With Laughter, Love, and a Touch of Madness: My Scholarly Life

Thursday, November 5, 2026 at 3:00pm CST

McClintock Choral and Recital Room

Prof. Georgia Cowart, Case Western Reserve University, speaker 

What kind of life can scholarship make? In this talk, Georgia Cowart looks back on her own scholarly journey through two figures who have appeared and reappeared throughout much of her mature work: Venus, goddess of love, beauty, and pleasure, and Folly, the irreverent female fool whose laughter upsets the established order. Following them has led her across centuries and disciplinary boundaries, and through a series of discoveries she could scarcely have imagined when she began. Looking back, Cowart has come to see Venus and Folly as more than historical subjects. The qualities they embody have also shaped the ways she has approached scholarship, leadership, teaching, collaboration, and the arts. Their repeated presence throughout her work provides a lens through which to reflect more personally on the life that took shape along the way—and on scholarship itself as an imaginative and creative way of being in the world.