Downtown celebration, community walk

Ithaca celebrates students at CU Downtown, the annual welcome event for new and returning students and the greater Ithaca community. The event, free and open to the public, is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 1, 1-5 p.m. on the Ithaca Commons.

Fifteen student groups will perform, including the Big Red Marching Band, Cornell Bhangra, Absolute Zero Breakdance Club, Yamatai and the Original Cornell Syncopators. The event features a scavenger hunt and student discounts among a variety of activities at retail stores and restaurants.

Free TCAT shuttles will run from North Campus to The Commons all afternoon and residence halls are organizing walking and bus groups. The event is organized by the Tatkon Center, a support and resource center for first-year students, in cooperation with the Office of Community Relations, the Downtown Ithaca Alliance and TCAT.

Cornell also joins the second annual “Ithaca NY: Leading with Love” community walk, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 7:30-8:30 a.m. from Stewart Park to Ithaca High School, where President Martha E. Pollack, ICSD Superintendent Luvelle Brown, Ithaca College President Shirley Collado, TC3 President Orinthia Montague and others will offer remarks.

Loving the bomb

Depictions of Cold War paranoia, propaganda and the culture and technology of nuclear weapons feature in Cornell Cinema’s “Nuclear Visions” series through Sept. 12. In conjunction with the symposium “Paths to Peace” and other related events, the series is cosponsored with the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Screenings in Willard Straight Theatre include Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy “Dr. Strangelove” (1964), Aug. 30-31; a digital restoration of the 1982 cult classic “The Atomic Café” Sept. 7 and 9, introduced by professor of science and technology studies Judith Reppy, Sept. 7 at 7 p.m.; and a free screening of the 2016 psychedelic rock-scored documentary “The Bomb,” introduced by professor of government Matthew Evangelista, Sept. 12 at 9:20 p.m.

Also showing: “The Gospel According to André,” a new documentary screening Sept. 6, kicks off the Fashion Forward film series, cosponsored with the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design. Along with “McQueen” (Oct. 11 and 13) and the feature film “Saint Laurent” (Nov. 4), the series provides intimate portraits of iconic designers and tastemakers, as well as recent comedy features steeped in the world of high fashion: “Ocean’s Eight” (Sept. 7-8), set at the Met Gala; and “Crazy Rich Asians” (Nov. 2-3).

Refugee politics and policy

María Cristina García discusses U.S. refugee policy in a Chats in the Stacks book talk, Sept. 5 at 4:30 p.m. in 107 Olin Library. The talk is free and open to the public.

The actors and interests, including contentious domestic politics and national security concerns, that have shaped policy since 1989 are detailed in García’s recent book, “The Refugee Challenge in Post-Cold War America” (2017).

The Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies at Cornell, García teaches in the Department of History and the Latina/o Studies Program. She is the recipient of a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship and a 2013-14 Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and served as president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society from 2015 to 2018.

Farm fresh goods

The Farmers’ Market at Cornell is on campus every Thursday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the Ag Quad through Oct. 25.

Vendors of produce, plants and farm products this fall include Dilmun Hill Student Organic Farm, HoneyRock Farm, Nook & Cranny Farm and The Magic Garden.

Lunch items are available at the market from On the Street Pitas, Nucharee Thai Food, Hudson Cake Studio, Dennis’ Homemade Ice Cream and Tibetan Momo Bar. Picnic blanket access is also available. Check the market’s event page for updated vendor listings.

Harvest “Moon”

The Fall Opening Reception at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Sept. 6 from 5-7 p.m., celebrates new exhibitions with art activities, a lecture, free refreshments and a cash bar. The reception is free and open to the public.

Artist Sarah Brayer, whose “Oceanic Moon” is on view at the Johnson for the first time as part of the exhibition “Moon,” will give the Stoikov Lecture on Asian Art at 5:15 p.m. in the Wing Lecture Room. “Moon,” through Jan. 13, 2019, also features paintings, poetry, prints and decorative arts from the museum’s collection, exploring lunar themes in Japanese, Korean and Chinese art.

The exhibition “Object Lessons: Photography at Cornell, 1869-2018” opens Sept. 6 and continues through Dec. 23, with images from three Cornell repositories: the Johnson, the library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections and the Kheel Center.

Also on display: Howardena Pindell’s 1980 video “Free, White and 21,” through Dec. 23, in which the artist appears in whiteface to convey the often-invisible racism confronting black women; “The Touch of the Butterfly: Whistler and His Influence,” through Dec. 16; “The Character of Characters,” through Dec. 23, A.D. White Professor-at-Large Xu Bing’s playful and poetic five-channel animation, included in the Cornell Council for the Arts 2018 Biennial; and Leo Villareal’s “Cosmos,” ongoing.

Admission to the museum is free, Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursdays until 7:30 p.m. through Nov. 29.

Baroque organists gather

Organists from around the world will perform music from the 17th-century golden age of organ repertoire to the present, at the Organ in the Global Baroque Conference and Concert Festival, Sept. 6-8 on campus.

Cosponsored by the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies and the Department of Music, the conference and concerts will feature Cornell’s early-18th-century-style baroque organ in Anabel Taylor Chapel, the 1746 Neapolitan organ in Sage Chapel and a new early-18th-century-German-style (after Friederici) clavichord.

Event locations also include the Physical Sciences Building, Barnes Hall Auditorium and the A.D. White House. See the complete schedule. Full-time students and local residents can register for free online.