The Leading Edge

Events

Monday, May 2

The Triumph of the Human Spirit: From Auschwitz to Forgiveness — In 1944, at the age of ten, Eva Mozes Kor, along with her family of Romanian Jews, was taken to Auschwitz. Her parents and two sisters perished there. She and her twin sister, Miriam were spared, but only because they were used for experiments by Dr. Josef Mengele, the most notorious of the Nazi doctors. Kor will discuss surviving Auschwitz, the importance of Holocaust education and the value of forgiveness in reducing hatred and mass violence. 7:30 p.m. at LaSells Stewart Center, Austin Auditorium. http://holocaust.oregonstate.edu.

Tuesday, May 3

Close to Home: Eugenics in the United States – and at Oregon State — This panel will focus on the teaching and the popularity of eugenics and “scientific racism” in the United States, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and at Oregon State College. It will also address the question of whether Linus Pauling, Oregon State’s best-known alumnus, was a eugenicist. 7:30 p.m., the LaSells Stewart Center, C&E Auditorium. http://holocaust.oregonstate.edu.

Wednesday, May 4

Ben Buswell, an award-winning sculptor and multimedia artist, will speak and exhibit work at Oregon State University as part of the School of Arts & Communication’s Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series. Buswell will exhibit embellished photographs, mixed media drawings, sculpture and acrylic on canvas in the Fairbanks Gallery on the OSU campus in Corvallis May 2 through May 25. Today, he will give a talk in Fairbanks Gallery at 5 p.m. A reception will be held prior to the talk at 4:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Lauret Savoy—Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape — Lauret Edith Savoy is a woman of African American, Euro-American, and Native American heritage, who explores the stories we tell of the American land’s origins and the stories we tell of ourselves in this land. Her books include Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape; The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity and the Natural World; Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology; and Living with the Changing California Coast. She is a professor of environmental studies and geology at Mount Holyoke College. Sponsored by the Spring Creek Project. 6:30 – 7 p.m. reception; Reading begins at 7 p.m. Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center, 128 SW 9^th St., Corvallis.

The longest running off-Broadway Spanish language play, now in its 20th season, will be the focus of a public reading at Oregon State University. “La Gringa” is the story of a young woman from New York who goes to Puerto Rico in search of her roots by finding her extended family. Her over-enthusiasm for what she calls her “homeland” leads to an array of complications and comic dialogue. A cast of OSU students, faculty, staff and community members will present the reading, which begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Withycombe Lab Theatre. It is free and open to the public. Because of the set configuration, latecomers cannot be seated.

What Have We Learned About Genocide Prevention?  — Scott Straus, professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will discuss the proclivity toward genocide in the 20th century and the continuing problem in Africa and the Middle East. Among the issues that he will address is what, precisely, a genocide is, how to stoop them and the likelihood of genocidal campaigns in the future? 7:30 p.m., the LaSells Stewart Center, C&E Auditorium. http://holocaust.oregonstate.edu.

Thursday, May 5

The Little Gallery invites you to a reception for ‘Conversation Pieces’, a selection of prints using intaglio printmaking techniques.  The artist, Yuji Hiratsuka is a professor of  printmaking at Oregon State University. The reception will take place from 3-5 p.m.  The show will run April 25-June 10.  Gallery hours:  M-F, 8-5 (closed during the lunch hour).

Building the Case Against Perpetrators of Genocide  — Professor Lawrence Douglas is the James J. Garfield Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College.  He will examine how prosecutors at Nuremberg and later in the Eichmann trial built their case against the perpetrators of the Holocaust. He will also discuss the trials of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian who immigrated to the United States in 1952 and was later deported after having been accused of serving as a guard at various death camps during the war. 7:30 p.m., the LaSells Stewart Center, C&E Auditorium. http://holocaust.oregonstate.edu.

Friday, May 6

Anthropology Tan Sack Series — Asst. Prof. of Women Gender and Sexuality Studies at OSU, Dr. Mehra Shirazi, will give a lecture on her recent experience working with IMI, a global medical organization comprised not only of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, scientists and other healthcare professionals, but also of individuals committed to enhancing the medical, social, intellectual and spiritual well-being of communities in need. Dr. Shirazi spent three weeks with IMI in 2015 in Southern Iraq in her capacity as a health care worker and as a translator. The talk, entitled “My experiences working with the Imamia Medics International (IMI) Organization in a Southern Iraqi Camp for Refugees & Internally Displaced People,” will be in 201 Waldo Hall at noon.

Music à la Carte —  Asya Gulua, piano; Brooklyn Snow, voice. Noon, Memorial Union Lounge, Free.

Upcoming Events

Critical Questions Series — Licia Fiol-Matta, Professor of Latin American and Latino literary and cultural studies at the City University of New York, will discuss Chavela Vargas on Monday, May 9 at 5 p.m. in MU 104 (Journey Room). Chavela Vargas, identifying with the presumptively universal Mexican sound of the bolero ranchera, came to embody Mexico’s “queer singer for the nation,” and became everyone’s darling during the 1960s.  The lecture is free and open to the public. http://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/critical-questions-lecture-series

David Barsamian will speak May 10 at 6:00 p.m. in the LSC Construction & Engineering Hall in the La Sells Stewart Center. His lecture is entitled: “Saving the Planet.” Barsamian is the founder and Director of Alternative Radio, the independent award-winning weekly series based in Bouder, Colorado. He is a radio producer, journalist, and lecturer., and has also co-authored several books with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Edward Said and others. This event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the School of Language, Culture, and Society/Ethnic Studies and New Media Communications.

OSU Opera Workshop: The Blue Forest —Ogres with an appetite for children, witches casting evil spells, a sleeping princess in need of a kiss and a blue fairy who protects children from danger. Follow Red Riding Hood and Hop o’ My Thumb as they confront these treacherous woods in this multimedia Opera Workshop presentation, sung in English. Friday, May 13 and Saturday, May 14, 7:30 p.m., LlnC 100. Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Advance tickets available online only at tickettomato.com.

Awards and Honors

Horning Professor in the Humanities Anita Guerrini has won a grant from the National Science Foundation, for her project “The Role of Skeletons in the Development of Anatomical Knowledge.” This project examines making, representing, marketing, displaying and above all collecting human bones and skeletons between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The grant will also fund development of an open-access online database of early modern anatomical texts, which number in the hundreds.

Current Research, Publications and Creative Activity

Students from Dr. Patti Watkins’ Women, Weight, & Body Image lab will be presenting the following research project this week: Pham, H., Bauman, L., Gerber, M. R., Krieger, K., & Watkins, P. L. (2016, April).Thin privilege: Recognition and reactions. Poster presented at the 4th annual International Weight Stigma Conference, Vancouver, BC.

Instructor of bassoon Ann Kosanovic-Brown recently performed with the Juneau Symphony Orchestra in Juneau, Alaska as invited principal bassoon. The concert featured “Dona Nobis Pacem” by Ralph Vaughn Williams in addition to works by Copland, Hovhaness and Elgar.

Trombonist and OSU instructor of instrumental methods Mike Bevington will be the featured soloist on Gardell Simon’s  “Atlantic Zephyrs” later this spring with the wind ensemble at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Ore.

Director of choral studies Steven Zielke hosted and gave clinics to two choirs visiting OSU last week: North Salem High School  (Salem, Ore.) and La Grande High School (La Grande, Ore.).

Visiting assistant professor of music education Sandra Babb and current OSU music education students visited Portland, Oregon last week to participate in the Oregon Symphony Orchestra Link Up program. Link Up is a music education curriculum developed by Carnegie Hall and is geared towards students in grades 3-5. In this highly participatory program, the OSU students assisted in teaching the elementary-aged participants how to sing and play an instrument at schools in the greater-Portland area.