Things to Do, Oct. 17-24

So Percussion
Janette Beckman
So Percussion performs music by Cornell composers Oct. 24 in Bailey Hall.

Reading new writing

The Program in Creative Writing presents free faculty-alumni and MFA student readings this week.

The First-Year MFA Reading Series showcases the program’s new writers at four Friday events this semester at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, beginning Oct. 17 at 6 p.m. with fiction by Christine Vines and poetry by Korey Williams. The series also features Samson Jardine and Tess Wheelwright, Oct. 31; Aurora Masum-Javed and Lena Nguyen, Nov. 14; and Kirsten Saracini and Vincent Hiscock, Nov. 21.

NoViolet Bulawayo, MFA ’10, and assistant professor of English Mukoma Wa Ngugi will read from their recent works, Oct. 23 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall, in the fall 2014 Barbara and David Zalaznick Reading Series.

Bulawayo’s short story “Hitting Budapest” won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2011. Her debut novel, “We Need New Names” (2013), won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Etisalat Prize for Literature and the L.A. Times’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and Guardian First Book Award, and made several critics’ lists.

Mukoma joined the Cornell faculty in 2012. An acclaimed and prolific fiction writer, poet and scholar, his writings include the novels “Black Star Nairobi” and “Nairobi Heat”; a volume of poetry, “Hurling Words at Consciousness”; and short stories, essays and commentary for the BBC, The Guardian, International Herald Tribune and others. In 2013, New African Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential Africans.

He has two forthcoming books: “Mrs. Shaw,” a novel, and “Hunting Words with My Father,” a poetry collection.

Aloha to oil dependence

Former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle will speak about her state’s clean energy initiatives, Oct. 23 at 5 p.m. in B45 Warren Hall. A reception will follow.

“How an Energy Outlier Can Become a Role Model for Sustainability: A Case Study of Hawaii’s Clean Energy Initiative” is open to the public and co-sponsored by Cornell Plantations and the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

Lingle will explain how Hawaii transformed itself from the most oil-dependent state in America to a national and international leader in sustainable, renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, and how it will reach its goal of 70 percent clean energy by 2030. She teaches public policy at California State University, Northridge.

Staging women’s history

“The Mineola Twins,” a play by Paula Vogel, M.A. ’76, comes Oct. 23-25, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 to the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Flex Theatre. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. each day, with a matinee Nov. 1 at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $13; $11 for students and senior citizens, at SchwartzTickets.com, 607-254-2787 or the box office, open noon-4 p.m. weekdays and one hour before shows.

Vogel and David Savran, Ph.D. ’78, participate in a free “Performance Encounter” conversation, Oct. 24 at 4:30 p.m. at the Schwartz Center Film Forum. Open to the public; presented by the Department of Performing and Media Arts.

Vogel’s play explores women’s roles in American life through the eyes of “almost” identical twins Myra and Myrna from Mineola, New York. Vogel looks at what is expected of women, satirically asking what has changed for them over four decades. Director Beth F. Milles, associate professor of directing and acting, calls the play “an acerbic and witty, political, yet deeply personal piece of work” by “a darkly visionary playwright, who has always been ahead of her time, and right on time.”

Vogel is playwright in residence at the Yale Repertory Theatre. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for “How I Learned to Drive.”

Cheetahs and cheese

Wildlife conservationist and A.D. White Professor-at-Large Laurie Marker is visiting campus this week and will give a public lecture on saving wildlife sustainably, Thursday, Oct. 23, 4:45 to 5:45 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall.

“A Future for Cheetahs: How Biofuels and Goat Cheese Can Save Wildlife and Lead to Sustainable Development in Namibia” is free and open to the public.

Marker founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund in 1990. Working to save the cheetah and its habitat in Namibia and other countries, her holistic multidisciplinary approach to conservation includes education, research and working with Namibian farmers to improve livestock practices and decrease predation.

Her itinerary through Oct. 25 also includes guest lectures in the courses Leaders in Sustainable Global Enterprise and Introduction to Environmental Science and Sustainability, and a visit to Lehman Alternative Community School in Ithaca.

Book talks

Two Cornell faculty members will give Chats in the Stacks book talks this week. Professor of history Rachel Weil presents “A Plague of Informers: Conspiracy and Political Trust in William III’s England,” Oct. 22 at 4:30 p.m. 
in 107 Olin Library.

Associate professor of natural resources Steven A. Wolf discusses “The Neoliberal Regime in the Agri-Food Sector: Crisis, Resilience and Restructuring,” Oct. 23 
at 4 p.m. 
in the Stern Seminar Room, 160 Mann Library (Wolf’s talk was rescheduled from Oct. 1).

Chats in the Stacks are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase and signing. Information: olinuris.library.cornell.edu/booktalks, mannlib.cornell.edu/events-exhibits.

Composed for percussion

Contemporary music ensemble Sō Percussion will perform original and Cornell composers’ works Oct. 24 in Bailey Hall as part of the 2014-15 Cornell Concert Series.

The program includes “Music for Pieces of Wood” by Steve Reich ’57, “Music for Wood and Strings” by Bryce Dessner and two new pieces by current DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) students – Corey Keating’s “Audio Geometry (Pythagorean Triple)” for percussion and electronics, and Tonia Ko’s “Real Voices and Imagined Clatter,” inspired by the resonant vocal quality of timpani.

Single tickets are $15 for students;  $20, $25 and $28 for the general public, available at www.baileytickets.com.

Coming up in the Cornell Concert Series this fall in Bailey Hall: The Prague Philharmonic Choir, Nov. 2; and Tafelmusik’s “The Galileo Project,” Nov. 15.

Literary Luncheon

Poet and essayist Ishion Hutchinson, an assistant professor of English and the Meringoff Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow at Cornell, will read from his work at a Literary Luncheon, Friday, Oct. 31 at 11:30 a.m. at the Cayuga Heights residence of President David Skorton and Professor Robin Davisson. The event is free and open to the first 25 people to RSVP by Oct. 24 to special-events@cornell.edu.

A native of Port Antonio, Jamaica, Hutchinson’s teaching at Cornell has included the Creative Writing Program’s MFA poetry seminar. His literary honors include a PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for his collection “Far District: Poems” (2010), a Whiting Writers’ Award and the Academy of American Poets’ Larry Levis Prize. A contributing editor to Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art, his work has appeared in Poetry, The Common, Poetry Review (U.K.), Ploughshares, Narrative, Granta and The Huffington Post, among others.

 

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