Fall 2009 Events

Exhibition: November 11 through February 12, 2010
Reception: November 12, 2009
C33 Gallery     

At Close Distance, an exhibition of Columbia graduate student interdisciplinary work, explores how the concept of home reinforces the sense of self. It is the path of separation, the coming and going that creates and shapes identity and memory. As landscapes change, it is the primary sense of home, the anchor to our origins that inform where we’ve been and where we’re yet to go.  The exhibition is a coordinated effort between curators Laura Elayne Miller of IMAGe Unit and Eliza Fogel of the Graduate Student Advisory Board to represent and draw connections between the multidisciplinary work being produced by Columbia graduate students.

Dis/Believer: Reconciling Science and Religion
in Contemporary Art
Exhibition: November 16 through February 19, 2010
Reception: November 19
Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S. Wabash

Dis/Believer presents the work of contemporary visual artists who engage in the relationship of science and religion. The concept is inspired by the ever-deepening controversies regarding the co-existence of scientific theory and a belief in the divine. The first visual arts exhibition to contribute to this global dialogue, Dis/Believer gives focus to artists who are increasingly exploring these issues and expanding the conversation in provocative and enlightening ways. Shown through diverse media, the disparate sub-themes range from evolution versus creationism and morality in medicine, to faith and technology and the sustainability of the planet. Curated by Neysa Page-Lieberman.

Faith, Consciousness and Spirituality
December 9, 1 to 3 p.m.
600 S. Michigan Ave., 8th Floor Faculty Center

What is the relationship between faith, consciousness and spirituality? What do sages and spiritual teachers have to offer as insights into the nature and practice of faith grounded in consciousness and spirituality? Each presenter will also speak to the role of faith, consciousness and spirituality in their lives. Presenters Louis Silverstein, Paula Cofresi Silverstein.

Voice for the Actor III: Fact & Faith Performance
Theater Bldg. 72 E. 11th St
Dec. 10, 2009, 11:15 a.m., Getz Theatre
Dec. 14, 1:45 p.m., Classic Studio
Dec. 17, 4 p.m., Classic Studio

Students from Voice for the Actor III will perform final class projects using the theme FACT & FAITH. Featuring excerpts from plays by Anna Deavere Smith, Tom Stoppard and Shakespeare. Presented by the Theatre Department in conjunction with Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith.

For more info, contact Cecilie O'Reilly, coreilly@colum.edu.

E-mail Madelyn.George@loop.colum.edu to reserve your spot.

Presented by Art Activists at Columbia, with Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith.

In this exhibition, nine students from Columbia’s Interdisciplinary Arts course "Art As Spiritual Practice" share their final projects with the public. Each artist has created an individual artistic response to a semester-long, collective inquiry that, through the framework of studio practices, as well as theoretical and historical inquiry, explores the spiritual dimensions involved when modeling the world through various art practices and forms. With the encouragement of instructor Doug Stapleton, these artists have been guided into a deeper articulation of how their work stands in authentic relationship to a spiritual practice as a reflection of core values and beliefs. 

Participating Artists: Heather L.G. Bella, Hale Ekinci, Kristina Gosh, Laurie LeBreton, Colleen McGann, Raul Sanchez, Tamale Sepp, Kevin Valentine, Kelsey Wright

 
 
Koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO
January 31 through February 6, 2010,
Three Performances and FamilyDance Matinee, plus site visit

Korean-Japanese choreographer Koosil-ja Hwang’s newest full-evening piece, Blocks of Continuity/Movement – Live Cinema, is a dance and live camera work that tells three stories simultaneously. Each of the stories portrays lives that are rather mundane, yet particular in character. Digital scenery will be created in a 3D engine with an interactive system will detect the location of the dancers in real space, thereby moving avatar images in a virtual game space based on the dancer’s movements. As the piece progresses, the dancers/characters interact with a virtual world on stage and the seemingly autonomous stories and sites begin to intersect and overlap.
 
Collaborating artists include David Or (3D scenery production manager and programmer), Robert Ramirez (OGRE 3D engine manager and programmer), Joshua Goldberg (Max/MSP/Jitter expert, interactive software programmer, and performer), Geoff Matters (music composer, media advisor, and programmer), Melissa Guerrero (dancer and live processing coach), Koosil-ja (dance, music, song, story, and media direction), and Janelle Miau, Seun Shogunro, Alex Kao, Peter Blanco, Fabio Corredor, and Kara Frame (3D modelers).

 
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan
January 20 and 23, 2010
Two Performances at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance
205 E. Randolph Drive

Asia’s most highly acclaimed contemporary dance company may return to Chicago in 2010 with Moon Water (1998), choreographer Lin Hwai-min’s signature piece set to selections from Bach’s eternal Six Suites for Solo Cello. Moon Water, or Suei Yuei in Chinese, is a metaphor for two things:—a Buddhist proverb: “Flowers in a mirror and the moon on water are both illusory,” and a description of the ideal state of Tai Chi practitioners: “Energy flows as water while the spirit shines as the moon.” Performed on a black stage with white brush strokes reminiscent of ripples, mirrors hung overhead reflect the dancers in white billowy costumes. Towards the end of the piece, water seeps onto stage and soaks the dancing bodies.

 
Fair Use: Information Piracy and
Creative Commons in Contemporary Art and Design
Exhibition: March 8 through April 30, 2010
Reception: March 11, 2009

Fair Use is a multimedia exhibition that looks at how the copying, sampling and recycling of existing material is being used as a creative tool in contemporary culture. The exhibition sets out to foster discussion through the examination of how different contemporary artists, and designers are developing alternatives to the way we share ideas, images and objects. Curated by Brandon Alvendia and Justin Witte.

Layer Cake: Tales from a Quinceañera
September 8 through October 28, 2009
Reception: September 10 and September 15
C33 Gallery
33 E. Congress

If asked what the Quinceañera means, a celebrant will likely answer: “I’m going from being a girl to being a woman,” but in today’s America of mixed moral, spiritual and cultural messages, coming-of-age is increasingly complicated. Layer Cake features a tight assemblage of artists who capture the fantastic confusion of this fifteenth birthday ritual through personal stories–real or imagined–that speak to some facet of the tradition’s greater narrative. Explore the tension, delight, embarrassment, desire, joy, pride, confusion and beauty inherent in the celebration during National Latino Heritage month. Curated by Camille Morgan.

 
Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing from the Derge Parkhang
Exhibition: September 11 through December 5
Reception: September 11, 5 to 8 p.m.
Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts
1104 S. Wabash, 2nd Floor

Founded in 1729, the Derge Parkhang is a world cultural treasure, a repository of the cultural memory, literature and art of the Tibetan people. The Parkhang stores more than 300,000 woodblocks that are used to publish sutra, commentaries and histories of Tibetan Traditional Buddhism. This exhibition, officially sanctioned by the Derge Parkhang, consists of prints, artifacts, photographs and interviews collected in Derge, and represents the culmination of a three-year project by curators Patrick Dowdey and Clifton Meador. For more on the exhibition and related events, please visit our Web site. 

 
Biped - Ghostcatching Film Screening
Monday, September 14, 6:30 p.m.
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago
1306 S. Michigan Avenue

See dance and technology in effect by one of the most prominent group of artists, OpenEnded Group, currently working in the field of digital movement creation.  On Monday, September 14th, The Dance Center will screen BIPED and Ghostcatching. BIPED / 1999, provides the ever-shifting visual decor for Merce Cunningham’s dance of the same name. It is widely considered to have been a breakthrough in the integration of dance and technology. Ghostcatching / 1999, is a digital art installation that fuses dance, drawing, and computer composition. Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar created the visual and sound composition; Bill T. Jones created and performed the dance and vocal phrases. Seven minutes long, the piece is a meditation on the act of being captured and of breaking free. Co-sponsored by The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago and Critical Encounters Images of Ghostcatching can be found here.

FOCO 2009 Quinceneara Welcome Reception
Tuesday September 15, 4 to 8 p.m.
C33 Gallery
33 E. Congress, 1st floor

Join Latino Cultural affairs as we kick off this year’s National Latino Heritage Month celebration. Meet fellow Latino students, alumni, faculty and staff. This will also be the official call for work for the 12th Annual Columbia College Chicago Latino Student Short Film Festival. Mingle, enjoy authentic Latino cuisine, and experience Columbia the FOCO way.

WOMB-WORDS, THIRSTING
The Celebrated One-Woman Show by Lenelle Moïse
September 16, 7 p.m.
Music Center Concert Hall, 1014 S. Michigan.
Free

Haitian-American artist-activist Lenelle Moïse brings us WOMB-WORDS, THIRSTING, an innovative mix of womanist Vodou jazz, queer theory hip-hop, spoken word, song and movement that speaks boldly about growing up immigrant, working-class, politicized and queer. Presented by the LGBTQ Office of Culture & Community in partnership with the Institute, and co-sponsored by African American Cultural Affairs, Center for Teaching Excellence and the English Department. A reception and Q&A will follow, moderated by award-winning performance artist, sharon bridgforth.

On September 18, Lenelle Moïse will lead a “Radical Voice & Movement” workshop with Columbia College students. For more info and to sign up, please call 312-369-8594.

Latino Culture & Conversation: Visual Interpretations of the Virgin of Guadalupe
Tuesday, September 29, 12:30 p.m.
618 S. Michigan Avenue, 4th Floor Conference Room

The Virgin of Guadalupe has long been a cultural and religious icon throughout Latino America. Join Columbia College Chicago students, faculty, and staff as we discuss how her image has impacted Latino art and culture, including her influence in community murals, theater, and more. Our guest facilitator will be Professor Roseanna Mueller.

Critical Encounters Book Salon:
Studs Terkel's Hope Dies Last: Keeping Faith in Troubled Times,
With Rick Kogan and Jeffrey Lyon
Thursday, Oct. 1, 6:30 p.m.
600 S. Michigan Ave., 8th Floor Faculty Center

Join Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune & Jeffrey Lyon of the Columbia Journalism Department as they lead a discussion of Hope Dies Last, Studs Terkel’s 2004 oral history addressing issues of hope, faith and social action in post-9/11 America.
 
Hope Dies Last was the featured book for incoming freshmen in the Journalism & Television Departments. The discussion is free & open to the public. Limited numbers of copies are available from the Center for Teaching Excellence.

Die-In at Columbia College to mark the 8th anniversary of the start of the Afghan War
Wednesday, October 7, 4 to 5 p.m.
Sculpture Garden at 11th & Wabash

Since the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, at least 841 U.S. Soldiers have died and credible estimates put the civilian casualties in the tens of thousands. Due to an increase in troop levels on the ground and more funding for the war, 2009 has been the deadliest year for the war.

To draw attention to these casualties, the American Friends Service Committee and Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith will host a Die-In at Columbia College's Sculpture Garden on the SE corner of 11th and Wabash. Students and community members will assemble and at a designated signal, will lie down & “die” while students read or sing the names of the dead. Columbia students from various departments will be filming, photographing and audio recording the Die-In.

The event will take place on October 7, 2009-the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. The event will begin at 4 p.m. and will end at 5 p.m. Bring your body, a white sheet, and friends.

For more information, contact Eric Scholl at escholl@ colum.edu.

La Llorona: The Weeping Woman
FOCO / Intersections
October 7, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St.

Along with the Virgin of Guadalupe and La Malinche, La Llorona forms part of the female triad rooted in Mexican culture. La Llorona is a thriving oral legacy that can be traced to a folk legend that originated during the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. The weeping woman who searches for her lost children is a phantom who is heard but never seen. The phenomenon is reflected in song, literature, film and popular culture, and La Llorona's story continues to be re-envisioned and revised by contemporary artistic interpretations.

PRESENTERS:
RoseAnna Mueller, a Fulbright Scholar, teaches Humanities, Foreign Languages, and Women's and Gender Studies at Columbia College Chicago. She has written extensively on Latin American literature and culture.
    
Jesus Macarena-Avila is a leading Latino artist and community activist. He has exhibited his work both in the United States and internationally. He teaches "Latin American Art, Literature, and Music" at Columbia College.
    
Nancy Van Kanegan is a visual and performing artist whose work addresses personal and social rituals informed by myth and "magic" in an interdisciplinary context. She currently teaches in the Humanities, History, and Social Sciences, and Art and Design Departments at Columbia College Chicago.

“Film & Religion: Cinema and the Recreation of the World” - The Film & Video Department's Religion in Cinema class discusses the portrayal of religion & spirituality in cinema
Thursday, October 8, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
1104 S. Wabash, Conference Room 801A

Cinema has had a close relationship with Religion from early days of its invention. Many films have portrayed religious stories and characters, or were inspired / informed / influenced by religious mythologies and symbolism.
 
This student-run panel will explore several three different aspects of this relationship:
 
1. Who Should Play Jesus?
2. “Hollywood Takes You to Church”
3. “Transendence through Film”
 
The student panelists are Kevin Gsztola, Calhoun Kersten, &  Solomon Adekale. Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa will moderate.

For more information, contact Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa at msaeedvafa@colum.edu.

Pearl of the Snowlands: A lecture on Buddhist printing with Patrick Dowdey
Friday, October 9, 3 to 4:30 p.m.
Center for Book & Paper Arts, 1104 S. Wabash, 2nd Floor

Curator Patrick Dowdey of Wesleyan University will give a lecture on the Derge Parkhang (also called the Derge Sutra Printing Temple), its history, its prominent place in the unique culture of eastern Tibet (Kham), and its part in the revival of traditional Tibetan culture and religion during China's reform period.

Founded in 1729, the Derge Parkhang is a world cultural treasure, a repository of the cultural memory, literature and art of the Tibetan people. The Parkhang stores more than 300,000 woodblocks that are used to publish sutra, commentaries and histories of Tibetan Traditional Buddhism.

Educational materials on the exhibit will be available for faculty. Part of Focus China & Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith.

For more information, contact the Center for Book & Paper Arts at book&paper@colum.edu.

Chicago Calling Arts Festival: New Orleans-Chicago Event
Panel discussion / Performance
Sunday, October 11, 2009, 3 to 6 p.m.
Concert Hall
1014 S. Michigan Ave.

3 p.m.: “Film, Music, and Activism in New Orleans and Chicago” Panel Discussion
It has been more than over four years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region. Many amazing things have happened in New Orleans and elsewhere in the Gulf Coast region since then, but challenges still face us in terms of rebuilding. This panel discussion will involve people in two locations discussing music, film and activism in New Orleans and Chicago. The panelists in New Orleans will include Rene Broussard, Luther Gray, Chris Rose, Jonathan Freilich, and Jordan Flaherty. The panelists in Chicago will include Stan West, Robin Whatley, George Bailey, Arvis Averett, and Ted Hardin. Panelists in New Orleans and Chicago will be connected over the internet, using Skype.
 
4:30 p.m. Telematic Performance Connecting New Orleans and Chicago
Performers / program TBA

Greentown: The Future of Community
Wednesday and Thursday, October 14 and 15
1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor

GreenTown: The Future of Community is a one-day conference designed to help create sustainable communities. Mayors and elected officials, public works directors, park district directors, planners, developers, architects, landscape architects, builders, school leaders and others interested in seeing how a community can become greener, will gather on October 15, 2009, in Chicago, Illinois to hear from inspiring speakers, learn from been-there case studies and discuss actionable ways to make communities greener, healthier and more prosperous.

Columbia College Chicago and Critical Encounters are among the co-sponsors of this event. For a full agenda and to register, go to: https://www.greentownconference.com/index.asp

FOCO: The Brown Girls’ Chronicles
Theatrical Production by La Vida Bella Ensemble
October 15, 7 p.m.
Stage 2, 618 S. Michigan Ave., 2nd Floor

The Brown Girls’ Chronicles details the experiences of Latina women in a compilation of poetry, choral poems, chants, and monologues that reveal their relationship to the family, men, and their bodies, their struggles with spirituality, and the ways they resist invisibility and tradition. This collection of stories, voices, and songs based on race, ethnicity, gender, and colonialism is performed by the all-Latina Vida Bella Ensemble. This event is part of the Critical Encounters Fact and Faith series.

http://www.colum.edu/multiculturalaffairs

What’s the Matter With Kansas
Film screening with director Joe Winston
Friday, October 16, 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Film Row Cinema
1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor

Based on the bestselling book by Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter With Kansas? offers “an intimate portrait of the heartland conservatives who twice elected George W. Bush.” This film looks at the complicated political relationships between hot button social issues and economic/class interests, and how they play out in the voting booth.
 
Join us after the screening for a discussion for a Q&A with director Joe Winston.

Max Blumenthal On Politics, Republicans, and the Christian Right
Tuesday, October 20, 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave., 1st floor

Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for the Daily Beast whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The Huffington Post, and Salon.com. His new book, Republican Gomorrah, dissects the Christian Right in what the New Yorker's Hendrick Hertzberg calls “a riveting account of a religio-political subculture that's even weirder than you thought it was.” Join us for a conversation with a dynamic and controversial writer and filmmaker, moderated by Michael Niederman.

Latino Culture & Conversation:
Faith & Spirituality in Latino Cinema
Wednesday, October 21, 12:30 p.m.
618 S. Michigan Avenue, 4th Floor Conference Room

Join Columbia College Chicago students, faculty, and staff as they discuss themes including art, culture, and current events in both English and Spanish. All levels, from beginning to fluent, are welcome.

Creative Non-fiction Week Presents: Chris Rose
Wednesday, October 21, 6:30 pm
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor

Journalist, essayist and performance artist Chris Rose of the Times-Picayune, well known for his post-Katrina commentary, shares his insights on modern times and culture.

Visit the Creative Non-fiction Week site for more information.

Creative Non-fiction Week: John D'Agata
Thursday, Oct. 22, 6:30 p.m.
Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan, 1st floor

John D'Agata is the author of Halls of Fame and the forthcoming About a Mountain. Editor of two groundbreaking anthologies on the essay, The Next American Essay and its newly released companion The Lost Origins of the Essay, he has been awarded a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. He is editor of lyric essays for the Seneca Review and teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa.

 
Quinceañera: Spiritual Rite of Passage or ‘My Super Sweet Fifteen’ Blowout Bash …or Both?
Thursday, October 22, 3 p.m.
623 S. Wabash Ave., 1st floor, Hokin Annex

Inspired by the FOCO 2009 Quinceañera exhibit, a panel of artists will engage in an in-depth conversation about culture, gender, tradition, and religion. Featured speakers include artistic director/playwright Yolanda Nieves, Steve Caballero from Pilsen Community Christian Church and author Priscilla Mills.

Layer Cake: Tales from a Quinceañera
September 8 through October 28, 2009
C33 Gallery
33 E. Congress

If asked what the Quinceañera means, a celebrant will likely answer: “I’m going from being a girl to being a woman,” but in today’s America of mixed moral, spiritual and cultural messages, coming-of-age is increasingly complicated. Layer Cake features a tight assemblage of artists who capture the fantastic confusion of this fifteenth birthday ritual through personal stories–real or imagined–that speak to some facet of the tradition’s greater narrative. Explore the tension, delight, embarrassment, desire, joy, pride, confusion and beauty inherent in the celebration during National Latino Heritage month. Curated by Camille Morgan.

Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing from the Derge Parkhang
Exhibition: September 11 through December 5
Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts
1104 S. Wabash, 2nd Floor

Founded in 1729, the Derge Parkhang is a world cultural treasure, a repository of the cultural memory, literature and art of the Tibetan people. The Parkhang stores more than 300,000 woodblocks that are used to publish sutra, commentaries and histories of Tibetan Traditional Buddhism. This exhibition, officially sanctioned by the Derge Parkhang, consists of prints, artifacts, photographs and interviews collected in Derge, and represents the culmination of a three-year project by curators Patrick Dowdey and Clifton Meador. For more on the exhibition and related events, please visit our Web site.

Lucky Plush Productions
6 Performances & Family Dance Matinee
October 19 through October 31, 2009 

For Lucky Plush Productions’ 10th Anniversary Season, Artistic Director Julia Rhoads is creating a new evening length work with the working title Punk Yankees, which will explore the sampling and pirating of art to create work.  In this case the re-contextualization and “theft” will primarily draw from moments, movements, and images from Lucky Plush’s work over the past ten years. Rhoads may also appropriate more known choreography and pop-culture references. By challenging ideas of ownership and intellectual property, Rhodes will delve into the persuasive and popular idea that direct appropriation is a vehicle to make something new and transformative. In October and December 2008, Rhoads was in residence at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC), Tallahassee, FL, to conduct research and begin development of the project. 

 
La Pocha Nostra with Guillermo Gomez Pena, Violeta Luna & Roberto Sifuentes
Artists in Residence
Master Workshop: October 23 through 27
Performance: October 30, 7 p.m.

Columbia College Chicago, Critical Encounters is pleased to announce, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Violeta Luna, and Roberto Sifuentes in their  San Francisco-based “trans-disciplinary arts organization,” La Pocha Nostra as artists in residence for 2009/2010 Critical Encounters, Fact and Faith. Beginning on October 23rd, La Pocha Nostra will lead an intensive artist workshop on campus that incorporates and challenges ideas of race, gender, faith, and boundaries building into the Spring semester and then culminating in a group project presented at 2010 Gender Fusions. We look forward to varied application pool, from Columbia College students, staff, and faculty with community partners, and additional collaborators.

You can download an application by visiting the Workshop page. For more information, e-mail Dia Penning, Associate Director for Civic Engagement, Center for Teaching Excellence at dpenning@colum.edu. All applications are due by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23, 2009.

To kick-off the campus residency, La Pocha Nostra will debut, Corpo/Illicito: The Post-Human Society #69 on Friday, October 30 at 7 p.m.

By exploring the legacy of fear inherited by the Bush administration and the emerging culture of home, imagination and faith, this new performance questions not only what we believe but also how our beliefs are formed.

Please visit the Fact & Faith page or the Institute for Women and Gender for more information.

Copyright Criminals documentary screening
ITVS Community Cinema, with guest Brad Lichtenstein
Saturday, October 24, 2009, 2 to 4 p.m.
Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theatre
78 E. Washington St.

 

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Celebration
Wednesday, October 28, 6 p.m.
618 S. Michigan Avenue, 2nd Floor Auditorium

Join Latino Alliance for their 5th Annual Day of the Dead event. This traditional Latino holiday celebrates life while honoring and remembering the departed. Enjoy food, live music, dancing, and traditional and contemporary altars.

Critical Encounters Book Salon:
Into the Jungle: Great Adventures in the Search for Evolution
Wednesday, November 4, 1 to 3 p.m.
600 S. Michigan Ave., Room 400

Join Elizabeth Davis-Berg, Assistant Professor in Science & Math, and her Zoology students, for a discussion of the book, Into the Jungle, a collection of nine stories of evolutionary discovery. Special guest at the discussion is Dr. Peter Hess of the National Center for Science Education.

Is God a Mathematician?
November 4, 5 to 6 p.m.
Ferguson Auditorium
600 S Michigan Ave

For centuries, mathematical theories have proven uncannily accurate at describing—and predicting—the physical world. What is it that gives mathematics such powers?
 
Dr Mario Livio, from the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, will thoroughly review this question in "Is God A Mathematician?", a talk based on his recently published popular book. The talk will span such fields as mathematics, cosmology, physics, and the cognitive sciences, and will attempt to offer an accessible and lively account of the ideas of some of the greatest mathematicians and scientists in history, from Archimedes to Galileo and Descartes, and from Newton to Hilbert and Gödel, on up to the present day.
 
Along the way, he will discuss another question with which mathematicians, philosophers, and neuroscientists have struggled for centuries: is mathematics ultimately invented or discovered?

Evolution & Theology with Dr. Peter Hess
November 4, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave., 1st floor.

Dr. Peter Hess, of the National Center for Science Education, will discuss the scientific, historical, and religious implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution, in the year of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of the Species.

Dr. Hess is the Faith Project Director of NCSE, and an adjunct faculty member at Saint Mary's College, Moraga. Researching and teaching in the interdisciplinary field of science and religion for the past two decades, he focuses in his scholarly work on the interaction between science and religion, 1500-1900. In 2002 he was elected a member of the International Society of Science and Religion (ISSR). An engaging speaker, he offers stimulating and thought-provoking lectures and workshops. He is the author, with Paul L. Allen, of Catholicism and Science.

Screening: The Political Education of Maggie Lauterer, with documentary filmmaker Paul Stekler
November 9, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Collins Hall, 624 S. Michigan Ave., Room 601

The Political Education of Maggie Lauterer tells the story of a charismatic western North Carolina TV personality and bluegrass music singer who runs for congress without any political experience — and what she learns in the process. This story of politics in America comes from the 1996 Peabody winning series Vote for Me: Politics in America, directed by Dr. Paul Stekler. Dr. Stekler will present his film and then discuss what documentary filmmaking has taught him about the nature of truth, and particularly what he has learned about the role of fact and faith in politics over his many years as a documentarian and scholar in the field of politics.

Dr. Paul Stekler is Professor of Public Affairs and Professor of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas in Austin. His film credits include George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire and segments of Eyes on the Prize II; his work has garnered Peabody Awards and national Emmy awards—and the respect of the many students in filmmaking Dr. Stekler has reached over the years.

Cultural Studies, the 'Sokal Hoax' and Why We (Still) Need a Critique of Scientism
A lecture by Zack Furness, Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies at Columbia College Chicago
Tuesday, November 10, 5 to 6:30 p.m.Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash Ave.

In 1996, physicist Alan Sokal submitted a sophisticated-sounding, though thoroughly nonsensical, critique of quantum mechanics and the scientific method to the editors of Social Text: a publication largely devoted to critical theory and the interdisciplinary ‘field’ of Cultural Studies. Lacking any peer-review process at the time, Social Text accepted the article in good faith and slated it for publication in their special issue entitled ‘Science Wars’. On the day of its publication, Sokal revealed his hoax in Lingua Franca magazine and seemingly achieved his goal of exposing the alleged bankruptcy of both non-scientific critiques of science & technology, and the jargon-heavy theory associated with Cultural Studies scholarship. In the thirteen years since the now notorious hoax, Sokal has built an entire career around the incident, penning numerous articles and three books on the subject—the most recent is the somewhat ironically titled Getting Beyond the Hoax (published in 2008). More importantly, he has been instrumental at galvanizing academic and political criticism against Cultural Studies scholars, critical theorists, intellectual radicals, and so-called 'postmodernist' critics of science and technology. While not without their merits, Sokal's persistent attacks on scholars who interrogate both the uses and limits of scientific reason paradoxically come at a time when there is arguably more—not less—uncritical faith in scientific expertise, quantitative rationality, and an ahistorical, unspecified notion of ‘progress’. This is evident not only in the global marriage of science and capitalism, but more specifically, in the rise of multinational pharmaceutical and biotech corporations, the increasing hegemony of genetically modified food production, the proliferation of a US health care system that ranks below all other industrialized countries, and the maintenance of educational and political institutions that still fail to teach people how, and more importantly why, to think critically about the histories, uses, and applications of science and technology.
 
As part of Columbia College's Critical Encounters series on Fact & Faith, professor Zack Furness examines the ‘Sokal Hoax’ and its fallout in order to reframe the debate over Cultural Studies and to question the ill-founded assumption that Leftist politics, science, and a critique of science are somehow mutually exclusive.   

Representations of Islam and Muslims: What is truth?
Dr. Kim Powell, Professor of Communication Studies
at Luther College in Iowa.
Wednesday, November 11, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Ferguson Auditorium
600 S. Michigan Ave.

Dr. Powell will look at negative stereotypes and misunderstandings in general, and as spawned by 9/11 in particular. She will examine popular media representations and misrepresentations. She also will address questions regarding Islam as a religion and the role of gender in Islam, including cultural variations of Islam in Muslim countries.

“Trapped in the Creation Museum: Darwin, Creationism, and the Contemporary Culture Wars,” a public lecture by Steve Asma
Thursday, November 12, 2 p.m.
Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash Ave.

This lecture focuses on the legacy of Darwinism and the conflicts between science and religion in contemporary American culture. The presentation will be divided roughly into three sections. First, Professor Asma will take participants through an “intellectual tour” of the new Creation Museum in Kentucky, as a launching pad for discussing the latest debates between evolutionists and creationists. Second, it will set aside creationism per se, and turn attention to the debates surrounding Intelligent Design. And lastly, Asma will reflect on the implications of Darwinism for some of the other “big questions” of traditional religion; namely, ethics, immortality, and meaning.

Filmmaker Steve James: Faith, Hope & Dreams on Film
Monday, November 16, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.


Panel Discussion: “Evidence of Things Un/Seen: The Art of Reconciling Science & Religion”
Wednesday, November 18, 5 p.m.
Film Row Center, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor

This conversation will consider how issues of Fact & Faith figure in both the making and perception of art. The discussion will relate to and open out from the work within the Dis/Believer exhibition to explore the shifting perceptions of religion and science, as well as how the intersection of religion, science and art provides opportunities to reshape their discrete categories.

Panelists include: the Rev. Phil Blackwell, Chicago Temple; Matthew Friday, visual artist, faculty at Ohio University School of Art; Trong Nguyen, visual artist and curator, NYC; Lisa Schlesinger, Playwright, Dept. of Fiction Writing, Columbia College; Robin Whatley, Ph.D., Dept. of Science and Math, Columbia College. Co-Moderated by Tanner Smith, student, Film & Video, Columbia College, and Lisa DiFranza, M.A., Theology and the Arts, Andover Newton Theological School.

Presented by the Department of Exhibition & Performance Spaces, the Science & Math Department & Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith, in conjunction with the exhibition "Dis/Believer: Intersections of Science and Religion in Contemporary Art," November 16 through February 13, 2010, in the Glass Curtain Gallery.

Eschatology/Apocalypse
The Project Room | Interactive Arts and Media
916 S. Wabash, Room 111
October 29 through November 30

Part of the Critical Encounters 2009-2010 theme Fact & Faith, Eschatology/Apolcalypse will be an exhibition dealing with the issues of technology and the end of time. Often depicted in video games, science fiction and popular culture, the fantasy of the end of the world arises either as a direct cause of technology, aided by technology, or uses technological advances to depict these prophecies to us on a more direct level.

For more info, contact Terence Hannum or visit http://iam.colum.edu.

Critical Encounters: Fact & Faith Photography Exhibition
Thursday, November 5 through Friday, December 4
Reception: November 5, 5 to 7 p.m.
Columbia College Chicago Library
624 S. Michigan Ave., 2nd Floor Weisman Reading Room



CADRE in Concert
Friday, November 20, 7 to 8 p.m.
Sherwood Conservatory
1312 S. Michigan Ave.


History, Printing and People:
The Derge Parkhang and Tibetan Cultural Revival
Saturday, November 21, 3:30 p.m.
Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts
1104 S. Wabash, 2nd Floor
 

The Himalayan Book
Workshop with James Canary
November 21 and 22, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts
1104 S. Wabash, 2nd Floor

In conjunction with Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing from the Derge Parkhang.

My Favorite Conspiracy Theories
with Michael Niederman
November 23, 12 noon
Television Department
600 S. Michigan Ave., Room 1314



Emory Douglas Lecure
December 1, 2009, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave., Room 101

After working in a prison printshop while incarcerated as a teenager and more formally studying commercial art at San Francisco City College, Emory Douglas took on the role of Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, creating the group’s visual style and iconic representations of the Black Power Movement. Through the party’s newspaper The Black Panther, Douglas’s graphic work helped motivate the disenfranchised to action throughout the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Colette Gaiter has describer him as the “Norman Rockwell of the ghetto” portraying the strength and dignity found among even the most harshly oppressed.

This lecture is presented as part of the Anchor Graphics Scraping the Surface Lecture Series. It is free and open to the public.

Fish Out of Water
Documentary screening & discussion with filmmaker Ky Dickens
December 2, 6 p.m.
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash

Fish out of Water is a feature-length documentary film that explores the impassioned relationship between homosexuality and the Bible. Combining documentary techniques, interviews and animation, the film dissects the ways the bible is used, and misused, to justify condemnation of same-sex relationships.

On the Soul: Facts and Faith
Thursday, December 3, 7 to 9 p.m.
Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave., 1st Floor

The soul has traditionally served as a focal point for many religions. It provides a core notion of self-identity and personality, it is often characterized as a “spark of the divine” inside human beings, and it may go on in some form after death. Science has found little evidence for the existence of the soul, but that hasn’t diminished belief in the wider culture. This panel will discuss the traditional theories about the soul (e.g., is it a “ghost in the machine”? or, is it a mere function of brain physiology? Or, is it a fiction?). East and West perspectives will be discussed. And then an integrated, non-combative, science and religion approach to the soul will be considered.
 
Panelists:

• Dr. Stephen T. Asma is the author of six books and teaches courses on religion and science, and philosophy at Columbia College Chicago.
• Dr. Rami Gabriel, teaches "The Psychology of Consciousness," "Freud," and other mind/brain courses at Columbia College Chicago. He is also a musician.
• Dr. Tom Greif teaches “Self and Identity: the Mind Brain Problem” at Columbia College. He is also a social activist.

Inherit the Wind: Evolution on Screen
Film Screening and Discussion with Pan Papacosta and Gerald Adams
December 4,  5 p..m
Hokin Auditorium, 623 S. Wabash, Room 109

Join Gerald Adams & Pan Papacosta from the Science & Math Department for a screening of the classic 1960 film, Inherit the Wind, Hollywood’s portrayal of the famed Scopes “Monkey Trial.” The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and Darwin’s theory of evolution, as seen in science and media, exactly 150 years (and 10 days) after the publication of  On the Origin of the Species.