SPECIAL EVENTS
Arts & Humanities Division Fall 2008 Semester
BFRF Faculty Research "Chat"
Part of a Series of Informal Research Luncheon Presentations for Babson Faculty and Staff
Lisa Colletta - Arts and Humanities
October 7, 2008
Intermodern Travel: J.B. Priestley’s English and American Journeys
After working in the Hollywood studios during the 1930s, writers like J.B. Priestly looked back to England for cultural origins that might resist the modern forces of American capitalism and popular culture. Most, as writers of satires and social comedies, doubted that they would find them, and their comedies often reveal an ambivalence about both American culture and the attempts to reclaim a traditional English one. However, Priestly, who resisted the “astonishing unreality of Hollywood,” felt that post-imperial England might offer a modern national identity able to resist the transnationalism of global capitalism, suggesting an idea of Englishness based on cultural traditions rather than imperial power. This is most evident in his BBC radio broadcasts during the forties that embodied “the voice of the common people,” but his travel narratives: English Journey and Midnight on the Desert, also reveal his understanding of the globalizing power of American popular culture and how this power would reshape traditional ideas of Englishness.
Elizabeth Goldberg – Arts and Humanities
September 24, 2008 Cross-Currents and Convergencies: Emerging Cultural Paradigms in African-American Literature
This project comprises a chapter of the Cambridge History of African American Literature (CHAAL), forthcoming from Cambridge University Press 2010. The CHAAL will present both a chronological description of African American literature in the United States (1600-2006) and an explanation of the convergence of multiple oral and printed literary traditions in its development. This chapter examines African American literary history from the period 1970 – 2005, contextualizing its explosion of feminist and postmodern literary texts in terms of related historical and literary movements. The chapter specifically addresses experimental literature that revises existing historical and literary tropes; that brings together various genres in one literary text; and that extends the borders of African American literature to emphasize connections among literatures of the African diaspora. Goldberg will address not only the substance of the chapter in her talk, but also the complex process of writing literary history.
Arts & Humanities Division Spring 2008 Semester
Waterline Reading Series
April 15, 2008
Goff Faculty Lounge, 6:30 pm
Featuring Babson Faculty Creative Writers
Featured Readers: Kim Freeman, Aaron Tillman and Deb Vlock
Refreshments & Open Mic to follow
Waterline Reading Series
March 12, 2008
Glavin Chapel, 6:30 pm
Featuring Babson Faculty Creative Writers
Featured Readers: Lindsay Coleman, MaryEllen Beveridge and Ellen Goldstein
Refreshments & Open Mic to follow
BFRF Faculty Research "Chat"
Part of a Series of Informal Luncheon Research Presentations for Babson Faculty and Staff
Mary O'Donoghue - Arts and Humanities Division
March 5, 2008 Not Their Muse: Irish-Language Poetry in Translation and the Problem of Pharaoh's Daughter
Irish-language poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s bilingual poetry collection Pharaoh’s Daughter (1990) features English translations by a variety of notable Irish poets. An Irish Times review by Douglas Sealy appears to posit Ní Dhomhnaill as somehow blameworthy for spawning the book’s “bewildering variety”, and suggests that she is but the conduit by which the largely male roster of translators in fact create their own poems: a damning critique of the translation enterprise. In referring to Ní Dhomhnaill’s original poems as “starting points”, Sealy’s criticism is underpinned by the notion of Ní Dhomhnaill as but the inspiration – the muse – of these poets, who take what she has to offer and mold it into work that is, as Sealy would have it, emphatically theirs. In its attention to the linguistic and literary ventriloquism at work in Pharaoh’s Daughter, Sealy’s forgotten review provides an entry point into the overlooked area of gender as it plays out in the translation of Irish-language poetry. Drawing on studies of feminization and translation, as well as notions of feminist translation, both within and without the Irish literary setting, this paper examines Sealy’s nexus as it informs, and is seen to deform, the fortunes of Ní Dhomhnaill’s poems in translation.
Babson College's SEED Seminar, Academic Year 2007-08
Facilitied by Kerry Rourke, Director of Babson's Writing Center and Lecturer in English, Arts and Humanities Kerry Rourke has facilititated a seminar series for Babson faculty which focuses on issues of diversity and equity at Babson, since September. This series or "SEED" Seminar consists of monthly 3-hour seminars during this academic year. It is considered an important professional development opportunity for all Babson faculty.
The acronym, "SEED," stands for Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity, and also alludes to the idea that each human being can plant seeds of understanding."The National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum, a staff-development equity project for educators, is in its twenty-first year of establishing teacher-led faculty seminars...throughout the U.S. and in English-speaking international schools" (Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College). SEED is administered through WCW.
Thompson Visiting Poet Series at Babson College
February 13, 2008
Sorenson 7:30 pm
Informal Session
February 14, 2008
Glavin Chapel 10:00 to 11:00 am
We announce with great pleasure the Charles D. and Marjorie J. Thompson Visiting Poet for 2008: acclaimed poet Natasha Trethewey. Ms. Trethewey will read from her poetry in the Sorenson Center for the Arts Theater, Wednesday, February 13, 2008, at 7:30 p.m. Following her reading that evening, a reception will be held in the Sorenson lobby, and Ms. Trethewey will sign copies of her books. On the following day, Thursday, February 14, from 10:00 to 11:00 am, Natasha Trethewey will meet informally with interested students, faculty, and staff in the Glavin Chapel to discuss her work.
Both of these events are free and open to the community.
Natasha Trethewey is author of Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, Bellocq’s Ophelia (Graywolf, 2002), which was named a Notable Book for 2003 by the American Library Association, and Domestic Work (Graywolf, 2000). Domestic Work was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Her poems have appeared in such journals and anthologies as American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, and The Best American Poetry 2000 and 2003. Currently, she is Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University.
Over the past twenty years, the Thompson Visiting Poet Series has brought to campus such internationally known poets as Robert Pinsky, Paul Muldoon, David Ferry, Alicia Ostriker, C.K. Williams, Edward Hirsch, Sonia Sanchez, Galway Kinnell, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, Mary Oliver, Ellen Bryant Voigt and Marjorie Agosin. Please join us on February 13, 2008, to hear Natasha Trethewey share poems from her astonishingly accomplished body of work.
Mary O’Donoghue, Arts and Humanities
Coordinator, Thompson Visiting Poet
SAVE THE DATE BABSON IS PLEASED TO PRESENT
THE FIFTH ANNUAL MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. LEGACY DAY
Brothers and Keepers: Freedom and Self-Determination in the Global Era
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 – 5:00 pm Carling-Sorenson Theater
featuring keynote speaker
John Edgar Wideman
Esteemed writer, professor, and Rhodes Scholar
John Edgar Wideman grew up in Homewood, an impoverished African-American community in Pittsburgh that is the setting of one of his best-known works, The Homewood Trilogy. He was the second African-American to win a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University where he earned a B. Phil. in literature in 1966.
After writing several novels, Wideman taught at the University of Pennsylvania, helping found the school’s Afro-American Studies Department. The only American writer to twice win the PEN/Faulkner Prize, Wideman has written three memoirs about events that have indelibly marked him—the life imprisonment of his younger brother, Robby, in Brothers and Keepers, and the life imprisonment of his son, Jacob, in Fatheralong. His latest critically acclaimed collection of short fiction, God’s Gym, was released in 2005. Come together to reflect on the work and teachings of Dr. King, and the efforts that continue in his name today.
The MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. leadership award winner(s) will be announced at the Legacy Day celebration. This award honors members of the Babson community (students, group organizations, faculty, or staff) who reflect Dr. King’s principles and ideals in philosophy and action. Also, the first- and second-place winners of the MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ESSAY AND SPEECH CONTEST will deliver their speeches. This year for the first time, the results for the new MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. CREATIVITY CONTEST will be announced.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Arts & Humanities Division Fall 2007 Semester
Waterline Reading Series
November 28, 2007
Glavin Chapel, 6:30 pm
Featuring Babson Faculty Creative Writers
Featured readers: Steve Bauer, fiction writer
and Mary O'Donoghue, poet & fiction writer
Refreshments & Open Mic to follow
BFRF Faculty Research "Chat"
Part of a Series of Informal Luncheon Research Presentations for Babson Faculty and Staff
Julie Levinson – Arts and Humanities Division
October 10, 2007
Success Reassessed: Ambitious Women/Midlife Men
As part of a book on the cultural history of the American success myth, this is the third of three chapters focusing on work and professional achievement as the cornerstones of success. “Success Reassessed: Ambitious Women/Midlife Men” investigates gender in Hollywood movies in relation to American ideologies about work and success. Levinson surveys both the representation of professional/managerial women in films from the 1930s to the present as well as the theoretical discourse that has formed around those films. She presents a close analysis of seven recent films centered on midlife men, in which the cinema’s defining tropes of masculinity are questioned and complicated. Considered together, these movies dealing with professionally ambitious women and professionally disaffected men point to a crack in the consensus about what constitutes success and how gender, work, and success are intertwined.
Rosie Perez at Babson
October 1 from 5:15 - 7:00 pm
Sorenson Theater
Babson student organizations HOLA, SGA, OCL and the A&H Division sponsored the appearance of Academy Award Nominee, Rosie Perez, as the keynote speaker for Hispanic Heritage Month at Babson College. Throughout her career, Perez has been a vocal activist for a number of causes while continuing to shine in her varied roles on and off the camera. Her recent IFC film, Yo Soy Boricua, Pa Que Tu Lo Sepa!, explores the Puerto Rican experience in America.
Danielle Krcmar
St. John Neumann Church Commission
October 2, 2007 Tuesday
Sorenson, 6:00 - 7:00 pm
Artist-in-Residence Danielle Krcmar will present a power-point lecture on her multi-part sculptural commission for a French Romanesque Style Church being built in Farragut, Tennessee. The commission consists of 7 large exterior Façade reliefs and a series of 16 sculpted interior Column Capitals (currently in process). The artist will discuss her developing understanding and interpretation of the French Romanesque style, the collaborative process of developing the imagery for the sculptures, and the final modeling and casting of the works.
Waterline Reading Series
October 10, 2007
Glavin Chapel, 6:30 pm
Featuring Babson Faculty Creative Writers
First Reading of the Season with Featured Readers:
Michael Martin, fiction writer and Mary Pinard, poet
Refreshments & Open Mic to follow
coming on Wednesday, November 28:
Steve Bauer, fiction writer & essayist and Mary O'Donoghue, poet & fiction writer
Arts & Humanities Foundation Fall 2007 Semester
Foundation Course AHF1311 Dwellings: Body, Home, and City Dwellings are physical structures that house us: we dwell in a body, in a home, and in a village, town, or city. These structures are external conditions for our development. Paradoxically, however, and often without realizing it, they affect us mentally, psychologically, and spiritually. They dwell within us, and they can enable our development or become obstacles to it.
Dwellings also carry implications about time and identification. When we "dwell" on an idea, an event, a person, or a place, we find it difficult to let it go: it quite literally occupies us. Our dwellings, then—both in space and in time—shape the ways we identify with ourselves and others.
In this Arts and Humanities Foundation course, Dwellings: Body, Home, City, we will consider works of art and philosophy that challenge and inspire us to become more conscious of ways in which we affect and are affected by our dwellings. We will primarily be interested in exploring how the forms and voices that artists and philosophers invent encourage new ways of understanding human "dwellings" in the world.
Some further questions posed by this course include: *How does the nature of the body in particular historical moments influence how we—and others—view ourselves, and how we respond to others? *What is the nature of "home," and how does it produce inclusions and exclusions? *What role has the city played in the formation of social identities? *What are our responsibilities, if any, to others who wish to enter our dwellings? *How can our identifications with our dwellings produce violence, and what happens when they do?
Fall 2007 A&H Foundation related Performances, Screenings and Events
25 October: Lecture, Tim Wise, Glavin Chapel (see below)
8 November: Lecture, Mark Doty, Sorenson (see below)
Tim Wise
White Privilege
October 25, 2007
Glavin Chapel, 7:00 pm
Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, will speak on the subject of "White Privilege" in the U.S. and beyond, a subject which is linked to our foundation course theme because of its emphasis first on the body (racial identity) and second the links from that identity to the ways one is perceived and received in the world. All are invited.
It’s All Relative
A Site specific installation by Candice Smith Corby
September 24th- December 15th, 2007
Horn Library
Opening reception: October 3, 5 – 7 pm, Horn Library
Artist’s Talk: Wednesday October 17, noon, Horn Library
Exhibit Hours: 10 am – 6 pm, Monday – Friday
Sorenson Center for the Visual Arts at Babson College presents “It’s All Relative” a site specific art installation by Candice Smith Corby. In the Horn Library central stairway, the artist will create a large scale wall painting of a subtly distorted domestic interior where each object seems to move through space in its own direction. With permission from the Babson Archive, Smith Corby photographed select items of Babson family furniture, portraits, and other memorabilia in order to translate these images into shaped paintings that will be integrated into the overall installation. The multiple perspectives overlaid into the space cause the objects to appear to move backwards and forwards. As the viewer moves through the staircase the changing perspectives of the objects address practices of illusionistic painting and aspects of the theory of relativity such as visual distortions at the speed of light. The multiple systems at play speak to the complex ways we build the narrative of our own experience and present it to ourselves and others.
Mark Doty
November 8, 2007
Sorenson Center, 6:00 pm
A fall speaker associated with the Arts and Humanities foundation course will be poet, memoirist, and essayist Mark Doty. He will offer a reading and artist's talk related to our course theme--Dwellings: Body, Home, City--at 6 p.m. on Thursday 8 November in the Sorenson Center. Mark is the author of many books; students in the foundation course will be reading mostly from his recent collection of poems, School of the Arts, and a short essay entitled Still Life with Oysters and Lemon. Both of these works talk about the connections between art, architecture, and how we dwell in the particular parts of the world we occupy, even as those change over time. His work is also deeply concerned with connections and with mourning the loss of such connections through death and other forms of separation. To learn more about all of Doty's work, you can visit http://www.markdoty.org.
Malcolm Stearns Memorial Film Series Fall 2007
Thursday, September 20 - OUR DISAPPEARED / NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS (Director: Juan Mandelbaum, USA/Argentina, 2007)
Prompted by a surprising revelation, director Juan Mandelbaum returns to his native Argentina to find out what happened to friends and loved ones who were kidnapped and “disappeared” during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. His searches uncover dramatic stories that reveal the depths of terror experienced by his friends and their families. Their surviving children continue the struggle for memory and justice. *The director will be present to discuss his film. This is a work-in-progress screening.
Monday, October 1 - GREEN GRASS (Director: Karen Webb, USA 2007)
Green Grass, a film by Babson alum Karen Webb about immigration in the U.S., tells the fictional story of an undocumented immigrant who sets up business in Massachusetts and soon finds himself in conflict with a U.S. citizen whose business he is undercutting. The film seeks to humanize the immigration debate by complicating our sense of the lives and people affected by it. The screenplay for Green Grass has won several film festival awards. *The director will be present to discuss her film.
Thursday, October 11 - THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Germany, 2006)
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, The Lives of Others is at once a political thriller and a deeply moving human drama. Set in East Berlin before Glasnost, the film chronicles the story of an officer in the ruthless secret police known as the Stasi. When he is assigned is to spy on celebrated writer, his immersion in the lives of others makes him aware of the lacks in his own life and the possibilities of a different sort of existence.
Tuesday, November 13 - BAMAKO (Director: Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali, 2000)
Set in the courtyard of a mud-walled house in Bamako, Mali's capital city, the personal story of a couple on the verge of breaking up is told alongside the story of very public political proceedings: in the courtyard outside the couple's house, the community has put the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on trial. The charges? That these two institutions, responsible for regulating the international economic system and alleviating poverty, are actually in the business of impoverishing Africa--with some help from members of the African elite. Co-produced by Danny Glover, the film has been called "one of the most original cinematic achievements of this decade...a fearless high-wire act of intellectual and cinematic daring that will leave your brain buzzing."
All screenings begin at 7:00 p.m.
Littauer Faculty Development Fund Seminar
September 10, 2007
As part of this year's Littauer Faculty Development Fund events, Professor Glenn Loury conducted a seminar on Monday, September 10 for the faculty of the Arts & Humanities and the History & Society Divisions. The topic of his talk was: Are Black Americans a 'People'? Professor Loury is Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Economics at Brown University. He is a widely-known African-American scholar and public intellectual who has written extensively on affirmative action, race relations, welfare and urban unemployment. His recent books include The Anatomy of Racial Inequality and One by One From the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America. He has published widely in both academic and popular venues. Last spring, he gave the Tanner Lectures at Stanford University on the topic "Racial Stigma, Mass Incarceration, and American Values". Once a member of the neoconservative movement, he has increasingly become a voice for affirmative action and for combating the racial injustices of the judicial system.
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SPECIAL EVENTS
History and Society Division Spring 2008 Semester
BFRF Faculty Research “Chat”
Part of a Series of Informal Luncheon Research Presentations for Faculty and Staff Marjorie Feld - History and Society Division
February 12, 2008 Lillian Wald: Ethnic Progressive
A second-generation German Jewish American, Lillian Wald (1867-1940) won international acclaim for her pivotal role in the creation of a more pluralist society and the American social welfare state. This study challenges conventional views of Wald and of the Progressive reform movement. Her innovative work on behalf of immigrants and industrial laborers was rooted in Jewish cultural identity, yet it expressed a universal vision at odds with the ethnic particularism with which she is now identified. By recovering Wald’s neglected legacy, Ethnic Progressive contributes to historical – and contemporary – understanding of such major issues as feminism, Zionism, immigration, and ethnic identity.
Foundation Spring 2008 Semester
HSF1300 HUMAN AGENCY AND COMMUNITY IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD
Over the past century human societies have changed at an unprecedented rate and with an unprecedented scope. These changes have been often traumatic, sometimes revolutionary and nearly always unpredictable. This course examines the impact of a number of different kinds of upheavals and transformations on individuals, communities and nations, as well as transnational formations. The course will focus on periods of dramatic change in different parts of the world. As we move from one historical and geographic context to another, we will address the following set of related questions. What are the different ways that individuals can "belong" to a society? How is social identity constructed and deconstructed? How do individuals exercise human agency in the face of institutional oppression? What are the possibilities for individual and communal healing from historical trauma? What is the relationship of memory to history? What does citizenship mean in a globalizing world?
Spring 2008 H&S Foundation-related Performances, Screenings and Events
Speakers:
Natasha Trethewey, Thompson Poetry Reading,
Wednesday February 13, 7:30 pm Sorenson Theater
John Edgar Wideman, "Borthers and Keepers: Freedom and Self-Determination in the Global Era,"
Wednesday, February 27, 5:00 pm, Sorenson Theater
Martin Luther King Jr., Legacy Day
Jonathan Shay,
Wednesday, April 23, time TBD, Olin College Auditorium
Webcast:
"The 2% Solution," live 1-hour webcast as part of the Teach-In on climate change" Focus The Nation
January 30, 8:00 pm
Films:
Ellen Frankenstein and Louise Brady "Carved from the Heart," viewing in class
Terry George "Hotel Rwanda"
Tuesday, April 8, time TBD, Sorenson Theater
Public Art:
Stanley Saitowitz Boston Holocaust Memorial
FOCUS THE NATION
Global Warming Solutions for America
http://www.focusthenation.org
GLOBAL WARMING TEACH-IN
GLOBAL WARMING TEACH-IN
This national event is taking place at over 1000 institutions in America to raise awareness of global climate change. Students and citizens alike will engage with political leaders and decisions makers about Global Warming Solutions.
Thursday January 21, 2008
11:00am - 2:00pm Activities/Displays in Reynolds and Trim
5:00pm - 6:00pm Keynote Address in Sorenson Theater
Keynote Speaker STEVEN STRONG
Steven strong is regard as the pre-eminent authority on integration of renewable energy systems in buildings in North America. Drawing on his background in Architecture and Engineering, he has earned a reputation for pioneering integration of renewable energy systems, especially solar electricity, with environmental responsive building design.
6:00pm - 7:30pm "Green" business presentations in Sorenson Theater
SPECIAL EVENTS
History and Society Division Fall 2007 Semester
BFRF Faculty Research “Chat”
Part of a Series of Informal Luncheon Research Presentations
Lisa DiCarlo - History & Society Division
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Losing Our Religion: Turkey’s New Christians
The modern Turkish Republic, according to official statistics, is 98% Muslim. The number of people who convert to Christianity is small, but the attention they receive in the media and in popular discourse is considerable. Christian converts are frequently a source of curiosity, and are even considered a threat to national identity by those who see 'Turk' and 'Christian' as mutually exclusive categories. This project examines the decision-making process of ethnic Muslims who adopt Christianity in modern Turkey, and the life changes they experience as a result of conversion.
New Faculty Research "Chat"
Part of a Series of Informal Luncheon New Faculty Presentations for Babson Faculty and Staff
Rohit Chopra - History & Society Division
September 6, 2007
The Babri Masjid in Cyberspace: Negotiating Politics and History in Online Indian Islam
This project addresses some of the complex modes in which Indian Muslims use the Internet to negotiate and express identity claims. It focuses on the online archives of one event that arguably more than any other has impacted the lives of Indian Muslims in the last two decades. That event is the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a mosque, by a Hindu nationalist mob on December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya, a town in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The destruction of the mosque was followed by widespread Hindu-Muslim riots in India in December 1992 and January 1993. Although the demolition of the mosque predates the invention of the world wide web and the growth of internet usage in India, in online Indian Muslim discourse ‘Babri Masjid’ serves as a focal point for articulating Indian Muslim identity. The cyber-presence of Babri Masjid mediates competing historical narratives about Indian Islam, the political discourse of secular and constitutional citzenship, and questions of minority rights and religious difference.
Film premiere: Nanking
November 9, 2007
John Hancock Hall, Boston
With Producer, Ted Leonsis, and the parents of Iris Chang
Including Q & A session after the film
2007 marks the 70th year anniversary for the Nanking Massacre. Ted Leonsis, a former excutive of AOL, produced the film, Nanking, which was released in theaters worldwide in December 2007. Mr. Leonsis was inspired to produce the film after reading about the suicide of Iris Chang, the author of the book, Rape of Nanking.
The History & Society Division joined the Taiwanese Student Association (TSA) and the Student Government Association (SGA) as sponsors of the premiere.
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