Theme for the 2011-12 Academic Year
Transformations
Through St. Olaf's steadfast embrace of a liberal arts education, the open inquiry into the question of meaning through the intentional lens as a college of the church, and the emphasis on expanding horizons through a global perspective, the college places at the core of its mission the transformation of the lives of men and women who choose to reside and learn in community. Furthermore, the recently-launched “Main Street” initiative seeks a transformative path for St. Olaf students as it tracks and advises them from the record of their high school experience through the curriculum and experiences of their college years at St. Olaf, and seeks to address post graduation plans. Speaking to these aims for students, their education, and their lives, the 2011-12 Theme will explore Transformations through an array of interdisciplinary and discipline-focused events.
Tuesday, September 20
World Film Series Faat Kiné 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
In this rollicking story of a woman’s rise to the middle class, pioneering filmmaker Ousmane Sembène charts how education and capital may lift Senegalese women from traditionally bound roles. With opening remarks by Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Amy Borden. Opening reception to follow.
Contact: Amy Borden
Sunday, October 2
St. Olaf Chapel Choir Vespers Transformations 7:30 p.m. Boe Memorial Chapel
Service of evening prayer, including music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rene Clausen, Christopher Aspaas, Charles Forsberg and Moses Hogen and visual elements by Emilie Bouvier '12.
Contact: Timothy Wells
Tuesday, October 4
World Film Series Sommersby 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Set in the post civil war South, this 1993 romantic drama is a transformation -- with a special twist -- of the age-old theme of the soldier returning from war to find his wife beset by suitors, as found, for example, in such classics as Homer's Odyssey. Starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster.
Contact: Steve Reece
Monday, October 10
Ana Istarú A public Intellectual in Latin America 3:30 p.m. Viking Theater
Talk in English by Costa Rican actress, playwright, poet and essayist Ana Istarú on the role of the female intellectual in the Spanish-speaking world, and specifically on how Istarú's literary production has worked to transform public opinion on a variety of issues, including gender roles.
Contact: Ariel Strichartz
Tuesday, October 11
Ana Istarú La mujer Latina: teatro y humor (in Spanish) 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Costa Rican actress, playwright, poet, and essayist Ana Istaru will read a selection of her poetry and dramatic monologues related to the situation of women in Latin America, the challenges they face and their possibilities for transforming Latin American society. Contact: Ariel Strichartz
Friday, October 21
French Department Transformation and Study Abroad: "The Francophone Experience" 4:30 p.m. West Lantern Thomson Hall
Students who have studied abroad in different Francophone countries and programs share their stories of transformation with current students of French and other interested students. A bilingual English/French opportunity to listen, comment, ask questions, share one's own stories and think about the benefits of study abroad..
Contact: Wendy Allen
Tuesday, October 25
World Film Series The Tempest 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Transformations abound in the 2010 film adaptation of Shakespeare's classic, directed and "written" by Julie Taymor of Lion King fame. With Helen Mirren (as "Prospera," a female Prospero), Russell Brand, Alan Cumming, and Djimon Hounsou.
Contact: Karen Cherewatuk and Mary Trull
Thursday, October 27
Panel Transformational Power of Second Language learning 11:20 a.m. Holland Hall 501
Learning a second language is much more than learning a new set of linguistic symbols. Languages are "maps" to reality and in
studying a different map we learn to navigate a new conceptual framework. Given the fact that language is the main modeling system of a culture, when we acquire a second language, we learn to see the world from the perspective of that culture (language "parallax"). The discussion will focus on the semantic and pragmatic factors that affect second language acquisition, as well as the cognitive, social and philosophical aspect involved in the process. Panelists: Claudia Giannini, Jessica Haugsland and Jonathan O'Connor.
Contact: Claudia Giannini
Thursday, October 27
Faculty Panel Arab Uprising 6:00 p.m. Holland Hall 501
St. Olaf Professors Jamie Schillinger (religion Dep./ Middle East Concentration) and Ibtesam Al Atiyat (Sociology Anthropology) will speak about different aspects of the uprisings taking place in the Middle East. A special focus will be on the role of political Islam and the implications of the uprising on state society relations in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Syria.
Contact: Ibtesam Al Atiyat
Friday, October 28 (through December 11)
Art Exhibit Earth, Water, Fire Flaten Art Museum Gallery
Part visual narrative, part sociological study, and part archival document, the exhibit is grounded in 101 vases from Jingdezhen, China's porcelain capital. This show explores the dichotomy between manufactured goods and fine art as each vase is made to certain, unalterable specifications, then painted by various Chinese artists. The St Olaf exhibit includes objects by four contemporary Western ceramists whose works have been influenced by Jingdezhen porcelains. It will also include historical pieces on loan from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Earth, Water, Fire is also part of the College’s 2011-2012 theme, Transformations. A catalog will be available in the gallery. For hours and more information about the exhibit and program, please visit the web link listed.
Contact: Jill Ewald Web Link: www.stolaf.edu/collections/flaten/
Tuesday, November 1
World Film Series Vinterland (Winter Land) 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Bawke (Father)
Vinterland and Bawke deal with current political themes, which give insight to the personal dilemmas of people on the run and refugees in Norway.
Contact: Kari Lie
Monday, November 7
Faculty Panel Arab Uprising Lecture Series 7:00 p.m. Holland Hall 501
"The Power of the New Political Imagination"
Professor Khaldoun Samman
Professor Samman is an associate professor of sociology and the director of Macalester College's Middle East and Islamic Studies program. He specializes in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and other global issues. He is also interested in the rise of Islamophobia in Europe and the United States. In his lecture Prof. Samman will focus on how the colonial and postcolonial experience has constrained the social and political imaginaries of the Arab, Turkish and Jewish political and intellectual elites and a short analysis of how the recent uprisings may help to open up new possibilities.
Contact: Ibtesam Al Atiyat
Tuesday, November 8
World Film Series Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven) 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin, 2007) interweaves the stories of two generations, transformed as they travel back and forth between Germany and Turkey, oblivious to those whose lives they touch.
Contact: Karen R. Achberger
Thursday, November 10
ARMS and AFA Speaker Series Tim Z. Hernandez 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Tim Z. Hernandez, an award-winning writer and performer, will read and discuss his fiction and poetry as a featured guest of the American Racial and Multicultural Studies and Africa and the Americas Speaker Series. Hernandez's books include Breathing, In Dust (Texas Tech University Press, 2010), Skin Tax (Hey Day Books, 2004), and the forthcoming Culture of Flow (Monkey Puzzle Press, 2012). He is the recipient of El Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, an American Book Award, the Zora Neal Hurston Award, among others. Informed by his interests in creative writing, physical theater, and murals, his performances have been featured in Los Angeles’s Getty Center Museum, the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts, Stanford University, and at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
Contact: Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
Friday, November 11
Lecture: Graham Schmidt: From Chekhov to New Drama: 4:00 p.m. Regents Hall 310
Transforming Russian Theater
Graham Schmidt, award-winning co-Artistic Director of Breaking String Theater in Austin, Texas will present a public lecture on the theater of Chekhov and how New Russian drama has transformed traditional Russian theater into something completely new. Contact: Marc Robinson
Thursday, November 17
Diversity Matters in Contemporary Families 4:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Linda Skogrand, PhD, is Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Family Consumer and Human Development at Utah State University. Her lecture is part of the annual Discovering Families lecture series, funded by the David and Karen Olson Endowment of Marriage and Family. This is the first of two events commemorating 100 years of family study at St. Olaf College.
Contact: Mary Carlsen
Tuesday, November 29
Dominic Taylor - Playwright 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
A playwright long associated with the best of black theater has written the play entitled I Wish You Love about the career of well-known entertainer Nat King Cole, which returns to Penumbra Theater November 18 – December 4. In this and so much of his work Mr. Taylor transforms history into the drama, bringing it alive on the stage. Presently as Associate Artistic Director of Play Development he also oversees the transformation of scholarly research into plays written by new and established playwrights.
World Film Series Playing the Victim 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
This film transforms the story of Hamlet into a Russian setting about a disaffected youth trying to find his and Russia's place in contemporary society. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov
Contact: Marc Robinson
Wednesday, January 4
Chapel Speaker Reverend Alan Storey 10:00 a.m. Boe Chapel
Reverend Alan Storey, Methodist Minister from Cape Town, So. Africa (see upcoming Manna and Mercy retreat to be held Jan. 6,7,8)
Contact: Jennifer Koenig
January 6, 7, 8
Retreat Manna and Mercy 5:00 p.m. (1/6) – 4:00 p.m. (1/8) Shepherd’s Hill Farm, Montgomery MN
Alan Storey’s experience as a conscientious objector during the South African Apartheid led him to begin a transformative ministry that examines contemporary issues of peace and justice through the words of the Bible. Alan, Senior Minister at Central Methodist Mission in Cape Town, is well known for his retreat ‘Manna and Mercy’, based on the book by Dan Erlander. Participants connect ancient texts with an impactful message about current events. This event is open to all St. Olaf students, faculty, and staff. Registration is through the Pastor’s office.
Contact: Christie Hawkins Web Link: www.aslowwalk.org
Wednesday, January 25
Lyric Theater Production Transformations 8:00 p.m. Urness Recital Hall
Conrad Susa’s groundbreaking two-act opera, Transformations,is based upon a collection of poetry by the same title by American poet, Anne Sexton that deals with three levels of the human transformative process: 1) The transformation of Grimm's fairy tale characters, 2) The personal transformation of the author and the American milieu, and 3) The insidious transformation to madness and institutional life. Themes within the piece include: understanding ourselves, mother/daughter relationships, divine madness, ambivalence toward the insane, the doppelganger inside us, need of women for each other, fear of and desire for death, selfishness of the artist, mother love and cannibalism, and the ambivalent relationship of daughter and father.
Contact: Jim McKeel
Wednesday, January 25
Metamorphomarathon 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Buntrock Commons Crossroads 4:00 p.m. – finish
The METAMORPHOMARATHON is an all-day, out-loud reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses, antiquity's most influential epic and its greatest collection of myths. In conjunction with Classics 129 (The Never ending Myth: Ovid's Metamorphoses), we'll be performing the 15 books of Ovid's epic in 15 different poetic translations. All are welcome to come for any length of time, to listen, and to take part in the performance; with nearly 12,000 lines of text and hundreds of different myths, there's something for everyone
Contact: Christopher Brunelle
Thursday, January 26
Lyric Theater Production Transformations 8:00 p.m. Urness Recital Hall
Conrad Susa’s groundbreaking two-act opera, Transformations,is based upon a collection of poetry by the same title by American poet, Anne Sexton that deals with three levels of the human transformative process: 1) The transformation of Grimm's fairy tale characters, 2) The personal transformation of the author and the American milieu, and 3) The insidious transformation to madness and institutional life. Themes within the piece include: understanding ourselves, mother/daughter relationships, divine madness, ambivalence toward the insane, the doppelganger inside us, need of women for each other, fear of and desire for death, selfishness of the artist, mother love and cannibalism, and the ambivalent relationship of daughter and father.
Contact: Jim McKeel
Friday, January 27
Lyric Theater Production Transformations 8:00 p.m. Urness Recital Hall
Conrad Susa’s groundbreaking two-act opera, Transformations,is based upon a collection of poetry by the same title by American poet, Anne Sexton that deals with three levels of the human transformative process: 1) The transformation of Grimm's fairy tale characters, 2) The personal transformation of the author and the American milieu, and 3) The insidious transformation to madness and institutional life. Themes within the piece include: understanding ourselves, mother/daughter relationships, divine madness, ambivalence toward the insane, the doppelganger inside us, need of women for each other, fear of and desire for death, selfishness of the artist, mother love and cannibalism, and the ambivalent relationship of daughter and father.
Contact: Jim McKeel
Thursday, February 9
Seminar: Frank Ackerman Purchasing a Planetary Future: The Economics of Climate Change 3:45 p.m. Holland Hall 501
Tufts University Professor Frank Ackerman challenges the economic analysis that advises inaction on climate change, and argues instead of an alternative understanding of climate economics that is compatible with the warnings of impending crisis that hail from the scientific community. Ackerman, senior economist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, is the author of Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, and Can We Afford the Future?: The Economics of a Warming World.
Contact: Rebecca Judge
Thursday, February 9
Lecture: Frank Ackerman Turning Nature Into A Number: 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
The Promise and Perils of the Economics of the Environment
Conventional benefit-cost analysis relies on our willingness and ability to transform natural assets such as endangered wildlife, clean water, and even human life into monetary values for the sake of making comparisons of relative worth. Tufts University professor Frank Ackerman argues that such as removing arsenic from drinking water should not be left to back-room bean counters, but instead should be made following informed public debate drawing on moral, philosophical, and societal considerations beyond market-based assessments. Ackerman, senior economist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, is the author of Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, and Can We Afford the Future? The Economics of a Warming World.
Contact: Rebecca Judge
Tuesday, February 14
World Film Series (Spanish) También la lluvia (Even the Rain) 7:00 p.m. Tomson 280
In the 16th century, the Americas were transformed by Spanish "conquistadores". In this film about making a film about the conquest, the 21st-century Spanish film crew is itself transformed when faced with the reality of the indigenous extras. Starring Iciar Bollaín
Contact: Gwendolyn Barnes-Karol
Wednesday, February 15
Chapel Speaker Urban Bush Women 10:10 a.m. Boe Memorial Chapel
Transforming Self and Community
Contact: Janice Roberts Web link: http://www.urbanbushwomen.org
Friday, February 17
2012 Social Science Conference Preparing for Life in Families Black and Gold Ballroom
Keynote speeches, workshops and panels discussing current trends in family life and policy in the U.S. and abroad and how these trends are influenced by political, economic, religious, and social/cultural changes.
Contact: Mary Carlsen
Saturday, February 18
2012 Social Science Conference Preparing for Life in Families Black and Gold Ballroom
Keynote speeches, workshops and panels discussing current trends in family life and policy in the U.S. and abroad and how these trends are influenced by political, economic, religious, and social/cultural changes.
Contact: Mary Carlsen
Sunday, February 19
Corpsopera 7:00 p.m. Skoglund Swimming Pool
the formula---combine faculty and students from art, dance, music, theater!
add water and 16 imaginations!
stir together for 48 hours of creating!
and VOILA!--- a final performance event of who knows what description??
Contact: Sherry Saterstrom
Sunday, February 19
Artaria String Quartet 7:00 p.m. Urness Recital Hall
Silenced Voices: The Shostakovich String Quartets, part 1
Through the intimate lens of chamber music, composer Dmitri Shostakovich grapples with Stalin and the soviet régime both in a larger sense (Jewish genocide) and a more personal one (murder of his close friends). His fifteen string quartets record the transformation from a struggle against death to a quiet acquiescence and portrait of what lies beyond this world.
Contact: Ray Shows Web link: www.artariaquartet.com
Monday, February 20
Artaria String Quartet Silenced Voices: The Shostakovich String Quartets, part 1 7:00 p.m. Urness Recital Hall
Through the intimate lens of chamber music, composer Dmitri Shostakovich grapples with Stalin and the soviet régime both in a larger sense (Jewish genocide) and a more personal one (murder of his close friends). His fifteen string quartets record the transformation from a struggle against death to a quiet acquiescence and portrait of what lies beyond this world.
Contact: Ray Shows Web link: www.artariaquartet.com
Tuesday, February 21
World Film Series Gimme Kudos 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
This film is set in Nanjing, an ancient city witnessing contemporary China’s profound social transformations. As revolutionary and Confucianideals clash with a young woman’s rights, characters undergo shocking transformations.
Contact: Luying Chen
Tuesday, February 21
Workshop Urban Bush Women Transforming Self and Community 7:00 p.m. Wagner/Bundgaard Studio One
A workshop by Urban Bush Women facilitators will be given for non-dancers that will use physical, primarily non-verbal, dance, theater and body movement techniques to transform a group of individuals into a more unified whole better able to take on matters of community relations , social justice and spirituality.
Contact: Janice Roberts and Bill Green Web link: http://www.urbanbushwomen.org
Thursday, February 23
7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Contemporary playwright, poet, fiction and screen writer best known for two her plays Long Time Since Yesterday, and Brown Silk and Magenta Sunsets. P.J. Gibson will be speaking about themes of Transformation in her drama and poetry. Whether she explores history or psychology, gender or generational concerns, creative or destructive impulses or race and class; whether she produces full-length or ten-minute performances, comedy or tragedy, P.J.’s work has transformed black theater’s representations of African Americans and especially their depiction of middle class blacks.
Thursday, March 1
Jonathan Naito - Minor Transnationalism 7:00 p.m. Heritage Room
Minor Transnationalism moves beyond a binary model of minority cultural formations that often dominates contemporary cultural and postcolonial studies. Where that model presupposes that minorities necessarily and continuously engage with and against majority cultures in a vertical relationship of assimilation and opposition, this volume brings together case studies that reveal a much more varied terrain of minority interactions with both majority cultures and other minorities. The contributors recognize the persistence of colonial power relations and the power of global capital, attend to the inherent complexity of minor expressive cultures, and engage with multiple linguistic formations as they bring postcolonial minor cultural formations across national boundaries into productive comparison.
Contact - Jonathan Naito or Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
Dance Concert Urban Bush Women 5:00 p.m. Wagner/Bundgaard Studio One
Transforming Self and Community
An informal Dance Performance by members of Urban Bush Women that will also include a showing of Africa Diaries, a work by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, set on the St. Olaf College student dance company, Companydance. Jawole will also be speaking live from Florida State University.
Contact: Janice Roberts Web link: http://www.urbanbushwomen.org
Monday, March 5
Cabaret The Transformative Quality of Illness 7:00 p.m. Tomson 280
Dr. Jon Hallberg (’98) is a family physician, who opened the Mill City Clinic near the Guthrie Theatre downtown Minneapolis. In the last couple of years, he has organized several cabaret quality programs organized around themes of health. Recent program titles include: Expressions of Cancer, The Essence of Family Medicine, Accessing the Heart of Health, and Achoo! The Common Cold, The Flu and You. Regarding a cabaret program on the theme of transformations, Jon noted, “I think that crafting a show around the transformative quality of illness might be the most powerful and most broadly-applicable theme. Going with this theme, we could use all kinds of diseases as examples: cancer, Alzheimer’s, leprosy, mental illness, etc. This well would be very deep. “
Contact: Dan Dressen
Tuesday, March 6
World Film Series (French) Les quatre cents coups/Les Films du Carrosse 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
(400 Blows)
New Wave director, François Truffaut radically transforms cinematic form and narrative as he explores the personal transformation of Antoine,
an adolescent misunderstood by his parents and teachers, who ends up in juvenile detention.
Contact: Jolene Jacobson Barjasteh
Thursday, March 8
Jonathan Naito - Minor Transnationalism 7:00 p.m. Heritage Room
Minor Transnationalism moves beyond a binary model of minority cultural formations that often dominates contemporary cultural and postcolonial studies. Where that model presupposes that minorities necessarily and continuously engage with and against majority cultures in a vertical relationship of assimilation and opposition, this volume brings together case studies that reveal a much more varied terrain of minority interactions with both majority cultures and other minorities. The contributors recognize the persistence of colonial power relations and the power of global capital, attend to the inherent complexity of minor expressive cultures, and engage with multiple linguistic formations as they bring postcolonial minor cultural formations across national boundaries into productive comparison.
Contact - Jonathan Naito or Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
Thursday, March 8
Panel Transformation Through Service 7:00 p.m. Buntrock Commons-Trollhaugen
Oles and the Peace Corps
St. Olaf College is a lealding source of Peace Corps volunteers among liberal arts colleges. In the spirit of the college’s Transformations theme, Oles who have served in the Peace Corps in a variety of projects will discuss to what extent their service transformed the lives of others, as well as their own.
Contact: Jonathan O’Connor Web link: http://www..peacecorps.gov/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/02/gwu-american-u-stand-out-in-pr.html?wprss=44
(Article on the exceptional level of St. Olaf graduates in the Peace Corps)
http://www.mnrpcv.org/
Minnesota returned Peace Corps volunteers website)
Tuesday, April 10
World Film Series After Life 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Set in a social service institution where deceased people choose one memory in their lives to take to the "Heaven" with them. Some of the actors are ordinary people whom Koreeda (the director) picked through the interviews.
Contact: Tomoko Hoogenboom
Monday, April 16
Public Lecture Professor Johan Galtung 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Peace and Conflict Around the World:
Some Theses on the Current Situation
Professor Johan Galtung will discuss peace and conflict in relation to recent political and economic changes in several areas of the world. After an overview of five major trends—the US empire falling, the West in general de-developing, the state system yielding to a region system except for the biggest states, the "Rest" developing, China recreating the world of +500-+1500—some details will be given about the states mentioned. These include: US inability to handle its crisis, Norway caught between the roles of victim and perpetrator, a possible solution for Central Asia, a possible solution for the Middle East, Brazil and the United States of Latin America, and the possible decline and fall of the communist dynasty in China.
Contact: Chris Chiappari URL: http://www.transcend.org/galtung/
Tuesday, April 24
World Film Series Amreeka 7:00 p.m. Viking Theater
Muna, a single mother in Ramallah, and her high-school son Fadi, come to the US around the time the US invaded Iraq. They encounter prejudice, but also new friends from unlikely places. Will their life be transformed forever?
Contact: Ibtesam Al Atiyat
Thursday, May 10
Chemical Expressions 2:00 p.m. Regents Hall 390
Chemistry students will transform ideas and principles from chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics into movements that express the kinds of motions, reactions and energies that molecules experience. Our project represents the transformation of science education from a model in whichstudents only use their minds to grapple with material to one in which their bodies and minds work in synergy to make sense of the molecular world.
Contact: Jennifer Klein
