Lecture

Lecture: Professor Richard Slotkin, founder of Wesleyan’s American Studies Dep’t., Thurs., April 24, 4:15 p.m.

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Dear First-years,

Come see the amazing founder of the Wesleyan American Studies Department–Richard Slotkin–in action, THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 4:15, POWELL FAMILY CINEMA, fabulous Italian cookies to follow (see the poster below).  Professor Slotkin was a member of the English Department, began the American Studies Department (when he was in his mid-twenties), and helped establish the Film Department, and was one of Wesleyan’s most popular and beloved teachers (the first professor to win Wesleyan’s Binswanger Teaching Award twice).  He has not only written history, he has made it.  Since his early thirties he has been internationally acclaimed as one of the greatest American Studies scholars and he played a foundational role in developing the analysis of empire and race in the field of American Studies.  He taught hundreds of students each year in his movie courses on “Westerns” and also on war movies.  In December he was interviewed about gun control on Bill Moyers’ PBS show and before that has been interviewed by the major networks on gun culture and movies (for instance, re-reading the Star Wars films as extensions of the “frontier myth”).  He retired in 2008 and has not lectured at Wesleyan for undergraduates since then.  So this is a really special treat! 

Best, Professor Pfister, Chair, American Studies Department
 

 

CT Academy of Arts & Science Lecture: “Re-Member Me: Race, Romance and the Civil War” — Prof. Lois Brown TODAY, 5 p.m.

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We invite you, your students and guests to the annual lecture at Wesleyan sponsored by the Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Wesleyan University Library:

The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences

Founded 1799   Meeting No. 1435

TODAY, Thursday, April 3, 5:00 p.m.

Olin Library, Smith Reading Room

 

Re-Member Me: Race, Romance and the Civil War

 

By Lois Brown, Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor,

African American Studies Program and Department of English

 

Lecture: “Bagasse: Caribbean Art & Lit and the Debris of the Sugar Plantation” — Wed., Apr. 2, 4:30 p.m.

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This lecture will take place on Wednesday, April 2, in the Common Room at 300 High St. (Romance Languages & Literatures).   

 

Bagasse: Caribbean Art and Literature and the Debris of the Sugar Plantation

Speaker:  Professor Lisa Paravisini-Gebert (Vassar College)

Location: Common Room in the Romance Languages Building (300 High Street)

Date: Wednesday, April 2 at 4:30pm

 

The Hispanic Literatures and Cultures Major Committee is pleased to present a lecture by Vassar Professor Lisa Paravisini-Gebert. The lecture examines, through the prism of ecocritical theory, recent installations by Caribbean artists reflecting the history of sugar production through its human and environmental costs. These works (many of which incorporate bagasse, the debris left after cane is crushed, as artistic material) metaphorically illustrate how Caribbean nations and peoples have been marked by the crushing and discarding of bagasse.

Lisa Paravisini-Gebert is a professor of Hispanic Studies at Vassar College as well as a member of the Programs in Environmental Studies, Latin American Studies, International Studies and Women’s Studies. Specializing in the multidisciplinary, comparative study of the Caribbean, she serves as an expert in Caribbean art and culture.

Refreshments will be served.

Lecture: “The Missing Piece in the Affordable Healthcare Act” — Prof. Joseph White, Thursday, April 3–4:15 p.m.

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Thursday, April 3, 2014

4:15 PM    Public Affairs Center 002

The Missing Piece in the Affordable Care Act

Sponsored by the Government Department

 Professor Joseph White 

Luxenburg Family Professor of Public Policy
Case Western Reserve University

Four years after its passage, the Affordable Care Act makes no credible promise to meet the goal that most voters most desired — which was not to expand coverage to the previously uninsured, but to reduce the out-of-pocket costs of paying for health insurance. Why did the Democrats pass legislation that was not explicitly designed to reduce health insurance costs? The answers involve interest group politics, regional divisions in the Democratic Party, and the politics of the health care policy community

Sturm Lecture: “Black Holes, Galaxies, and the Evolution of the Universe” — Wed., Apr. 2, 8 p.m.

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imagesCTQP6TV3The Astronomy Department is delighted to announce the 2014 Sturm Lecture by Dr. Meg Urry, Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics and President of the American Astronomical Society.

 

“Black Holes, Galaxies, and the Evolution of the Universe” 

Lecture summary: Black holes form in the young Universe and, over the next 13 billion years or so, accrete enormous amounts of matter from the galaxy that surrounds each one. By the present time, a black hole and its host galaxy have grown in mass by factors of a million or more, roughly in lockstep.  By  taking the census of black hole growth across cosmic time, we reveal the evolution of the Universe itself. 

 

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 8:00 pm  CFA Hall

 

This entertaining, thought-provoking talk will be accessible to all.  Reception and telescope viewing to follow at the Van Vleck Observatory.  Please join us!

The Sturm Lecture is sponsored by the Astronomy Department, the Baldwin University Lectures Fund, and the Connecticut Space Grant Consortium.

Madeleine Albright lecture at Eastern CT: 3/28 at 7 p.m. Tkts free to Wes Students

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On Friday, March 28, 2014, at 7 p.m. in the Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will give a lecture, “Economy and Security in the 21st Century.”  Tickets to the lecture are free for Wesleyan students and other students from any school, college or university; $10 for the general public. Please reserve your ticket/seat by emailing tickets@easternct.edu or calling (860) 465-0036.

Fixations: Art Exhibit/Reception with Prof. Julia Randall — Fri., March 28 5-7 p.m.

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Julia Randall

OPENING RECEPTION

 Friday, March 28, 5 to 7 pm

Gallery talk by Julia Randall at 5:30 pm

 

From hybrid lovebirds to disembodied mouths and monumental bubblegum, the subjects of Julia Randall’s drawings seduce the viewer. 

The title of this retrospective exhibition nods towards Sigmund Freud’s theory of oral-stage fixation, but Randall’s often monumental 

drawings go beyond psychoanalysis, presenting surreal, sensual, even visceral images, while surprising with a sense of humor.

 

Symposium on Human Rights & the Environment: Standing on Sacred Ground — 3/1 and 3/2

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“Standing on Sacred Ground” 

Powell Family Cinema

Saturday and Sunday, March 1 and 2

Join us for a chance to see and discuss four remarkable new documentaries that tell the story of a growing movement to defend human rights and restore the environment.

Each film will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Christopher (Toby) McLeod, Project Director of Earth Island Institute’s Sacred Land Film Project and Wesleyan parent, and distinguished speakers Donna Augustine, Thunderbird Turtle Woman, Traditional Knowledge Keeper from the Mi’kmaq tribe, Angelo Baca, Hopi/Dine Filmmaker and Visiting Instructor in American Studies at Brown University and Nikolai Tsyrempilov, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, currently a member of the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,  and faculty members Gillian Goslinga, Sarah Croucher, Ruth Johnson, Honor Keeler and Justine Quijada.

 

Saturday March 1                                                   

1:00 pm – Pilgrims and Tourists (California Altai, Russia)                                                             

 3 pm – Coffee Break                                                                                                

 3:45 pm – Profit and Loss (Alberta, Canada and Papua New Guinea)      

 Sunday March 2

11:00 am – Fire and Ice (Ethiopia and Peru)

1:00 pm – Lunch

2:00 pm Islands of Sanctuary (Hawai’i and Australia)

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments provided.  Attend one film or stay for them all.

Sponsored by the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, Center for Film Studies, College of the Environment, Anthropology Department and Department of Religion.

For more information visit: http://www.wesleyan.edu/filmstudies/SpecialEvents/sacredland.html

 

Center for Humanities Lecture: Prof. Jonathan Best — 2/24, 6 p.m.

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J.BestMONDAY NIGHT LECTURE SERIES | AUDIENCE(S) 

Jonathan Best
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

The Nihon shoki—Japan’s oldest chronicle (compiled in 720)—contains a detailed account of how Jingu, purportedly the first female ruler of Japan, aided by her magical powers, conquered southern Korea at the start of the 3rd century. Also according to the Nihon shoki, Jingu’s conquest enabled the establishment of Japanese political control over the peninsula’s southern coastal region, control that the text alleges persisted until the middle of the 6th century. This legend, which is not totally devoid of historical roots, has repeatedly and in different ways at different times proven useful to the Japanese leadership—perhaps most conspicuously through its manipulation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for justifying the Japanese colonization of Korea. In this presentation not only will the origins of the legend be addressed, but also its subsequent employments in different contexts directed at different audiences and for different ends.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2014  |  6 P.M.
DANIEL FAMILY COMMONS  |  USDAN UNIVERSITY CENTER

  

Center for the Humanities · 95 Pearl Street , Middletown, CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/humanities