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January 22, 2010

The Dresher Center for the Humanities Presents the Spring 2010 Humanities Forum

Distinguished Lecturers to Speak at UMBC
All Events Open to the Public

Contact: Thomas Moore
Director of Arts & Culture
410-455-3370
tmoore@umbc.edu

Note: You may view or download this release as a pdf file.

UMBC's Dresher Center for the Humanities offers a rich and stimulating series of lectures and panels for its Spring 2010 Humanities Forum, including Helene Cooper, the White House correspondent for The New York Times; Alan Cheuse of National Public Radio; and other distinguished speakers.

Thursday, February 11
4 pm, Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery
Valérie K. Orlando

Valérie K. Orlando, associate professor of French & Francophone Literatures in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Maryland, College Park, will speak on "Francophone Voices of the 'New' Morocco in Film and Print: (Re)presenting a Society in Transition."

Dr. Orlando will explore through literature, journalism and film the changes that are taking place in Moroccan society under King Mohamed VI. The works she presents bear witness to the transitions from traditionalism to modernity that Moroccans are currently experiencing in areas such as human rights, women's roles, and sexuality and gender.

Dr. Orlando received her Ph.D. in French Studies in 1996 from Brown University. She is the author of three books: Francophone Voices of the 'New Morocco' in Film and Print: (Re)presenting a Society in Transition (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2009), Of Suffocated Hearts and Tortured Souls: Seeking Subjecthood Through Madness in Francophone Women's Writing of Africa and the Caribbean (Lexington Books, 2003), and Nomadic Voices of Exile: Feminine Identity in Francophone Literature of the Maghreb, (Ohio University Press, 1999) as well as numerous articles and book chapters on Francophone literature from the African diaspora, African cinema, and French literature and culture. She has taught at Illinois Wesleyan University (1999–2006), Purdue University (1997–1999) and Eastern Mediterranean University in the Northern Turkish Republic of Cyprus (1996–1997).

Sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics and Intercultural Communication (MLLI) with support from the Dresher Center for the Humanities.

Wednesday, February 17
4 pm, Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery
Michelle R. Scott

The annual Daphne Harrison Lecture presents Michelle R. Scott, associate professor in the Department of History, UMBC, who will speak on "Street Scenes and Blues Lives: Bessie Smith's Chattanooga."

Dr. Scott will discuss the "behind the music" process in studying the childhood community and environment of blues legend Bessie Smith. Through photos, music clips, playbills, city directories, and oral histories Scott will flesh out the life of Smith as a street performer and explore recreational spaces as social protest for African Americans in the segregated early 20th century United States.

Professor Scott joined the Department of History in Fall 2002. She teaches and studies race and ethnicity in the American experience with emphasis on African American history, black musical culture, and women's studies. Professor Scott has contributed to the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project volumes 2-4 and The Columbia Guide to African American History Since 1939. Her book The Realm of a Blues Empress: Blues Culture and Bessie Smith in Black Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1880–1923 was published in 2008. Professor Scott was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty for 2005–2006. Professor Scott is also an affiliate faculty member in Gender & Women's Studies.

Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities and the Friends of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery.

Wednesday, March 3
4 pm, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, 7th Floor
Joseph Morin

Dr. Joseph Morin, associate chair and lecturer in UMBC Department of Music, UMBC, will speak on "Missives on Music in the Seventeenth Century: A View of Education and Values."

Music historians generally rely on scores and musical treatises rather than correspondence to trace the history of music. Professor Joseph Morin's analysis of the Lettre de Mr Le Gallois à Mademoiselle Regnault de Solier touchant la Musique (Paris: Michallet, 1680) provides both a broad and insightful view of music in Paris during the second half of the seventeenth century and glimpses into the cultural and social values of Parisian culture at the time.

Dr. Morin earned his undergraduate degree in Music from the University of Maryland, College Park, an M.Mus. and Ph.D. from from New York University, and undertook additional studies in Paris, Brussels, and London. In addition to papers delivered at numerous international conferences in the U.S. and Europe, his publications include articles in a number of national and international journals such as Notes; chapters in scholarly books such as Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music and Image in Paris, Bibliothéque nationale MS Français 146 (1998); Tudor England: An Encyclopedia, and the forthcoming study Lettre de Mr Le Gallois à Mademoiselle Regnault de Solier touchant la Musique (1680). Dr. Morin's awards include semi-finalist, The Erwin Bodly Competition for excellence in early music performance, Ensemble Le Rosignol, 1988; Alternate, American Council of Learned Societies Travel Grant, 1994; UMBC Arts and Sciences Travel Grant, 2000, 2001, 2002.

Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities.

Wednesday, March 24
7 pm, Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery
Helene Cooper

Helene Cooper, White House correspondent for The New York Times, will read from, discuss and sign copies of her book The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood. She will also share her insights about the Obama administration from her lens as The New York Times White House correspondent.

Journalist Helene Cooper fled her home country of Liberia as a young woman when civil war erupted in 1980. Now the White House correspondent for The New York Times, she previously served as the diplomatic correspondent and the assistant editorial page editor. Prior to moving to the Times, Helene spent twelve years as a reporter and foreign correspondent at The Wall Street Journal.

Sponsored by the Department of English and the Dresher Center for the Humanities.

Wednesday, April 7
4 pm, Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery
Alan Cheuse

Alan Cheuse of the Department of English, George Mason University, will read from and sign his book A Trance After Breakfast, a collection of essays that roams New Zealand, tramp around Bali, probe the Mexican border, and return to childhood memories along the Jersey shore. Cheuse will share his reflections on travel, and on his life as a writer, book critic, and teacher.

Acclaimed author Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio's longtime "voice of books," is the author of four novels, three collections of short fiction, and the memoir Fall Out of Heaven. As a book commentator, Cheuse is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Idaho Review, and The Southern Review, among other places. He teaches in the Writing Program at George Mason University and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

Sponsored by the Department of English with support from the Dresher Center for the Humanities.

Wednesday, May 12
4 pm, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, 7th Floor
Thomas T. Field

Thomas T. Field, the 2009–10 Lipitz Fellow and and professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, UMBC, will speak on "If That Language May Be Dying, Why Are You Studying It?"

Current interest in endangered languages provides an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which linguistics tackles the study of language. These are more varied than outsiders tend to assume and leave linguists uncertain about how they fit into C.P. Snow's "two cultures" schema of science and the humanities. Professor Field will provide examples from his work on the development and current status of Gascon.

Professor Field joined the UMBC faculty in 1979 and has been chair of his department (1992–96) and director of the Center for Humanities (1999–2005). A teacher of French and linguistics, Field was the UMBC Presidential Teaching Professor (1992–95), Carnegie Foundation Maryland Professor of the Year (1996), and in 1982 he shared the Glbert Chinard Pedagogical Prize given by the American Association of Teachers of French. He is the author of two books and more than two dozen articles, and his research has been supported by a number of organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright commission.

Sponsored by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences with support from the Dresher Center for the Humanities.

Admission
Admission to all events is free.

Telephone
410-455-6798

Web
http://www.umbc.edu/humanities

Directions
• From Baltimore and points north, proceed south on I-95 to exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to parking.
• From I-695, take Exit 12C (Wilkens Avenue) and continue one-half mile to the entrance of UMBC at the roundabout intersection of Wilkens Avenue and Hilltop Road. Turn left and follow signs to parking.
• From Washington and points south, proceed north on I-95 to Exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to parking.
• Daytime metered visitor parking is available in the Walker Avenue Garage for events in the Library, and in the Administration Drive Garage for other events.
• Online campus map: http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/campusmap

Posted by tmoore at January 22, 2010 5:19 PM