The story of RBG

Cornell Cinema presents two screenings of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 biopic, “On the Basis of Sex” (2018, Focus Features), April 19 and 20 at Willard Straight Theatre. Both showings are at 7 p.m.

Young lawyer Ginsburg, played by Felicity Jones (“Like Crazy,” “The Theory of Everything”) teams with husband Marty (Armie Hammer) to bring a groundbreaking case before the U.S. Court of Appeals and overturn a century of gender discrimination. Directed by Mimi Leder, “On the Basis of Sex” also stars Justin Theroux, Sam Waterston and Kathy Bates.

Also April 19 and 20, at 9:30 p.m., a restored version of the 1968 science fiction classic “2001: A Space Odyssey” will be shown. Last year, in honor of the 50th anniversary of “2001,” director Stanley Kubrick’s longtime personal assistant Leon Vitali oversaw a painstaking 4K digital restoration of the film, and the results are “almost impossibly spectacular,” according to a review in Forbes. Cornell Cinema honored Vitali with a film series last fall.

Showing Sunday at 7 p.m. is the 2018 3D film, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” the tale of a man returning home for his father’s funeral and confronting memories of the city he fled years earlier. The film was hailed by the Toronto Film Festival as “a technical marvel as well as a dreamlike, neon-bathed noir, confirming [director] Bi Gan as one of cinema’s most exciting young luminaries.”

Cornell Cinema tickets are $9 general admission, $6.50 for students, $5.50 for Cornell graduate students; more information is available on its website.

Estate planning clinic

Learn the basics of wills, living wills, powers of attorney and health care proxies at a free estate planning clinic, April 20 beginning at 1:30 p.m. in Room 184 of Myron Taylor Hall, Cornell Law School.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to sign a free health care proxy. The clinic is open to the public.

‘Roll With It’ downtown

An exhibition of work from “Roll With It” by Patrick Brennan, M.F.A. ’20, is on view this month in the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Ithaca.

Installed on the first-floor common area of the Seneca Place building on the corner of Seneca and Tioga streets, Brennan’s exhibit is open to the public. The show was organized by the Department of Art as part of a larger effort to seek out venues for students to show their work beyond the AAP galleries located in Olive Tjaden, Sibley and Milstein halls.

“It’s exciting to be able to show some work outside of the normal gallery context,” said Brennan, a first-year graduate student in art. “I’m really interested in the idea of coming across my work by surprise and not just because you’re looking to see ‘art.’”

Other such exhibitions have taken place on campus at the Cornell Law School in Myron Taylor Hall, Mann Library, Day Hall and the eHub in Kennedy Hall.

CU Press sesquicentennial

As part of the 150th anniversary celebration of Cornell University Press, a faculty panel will discuss the role of universities and their presses in ensuring the discovery, validation, communication and preservation of reliable knowledge.

The event will be April 25 from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in the Guerlac Room, A.D. White House. The panel will also talk about challenges to this critical mission.

The topic was inspired by the Cornell Faculty Senate’s 2017 resolution to encourage university leaders and faculty to push back against the conditions whereby reliable knowledge is drowned out by large volumes of false information by “expand[ing] and initiat[ing] educational activities, both on and off campus, to explain established academic practices for discriminating between fact and opinion, validating facts, establishing what is reliable knowledge, and exposing the communication practices that distort, confuse and seek to repress or censor reliable knowledge.”

Through the rigorous use of peer review and the requirement that books all be authorized by a faculty board, university presses share this aim and play a vital role in the university’s broader mission.

A reception will follow the panel; refreshments will be served.

Breaking down modern fiction

Daniel R. Schwarz, the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of English and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, will present his new book, “Reading the Modern European Novel Since 1900” (John Wiley & Sons, 2018) in a Chats in the Stacks book talk April 23, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in Room 106G of Olin Library.

A sequel to his “Reading the European Novel to 1900,” the new work adheres to Schwarz’s mantra, “Always the text; always historicize,” to discuss recurring themes and techniques in modern European fiction within the contexts of significant historical events such as the two world wars and the Holocaust.

The author of 18 books and a professor at Cornell for 51 years, Schwarz will also discuss the relationship between modern European fiction and other art forms.

The talk is sponsored by Olin Library; light refreshments will be served.

Douthat on meritocracy

Our contemporary power structure claims to be based on merit and aims for diversity but has lost a sense of duty and responsibility the traditional aristocracy represented, according to author Ross Douthat, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times who has served as senior editor for The Atlantic.

Douthat will explore what the costs of this structure are to the common good in “Meritocracy and the Public Good: Who Wins? Who Loses?” His talk, sponsored by the program Freedom and Free Societies, will be April 25 at 5:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall. It is free and open to the public.

“As a strong conservative commentator on America today, Ross Douthat offers lucid, penetrating thought and an irresistible narrative ability,” said Barry Strauss, the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies in the Department of History. “He is one of our most perceptive writers, and I am sure his talk will engage the audience across the political spectrum.”

Douthat is credited with helping the conservative movement find new relevance in 21st century America. His books include “To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism,” “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics” and “Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class.”

CALS Day 2019

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is hosting its annual CALS Day celebration April 26, from 2-4 p.m. on the Ag Quad. All are invited.

CALS Day is an opportunity for the entire college to come together as a community to celebrate interdisciplinary achievements and incredible diversity. 

There will be more than 35 student group and departmental tables to check out, including Hortus Forum, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Dyson Leadership Fellows, Cornell Botanic Gardens and the Chocolate and Confections Technology Club. 

Attendees can see student performances, sample Dairy Bar ice cream, pet a sheep or cow, shop local vendors at the farmers market and more. The first 500 attendees will receive a free CALS T-shirt or tote bag to tie-dye.

Prior to the start of CALS Day, there will be a chair yoga session from 1-2 p.m. in Mann Library. Registration is required; go to Eventbrite and click on the green “Register” tab.

Raw Expo

Raw Expo 2019 – a night to celebrate, connect and collaborate with more than 500 creators from all disciplines – is scheduled for April 26 from 7-9 pm. in Milstein Hall. This year’s Raw Expo will focus on the five senses in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the event.

The human experience is shaped by our senses. So as designers, creators and, even more broadly, problem-solvers, project teams from all corners of campus hope to explore the incorporation of the senses in their works. This year’s focus is on the ways we connect with one another and the interactions we create with the world around us.

Bringing together more than 40 projects from across Cornell (and beyond), Raw Expo participants hope to find and build connections across disciplines. Participating groups include: Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle; Life Changing Labs; The Straight Edge; Art Majors Organization; Cornell iGem; Guacmagazine; Cornell Rocketry Team; The Collective Liberation; and AguaClara.

All are welcome for a night of interdisciplinary exchange, chance encounters and conversations for future collaborations.