DeMeester Recital Hall Series

This Latin American program will feature the exotic and colorful chamber music of Brazillian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. A rare performance of his Sexteto Mystico will be presented along with other works by members of our woodwind, guitar, and piano faculty.

The Global Humanities Lecture Series

Humanities 218

Panel Discussion with York College faculty members Dr. Kwasi Sarfo, Dr. Javier Aguayo, Dr. David Fyfe, and Dr. Gabriel Abudu.

Africa and Latin America share not only a colonial past, they also share a postcolonial present and, more than likely, a postcolonial future, at least in the short term. The common legacy of European imperialism and colonization has created a series of persistent and far-reaching problems in such areas as the environment, economic development, education, politics, and cultural formation. What are the similarities and differences in the ways in which Africa and Latin American experience and address these problems? How will globalization help or hinder progress toward a shared sustainable future?   

This panel discussion will address the shared issues and concerns of thinking about Latin America and Africa in a global context.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Another hilariously funny, demonic farce by Don Nigro, Paganini traces the bizarre career of virtuoso violinist Nicolo Paganini, employing theatrical conventions to tell the surreal story of a dark and twisted journey while probing the consequences of art and the nature of salvation for the artist.

Humanities 218

Fernand Léger. Man Ray. Paul Strand. Marcel Duchamp. Salvador Dalí. These men were some of the most important and influential avant-garde artists of the 1920s; indeed, their groundbreaking contributions to painting, photography, sculpture, and assemblage helped to define this key era in the history of 20th-century art. Lesser known, however, is the fact that they were also accomplished filmmakers who made equally vital contributions to experimental cinema at the same time.

Dr. Pamela Hemzik, a professor of art at York College, will trace the path taken by Léger, Ray, Strand, Duchamp, and Dalí from the gallery to the cinema during the 1920s, comparing and contrasting famous works of art they created over the course of this pivotal decade with the films that they made concurrently: Ballet Mécanique, Le Retour à la Raison, Manhatta, Anémic Cinéma, and Un Chien Andalou, among them. After her talk, Hemzik will also lead a question-and-answer session focusing on, among other things, the influence that these films continue to have on contemporary world cinema.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Another hilariously funny, demonic farce by Don Nigro, Paganini traces the bizarre career of virtuoso violinist Nicolo Paganini, employing theatrical conventions to tell the surreal story of a dark and twisted journey while probing the consequences of art and the nature of salvation for the artist.

Perko Playpen Theatre

Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer is a comic masterpiece of two young men duped into mistaking the home of a country gentleman for an inn but eventually, after misunderstandings, intrigues, and discoveries, ending up with satisfactory conclusions to their love affairs. 

Perko Playpen Theatre

Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer is a comic masterpiece of two young men duped into mistaking the home of a country gentleman for an inn but eventually, after misunderstandings, intrigues, and discoveries, ending up with satisfactory conclusions to their love affairs. 

The Global Humanities Lecture Series

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Professor Walter D. Mignolo

William H. Wannamaker Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University

“One consequence of globalization and the end of the cold war is the growing relevance of non-Western languages and knowledge. If the scene of speaking is changing, so is the scene of knowledge production.” 
 -- Walter Mignolo, “The Role of the Humanities in the Corporate University”

Described as “one of America’s most eminent postcolonialists,” Mignolo received his Licenciatura in philosophy and literature from the Universidad de Córdoba in Argentina and a Ph.D. in semiotics and literary theory from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in France. Mignolo is currently the William H. Wannamaker Professor of Literature and Romance Studies and professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University. He is academic director and co-founder of Duke in the Andes/Duke en la America Andina program and director of the Duke University Center for Global Studies and the Humanities.

Prior to his appointment at Duke, Mignolo had taught at the universities of Toulouse, Indiana, and Michigan. He has written dozens of books on a wide range of topics and has published hundreds of articles in books and journals. His earlier publications focused on semiotics, literary analysis, and literary theory. His recent publications focus on Latin American identity, coloniality, de-coloniality, modernism and post-modernism, globalization, and border studies. Mignolo’s more recent books include the following: The Idea of Latin America (Blackwell Press, 2005, which received the Frantz Fanon Prize from the Caribbean Philosophical Association), Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (Princeton University Press, 2000), and The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1995), which was awarded the Katherine Singers Kovac Prize by the Modern Language Association. Mignolo has presented numerous papers at conferences in North America, Latin America, and Europe.

Professor Mignolo’s talk will be on the topic of the humanities, post-colonialism, and Latin America.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center Series

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.

DeMeester Recital Hall Series

Under the direction of Dr. Grace Muzzo, the York College Chamber Singers and the newly formed Women’s Ensemble will celebrate spring with choral selections from the Renaissance to jazz arrangements. The concert will also feature student-led vocal groups.

DeMeester Recital Hall

Michael Thomas, the 2010 York College Writer-in-Residence, is the author of Man Gone Down, a beautifully written, insightful, and widely acclaimed first novel about a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American dream. The book was selected as one of the New York Times’ top five novels of the year and was awarded Notable Book Awards by the Times as well as the San Francisco Chronicle.

Thomas holds a B. A. from Hunter College, studied in the graduate program at Brown University, and completed his Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. His work draws upon his wide array of life experiences in New York—as a bike messenger, as a restaurant employee, and as a construction worker. It also draws upon the literary traditions of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and the stark reality portrayed in the work of T. S. Eliot. Thomas currently teaches creative writing at Hunter College. His memoir, The Broken King, is scheduled to be published in 2010.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

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 Series

Conducted by Professor Zachary Levi, the York College Community Orchestra is a full symphonic orchestra. The group includes 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 programs.

Humanities 218

People often marvel at which shows survive on TV and which don’t. And even more curiously, which shows become hits and which don’t. Why does According to Jim last eight seasons and Arrested Development barely survive three? If anyone knows, it’s Chad Gervich. Gervich is a television producer, book author, and playwright. As a writer and producer, he has worked on numerous scripted and reality shows for both TV and the Internet, including Foody Call on Style, Celebrity Drive-By for E!, Wig Out for Warner Brothers, Spellbound for the Weinstein Company, Speeders for TruTV, and Reality Binge for Fox. As an executive at the Littlefield Company/Paramount Television, he helped develop and maintain series and pilots for ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, and the WB. He is the author of the bestselling TV-writing guide, Small Screen, Big Picture (Random House/Crown, 2008), and he writes for Writers Digest and Daily Variety. In a unique appearance, Gervich will break down the creative elements of successful TV shows and examine how they’re different from other forms of storytelling -- like film, online entertainment, even novels -- and why networks and studios develop the shows they do. He will discuss current shows like The Mentalist, Lost, and Grey’s Anatomy, as well as classics like Friends, The Cosby Show, and I Love Lucy, and talk about why some succeed and others fail -- and how you can use this information to think of your own hit show ideas. 

Collegiate Performing Arts Center Series

The York College Opera Theater in cooperation with the York College Chorale will present a fully staged version of Felix Mendelssohn’s English Oratorio Elijah. The Oratorio, completed in 1847, is one of Mendelssohn’s greatest works. The story revolves around Elijah, the great Hebrew prophet of the Old Testament and his dramatic confrontations with the prophets and priestesses of the Baal religious sect, and his struggles to bring the Hebrew people back into harmony with the God of Israel. The work will be performed with orchestra.

Collegiate Performing Arts Center

Another hilariously funny, demonic farce by Don Nigro, Paganini traces the bizarre career of virtuoso violinist Nicolo Paganini, employing theatrical conventions to tell the surreal story of a dark and twisted journey while probing the consequences of art and the nature of salvation for the artist.