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January 9, 2001

UMBC PRESENTS HUMANITIES FORUM AND ESPACES SERIES FOR SPRING 2001

HUMANITIES FORUM

The Humanities Forum is a free series presented each fall and spring semester by UMBC's Center for the Humanities. All events will be held in the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery at 4 p.m. unless otherwise noted. For more information call (410) 455-6798.

February 7

"Student Research in the Humanities," a panel discussion by UMBC students and faculty members. Four UMBC students will talk about what it means to do research in the humanities: the inspiration to go further, the obstacles to be overcome and the satisfaction that the process of discovery provides.

February 28

Maryse Condé, Guadeloupean writer and professor of French at Columbia University, will discuss her life and work in the lecture "A Caribbean Writer: The Journey Home." One of the French Caribbean's most exciting and respected writers, she is the author of 11 previous works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novels, set in a world of colliding cultural patterns, explore myth and disillusionment in the evolution of Caribbean identity. Her latest novel is Desirada (Soho Press). The event is presented in conjunction with UMBC's Espaces Series (see below).

March 14

Arturo Madrid, Norine R. and Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, will discuss "Diversity and its Discontents: A Re-examination." Founding president of the nation's first institute for policy studies on Latino issues, Madrid is also a pioneer in scholarship on Chicano literacy and cultural expression. He is especially interested in exploring Americans' ambiguous feelings toward "diversity."

March 28: This event has been moved to 5 p.m. in the University Center Ballroom

Amitai Etzioni, university professor, George Washington University and founder of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, will discuss "Privacy: A Communitarian Perspective." Etzioni is the founder of the communitarian movement. He believes that the exclusive pursuit of private interest is a danger to the network of social environments on which human beings depend and is,ultimately, destructive to democratic self-government. The Humanities Forum is a co-sponsor of this Social Sciences Forum event. For more information on the Social Sciences Forum, visit www.umbc.edu/socforum or call (410) 455-2160.

April 4

UMBC mathematics professor Manil Suri will read from and discuss his critically acclaimed first novel, The Death of Vishnu (W.W. Norton) in a talk entitled "Balencing Mythology with Mathematics: a Reading from The Death of Vishnu. Suri, whose research in mathematics is now about to be supplemented with a remarkable first novel, will take time from his international book tour to talk about the balance he finds between his two disciplines. This event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery.

April 18

Renee Stout, painter, sculptor and multi-media artist, will present the Daphne D. Harrison Lecture for Spring 2001. Among the creative stimuli that lie behind Stout's art are the ritual objects of Africa and the empowering and healing agents of different spiritual systems. Her work is rich in both its physical texture and in its implications for human society.

April 25

Joe Tatarewicz, UMBC associate professor of history, will discuss "2001 A Space Odyssey: a Century of Vision and Reality." Using a variety of literatures - engineering, science, science fiction, film, etc. - Tatarewicz's illustrated lecture will examine the role that space flight has had in imaginationa and reality, and how each has influenced the other. The lecture is one in a series of events celebrating UMBC's new Certificate in the Human Context of Science and Technology, an interdisciplinary program which will begin in Fall 2001.

ESPACES SERIES

The biennial Espaces Series is a free series that examines the cultures of the French-speaking world, presented by UMBC's Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. This year's events explore the French Caribbean. All events are free and are held in the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery at 4 p.m. unless otherwise noted. For more information call (410) 455-2109.

February 28

Maryse Condé, Guadeloupean writer, will discuss her life and work in the lecture "A Caribbean Writer: The Journey Home." (in conjunction with UMBC's Humanities Forum Series - see above)

March 6

Historian Fritz Daguillard will speak on "The Recognition of Haiti by the United States: from Toussaint Louverture to Frederick Douglass."

March 13

Nina Clara Schnall of the University of California, Santa Cruz will discuss "Vodou and Evangelization in Haiti."

April 19 (location to be announced)

Mark Reid of the University of Florida, Gainesville will lecture on "The Representation of French Caribbean Immigrants in Contemporary French Cinema."

Posted by dwinds1 at January 9, 2001 12:00 AM