January 2008
For Immediate Release:

FEBRUARY PUBLIC PROGRAMS

The City University of New York Graduate Center announces the following public programs to be held during the month of February at the Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street.

Through Friday, February 29

Life during Wartime: 2003-2007
Illustrations by Joshua Brown
(art exhibition)
The Graduate Center presents, in its Exhibition Hallway, more than 200 original works by historian and illustrator Joshua Brown from his Life during Wartime series.  “I began Life during Wartime on the first day of the Iraq War as a sort of visual political blog,” says Brown.  “In the beginning I intended to chronicle and comment on the impact of the war on the home front—and also to convey some critical views about the war, which at the time, were getting comparatively little public access.”  The drawings were rendered quickly, scanned, and then immediately e-mailed and posted online.  “I never thought this project would still be running more than five years and 270 drawings later,” says Brown, who is executive director of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning and adjunct professor of history.  The Exhibition Hallway is located on the first floor lobby of the Graduate Center.  Free, for information contact 212-817-7394.

Wednesday, February 6

Romeo Castellucci / Societas Raffaello Sanzio
(play reading & discussion) 6:30 PM
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presents this evening with Italian director Romeo Castellucci, a superstar of contemporary European visual theatre, and his new play, Hey Girl!  In this piece, Castellucci examines, through a language of gesture, the inner workings of the mind of a teenage girl. Free, for information contact 212-817-1863.

Thursday, February 7

Music in Midtown:  Music from the Gilded Age of J. Pierpont Morgan
Robert White, tenor; Norman Carey, piano
(concert) 1:00-2:00 PM recital; master class, 2:30-4:00 PM
For the first concert in its Winter/Spring series, Music in Midtown welcomes back renowned tenor Robert White for “Music of the Gilded Age,” a program saluting the Graduate Center’s neighbor, the Morgan Library.  Accompanied by Norman Carey on piano, White will perform classical and popular music from the time of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1837–1913, including compositions by Mendelssohn, Fauré, Stephen Foster, and others.  The concert will be followed by a master class with select doctoral students, which is open to the public to observe. Music in Midtown is presented by the D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts) Performance Program at the Graduate Center; free for more information, please contact the Concert Office at 212-817-8607, or visit www.gc.cuny.edu/MusicInMidtown.htm.

Monday, February 11

New Visions: Poets & Artists in Collaboration
With Wayne Koestenbaum, Amy Sillman, and Lawrence Weschler
(discussion) 7:00 PM
This program will highlight artistic collaborations between poets and artists, and will include a presentation followed by a moderated discussion. Featuring poet Wayne Koestenbaum and painter Amy Sillman, the co-creators of Amy Sillman—Works on Paper. Wayne Koestenbaum is Distinguished Professor of English, the Graduate Center, and the author of several collection of poetry, including Best Selling Jewish Porn Films, Model Homes, and The Milk of Inquiry. Amy Sillman's paintings have been featured in solo exhibitions throughout the world, including New York, Italy, and India. With Lawrence Weschler, former staff writer for The New Yorker and author of, among other books, Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences. Presented by the Center for the Humanities and co-sponsored by the Poetry Society for America.  Free, form information contact 212-817-2005.

Friday, February 15

CLAGS/Frameline Film Screening:
Last Call at Maud's (1993, 77min.)
(film) 7:00-9:00 PM
Some genuinely wild women take center stage in Paris Poirier's vivacious and historical documentary about Maud's, the longest-running lesbian bar in the US. This venerable San Francisco establishment opened in 1966, when lesbians were still very much in the closet. Maud's flourished throughout the '70s and '80s, enjoying an international reputation as a meeting place for lesbians and their friends, only to be shut down in 1989 as a result of the community's shifting priorities. Provocative personal stories of coming out, sexual politics and softball are mixed with flashbacks to the Hollywood gay bars of the '40s and the vice raids of the '50s. Last Call at Maud's salutes and preserves an era in history when bars were the only cultural institutions in the lesbian community. Presented by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies; free, form information contact 212-817-1955.

Wednesday, February 20

Memory and Truth: How Holocaust Deniers Distort History and Endanger Us All
(discussion) 6:15 PM
This lecture will focus on the activities of the United States Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad, including the advancement of Holocaust remembrance and the monitoring of how Eastern European governments are confronting their historical past. The speaker, Warren L. Miller, is Chairman of the U. S. Commission, appointed to this position in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush, and reappointed by Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush.  He has initiated and completed several important Holocaust-related projects in Poland and elsewhere.  Presented by the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies; free, for information contact 212-817-1949.

Thursday, February 21

Music in Midtown
Chamber Music Program: Leclair, Poulenc, Ravel, and Turina
(concert) 1:00-2:00 PM
This concert of chamber music compositions by Leclair, Poulenc, Ravel, and Turina features musicians in the Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) Program in Performance at the Graduate Center, which sponsors the series.  Free, for more information, please contact the Concert Office at 212-817-8607, or visit www.gc.cuny.edu/MusicInMidtown.htm.

Friday, February 22

NoPassport Conference
(theatre conference) 10:00 AM-9:00 PM
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presents this one-day conference focusing on a wide range of contemporary US, Latino, and Latin-American theatre and performance, exploring theatre making and the Americas from a variety perspectives, with NoPassport founder Caridad Svich and guests.  Free, for information, call 212-817-1863.

Monday, February 25

Sweet Karma by Henry Ong
(play reading & discussion) 6:30 PM
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presents a reading of Sweet Karma by Henry Ong, directed by Marcy Arlin, followed by a discussion with the playwright and Jack Ong, executive director of the Los Angeles based Dr. Haing S. Ngor Foundation.  Free, for information, call 212-817-1863.

Tuesday, February 26

The Lights of Old Broadway: Theater in the Interwar Years
(discussion) 6:30 PM
Various transformations in New York theater between the wars will be the subject of this panel discussion.  Participants include Harriet Alonso (City College and the Graduate Center), Claudia Wilsch Case (Lehman College), Jackson Bryer (University of Maryland), and Richard Davison (University of Delaware) who will examine developments in theater companies, such as The Theater Guild, genres, such as American musical theater, and the lives and works of playwrights, such as Pulitzer Prize-winning Robert E. Sherwood. Presented by the Gotham Center for NYC History; free, for information call 212-817-8474.

New Visions: Poets & Artists in Collaboration
With C. D. Wright, Deborah Luster, and Louis Menand
(presentation & discussion) 7:00 PM
This program will highlight artistic collaborations between poets and artists, and will include a presentation followed by a moderated discussion. Featuring poet C. D. Wright and photographer Deborah Luster, the co-creators of the poetry and photography collection One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana. C. D. Wright is author of numerous poetry collections, including Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil, Steal Away: New and Selected Poems, and String Light, which won the Poetry Center Book Award. Deborah Luster’s photography has been the subject of numbers solo exhibition throughout the country. With Louis Menand, Harvard University, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Metaphysical Club.  Presented by the Center for the Humanities; free, for information call 212-817-2005.

Thursday, February 28

The Shadow Army: Military Contractors, Citizenship, and the Law
(discussion) 7:00 PM
What position do military contractors hold with regards to international law and domestic accountability? This interdisciplinary panel brings together scholars from the fields of law, anthropology, and philosophy to consider the myriad issues surrounding the growing reliance on privately paid soldiers. Participants will include Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, University of Buffalo Law School; Paul Kahn, Director, Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights, Yale University; Avril McDonald, Lecturer in International Humanitarian Law at the University of Groningen.  Presented by the Center for the Humanities; free, for information call 212-817-2005.

Friday, February 29

David Trinidad: The Valley of No Return
(discussion) 6:15 PM
Poet David Trinidad will discuss his lifelong fascination with Jacqueline Susann's classic "trash" novel Valley of the Dolls, a behind-the-scenes roman a clef about three women in the "drug-filled, love-starved, sex-satiated, nightmare world of show business." Trinidad's most recent book of poetry, The Late Show, was published in 2007. His anthology Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (co-edited with Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton) was also published in 2007. Trinidad teaches poetry at Columbia College, Chicago.  This event is the keynote address for the conference "Talking Trash: Rethinking the Abandoned, the Recovered, and the Depraved”; for more information about the conference, please email talkingtrashconference@gmail.com.  Presented by the Center for the Humanities; free, for information call 212-817-2005.