Unique take on race in Mellon Mays talk

How does one “deploy love” in the process of critically engaging “whiteness?”

George Yancy, professor of philosophy at Emory University and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows’ 2019 distinguished guest speaker, will examine this question in “A Letter of Love: An Encounter With White Backlash.”

He will also address what it means for whiteness to be in crisis, which he argues is a positive way of beginning to undo it. His talk will take place April 26 at 4.30 p.m. in Goldwin Smith Hall’s Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium.

“Professor Yancy is a phenomenal critical thinker and speaker who has the distinct and distinguishing ability to articulate complex and controversial issues around race in a clear and compelling manner,” said Samantha Sheppard, faculty director of Cornell’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. “His talk is a wonderful opportunity for our students and the Cornell community more broadly to engage with a renowned scholar on critical issues.”

Yancy, a Montgomery fellow at Dartmouth College, is the author of “Black Bodies, White Gazes, On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis” and “Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Racism in America.” His work focuses on critical philosophy of race, critical whiteness studies, and philosophy of the black experience. He is particularly interested in the formation of African-American philosophical thought as articulated within the social and historical space of anti-black racism, African-American agency, and questions of black identity formation.

Humanizing Deepwater Horizon disaster

Caitlin Kane, doctoral student in performing and media arts, will direct the Leigh Fondakowski play “Spill” – telling the human stories behind the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 – in performances April 26 through May 4 at the Schwartz Center’s Flex Theatre.

Performances are scheduled for April 26, April 27, May 3 and May 4 at 7:30 p.m.; there will also be a 2 p.m. matinee on May 4. Tickets are $15 general and $8 for students, seniors and the Cornell community.

In 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico set off the largest marine oil spill in history. In the months that followed, industry professionals scrambled to stop the spill while lawyers worked to uncover the causes of this disaster. In spite of extensive media coverage, many of the spill’s lasting human and environmental costs went unreported.

Crafted from interviews with those most directly affected, “Spill” paints a striking portrait of the communities indelibly altered by this disaster. Returning to this story, nearly a decade after it began, allows audiences to examine the powerful forces that not only caused the spill but that also continue to shape how stories about environmental disasters and climate change are told.

“Spill” is co-sponsored by the Cornell Council for the Arts; the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Program; the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program; the Women’s Resource Center; the Society for the Humanities; the Department of English; the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering; the Office of Engagement Initiatives; and WRFI Community Radio.

Tickets for all performances are available here.

‘A German Requiem’ in Bailey Hall

Cornell’s Chorus and Glee Club collaborate with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and soloists Tamara Acosta, soprano, and Sidney Outlaw, baritone, to present Brahms’ “A German Requiem.” The performance is April 27 at 7:30 p.m. in Bailey Hall.

Conducted by Cornelia Laemmli Orth, the work is celebrating its 150thanniversary – just as the Cornell Glee Club, under the direction of Robert Isaacs, commemorates its own sesquicentennial.

“A German Requiem,” a mainstay of today’s choral-orchestral repertoire, was seen as novel when it originated due to Brahms’ usage of historical musical forms, updated with his own innovations. One such technique was the selection of texts that avoided specific references, instead creating universally applicable ideas of humanity.

Acosta, a member of the music faculty at Ithaca College, has appeared with the Santa Fe, Sarasota and Nashville operas, among others; Outlaw’s appearances include performances with the English National Opera, Metropolitan Opera and the Spoleto Festival.

A preconcert talk with Orth will begin onstage at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are $28 for adults and $10 for students, and are available at baileytickets.com.

Orchestras take final bows of semester

The Cornell Orchestras give their final performances of the semester this weekend. Both shows are free and open to the public.

Under the direction of Timna Mayer, the Cornell Chamber Orchestra presents a showcase April 26 at 7 p.m. in Barnes Hall. Featured will be John Haines-Eitzen performing C.P.E. Bach’s Cello Concerto in A Major; student soloist Anna McDougall in Drdla’s “Carmen Fantasy,” movements 1 and 2; Grieg’s “Two Melodies,” opus 53, conducted by Andy Sheng ’20; Holst’s “St. Paul’s Suite”; and a new composition by Thomas Rachman ’20.

At 3 p.m. April 28 in Bailey Hall, the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Slywotzky, will perform Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 and selections from Stravinsky’s “Firebird” suite, plus a new work by doctoral composer Can Bilir.

Caribbean migration, ‘In a Word’

Professor Carole Boyce Davies and associate professor Ishion Hutchinson will engage in a wide-ranging conversation about their creative and scholarly work archiving the Caribbean experience during global conflicts in “In a Word: Caribbean Migrations and Imperial Projects,” May 1 at 4:30 p.m. in Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, Klarman Hall. The conversation is free and open to the public.

Boyce Davies, professor of English and Africana studies, is the author of “Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject” and “Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones.” Her most recent work is “Caribbean Spaces: Escape Routes from Twilight Zones” and a children’s book, “Walking.”

Hutchinson, a native of Jamaica and associate professor of English, is the author of two poetry collections – “Far District” and “House of Lords and Commons.” He is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among others.

The “In a Word” series showcases the Creative Writing Program’s influences and contributions to the literary world by its dedicated faculty of fiction writers and poets.

‘Walking on Water’ premieres

Cornell Cinema will screen the Ithaca premiere of “Walking on Water,” an illuminating portrait of master artist Christo and the arduous business of bringing an ambitious work to life, in showings May 1 and 2 in Willard Straight Theatre. Both showings are at 7 p.m.; ticket information is available here.

Bulgarian director Andrey Paounov follows internationally renowned environmental artist Christo on his quest to realize the mammoth and logistically complex installation, “The Floating Piers,” on Italy’s Lake Iseo, seven years after the death of Christo’s collaborator wife, Jeanne-Claude.

“Walking on Water” offers a rare look into the business of large-scale art production, “and the sort of temperament required to bestow unto the world something that feels close to a miracle,” according to a review from the Toronto International Film Festival.