Humanities Room 218

Professor Ania Loomba, Catherine Bryson Chair, University of Pennsylvania

“The Border and Boundary Between Colonialism and Postcolonialism”

Ania Loomba currently holds the Catherine Bryson Chair in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a member of the faculty in Comparative Literature, South Asian Studies, Women’s Studies, and Asian-American Studies, and her courses are regularly cross-listed with these programs.

Her publications include Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, and Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism. She has co-edited Post-colonial Shakespeares and Postcolonial Studies and Beyond, and has written extensively on race and colonialism, early modern drama and culture, Shakespeare, adaptations of Shakespeare, the women’s movement, and feminist theory and politics. Most recently, she has compiled (with Jonathan Burton) Race in Early Modern England: A Documentary Companion, which documents the range and complexity of premodern thinking about racial difference and shows their significance for theories of race.

She is series editor of Postcolonial Literary Studies, is currently working on a critical edition of Antony and Cleopatra, and is co-editing a collection of essays on South Asian feminism. She is also working on a monograph on early modern English contact with Asia. 

York Galleries, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

"Clarence Morgan: Notes and Ideas"

Reception: September 30, 2010, 6 - 8 pm

Lecture: September 30, 2010, 5 pm, DeMeester Recital Hall

Clarence Morgan is a painter who lives and works in Minneapolis. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally including solo and group exhibitions at Reeves Contemporary in New York, Ze Zhong Gallery in Beijing, and Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among many others. He received his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978 and a four-year certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1975. Grants include a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, North Carolina Arts Council Visual Artist Fellowship, Southern Arts Federation NEA Regional Fellowship, and a grant from Art Matters, Inc. His work is included in the collections of the Cleveland Art Museum, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Art Institute, General Mills, and University of Alabama, among others. Morgan currently teaches painting in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he is professor and chair of the Department.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Ed Diener, Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois 

“Positive Psychology”

Ed Diener received his doctorate at the University of Washington in 1974 and has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois for the past 34 years. He was the president of both the International Society of Quality of Life Studies and the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. He is currently the president of the International Positive Psychology Association. Diener was the editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Happiness Studies, and he is the founding editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science. He has over 260 publications, with about 200 being in the area of the psychology of well-being, and is listed as one of the most highly cited psychologists by the Institute of Scientific Information with over 15,000 citations to his credit. He won the Distinguished Researcher Award from the International Society of Quality of Life Studies, the first Gallup Academic Leadership Award, and the Block Award for Personality Psychology. Diener also won several teaching awards, including the Oakley-Kundee Award for Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Illinois. 

Humanities Room 218

A marvelous new film from Andrew Bujalski, one of the brightest stars in indie cinema, Beeswax (2009) revolves around the personal and professional entanglements of twin sisters Jeannie and Lauren (played by real-life twins Tilly and Maggie Hatcher). Jeannie co-owns a vintage clothing store in Austin, Texas, with Amanda, a semi-estranged friend who she fears is trying to end their partnership. Lauren leads a looser, less tethered existence and is considering getting out of the country altogether. Imbued with an innate charm, Beeswax is a story about families, friends, lovers, and those awkward moments that bring all of them together. A.O. Scott of the New York Times recently selected the film as a “NYT Critics’ Pick,” calling it a “remarkably subtle, even elegant movie.” Bujalski himself is acclaimed as the godfather of “mumblecore,” a movement in contemporary American independent cinema driven by the digital revolution and an ultra-low-budget, do-it-yourself approach to filmmaking. According to Cinema Scope magazine, he is “making what may prove to be the defining movies about [his] generation.” In a special appearance as part of the 2010-11 Humanities Film Series, this talented and important filmmaker will present his latest movie and answer questions about it after the screening.

DeMeester Recital Hall, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

Percussion faculty member Ed Zaryky will perform a solo recital including works by Druckman, Bartok, and Delecluse. This performance will also feature Kenneth Osowski, assistant professor of music at York College, on Bela Bartok’s pivotal Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. 

Perko Playpen Theatre

In this blend of grotesque farce and romantic fantasy by Don Nigro, Rosey Snow is trapped in a fairy tale world with her stepsisters, her demented stepmother, her lecherous father, a bewildered prince, a fairy godmother who sings salty old sailor songs, a troll, and a possibly homicidal village idiot.

Humanities Room 218

Directed by Craig Zobel, Great World of Sound (2007) is a recent independent film that blends fact and fiction in a unique and fascinating way. It follows Martin (Pat Healy) as he applies for a job at a company training prospective “music producers.” During training, he pairs up with another new employee, Clarence (Kene Holliday), a middle-aged man trying to change his career path. On the job, the two travel to small towns where their company has placed newspaper ads inviting undiscovered musicians to audition for a record contract. Martin and Clarence present themselves as representatives of a music label who are signing artists and giving them a chance to let their music be heard…for a small fee. Once they have the money, however, they skip town, leaving the aspiring musicians high and dry. Interestingly, while the characters of Martin and Clarence are fictional and played by actors, the auditioning musicians in Great World of Sound are real people who responded to the kind of newspaper ads featured in the story and had no idea they were being filmed for a movie. Great World of Sound has won a number of awards at film festivals across the country and has garnered high critical praise. Zobel, himself, was named by Filmmaker Magazine in 2007 as one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” The Humanities Film Series is pleased to present the work of this gifted director, who will be on hand to present his film and lead a question-and-answer session after the screening.

DeMeester Recital Hall, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

The year 2010 marks the 200^th anniversary of the births of Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) and Robert Schumann (1810-1856), two of the most important and beloved composers of the Romantic era. Come celebrate their remarkable music in a series of three-piano recitals.

Kenneth Osowski, assistant professor of music at York College, will present a solo piano recital, featuring Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasie.

Perko Playpen Theatre

A riveting thriller of paranoia, conspiracy theories, and twisted psychological motives, Tracy Letts’ play is set in a seedy Oklahoma City motel where Agnes, a divorced waitress, meets Peter, a Gulf War veteran.  Agnes’ abusive former husband returns from prison just as a bug infestation problem gives Agnes and Peter scathing welts and festering sores.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

William Wycherley’s famous Restoration comedy traces the hilarious and successful results of Horner’s plan to convince husbands and friends of his feigned impotence. Just when his chicanery is about to be discovered by his most recent conquest, Margery Pinchwife, Quack, his doctor, Lucy, the maid, and the wives involved confirm that he is “an arrant French capon.”

York Galleries, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

November 4 - December 1, 2010

Opening reception: November 4, 2010, 4 - 6 pm

The York College Faculty Biennial offers the College and regional communities an opportunity to view recent work by full- and part-time faculty from the College’s Art Division. This exhibition reflects the faculty’s dedication to pursuing creative research and an active studio practice. The works in the exhibition cover a wide range of disciplines and media including photography, painting, printmaking, drawing, illustration, jewelry, sculpture, and installation. Among the exhibiting faculty are professional artists who have won many awards, including the Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize, The Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Award, and several Best In Show awards from national juried exhibitions. Faculty members have also exhibited their work nationally and internationally from New York to New Delhi.

DeMeester Recital Hall, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

Guest Artist Piano Recital, Keiko Sekino

The year 2010 marks the 200^th anniversary of the births of Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) and Robert Schumann (1810-1856), two of the most important and beloved composers of the Romantic era. Come celebrate their remarkable music in a series of three-piano recitals.

Guest artist Keiko Sekino, PhD, will present a solo piano recital, including Schumann’s epic Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp minor. Sekino serves on the faculty of The East Carolina University School of Music and holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and Yale University.  

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Alarming Global Warming: Is Skepticism Justified?"

Richard S. Lindzen received his AB, SM, and PhD degrees from Harvard University. The first degree was in physics; the last two were in applied mathematics. His thesis on the interactions of ozone chemistry, radiative transfer, and dynamics in the middle atmosphere brought him into the atmospheric sciences, where he continues to work and teach. He was a postdoctoral fellow at both the Universities of Washington and Oslo, and a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Lindzen taught at the University of Chicago before moving to Harvard University, where he held the Burden Chair in dynamic meteorology and served as director of the Center for Earth and Planetary Physics. Since 1983, he has been the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

Lindzen is a recipient of the Macelwane medal of the American Geophysical Union, and of the Meisinger and Charney Awards of the AMS. He was the 1997 AMS Haurwitz Lecturer. In 2006, he received the Leo Prize from the Walin Foundation in Goteborg, Sweden. He has been a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Fellow at Kyushu University; a Vikram Amblal Sarabhai Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India; a Lady Davis Visiting Professorship at The Hebrew University; a Sackler Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University; a Landsdowne Lecturer at the University of Victoria; and a National University Lecturer at the University of Hokkaido.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Conducted by Wayne Romer, PhD, the York College Wind Symphony is comprised of students from approximately eight different states from around the Eastern region. Many of the members are music majors, but non-music majors are encouraged to participate as well. The primary objective of this ensemble is to develop a high degree of musicianship for the individual performer, and to gain mastery of group performance skills. The literature performed by this ensemble includes music spanning the 20th century to the present. British band classics, transcriptions, medleys, and contemporary music are performed every semester.

Humanities Room 218

Professor Stephen Asma, Columbia College, Chicago

“Monsters, Dreams, and the Moral Imagination”

Stephen T. Asma, PhD, is professor of philosophy at Columbia College, Chicago, where he holds the title of Distinguished Scholar.

Asma is the author of several books: Why I Am A Buddhist, On Monsters: an Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears, Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums, Following Form and Function, and Buddha for Beginners. He frequently writes on topics that bridge the humanities and sciences, including articles for the Chicago Tribune, In These Times magazine, the Skeptical Inquirer, and the Chronicle.

In 2003, he was visiting professor at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. There he taught Buddhist philosophy as part of their graduate program in Buddhist Studies. His book, The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha, explores the Theravada Buddhism of the region. He has also traveled and studied in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Mainland China — eventually living in Shanghai China in 2005. 

In 2009, Asma became a fellow of the LAS Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture at Columbia College. He is currently researching the connections between affective neuroscience and philosophy of mind. His website is www.stephenasma.com.

Humanities Center Room 218

Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July (1989) captures the essence of American life for the post-World War II baby boomers who bore the brunt of the Vietnam war. While the film cannot explain the entirety of the war, it nevertheless provides a window through which that understanding can begin. Combat itself plays a small role in this movie. Rather, it focuses on the life of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), who enlists in the Marine Corps right after high school and who, on his second tour in Vietnam, is paralyzed from the chest down by an enemy bullet. As a young enlistee, Kovic at first embraces at face value the conventional wisdom of his America, a United States basking in its unprecedented power; after his devastating injury, however, he begins to question its self-image as a protector of freedom and a country whose ideals remained unsullied by corruption and self-interest. In his remarks before the screening, Phil Avillo, PhD, professor of history at York College, will discuss how Stone and Kovic confront a myriad of issues surrounding the Vietnam War, including the American arrogance, militarism, and materialism that fueled it, and show how they grapple with the consequences of the war for the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam and the hundreds of thousands wounded whose lives paralleled at some level Kovic’s. A question-and-answer session with Avillo will follow the screening.

DeMeester Recital Hall, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

This unusual harpsichord recital features York College faculty member Gretchen Dekker and friends. The musicians will perform music written before 1800 for keyboard and mixed chamber ensembles, including works by Frescobaldi, Byrd, Froberger, Couperin, and Bach. This recital will introduce the listener to some less-familiar composers and explore the range of sound and style of the harpsichord in both solo and chamber settings. 

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Conducted by Grace Muzzo, PhD, the York College Chorale and Chamber Singers are comprised of students from across campus, both music majors and non-music majors. Open to all students, The Chorale is a large mixed ensemble that performs standard choral literature from a variety of styles and periods. The Chamber Singers is a small auditioned ensemble that branches out from traditional repertoire into vocal chamber music and popular styles.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

An exciting dramatization of Dickens’ story of Scrooge and the three ghosts will again be presented for elementary school children, their teachers, and parents.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

The year 2010 marks the 200^th anniversary of the births of Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) and Robert Schumann (1810-1856), two of the most important and beloved composers of the Romantic era. Come celebrate their remarkable music in a series of three-piano recitals.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

The York College Jazz Ensemble is one of the oldest musical groups on campus. The ensemble performs music written by the jazz greats, including Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. Students are featured in spontaneous improvisations that build off of the solos of the past masters of jazz. The Ensemble performs in various jazz idioms, such as Swing Era Jazz, Bebop, and Fusion. 

Humanities Center Room 218

Professor Alice Dreger, Northwestern University

"Conjoined Twins, Little Penises, and Other Border Crises in Medicine: How Doctors Try to Manage Babies with Socially-Challenging Bodies"

Alice Dreger, PhD, is a Guggenheim Fellow and professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics in Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Her doctorate is in history and philosophy of science, and her work has centered on issues of social justice in medicine and science, including doctors' and scientists' treatment of people with atypical bodies, and activists' treatment of doctors and scientists. Besides publishing in peer-reviewed journals in medicine, the humanities, and the social sciences, Dreger has authored two books with Harvard University Press and edited three other books. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, and she is a regular commentator for Bioethics Forum. She has appeared as an expert on dozens of broadcasts, including on the BBC, NPR, and HBO, and on such programs as Good Morning America and the Oprah Winfrey Show.

DeMeester Recital Hall, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

The York College Groove Ensemble is a percussion ensemble with a different twist. It includes many traditional percussion instruments as well as guitars, basses, keyboards, digital sampler, electronic drum machine, and turntable. The Groove Ensemble plays traditional music from around the world, including West Africa, South Africa, and Indonesia. The group also performs music in the modern classical style, including the music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Student compositions are also featured on a regular basis. A typical concert may feature anything from Zimbabwean dance music to hip-hop.

DeMeester Recital Hall, The Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall

The York College Percussion (Traditional) Ensemble is the newest addition to the Music Division’s stellar collection of student music groups. Established by Professor Ed Zaryky, the Percussion Ensemble will be performing its inaugural concert this fall. The Ensemble was founded as a way to give students exposure to percussion music written specifically for the percussion ensemble medium. The group focuses on chamber music written for large and small percussion ensembles. This season, the Ensemble will perform works by Steve Reich, Lynn Glassock, Frank Zappa, and Louis Andriessen, to name a few. 

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Conducted by Professor Zachary Levi, the York College Community Orchestra is a full symphonic orchestra. The group includes music majors, non-music majors, and musicians from York and the surrounding area. The Orchestra will perform works of the masters from the 18th century to the present. Faculty and student soloists are often featured on the program.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

The annual Holiday Concert features the York College Chorale, Chamber Singers, Women’s Ensemble, and Wind Symphony conducted by Grace Muzzo and Wayne Romer, respectively. It’s a wonderful time to get in the holiday spirit by enjoying sacred and secular music of the season. An audience sing-a-long is always a special way to conclude the program!