Faculty participate in 2nd annual Christwood Arts and Lecture Series
9/24/06
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University faculty members are again joining in the Christwood fall 2006 arts and lecture series at the Covington retirement community, 100 Christwood Blvd.
All of the events will be at the retirement center and are free and open to the public. They are:
▪“Southern by the Grace of God” (Sept. 26). Southeastern writer-in-residence Bev Marshalwill lecture on the influence of her southern childhood on her writing life. Marshall is also the author of Walking Through Shadows, Right Rain, and Hot Fudge Sundae Blues.
▪ “Fluoriano Trio” (Oct. 3). Music faculty members, Henry Jones, piano; Nichole McPherson, flute; and Andrew Seigel, clarinet, will share their musical talents.
▪ “Rational-Emotive Therapy and Stress Reduction” (Oct. 10). Rational-emotive therapy is as old as the ancient stoics and as current as cognitive behavioral therapy. Clayton Culver, instructor of psychology, will discuss how one can learn to live more rationally and actually feel more.
▪ “Divine Ideas: King David, the United Kingdom of Israel and Biblical Archeology” (Oct. 17). Psychology Department Head Matt Rossano discusses Finkelstein and Silberman’s work on the archeology of ancient Israel. “The lecture is intended to give the audience a humble view of David, Solomon, and the united kingdom of Israel,” said William Robison, head of the Department of History and Political Science. It also offers a vision of the seven B.C.E. Judean King Josiah as the motivation behind the myth of Israel’s glorious past.
▪ “Presumed Guilty: Bruno Richard Hauptmann and the Lindbergh Kidnapping Case” (Oct. 24). Michael Kurtz, Southeastern’s nationally recognized historian of crime, details one of the 20th century’s most controversial cases -- the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles and Anne Lindbergh’s 18-month old son and arrest, trial, conviction, and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. Kurtz will examine how he says authorities falsified evidence and manipulated facts to secure a conviction against a German immigrant. He also will question whether Hauptmann was made a sacrificial lamb to secure closure of the case because of Lindbergh’s enormous popularity and the political ambitions of New Jersey politicians.
▪ “It’s Alive! The History of Frankenstein from Mary Shelley to Boris Karloff to Mel Brooks and Beyond” (Nov. 7). The “undead head” of the Department of History and Political Science, William B. Robison, discusses the history of the Frankenstein monster literature, movies, and popular culture. Robison’s annual Halloween lecture, traditionally presented as the finale of Southeastern's Fanfare arts festival, returns with his usual mix of scholarship silliness, surprises, and sweets.
▪ “Colonists, Calumets and Yellow Corn: Perpetual Thanksgiving on the French Louisiana Frontier 1699-1762” (Nov. 14). Southeastern’s expert on colonial Louisiana, history instructor Charles Elliott, considers the season from a distinctively Creole regional reality more in keeping with the themes and tones of a favorite American family feast day.
Elliott says at the Thanksgiving holiday thoughts may return to conventional Pilgrims, pumpkins, and yellow corn traditions, but these images are pure New England, and more often than not, pure imagination.
▪ “Richard Schwartz & Southeastern Jazz Ensemble 2” (Nov.21). “Southeastern Jazz Ensemble 2 has earned a reputation as one of the area’s most popular jazz groups,” said Robison. The ensemble’s repertoire ranges from classic big band scores made famous by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and other giants to cutting-edge sounds of today’s most talented and probing arrangers and composers.
The ensemble recently participated in the 26th annual Alcorn State University jazz festival, featuring one of jazz’s most important legends, saxophonist and composer Benny Golson. Richard Schwartz, Southeastern’s director of jazz studies, has performed with the Boston Pops, the Turtle Island String Quartet, and many other noted ensembles.
▪ “All Too Visible: Politics and Art in Ralph Ellison and Albert Camus” (Nov. 28). Peter Petrakis, Southeastern’s political theorist, long interested in the uneasy relationship between art and politics, notes that art is dangerous, as Plato’s expulsion of the poets in The Republic long ago made clear. The editor of “Eric Voegelin’s Dialogue with the Postmoderns” and author of several articles on art and politics offers his latest analysis of dangerous art, which examines the politicization of two of the 20th century’s foremost novelists.
▪ “The Louisiana Purchase: The Biggest Real Estate Deal in the History of the United States” (Dec. 5). Edwin Brown of the History and Political Science Department faculty, will discuss the background of the Louisiana Purchase, the important issues it raised with regard to presidential powers and the nation’s security, and the effects of the purchase on subsequent U. S. history.
For additional information regarding the arts and lecture series, contact Robison, (985) 549-2109.
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