Vol. 19, No. 19 |
Feb. 10, 2000 |
Black culture center plans African Consciousness eventsThe Center for Black Culture is sponsoring its annual African Consciousness Celebration with several special events planned during February. The celebration begins on Friday, Feb 11, with a lecture, “Commitment to Our Community” by Tavis Smiley, host of BET Tonight. Smiley will speak at 7:30 p.m. in Mitchell Hall. Tickets are $8 per person for the general public. All full-time students may obtain one free ticket in advance at any UD box office with a valid UD ID or pay $3 per ticket at the door. The lecture is cosponsored by Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Annual Women’s Conference in Clayton Hall on March 4The 16th annual Delaware Women’s Conference, “Celebrating Challenges and Choices for a New Century,” will begin with registration and refreshments at 8 a.m., Saturday, March 4, at Clayton Hall. Keynote speaker will be Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, a strong national voice for children and families. A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School and the first African-American woman to be admitted to the Mississippi bar, Edelman has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans throughout her career. She directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Mississippi. Among her honors are the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize and the Heinz Award, and she also has been a MacArthur Foundation fellow. Edelman has written several books, including Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change and The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours. Designed to appeal to all women, the conference also will offer 45 workshops on topics ranging from gardening and home buying to managing time, money and stress. The cost is $40, including the keynote address, choice of three workshops, continental breakfast, lunch and refreshments. A limited number of scholarships are offered. Childcare, elder care and transportation from Sussex and Kent counties will be available. Those wishing to attend should make reservations by Feb. 18. Registration will be held from 8-9 a.m. Session A will be held from 9-10:15 a.m.; session B from 10:30-11:45 a.m., followed by lunch and Edelman’s talk. Session C will be held from 2-3:30 p.m. An art exhibition featuring collages by Delaware women artists also is part of the conference. An art exhibition reception, which is free and open to the public, will be held from 6-8 p.m., Thursday, March 2, at Clayton Hall. Jeanne Benin, education, is chairing the conference. For information, call 761-8005 or visit <www.delaware women.org>. Federal judge to speak in Trabant Center Feb. 15The Federal Bench…A Personal Perspective” is the title of a talk by Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez scheduled for 2 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 15, in Multipurpose Room A of the Trabant University Center. The presentation by the senior judge of the U.S. District Court in Camden, N.J., is free and open to the public. Rodriguez received his juris doctorate and bachelor of laws degrees from Rutgers University Law School and is recognized as one of that school’s most distinguished alumni. He worked in private practice and as a New Jersey public defender before becoming a judge. He has served as president to the New Jersey State Bar Association and is a member of the American Bar Association, where he has served in the house of delegates and as chair of the ABA’s National Conference of Federal Trial Judges. In 1994, Rodriguez judge participated in the American Bar Association’s Central and East European Law Initiative in Moscow. The group worked to develop educational programs to be run entirely by Russians in order to assist reformers whose aim is to institutionalize judicial prestige and autonomy through the establishment of an adversarial process using juror-citizens. During his distinguished career, Rodriguez has been recognized with a number of awards, including the 1992 Man of the Year award from the National Hispanic Bar Association, the 1999 Medal of Honor award from the New Jersey State Bar Association and the 1999 William J. Brennan Jr. award from the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey. The talk is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Administration, in conjunction with the Department of Political Science and International Relations, the Office of Multicultural Programs, the Latin American Studies Program and the Legal Studies Program. A reception will be held after his presentation. For more information, call 831-1236. Campus to sponsor play for national V-Day effortTwenty-three UD students and faculty will deliver The Vagina Monologues as part of the V-Day 2000 College Initiative, a campaign to end sexual violence against women and to proclaim Valentine’s Day as the day to celebrate women and demand an end to abuse. The performances will be held at 8 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 13, and Monday, Feb. 14, in the Bacchus Theatre of the Perkins Student Center. Suggested donation is $3,and proceeds will benefit Girls Inc. and the national V-Day 2000 fund. The first V-Day was held in 1998 with a New York performance of the play by some of the country’s biggest stars– Glenn Close, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, Lily Tomlin and Calista Flockhart–who sought to raise awareness of and money for an end to sexual violence. In 1999, the initiative spread to 65 college campuses where performances were held. Hailed by The New York Times as “funny and poignant” and by the Daily News as “intelligent and courageous,” The Vagina Monologues, written by Eve Ensler, focuses on the mystery, humor, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and excitement buried in women’s experiences. The play won an Obie Award and was published as a book last year by Random House with a forward by Gloria Steinem. The play’s UD performance is sponsored by the Harrington Theatre Arts Company and the Office of Residence Life. For more information, call 837-3219. Information about the national initiative can be found at the web site <http://www. feminist.com/vday/>. Women’s film series planned Tuesday nights in KirkbrideThe University of Delaware’s 14th annual Women’s Film Series, “Women’s History/Women’s Lives,” will be offered on Tuesdays from Feb. 22 through March 21. All films will be shown in Room 204 Kirkbride Hall. Free and open to the public, the films begin at 7 p.m. and are followed by a speaker who will further discuss the topics examined in the films. The series opens on Feb. 22 with a screening of Hearts and Hands and With Fingers of Love. Both explore quiltmaking among African- American women. One deals with the story of enslaved women and their creative and artistic endeavors as quilt-makers. The other film examines the experiences of Mississippi women who turned their sewing skills into community assets during the era of the Civil Rights movement. A speaker will follow. On Feb. 29, the film Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business will be shown. Before becoming a widely caricatured icon in tutti-frutti headgear, Miranda was a Brazilian-born singer and Hollywood’s first Latin star. The film tells her story with clips from her many movies, newsreel footage and interviews with relatives and friends. It also looks at how her image served the interests of cultural colonialism and reinforced U.S. policy toward Latin America. After the film, America Martinez-Lewis foreign languages and literatures, will speak. Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement is the title of the film scheduled on March 7 that examines the hidden history of feminism in the post-World War II era and makes the point that modern feminism did not begin with Betty Friedan in the 1960s. Filmmaker Joyce Follet will speak after the film is shown. On March 14, The Brandon Teena Story will be shown. This film documents the events recounted in the recent feature film, Boys Don’t Cry, the story of Teena Brandon’s decision to become Brandon Teena. The decision exposed a rural Nebraska community’s most deep-seated fears about gender and alternative sexuality, and for Brandon, the consequences were deadly. Susan Miller, sociology, is the featured speaker. The series concludes on March 21 with Righteous Babes, a film that examines the connection between feminism, female rock stars and the revolutionary potential of rock music. The film features Ani DiFranco, Madonna, Tori Amos, Sinead O’Connor, Skin and the Spice Girls. Robin Andreasen, philosophy, will address the audience after the film. For more information, call 831-8474 or 831-8063. The series is sponsored by the Black American Studies Program, the Faculty Senate Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events, the Office of Women’s Affairs, the Women’s Studies Interdisciplinary Program and the departments of History and Sociology. Menotti one-act opera on Loudis stage this weekendThe University of Delaware Opera Workshop will present fully staged performances of Gian-Carlo Menotti’s one-act opera The Old Maid and the Thief at 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 11, and at 3 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 13, in Loudis Recital Hall of the Amy E. du Pont Music Building. Admission is $6 for the general public and $3 for students. The cast includes Kari Heinbuch as Miss Todd, a spinster; Christine Kavanagh Miller as Letitia, her maid; and Jeffrey Urban Chapman and Michael LaRoche alternating in the role of the vagabond Bob. The opera was originally composed for radio performance in 1939, and later adapted for the stage. The production is directed by Patrick Evans, with accompaniment by Nicole Clouser. For more information, call 831-2577. National TRIO Day Feb. 25UD’s federally funded TRIO programs will be involved in awareness efforts on Friday, Feb. 25, as part of National TRIO Day. The celebration is planned to recognize the contributions of TRIO academic-support programs and the persistence and dedication of participants. The programs assist students through high school, with Upward Bound, toward college graduation, through Student Support Services; and with postgraduate study through the McNair Scholars Program. Details on all of these programs will be available from 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Feb. 25, at Kiosk A in the Trabant University Food Court. For more information, call 831-8923. Spring lunchtime workshops explore family topicsThe Faculty and Staff Assistance Program (FSAP) is offering a spring series of lunchtime workshops for employees from noon-1:30 p.m., beginning Feb. 24, in Room 130 General Services Building. Interested undergraduate and graduate students also are invited to attend. Programs include:
FSAP also tailors presentations and workshops to meet the needs of offices and departments. Examples of these programs include “Identifying the Troubled Employee,” “Violence in the Workplace,” “Coping with Grief and Loss” and “Supporting the Caregiver.” The office staff also provides conflict resolution for members of departments experiencing conflict. Donna Tuites, FSAP counselor, leads a support group for employees dealing with substance abuse, which meets at noon, Wednesdays, in Room 110 General Services Building. She also is forming a support group on self-esteem for women that will meet the fourth week in February and then twice a month for eight weeks. For more information or to attend these support groups, call Tuites at 831-2414. Sue Moncure World’s fairs and expositions highlighted in library exhibitProgress Made Visible: American World’s Fairs and Expositions” is the theme of an exhibit on display through June 8 in the Special Collections Exhibition Gallery of the Morris Library. No events seem to typify the United States from the Civil War to World War II more than the World’s Fairs, according to Iris Snyder, special collections department and the exhibit curator. The fairs commemorated such historic events as the Declaration of Independence, the voyages of Columbus and the Louisiana Purchase. They also celebrated America’s industrial growth and economic power. As America moved from an insular developing nation to a player on the world stage, the fairs mirrored the nation’s growing confidence. The overriding theme of all the fairs and expositions was progress and the belief that life would inevitably get better as a result of hard work, technological advancement and healthy living. The fairs benefited not only the national image, but also the states and cities which sponsored them, the manufacturers that displayed their products and the people from all social classes that were alternately amused, instructed and diverted by them. Both the strengths and weaknesses of the United States of the period can be seen in the fairs, from creativity and ingenuity to racism and unrestrained consumerism. Long-term benefits of the fairs were wide ranging. Cities gained buildings, parks and planned urban centers as well as attracting new residents and investments. The exhibitions showed off the industrial and cultural strengths of the nation and developed markets for manufactured goods. World’s fairs became important showcases for the latest in fine arts, architecture and design. The expositions sponsored international congresses on religion, science, labor and other topics of contemporary concern that brought world-renowned authorities together. The world was opened up to the millions of visitors who would never had the opportunity to travel abroad, but were able to experience the food, dress, music and customs of many cultures. The fairs also reflected their times in more negative ways when organizers made white supremacy and imperialism an integral part of an exposition design. Emphasis on “progress” included exhibits emphasizing “racial” advance by labeling non-Western European-based culture as primitive. People of color in so-called anthropologic exhibits were objectified and treated as spectacle. Accomplishments by African Americans and women were marginalized. The Special Collections Department holds a wide variety of primary source materials relating to the world’s fairs and expositions conducted in the United States between 1876 and 1939. Guidebooks, official reports, photographic view books, trade catalogs and children’s books as well as ephemeral material such as invitations, souvenirs, trade cards and photographs are represented. The exhibition organized by individual fair or exposition, including the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876), the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893), the Pan-American Exposition (1901), the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904), the Sesqui-Centennial (1926) and the New York World’s Fair (1939). For more information or library hours, call 831-BOOK or visit the library web page at <http://www.lib.udel.edu>.’ Taggart-Grycky Duo concert Feb. 21 in Bayard Sharp HallA faculty recital featuring the Taggart-Grycky Duo of Eileen Grycky, flute, and Christiaan Taggart, guitar, with guest artists David Myford, viola, and Hekun Wu, cello, will be presented at 8 p.m, Monday, Feb. 21, in Bayard Sharp Hall. Admission to this Department of Music program is free, and seating is limited to 150 on a first-come, first-seated basis. Highlighting the program is the Quartet Op. 21 by Schubert, in an arrangement by Matiegka for flute, viola, guitar and cello. Also featured are works for flute and guitar, including Sonata d’avril by Jacques Casterede. The Taggart-Grycky Duo is in residence at the University of Delaware. Over the past 15 years, the duo’s musicianship and style have won it increasing acclaim from audiences and critics alike. The Belgian press described the duo’s performance in Brussels as “breathtaking and virtuosic.” The Taggart-Grycky Duo’s interest in expanding the flute-guitar repertoire has led them to seek out new works written specifically for the flute-guitar combination, as well as old works that may have been overlooked or forgotten. Taggart also has arranged several transcriptions of music for the duo, and its most recent recording includes Michael White’s Three Haiku, which was written for the Taggart-Grycky Duo. Wu is assistant professor of music at UD where he teaches cello and directs the University Orchestra. He also performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. Myford teaches violin and viola in the Department of Music and also performs with the Brandywine Baroque and the Carmel Bach Festival. For information about the concert or the Taggart-Grycky Duo, call 831-2577. Ensemble Galilei to perform evening of traditional musicThe University of Delaware continues its Performing Art Series with a concert by Ensemble Galilei at 7 p.m., Saturday Feb. 19, in Mitchell Hall. Dedicated to rekindling the passion in ancient music, the Ensemble Galilei is comprosed of six women and includes both classically and folk trained musicians. Their program includes everything from Baroque interpretations of 18th-century Irish airs to infectious jigs, haunting Welsh melodies, Galician Waltzes and Breton dance tunes. The performance will feature a blend of instruments, including the fiddle, Celtic harp, recorders, penny-whistles, oboe, viola da gamba and percussion. Tickets are $15 for the public, $10 for UD faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens and $6 for UD students and children. They may be purchased from UD box offices in the Trabant University Center, the Bob Carpenter Center and Hartshorn Hall. For more information call UD1- HENS. –Brandt Kenna |
