Monthly Archives: November 2009

Theatre of Witness presents ‘We Carried Your Secrets’

Students participating in the college’s off-campus study program in Northern Ireland have had a unique opportunity to work with Swarthmore Visiting Instructor Teya Sepinuck on Theatre of Witness productions at the Playhouse in Derry/Londonderry. An enthusiastic review has been written about the play in the Derry Journal, and you can read more and listen to a podcast with Teya Sepinuck at culturenorthernireland.org Caitlin O’Neill ’10 worked on the production last semester. Samia Abbass ’11 (PCS special major) and Sarah Brajtbord ’11 are working on the production this semester. Devon Novotnak ’11 will be working on a new Theatre of Witness production in the spring.

Teya320xTrue stories of silence, secrecy and healing.Theatre of Witness presents ‘We Carried Your Secrets’

By Eamon Baker

‘We Carried Your Secrets’ is a multimedia production which unites a group of fathers who are ex-combatants and who were on the front lines during the Troubles.

Together they share their shadow stories of the conflict, their reasons for actively joining their political group and of their transformation. In his review of this innovative production, local writer EAMONN BAKER says it’s a performance that ‘richly deserves nightly standing ovations’

Read the full story at the Derry Journal website.

News from Jamison 08

Dear professors,

I was planning on sending out an update on my adventures up here in Toronto, but I wanted to wait until I had the results of the Fall
Latin exams to report. It turns out that I passed both the MA and PhD exams on the first try, a rare feat in the department up here but nothing amazing given the rigorous training you gave me at Swarthmore. I have been studying Latin for what seems to me to be a long time (almost half my life, which is a scary idea), but I could not have passed without being able to translate contextually, and that is an ability that your teaching specifically fostered. At the very least, cramming before seminars was terrific practice.

I have spent most of the summer doing preparatory coursework,
palaeography in June and advanced Latin in July and August, but I also found time to join the department softball team, volunteer regularly at a local vegan non-profit restaurant, and win a few rounds in the Latin scrabble league. That last part is something you should definitely consider starting up at Happy Hours, as it is surprisingly fun and also great practice.

Toronto itself is an extremely hospitable city. After a year in NYC
it’s a breath of fresh air, although I guess I haven’t seen the
purported misery of the winter. I don’t believe it will get any worse
than the brown slush and wet socks I experienced for most of my
Manhattan January, though. I can walk to the big hippie market at
Kensington, where they have a lot of cheap produce, as well as several restaurant rows.

Thanks again for your assistance over these past few years, both in
class and during my application period. I hope that things have gone well at Swarthmore and that this new year has begun well. Let me know the news and I’ll do my best to keep you up to date in return!

Take care,
Jamison

What is happening in Honduras?

The Honduran Golpe and Obama’s Latin America: Cuba, the School of the americas, and the Hugo Chavez Socialist Revolution

Dr. Larry Birns

Director, Council on Hemispheric Affairs

SCIENCE CENTER 104

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12TH AT 4:30

SPONSORED BY STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY,

THE FORUM FOR FREE SPEECH, AND THE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES PROGRAM

Tweeting in Tehran: Lessons on How to Win (or Lose) a Revolution in the 21st Century

Guest Lecture: “Tweeting in Tehran: Lessons on How to Win (or Lose) a Revolution in the 21st Century”

Boys during the conflict over elections in Tehran

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

4:30 PM Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall

by Kouross Esmaili

Recent events in Tehran have revolutionized our use of technology. The city has become an unlikely site to maximize the instantaneous connection that the internet and satellite technologies provide. What was this moment following June 22, 2009 that has become known as Tehran’s Twitter Revolution. What does the recent political unrest in Iran tell us about our own uses of technology, politics, organizing and fighting for justice?

Kouross Esmaili is an Iranian-American filmmaker, producer and independent journalist whose work ranges from documentaries about Iraq, Lebanon and Iran to domestic work about the Jena Six and post-Katrina New Orleans. He has worked for a series of news agencies, including al-Jazeera, Democracy Now, Current TV, and Press TV among others. Additionally, Kouross won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Television Network Documentary from the Radio-Television News Directors Association in 2005 for his work on Iraq for MTV. Kouross is one of the premier voices covering the Iranian elections as well as a producer of the recently launched BoomGen TV, a website dedicated to ????ews for the internationally inclined.

Borderline Belonging: Religious Settlement, Neo-Nationalism and the Politics of Exclusion on the Israeli Frontier

Borderline Belonging: Religious Settlement, Neo-Nationalism and the Politics of Exclusion on the Israeli ‘Frontier’

a talk by

Tamara Neuman

Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Peace and Conflict Studies

Bryn Mawr College:

Thursday, November 19

4:30 PM

Science Center 101

The talk is sponsored by the Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Program in Peace and Conflict Studies and Islamic Studies Program.

Cultural Contestation, Visual Culture and Ethnic Conflict in the Contemporary World

Marc Ross posterThe Solomon Asch Center for study of Ethnopolitical Conflict

Presents a lecture by

Marc Howard Ross

William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor

Department of Political Science

Bryn Mawr College

Cultural Contestation, Visual Culture and Ethnic Conflict in the Contemporary World

To examine the dynamics of culture and conflict, we need to consider the narratives, metaphors and visual representations that frame a group’s worldviews in general and understanding of specific conflict events in particular. Group narratives and a society’s symbolic landscape vary in terms of their inclusivity/exclusivity and serve multiple functions in conflict as reflectors, exacerbaters or inhibitors and causes of conflict.

Tuesday, 17 November, 2009

4:15-5:30 pm, Thomas 224, Bryn Mawr College

Refreshments will be served

A downloadable poster is available.

Directions.

For more information visit www.aschcenter.org, or email aschcenter@brynmawr.edu

Come see MELANCHOLY PLAY by Sarah Ruhl Dec. 3-5, 2009

The Swarthmore College Department of Theater and Senior Company present

Melancholy Play by Sarah Ruhl
Thursday-Saturday, December 3-5, 2009
8 pm
Frear Ensemble Theater, Lang Performing Arts Center
Swarthmore College
Free and open to the public
For more info: lclark1@swarthmore.edu, (610) 328-8260

Tilly is beautiful when she’s sad. She doesn’t get in trouble with policemen when she cries. She goes to therapy and her therapist falls in love with her. But when she’s happy she’s more like a sweaty cow, and everyone falls out of love with her. Tilly’s world is a world of long lost twins, children abandoned in unspecified European countries, too many windows, and almonds. Fall out of love, fall back in love, come see Senior Company’s production of Melancholy Play by Sarah Ruhl.

Ruhl has written about Melancholy Play: “Melancholy in this play is Bold, Outward, Sassy, Sexy, and Unashamed. It is not introverted.”

Sarah Ruhl is an American-born playwright. Her plays include The Clean House, Late: A Cowboy Love Song, Eurydice, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). In September 2006, Ruhl was named the winner of the MacArthur Fellowship. She is also the recipient of a 2008 PEN/Pels Award for Drama. Ruhl saw her Broadway debut in 2009 with In the Next Room (or the vibrator play).

This production is directed by Nicco Moretti ’10 and Louis Jargow ’10, and features set design by Emma Ferguson ’10, light design by Dave Todaro, sound design by Dan Perelstein ’09, and costume design by Eleanor McSherry ’10. The ensemble includes Nell Bang-Jensen ’11, Samantha Friedman ’10, McFeely Sam Goodman ’10, Eric Holzhauer ’10, Chris Klaniecki ’10 and Brian Willis ’11.