Provided

An opening reception for "Then & Now: The Changing Arctic Landscape" is Jan. 23 at the Museum of the Earth.

Ideology at the movies

From Catholic teachings in “The Sound of Music” to the beliefs imparted by “Jaws,” “Titanic” and “The Dark Knight,” philosopher and critical theorist Slavoj Zizek gets to the heart of how the movies deliver and reinforce ideology and values in the 2012 documentary “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology,” showing at Cornell Cinema Jan. 23 and 25.

The screenings are co-sponsored by the Society for the Humanities. Zizek also engaged audiences in a critical exploration of cinema for director Sophie Fiennes in “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema” in 2006.

Also at Cornell Cinema: Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” with Cate Blanchett, Jan. 21 and 24, free to new transfer students with ID Jan. 21; Alfonso Cuaron’s space drama “Gravity,” with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, Jan. 22-24; and Hayao Miyazaki’s 1992 animated film “Porco Rosso,” a tale of a fighter pilot after World War I, Jan. 22 and 25.

McConkey’s new work

Goldwin Smith Professor of English Literature Emeritus James McConkey will read from his latest book, “The Complete Court of Memory,” Jan. 23 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Free and open to the public.

The reading is the first event in the Spring 2014 Barbara and David Zalaznick Reading Series, presented by the Department of English and the Creative Writing Program.

An acclaimed writer of fiction and nonfiction best known for his meditative personal narratives, McConkey began at Cornell as an assistant professor of English in 1956. He wrote fiction until the early 1960s, and retired from the university in 1992.

Published in December, “The Complete Court of Memory” is dedicated by McConkey to his late wife and includes a number of magazine-published but previously uncollected narratives.

He is the author or editor of 14 books, including “Stories from My Life with the Other Animals,” “To a Distant Island” and “The Anatomy of Memory,” and is the recipient of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters award in literature, a National Endowment for the Arts essay award, a Guggenheim fellowship and several other awards.

Information: creativewriting@cornell.edu or 607-255-7847.

Back from the South

The Cornell University Glee Club is following up a 10-city Southern sojourn with a Return-from-Tour Concert, Jan. 23 at 8 p.m. in Sage Chapel. Tickets are $12, $7 for students, available at http://www.gleeclub.com and at the door.

The ensemble’s winter tour of the Appalachian region and southern states Jan. 3-16 included concerts in Pittsburgh, Memphis, New Orleans, Knoxville, Atlanta and Richmond, and stops in Ohio, Kentucky and Alabama.

This concert, under the direction of Robert Isaacs, the Priscilla E. Browning Director of Choral Music, will feature music ranging from the Renaissance to American spirituals. The repertoire includes “Lincoln the Musician,” a setting of the Gettysburg Address commissioned by the Glee Club from composer Toby Twining; and selections on the theme of love and loss. The concert’s second half includes an appearance by the Hangovers, the a cappella subset of the Glee Club, and a number of traditional Cornell songs.

The Glee Club is the oldest student organization at Cornell, dating to 1868.

Change in the Arctic

The Museum of the Earth opens two exhibitions Jan. 24, including “Then & Now: The Changing Arctic Landscape.” An opening reception will be held Jan. 23 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The nationally touring exhibition, at the museum through May 12, features historic photographs paired with recent images taken from the same vantage points. The exhibition includes lessons in the science of climate change with animations of the ways thawing permafrost can alter the landscape, and new information on how researchers determine the temperatures in the Arctic of thousands of years ago.

The museum also hosts “In Nature’s Wake: Documentations of Detail” from Jan. 24 to May 13, with drawings by local artist Tim Angell inspired by 17th-century botanical art.

The Museum of the Earth and Paleontological Research Institution are at 1259 Trumansburg Road (Route 96), Ithaca. Information: 607-273-6623.