Monthly Archives: March 2014

Lecture with Emily Wilcox (3/31 @ 4:30PM, Kohlberg 226)

LECTURE: “Dancing Against Euro-American Imperialism: Socialist Culture, Third World Leftism, and the Making of a Chinese Body”

When: Monday, March 31, 2014, 4:30-6:00pm

Where: Kohlberg 226

Emily Wilcox, PhD, will speak on the common misperception that dance in Mao-era China was dominated by the importation and adaptation of Soviet ballet. The lecture will include an examination of historical sources in corroboration with Chinese-language dance scholarship suggesting that China’s pre-Cultural Revolution socialist period (1949-1966) witnessed Chinese dance artists’ widespread efforts to create Chinese dance styles that would serve as alternatives to foreign dance forms.

Emily Wilcox is assistant professor of modern Chinese studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD in 2011 from the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Her essays and articles have appeared in Asian Theatre Journal, Journal of the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, TDR: The Drama Review, and other venues. She is currently writing a book on dance and the construction of a national culture in the People’s Republic of China.

Lecture with Emily Wilcox (3/31 @ 4:30PM, Kohlberg 226)

LECTURE: “Dancing Against Euro-American Imperialism: Socialist Culture, Third World Leftism, and the Making of a Chinese Body”

When: Monday, March 31, 2014, 4:30-6:00pm

Where: Kohlberg 226

Emily Wilcox, PhD, will speak on the common misperception that dance in Mao-era China was dominated by the importation and adaptation of Soviet ballet. The lecture will include an examination of historical sources in corroboration with Chinese-language dance scholarship suggesting that China’s pre-Cultural Revolution socialist period (1949-1966) witnessed Chinese dance artists’ widespread efforts to create Chinese dance styles that would serve as alternatives to foreign dance forms.

Emily Wilcox is assistant professor of modern Chinese studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD in 2011 from the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Her essays and articles have appeared in Asian Theatre Journal, Journal of the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, TDR: The Drama Review, and other venues. She is currently writing a book on dance and the construction of a national culture in the People’s Republic of China.

Tamagawa Taiko is back again for the Cherry Blossom Festival! (4/6 @7PM)

TaikoTama2014This event is FREE, but seating is first come, first served! Please arrive early to secure a seat.

The world-touring Tamagawa Taiko Drum and Dance troupe return to Philadelphia for a week of awe-inspiring performances as part of the 2014 Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival. This group is guaranteed to thrill and amaze with their energetic shows of Japanese folk tradition. Expect to see thundering drums, intricate dances, and beautiful costumes. It’ll be sure to be an evening of heart-pounding entertainment and fun for all!

When: April 6, 2014 at 7PM

Where: Lang Concert Hall, Swarthmore College

 

Tamagawa Taiko is back again for the Cherry Blossom Festival! (4/6 @7PM)

TaikoTama2014This event is FREE, but seating is first come, first served! Please arrive early to secure a seat.

The world-touring Tamagawa Taiko Drum and Dance troupe return to Philadelphia for a week of awe-inspiring performances as part of the 2014 Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival. This group is guaranteed to thrill and amaze with their energetic shows of Japanese folk tradition. Expect to see thundering drums, intricate dances, and beautiful costumes. It’ll be sure to be an evening of heart-pounding entertainment and fun for all!

When: April 6, 2014 at 7PM

Where: Lang Concert Hall, Swarthmore College

 

Using Class and Race Awareness to strengthen Social Action

Please be aware of this important upcoming workshop on “Using Class and Race Awareness to strengthen Social Action,” to be led at Pendle Hill by faculty and friends of our Peace and Conflict Studies program!

Invitation to Pendle Hill Workshop on Action Groups Moving Forward

George Lakey, Ingrid Lakey, and Sarah Willie-LeBreton will be leading a workshop at Pendle Hill entitled “Using Class and Race Awareness to strengthen Social Action,” beginning the evening of April 11 and concluding at noon on April 13, 2014.

We hope folks from Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges will participate in this workshop. Commuters pay $230 for the workshop which includes meals. (Students at Swarthmore College can apply for up to $50 to support workshop attendance, through a form on the LC website.)

Here is a link to the workshop description. http://pendlehill.org/workshops/spring-2014/939-using-class-and-race-awareness-to-strengthen-social-action

Commitment to the entire workshop is required.

Egypt’s Constitutional Quagmires: Pursuing Reform in Precarious Times

From our friends in the Arabic Section and Islamic Studies:

“Egypt’s Constitutional Quagmires: Pursuing Reform in Precarious Times.”

Tamer Nagy Mahmoud

Monday, March 31 at 4:30PM

Science Center 101

Swarthmore College

egypt_nasser_nouri_cc_1-2011

In this talk Tamer Nagy Mahmoud will discuss Egypt’s present crisis from the perspective of constitutional law. Tamer spent much of the last few years advising on the drafting of the Egyptian constitution. His talk will give insight into important legal, social, cultural, and religious debates in Egyptian society that were deliberated in the process of writing the constitution.

Tamer Nagy Mahmoud is an attorney at the international law firm of White & Case LLP in Washington, DC, focused on international disputes, competition law, and investment funds. For the past two years, he was on secondment in Egypt with the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), where he was advising civil society on constitutional and legislative reforms during the democratic transi tion.

Mr. Mahmoud is also a founding member of Sheraa – The Independent Association for Legal Support in Egypt – and a member of the Egyptian-American Rule of Law Association, a group of Egyptian-American attorneys in the United States providing counsel in the rule of law field to the legal community in Egypt. His previous experiences in legal reform include the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the American University of Washington.

Sponsored by the Arabic Section (Modern Languages) and Islamic Studies

 

Honors Directing Thesis: LEX & GOLDALINE: A MIRROR FUGUE IN THREE ACTS (4/11 – 4/13)

LEX&GOLDALINEposter2The Department of Theater at Swarthmore College presents an Honors Directing thesis, LEX & GOLDALINE: A MIRROR FUGUE IN THREE ACTS, conceived and directed by Swift Shuker.

A devised work, LEX & GOLDALINE, is at once a peaceful meditation on home and the creation of families, as well as a disorienting deconstruction of linear space and time. The theater is turned into a house, and each audience member follows one of two corridors into one of two rooms. They watch people live in this house, small and complex moments of love. Sometimes time goes forwards, sometimes backwards. Sometimes, time stops and expands and sings a song. Everyone sees the same show, just not in the same order. Everyone is in the same house, but the house is larger on the inside than on the outside. Throughout this dilation of spacetime, two sisters, Lex and Goldaline, discover sex.

LEX & GOLDALINE is a nonlinear, quiet, and ambitious exploration of intimacy, in its infinite complexity, and the limitless storytelling of the touch of another’s hand.

WHEN: April 11th at 7PM and 9PM
April 12th at 2PM, 7PM and 9PM
April 13th at 1PM and 3PM

Seating will be limited.  First come, first served.

LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater

The Subtlety of Contemporary Racism: Implications for Intergroup Perceptions, Interaction, and Policy

The Subtlety of Contemporary Racism: Implications for Intergroup Perceptions, Interaction, and Policy

A lecture by Jack Dovidio. Dovidio is the Carl Iver Hovland Professor of Psychology at Yale University

Thursday, April 3, 2014

4:30-6:00 p.m.

Science Center 101

Swarthmore College (map)

Dr. Dovidio’s presentation will examine the nature of contemporary racism and explore how subtle, often unintentional bias creates intergroup misunderstanding, erodes trust, and contributes to racial mistrust and disparities. The implications for intervention and policy will also be discussed.

DovidioJack Dovidio is the Carl Iver Hovland Professor of Psychology at Yale University and former Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Colgate University. His work centers around issues of social power and social relations, both between groups and between individuals. He explores both conscious (explicit) and unconscious (implicit) influences on how people think about, feel about, and behave toward others based on group membership. He continues to conduct research on aversive racism, a contemporary subtle form of prejudice, and on techniques for reducing conscious and unconscious biases.

Sponsored by the Department of Psychology and the Office of the President

Practicing Impolite Conversations: Talking About Race, Religion, Politics, and Everything Else

The final, culminating event of the Critical Examinations of “Community” series will be a lecture and public discussion led by the remarkable anthropologist John L. Jackson, Richard Perry Professor of Communication, Africana Studies and Anthropology; University of Pennsylvania.

Wednesday March 26, 2014 at 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Science Center 101

Swarthmore College (map)

JacksonA cultural anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, John L. Jackson, Jr. has published widely on race and class in the contemporary U.S. His recent books include: Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity and Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness.

Dr. Jackson is an excellent speaker and a skilled leader and moderator of open discussions. His visit is certain to impart ideas and inspiration for our own explorations and struggles to improve campus life for all at Swarthmore College.

We hope you will help spread the word and join us for this exciting event!

RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

This program has been made possible with funding and administrative support from the Aydelotte Foundation for the Advancement of the Liberal Arts (formerly Institute for the Liberal Arts).

Peace in the Balance: The Struggle for Truth and Justice in El Salvador

A presentation by SHARE El Salvador, Tutela Legal María Julia Hernandez, and the Pro-Historical Memory Commission

Wednesday, March 26, 2014 4:30 p.m.

Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall

Swarthmore College (map)

El_Salvador

Twenty-two years after the Peace Accords and U.N. Truth Commission Report, Salvadorans struggle to build true peace in a society steeped in violence and impunity. While victims of human rights violations have worked tirelessly for truth, justice, and reparations, accompanied by the Pro-Historical Memory Commission, the struggle has been uphill all the way.

The last six months have brought an ongoing series of chilling and exciting surprises for the Salvadoran human rights movement. In September, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court admitted a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the 1993 Amnesty Law, which could open the door to justice for human rights violations committed during the Salvadoran civil war. Just two weeks later, the Archbishop of San Salvador suddenly closed Tutela Legal, the Archdiocese´s human rights legal aid office.

Join Latin American Studies for presentations by Wilfredo Medrano, a lawyer with Tutela Legal for over 20 years who accompanied the victims of the El Mozote massacre and many other cases of human rights violations; and Bethany Loberg, a native of Salem, Oregon, has lived and worked in El Salvador for over four years and currently accompanies SHARE’s human rights work.

Sponsored by Latin American Studies.

El_Salvador_mural