Lecture
Playwright & Director Joshua Sobol — 10/12, 8 p.m.
Tuesday, October 12 — 8 p.m., Russell House
Joshua Sobol will talk about his novel “Cut Throat Dog”. He will place this novel within the context of the “Shylock Syndrome.” Sobol is an international renowned playwright, writer, and director. In 2000 he was a visiting scholar at Wesleyan University and directed, with Wesleyan students, the play “Ghetto”, which was translated into more than 20 languages and has been performed by leading theaters in more than 25 countries through the world. A reception will follow. Sponsored by Jewish and Israel Studies.
We Take Clean Water for Granted: Learn Why We Shouldn’t — Noon, 4/21
On Wednesday April 21, 12:00 p.m. in Downey House, Room 113, Wesleyan World Wednesdays, Environmental Studies and African StudentS Association/Wes Friends of Africa presents a discussion and short film on why we shouldn’t take clean water for granted.
Learn about how Max Perel-Slater ’11 and Abby Horton ’11 worked with a community in rural Tanzania to build a rainwater catchment system to make clean water more accessible. There will also be a screening of the film “The Water Project.” A question and answer will follow, and lunch will be served.
Sonneblick Evening with film critic Molly Haskell — Tonight!
Announcing the Writing Programs’
2010 ANNIE SONNENBLICK EVENING
with film critic MOLLY HASKELL
Introductions by Michael Roth and Jeanine Basinger
Wednesday, March 24
8 PM
Memorial Chapel
Molly Haskell has served as film critic for The Village Voice, New York Magazine, and Vogue, and written for many
publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Esquire, The Nation, The New York Observer and The New York Review of Books.
Her books include From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies; a memoir, Love and Other Infectious Diseases; and a collection of essays and interviews, Holding My Own in No Man’s Land: Women and Men and Films and Feminists.
Her newest book, part of the Yale University Press’s American Icon series, is Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited.
Write What You (Don’t) Know: David Henry Hwang — Wed., Mar. 3
David Henry Hwang
“WRITE WHAT YOU (DON’T) KNOW”
Wednesday, March 3 at 7 p.m.
Memorial Chapel
Free Admission
On behalf of the Theater Department and the CFA, I invite you to David Henry Hwang’s talk, which is co-sponsored by the Albritton Center for the Study of Public Life and the Baldwin Fellows Fund, The Little Fund, Wesleyan Writing Program, English Department and the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.
Tony-award winning playwright David Henry Hwang, hailed as “the first U.S. playwright to become an international phenomenon in a generation” by Time Magazine, discusses his extraordinary and groundbreaking body of work. Hwang is best known as the author of M. Butterfly, a controversial twist on Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, which ran for two years on Broadway, won the 1988 Tony and Drama Desk Awards, and was a 1989 Pulitzer Prize finalist.
His Broadway musicals include the book for the revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song, which earned him a third Tony nomination in 2003 for Best Book of a Musical, and Disney’s international musical hit Aida, winner of four Tony Awards in 2000. His recent Yellow Face was a Pulitzer Finalist. As an opera librettist, he has written numerous works, including three with renowned composer Philip Glass.
Throughout his extensive career, Hwang has explored the complexities of forging Eastern and Western cultures in a contemporary America. His work challenges political and social discourses that reduce complex human identities into stereotypes, and encourages the exploration, in his own words, “not so much of blurring distinctions or subsuming cultures as of different cultures coming to live together side by side.”
Pamela Tatge, Director, Center for the Arts
Stem Cell Lecture: Prof. Laura Grabel Feb. 25
Thursday, February 25, 2010, 5:15 p.m. Usdan 108
Stem Cells on the Brain: from Politics to Therapies
A Lecture by Laura Grabel, Lauren Dachs Professor of Science in Society, Department of Biology
Stem cell research continues to be controversial and influenced by political constraints. Professor Grabel will consider its promise as well as recent scientific and public policy advances, including public funding in the Obama era. She will also talk about the work in her laboratory focusing on understanding the conditions that promote embryonic stem cell differentiation into neurons, both in a culture dish and in the brains of mouse models of epilepsy.
A reception will follow the lecture.
“Women Soldiers in Conflict” Lecture — Feb. 22
Women Soldiers in Conflict:
Difficult Testimonies from the West Bank and Gaza
2 p.m. Mon., Feb. 22 — Usdan, 108
How do female soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces experience their duties when serving in the West Bank and Gaza? Dana Golan, Executive Director of Breaking the Silence and former Lieutenant Education Corps officer, will discuss the experiences of female IDF soldiers who served in the occupied Palestinian territories from the start of the second Intifada until today. She will also show clips from the documentary of women’s’ stories, To See if I am Smiling. Come join in a nuanced and honest discussion that grapples with the realities of occupation.
Come also for a vegetarian lunch from Typhoon at 48 Home Ave. at 12:15 p.m. before the Breaking the Silence event at 2:00 p.m.
Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers working to improve Israeli society from within by demanding greater transparency and accountability. They collect testimonies of soldiers who served in the occupied Palestinian Territories, voicing the experiences of those soldiers and compelling Israeli society to address these challenges.
www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp
Contact Paul Blasenheim at pblasenheim@wesleyan.edu with questions.