BAKER-NORD CENTER
FOR THE HUMANITIES

Events Archive

Baker-Nord Center Events Archive
2001-02 Events
2002-03 Events
2003-04 Events
2004-05 Events
2005-06 Events
2006-07 Events

Linda Ehrlich, Associate Professor, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at CWRU, and Stephen Prince will lead an informal discussion after the film.
Sponsored by the Cleveland Cinematheque
For more information: 216-421-7450

Tickets available from tickets.com, or at the box office.

This 6th annual converence will combine musicalperformances and presentations by scholars critics, journalists, and musicians, celebrating the life of Bessie Smith. A special closing keynote presentation by Angela Davis, author and political activist.
Co-sponsored by the CWRU College of Arts & Sciences and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
For information, call 216-368-2400 or email pdm3@po.cwru.edu

This hallmark festival celebrates the state organization that was founded in Cleveland 25 years ago. The 25th anniversary festival will be three days of education workshops, showcases, and lectures. Also included will be Master Classes in a wide array of dance forms, as well as techniques and panel discussions.
Sponsored by the Dance Program in the Department of Theater Arts
For more information: 216-368-2854

The events of September 11 and since have affected all of us at CWRU in different and lasting ways. To explore how academic disciplines may interpret and be interpreted by the current climate, the Baker-Nord Center presents three interdisciplinary faculty discussions intended to offer humanities' perspectives on recent events, and to engage the campus community in dialogue. The discussion topics will be as follows:

Thursday, October 25, 5 p.m.: Violence in Art and Literature :
Martin Helzle (Classics): Aeneas in the Whitehouse
David Carrier (Art History): Representations of Violence in Visual Art
Heather Meakin (English): Speculations on Terrorism in Milton's Samson

Monday, October 29, 5 p.m.: Media Response and Responsibility
Ted Gup (English)
Mary Step (Communications)
Steve Litt (English; The Plain Dealer)
with guests
David Kordalski (The Plain Dealer)
Leon Bibb (WEWS Channel 5)

Tuesday, October 30, 5 p.m.: Religion and Violence
Tim Beal (Religion)
Julie Exline (Psychology)
Peter Haas (Religion)
James Pfeiffer (Anthropology)

Dr. Cowart will discuss her explication, published in the latest issue of The Art Bulletin, that Antoine Watteau's well-known painting The Pilgrimate to Cythera may be traced to a set of subversive opera-ballets at the Paris Opera House. Satirizing roles actually danced by Louis XIV in the earlier court ballet, these works posit Venus, Cupid, and their island home of Cythera as a pacifist and egalitarian counterutopia to Louis's court.

Georgia Cowart is Associate Professor and Chair Designate of Music, effective July 2002. Currently she is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the
Humanities for a book project entitled "Louis XIV and the Politics of Art: The Opera-Ballet as Political Propaganda and Utopian Prot est.

Yom Tom Assis
Rosenthal Visiting Fellow
Head, Institute of Jewish Studies,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

When Shabbetai Zvi, the mystic Jew from Izmir, Turkey, proclaimed himself the messiah in the second half of the 17th century, almost the entire Jewish population of the world accepted him as such and began preparations for the return to their homeland.

The shock and embarrassment were great, therefore, when under Turkish pressure, Shabbetai converted to Islam as Mehmet Efendi. He was followed by his most loyal supporters who also converted and became known as the Donmeh - a crypto-Jewish sect which survives in Turkey today.

For more information:
216-368-2414
www.cwru.edu/artsci/rosenthal

Christoph von Dohanyi, Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra, in conversation with Donald Rosenberg, Classical Music Critic at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 216-368-0528.

William Germano, Vice-President and Publishing Director at Routledge and author of Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books , will speak about preparing and producing an academic book. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 216-368-0528.

This lecture is part of the Susie Gharib Distinguished Lecture Series in Journalism .
Free and Open to the Public. For more information: 216-368-4837.

This lecture is part of the Susie Gharib Distinguished Lecture Series in Journalism .
Free and Open to the Public. For more information: 216-368-4837.

Alain Touwaide is a classicist and orientalist specializing in the history of medicine and pharmacy from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Dr. Touwaide is especially interested in the circulation of medical books, texts, and theories among the cultures that flourished in the Mediterranean area, including the assimilation of ancient science into Western science. He is currently Scholar in Residence at the History of Medicine, Division of the National Library of Medicine and Visiting Scholar, Section of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

This lecture is part of the Susie Gharib Distinguished Lecture Series in Journalism .
Free and Open to the Public. For more information: 216-368-4837.

Sponsored by the College Scholars Program . For more information: 216-368-6996.
Free and Open to the Public.

Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Initiative on Religion and Culture. Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities.
For more information: 216-368-2259.
Free and Open to the Public.

Sponsored by the Department of Art History and Art at CWRU and the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Free and Open to the Public.

Keynote Presentation: "Justice and 'The Butterfly Effect'
- Catherine Pinkerton, CSJ

Saturday, April 13 will feature a series of workshops to choose from covering Hunger and Homelessness, After 9/11, Jobs with Justice, Race & the Death Penalty, and Welfare Reform.
Featured luncheon speaker will be Elizabeth McAllister, "Speaking Truth to Power."

Sponsored by The Hallinan Project.

Registration deadline: Friday, April 5. $15 registration fee, $2 for students. All fees will be donated to the St. Augustine Hunger Center.
For more information: 216-368-6996.

This talk is held in conjunction with the Northeast Ohio French Studies Colloquium. Sponsored by the Program in French Studies, the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, and the Departments of Modern Languages and Literatures, Music, Philosophy, Art History, and History at CWRU.
For more information: 216-368-8983.
Free and Open to the Public.

In the last few months, the language of "just war" has increasingly become a part of public discourse. Different groups have used just war doctrine both to oppose and support the war on Iraq. Political leaders, talk show hosts, editorialists and movie stars argue about whether this war is just. What does and doesn't it mean to call any war just? How and when is such rhetoric politically effective? What value does it have in an international discussion? Is it only a narrowly western idea? Does just war doctrine still make sense in the contemporary world? Join us for a panel discussion on the history and meaning of "just war."

CWRU Faculty Panelists:

"Just War Doctrine Today: Can a Modern War Be Fought Justly?"
Peter J. Haas
Department of Religion, CWRU

"When is War Philosophically Justifiable? Why -- For Whom?"
Laura Hengehold
Department of Philosophy, CWRU

"Asian Perspectives on the Morality of War"
William E. Deal
Department of Religion, CWRU

"The Political Effectiveness of Just War Language"
Kelly McMann
Department of Political Science, CWRU

Timothy K. Beal, Presiding

Moshe Safdie is one of the world's most original and wide-ranging architects. He has designed urban housing, public institutions, airports, mixed-use complexes, and new communities. In 1967, he designed the master plan of the 1967 World Exposition and supervised construction of the acclaimed Habitat '67 in Montreal. Today the firm he heads is a world leader in innovative design and architectural thought. His most recent book, The City Without the Automobile, explores urban design ideas in the absence of the car.

There is more money out there than you might think! The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has for decades funded individual research in the humanities and related social sciences, and since 1997 has significantly increased its available resources. This year's fellowship programs together awarded just over $5 million in stipends to nearly 150 Fellows. Donna Heiland, Director of Fellowship Programs at ACLS, will talk about research funding for the humanities, with a focus on the range of programs available at ACLS, the thinking behind their development, and the application/review process.

September 10, 2003
Lecture: Azar Nafisi - Women's Voices Series Lolita in Tehran 5:00 p.m., Ford Auditorium

Azar Nafisi is Visiting Professor and director of the SAIS Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. A professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, she has taught at Oxford University and The University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabii. She has earned national respect and international recognition for advocating on behalf of Iran's intellectuals, youth and especially young women. She was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the mandatory Islamic veil in 1981, and did not resume teaching until 1987.

Dr. Nafisi has lectured and written extensively in English and Persian on the political implications of literature and culture as well as the human rights Iranian women and girls and the important role they play in the process of change for pluralism and an open society in Iran. Her best known book, Reading Lolita in Tehran , chronicles her experiences while meeting in Tehran with seven former students to discuss forbidden works of Western literature.

• CWRU Women's Center

September 30, 2003
Lecture: Evelyn Accad - Women's Voices Series Title TBA 4:30 p.m., Clark Hall 309

Professor Accad was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. She received her primary and secondary education in Beirut, which included studies at the Beirut College for Women (now the Lebanese American University). She received her B.A. from Anderson College in English Literature; an M.A. in French from Ball State University; and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University.

Accad has been a professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana since 1974 and teaches courses in French, Comparative Literature, African Studies, Women Studies and Middle-East Studies. Her other activities include writing and composing folk songs -- both music and lyrics -- and performing at various concerts in the United States and abroad. Accad is the author of several books, including Sexuality & War: Literary Masks of the Middle East , and The Wounded Breast: Intimate Journeys Through Cancer , which chronicles her struggle with the disease. She also recently wrote a chapter for the book September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives .

• CWRU Women's Center

• More Information: John D'Emilio

Executed in subtle and elusively pale ink on paper, the painting depicts a Chinese Zen patriarch from the Tang dynasty whose name translates as "birds' nests." Befitting his name and religious beliefs, the patriarch lived in a tree like a bird in order to avoid the dirt and dust of the world.

Dr. Shimizu will explore how this painting came into being and how we can interpret it against the background of the artistic and cultural history of 17th century Japan.

Dr. Shimizu specializes in Japanese and Chinese painting and calligraphy. He is the Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and has been a Curator of Japanese Art at the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and Guest Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Dr. Shimizu holds a Ph.D. from Princeton. He teaches courses and seminars on the art of China and Japan.

• More Information: Yoshiaki Shimizu
• Cleveland Museum of Art

October 17, 2003
"Jerusalem Women Speak" - Women's Voices Series Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared City 3:30 p.m., Harkness Chapel

Jerusalem Women Speak brings together three women -- one Jewish, one Christian, and one Muslim -- to converse across religious and cultural boundaries as they share personal stories of life in Jerusalem.

Yehudit Keshet (Israeli Jewish participant) was born in South Wales in 1943 and is a British-Israeli citizen. Although West Jerusalem became her permanent residence in 1974, she has lived in Israel off and on since 1958. She founded The Tradition Center, which is a cooperative, multi-cultural puppet theater that works with sources common to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions to provide entertainment and conduct workshops for children. She also co-founded "Checkpoint Watch," a women's human rights group opposing Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Keshet is currently on sabbatical at Lancaster University in England.

Mai J. Nassar (Christian Palestinian participant) was born and raised in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, where her family has lived for centuries. She obtained a B.A. degree in English Literature from the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan. Ms. Nassar persued graduate studies at the University of Warwick in England and graduated with an M.A. in English Language Teaching. She specializes in teaching English as a foreign language and currently works at Bethlehem University. In the United States, Ms. Nassar participated in the Professional Development Program in English Language Teaching for Educators at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio -- an intensive workshop in which six Israeli and six Palestinian educators worked to find effective methods of teaching English as a foreign language.

Zleikha Muhtaseb (Muslim Palestinian participant) was born, raised, and still lives in the West Bank city of Hebron. She obtained a B.A. in English Literature from Hebron University and has more than twelve years of experience as an English teacher and translator. She served as the director of a woman's center in the city of Hebron from 1999-2000 and is currently working with Christian Peacemaker Teams. She has also worked for Human Rights Watch and Save the Children as a translator and interviewer. Ms. Muhtaseb is currently preparing other programs which will comprise a more formal educational center in the Old City of Hebron and participating in a program that will provide remedial classes for children who missed school as a result of the curfew in the Old City. She is a member of the Parents Council in Hebron and the Hebron Women Youth Center.

Reverend Dr. Joan Brown Campbell (panel moderator) is an ordained minister with standing in two Christian denominations: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the American Baptist Church. She was the first woman to be named Executive Director of the U.S. office of the World Council of Churches; the first ordained woman to be General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; and today she is the first woman Director of Religion at the historic Chautauqua Institution, a center for religion, the arts, education, and recreation. The mother of Jane Campbell, the first woman mayor of Cleveland, Rev. Campbell's honors and achievements are many and varied, including eleven honorary doctorate degrees.

• CWRU Women's Center
• Partners for Peace

  For more information, call 216-368-0528.

This event will include a performance by Moscow Nights, a Russian folk music trio. For more information visit www.russianfolk.com or call 368-2230.

Click here for more information about this event from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

From the 15th century on, the Jewish community of Mantua produced Italian commedias for Carnival celebrations at the ducal court. Playwright and academician Leone de Sommi (1525--1590) wrote and produced many such plays, including the innovative Hebrew-language A Comedy of Betrothal , a scripted comedy in five acts. Ensemble Ciaramella, modeled on the theatrical musical ensembles of the early 17th century, is joined by singers, actors, and dancers in periodcostume to present a theatrical production based on this important and entertaining work. With dialogue in English and songs in Hebrew, the production draws on commedia dell 'arte gesture and historical dance. Presented in conjunction with the Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies .

The production is reconstructed and directed by musicologist Anna Levenstein, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Music, and presented with the help of Omri Yavin, Full-Time Lecturer in Hebrew, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the College of Arts and Sciences at Case.

General admission: $15; CMA and Musart Society members, senior citizens, and students: $8; Special student rate at the door: $5. For tickets, call 888-262-0033.

Alan G. Thomas is Editorial Director for the Humanities and Sciences at the University of Chicago Press. He acquires books in literature, literary studies, cultural criticism, and religious studies. Among the books he has edited are winners of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the MLA's Lowell Prize, and the American Academy or Religion's awards for excellence in publishing.

Mr. Thomas holds a B.A. from Princeton and an M.Phil. from Oxford, and he has worked at Chicago, the nation's largest university press, since 1983. His talk will address current anxieties about scholarly book publishing, from the "monograph crisis" for tenure-track professors to the promises of electronic publication.

This event is presented as part of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities' commitment to supporting faculty research and academic publishing.

Peter Haas , Tim Beal, and Alice Bach -- all faculty in the Department of Religion at Case -- will discuss the film from the perspective of their respective Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic faiths.

Cosponsored by the Department of Religion and the Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies .

For more information about this event, click here .

To visit the movie's official web site, click here