Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell Library

Early Cornell students in a drawing class learned to sketch by studying plaster cast replicas of classical antiquities. The use of casts as a learning tool is the focus of a new Johnson Museum exhibition.

Lego Expo

One brick at a time, elementary school students from across the region will demonstrate some of humanity’s favorite places and ways to learn and make discoveries Jan. 31 at Cornell, during the ninth annual First Lego League Expo, from 1 to 3:30 p.m. in the Duffield Hall Atrium.

Ranging from ages 6 to 9, about 150 children on 29 teams will investigate, design and build motorized Lego models for this year’s “Think Tank” challenge. Teams were asked to think about where and how learning happens every day.

The resulting projects will include an island research facility with a library, science labs and an archeological dig site, built by the Lego Dragons team from Caroline Elementary School. From Lansing Elementary School, Lansing Build It Big is creating a research submarine model, and Creative Kids is building a spacecraft and rover.

Other teams’ projects include a state-of-the-art videoconferencing center, showing Lego’s power as a learning tool; and a motorized soccer player to demonstrate how sports can teach physics.

‘Cast and Present’

Drawing on Cornell’s collection of plaster casts of classical art – the brainchild of Andrew Dickson White – “Cast and Present: Replicating Antiquity in the Museum and the Academy” opens Jan. 31 at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.

The exhibition, on display until July 19, gives visitors an opportunity to envision Cornell’s cast “museums” of yesteryear, while asserting their ongoing value as learning tools in the digital age.

“Cast and Present” honors Cornell’s sesquicentennial by returning to the university’s deep roots in teaching from objects. It examines the origins of cast making, the early use of casts in drawing academies and the 19th-century phenomenon of assembling casts for study and appreciation, and questions the understanding of what is an original and what is a copy within a museum context.

See all new exhibitions at the Johnson at a free opening reception, Feb. 5 at 5:30 p.m. – the start of three months of extended hours on Thursdays, when the entire museum is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. through April 30.

In the Bear’s Den

Cornell’s Fanclub Collective presents a night of live music with four bands, Jan. 31, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., at the Bear's Den Pub in Willard Straight Hall’s Ivy Room. Free and open to the public.

The lineup features What Moon Things, Pinegrove, The Sea Life and Modern Hut. Food, beer and wine will be available. Government-issued photo ID required.

Book talks

Cornell authors will discuss wartime aid and global economics at Chats in the Stacks Book Talks this week.

Lourdes Casanova, academic director of the Emerging Markets Institute and senior lecturer in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, will present “The Political Economy of an Emerging Global Power: In Search of the Brazil Dream,” Feb. 3 at 4:30 p.m. in the Management Library at Johnson.

Professor of government Andrew Mertha discusses “Brothers in Arms: Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79,” Feb. 5 at 4:30 p.m. in 107 Olin Library. Mertha also teaches in Cornell’s East Asia Program and Southeast Asia Program, and directs the China and Asia-Pacific Studies Program.

Both events are free and open to the public, with books available for purchase and signing. Sponsored by Cornell University Library.        

White flight

Cornell Cinema is screening director Ruben Ostlund’s “Force Majeure,” Sweden’s official 2014 entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Jan. 30-31.

During a family of four’s ski vacation in the French Alps, an avalanche sends people scattering. The husband runs away, his wife calls to him, the snow stops short of engulfing their hotel – and the rest is heavy sledding, as the family deals with cowardice in the face of disaster.

Also showing: The 52nd Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour, featuring nine award-winning short films, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m.; Oscar-nominated shorts, Feb. 5 at 9:45 p.m. (animated) and Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. (live action); and “The Theory of Everything,” Jan. 31-Feb. 1, about astrophysicist Stephen Hawking as a young Cambridge University student in love, at the time of his diagnosis with ALS at age 21.

Negotiating nonviolence

Associate professor of history Durba Ghosh will discuss Mohandas K. Gandhi’s interactions with revolutionaries that helped to shape nonviolent political engagement in India, Feb. 4, 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.



Her talk, “Gandhi and the Terrorists: The Politics of Violence and Anticolonial Protest,” is the Society for the Humanities’ annual Invitational Lecture. A reception will follow at the A.D. White House. Both events are free and open to the public.

Looking at the ongoing dialogue that occurred between Gandhi and Indian radicals whose ideological commitments included espousing political violence, Ghosh suggests that “the line between violence and nonviolence was constantly being negotiated and reshaped within India’s anticolonial struggle against the British.”