Pygmalion is over, but there’s still plenty to do in C-U. Here are a dozen academic events coming up this month.
WHAT: Illinois Public Media/Independent Television Series Documentary Film Series at the Spurlock 2013–2014: The Graduates/Los Graduados
WHERE: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
WHEN: October 1st, 7-9:30 p.m.
ABOUT (from the Spurlock’s website):
Watch the best independent documentaries before they come to television! Illinois Public Media and the Independent Television Series present Community Cinema, a monthly screening series of independent documentaries followed by a panel discussion. This series is presented the first Tuesday of every month in the Knight Auditorium. Guest scholars and members of the campus and local communities will interact with the audience in an hour-long discussion after the film.
The Graduates/Los Graduados:
Pressing issues in education today are explored through the eyes of a diverse array of Latino and Latina adolescents from across the United States in this eye-opening documentary on the challenges facing both the students and their families. The Girls Hour of this two-hour series is part of the Women and Girls Lead campaign.
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WHAT: Committee Hearing on Student Debt
WHERE: Illini Union, Room 104
WHEN: October 2nd, 9–11 a.m.
ABOUT: This Wednesday, Illinois Senator Mike Frerichs, Chairman of Senate’s Higher Education Committee, will be holding a committee hearing on the issue of student debt on our campus. All students are welcome to attend and provide testimony on their own debt-related concerns. If you have taken out student loans to pay for your education, and you are concerned about your student loan debt, please consider testifying before the committee with a brief statement. This hearing presents a rare opportunity for students to make their voices heard, and to take an active role in the legislative process.
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WHAT: 9 Parts of Desire
WHERE: Studio Theatre, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
WHEN: October 3rd–13th
ABOUT (from the Krannert’s website):
Described by The New Yorker as “an example of how art can remake the world,” 9 Parts of Desire tells the stories of nine Iraqi and Iraqi-American women in the decades between the Persian Gulf Wars and during the US occupation. Whether a painter, a doctor, a communist, a wife, a lover, or an exile, each of these women represents extraordinary as well as ordinary experiences, which bring into sharp relief the truth of women’s lives in the shadows of war. This performance will last approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes and has no intermission. Strong adult content—for mature audiences only.
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WHAT: World of Science: The Quantum Information Revolution
WHERE: Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College
WHEN: Oct. 4th, 7:00-8:00 pm
ABOUT: Dr. Paul Kwiat, physicist at the University of Illinois, will be the first speaker in this year’s “World of Science” lecture series at the William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College. His presentation is titled “Something Quantum This Way Comes: The Quantum Information Revolution.” Admission is $1 at the door. More than a century after Einstein’s revolutionary suggestion that light is composed of particles, the quantum information revolution seeks to use the almost “magical” properties of nonclassical physics to enable new feats in information processing that would be difficult or impossible without the quantum advantage. Kwiat will discuss how quantum randomness, superposition, and entanglement can be used to realize perfectly secure cryptography, ultra-fast computation, and completely noninvasive “photography.”
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WHAT: That’s What She Said: 7 Women Who Will Blow You Away
WHERE: Colwell Playhouse, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
WHEN: October 5th 7:30 p.m.
ABOUT (from the Krannert’s website):
Seven incredible speakers, including four local women, will share their unheard, remarkable stories in seven-minute increments. The featured women, who range from age 20 to age 85, will bring their personal stories to the stage to encourage women to live fearlessly and embrace who they are. That’s What She Said was founded by Kerry Rossow, Casey Wakefield, and Jill Youse, who wanted to make a difference for women in the Champaign-Urbana community. A portion of the proceeds will benefit local women’s charities.
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WHAT: Vet Med Open House
WHERE: University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine
WHEN: October 6th 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
ABOUT:
This event is free and open to the public. No registration is necessary. Visitors who have been out of the country in the past two weeks will be asked to check in at the Welcome Tent before entering the Veterinary Teaching Hospital so that students can assess whether they might pose a risk of spreading a foreign animal disease. Visitors are not allowed to bring their own animals. Questions? Call the College Advancement Office at (217) 333-2761.
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WHAT: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
WHERE: Foellinger Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
WHEN: October 12th at 7:30 p.m.
ABOUT: Since Krannert Center’s opening, the CSO has performed more than 25 times and made some of its seminal recordings in the Foellinger Great Hall. This dynamic program led by music director and conductor Riccardo Muti features a work by Mozart, a ballet suite from Prokofiev, and a concerto by Hindemith with violinist Robert Chen.
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WHAT: Hispanic Heritage Celebration
WHERE: The Urbana Free Library
WHEN: Oct. 12th, 2-3 p.m.
ABOUT: To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, the bilingual programs Hispanic Heritage Day and Spanish Story Time will be presented at the Urbana Free Library. The Spanish Story Time program consists of storytelling, live music and art. It is presented bilingually in Spanish/English.
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WHAT: Lecture by Toby Beauchamp (Gender and Women’s Studies, Oklahoma State University): “Chemical Control: Hormones, Transgender Studies, and Other Transitions”
WHERE: Knight Auditorium, Spurluck Museum
WHEN: October 17th, 4 p.m.
ABOUT (from IPRH’s website):
This talk uses the critical lens of transgender studies to examine recent narratives of hormonal “deficiency” that, on the surface, may appear unrelated to the category of transgender. Showing how this purportedly new health concern is animated by longer histories of hormones as substances used to both identify and correct unruly bodies, I take up two major examples: first, the central role of hormones in metabolic syndrome, repeatedly referenced in medical studies as “the main threat for public health in the 21st century,” and second, the use of synthetic testosterone by active duty military personnel and by physicians exploring new treatments for Gulf War Syndrome. The talk proposes that transgender studies has something to offer and something to gain from looking closely at the use of hormones in these contexts, even in the absence of any explicitly transgender subjects.
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WHAT: University of Illinois Library Annual Book and Print Sale
WHERE: Marshall Gallery, East Foyer of Main Library
WHEN: October 22nd, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
ABOUT: $3 Bag Sale begins at 3 p.m. All proceeds help support the Library’s collections.
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WHAT: Lecture by Tara McPherson (Gender and Critical Studies, University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts): “Theory in the Machine, or, A Feminist in a Software Lab”
WHERE: 1092 Lincoln Hall
WHEN: October 22, 4:30 pm
ABOUT (from IPRH’s website):
How did a feminist film scholar trained in post-structuralist theory end up running a software lab? In answering that question, this talk engages various histories in the development of computational systems in order to argue that we need more humanities scholars to take seriously issues in the design and implementation of software systems. Humanities scholars are particularly well suited to help us think through such topics as the status of the archive as it mutates into the database, the possibilities for less hierarchical computing, and the cultural contexts of code. In short, this talk argues that neither theorizing media nor building new technologies is sufficient onto itself; we must necessarily do both.
As a concrete example of the relationship of theory to practice, I will look at the work our USC team has undertaken over the last decade, including the digital journal, Vectors, and the new multimodal authoring platform, Scalar. Our research has always been in direct dialogue with key issues in the interpretative humanities, including discussions of race, gender, sexuality, social justice and power. Can such a dialogue come to shape the practice of software design?
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WHAT: Gruesome, Gory, and Ghastly Ghosts and Ghouls
WHERE: Spurlock Museum
WHEN: October 26th, 2-3:30pm
ABOUT (from the Spurlock’s website):
This afternoon family event will feature multicultural ghost stories told in the Museum’s Auditorium. The stories will be most appropriate for children. The children will leave with bags of candy to start their trick-or-treating off right. The concert will feature local favorite tellers Dan Keding, Kathe Brinkmann, and Kim Sheahan, as well as tellers from UIUC faculty, staff, and students. All donations will support the Museum’s educational programs.
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We live near a major university and a community college. There are smart people that come here every week to talk to the general public about interesting topics. Here’s a sampling of the talks and events you can find in the not-so-ivy-covered buildings near you. These events are free and will fill your brain with yummy knowledge (and sometimes will fill your stomach with free eats).