to the Newberry Consort’s performance (tonight at 8) range from $10 to $35; call 312-255-3700. Call 312-255-3514 or see music.uchicago.edu/courtesan/index.html for more information.
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Fans of lurid, inhuman, and overblown art take note: tonight’s Curious Terrors exhibit features artists who share a wicked sense of humor about their work. Held in conjunction with the Chicago installment of the Electronic Puppenhorten Festival, a carnivalesque program of noisy electronic music that emphasizes costume and setting, the one-night-only installation includes macabre drawings from the 70s and 80s by the late Jim Osbourne, grotesque paintings by Gregory Jacobsen, optical effects by Jayme Kalal, a dress made completely of Band-Aids by Cat Chow, and medical-themed photography by Reader contributor Suzy Poling, who organized and curated the event. The free exhibit opens tonight at 7 at Chicago/Ashland Office Space, 755 N. Ashland. The Electronic Puppenhorten Festival–featuring Chicago’s Metalux, Pretty Boy Bludgeon Theatre, and Dr. Glob Muta Physician as well as like-minded musicians from Baltimore and San Francisco–starts at 10. Admission is $8; call 773-671-6085 for more information.
7 SUNDAY Hard Time, a best-selling V.I. Warshawski detective novel from prolific Hyde Parker Sara Paretsky, revolves around the case of a global media conglomerate and the glamorous movie company that owns it. The subplot, however, deals with the abuses and injustices of the penal system. Today at 2 Paretsky will speak about her research on torture and women’s-prison conditions in Illinois at the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington in Evanston. Her talk, which is sponsored by Amnesty International, will be followed by a screening of Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment, a 1988 film on the classic 1971 psychological study that placed volunteer “prisoners” and “guards” in a mock prison and documented how their treatment of each other deteriorated over just six days. It’s free; call 847-475-7264 for more information.
