Red, white and green

The Paleontological Research Institution and Museum of the Earth opens its new summer exhibit, "A Forest Journey," with family activities Saturday, July 4, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1259 Trumansburg Road (Route 96). The interactive exhibit sheds new light on the role of forests past, present and future, including the science behind photosynthesis, the reasons for deforestation, and the role of wood in human history. Information: 607-273-6623 or http://www.museumoftheearth.org/.

Love and dance

Local dancers will perform an unusual and unpredictable range of movement styles in Love Shoe III, Tuesday, July 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts' Kiplinger Theatre. Dancers will participate in a Q&A with the audience following the free performance. Cornell's School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions sponsors free concerts all summer, Tuesdays at the Schwartz Center and Fridays on the Arts Quad. There is no July 3 outdoor concert; zydeco band Li'l Anne and Hot Cayenne will perform July 10. For a full schedule of concerts and more information: http://www.summer.cornell.edu/events.

'Hunger' premieres

Cornell Cinema will screen the Ithaca premiere of "Hunger" July 6, 8 and 10 in Willard Straight Theatre. Directed and co-written by Turner Prize-winning British visual artist Steve McQueen, "Hunger" is a riveting, brutally lyrical film about Bobby Sands and other Irish Republican Army members imprisoned in Margaret Thatcher's England, staging a hunger strike and no-clothes, no-washing protests in 1981.

Amy's advice

Syndicated advice columnist and Freeville, N.Y., native Amy Dickinson will give a free public lecture July 8 at 7:30 p.m. in Statler Auditorium. Dickinson's Chicago Tribune column, "Ask Amy," appears in more than 200 newspapers around the world. She will discuss how she was chosen to succeed columnist Ann Landers, as well as her recent memoir, "The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town That Raised Them." For more lectures, see http://www.summer.cornell.edu/events.

Thought leaders

The School of Criticism and Theory's lecture series continues with three talks on topics in the humanities and social sciences from influential thinkers on the SCT faculty during the 2009 summer session. All lectures are at 4 p.m. and are free and open to the public, in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.

On July 6, Leela Gandhi, professor of English at the University of Chicago, presents "After Utopia: Notes on an Ethics of Newness." On July 7, Brian Massumi, professor of communication studies at the University of Montreal, speaks on "The Strange Intruder: The Opposite of Me Is Mine." And on July 8, noted theorist Stanley Fish, a professor of humanities and law at Florida International University, lectures on "Milton and Theory." Information: http://sct.arts.cornell.edu/events.html.

Coming up: Warhol's stars

Tickets are now available for "13 Most Beautiful ... Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests," a program of live music and the rarely seen short films Warhol made of his famous friends and Factory denizens in the mid-1960s. The program, Sept. 25 at Cornell Cinema, was commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. A live score performed by Dean and Britta (Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips of Luna) accompanies intimate black-and-white footage of Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Nico, Mary Woronov (a Cornell art major "discovered" by Warhol assistant Gerard Malanga) and others. Seating is limited, and advance tickets are $18.50 each from co-presenter Dan Smalls Presents; information at http://www.dansmallspresents.com. Co-sponsors include the Cornell Council for the Arts, the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance, and the Rose Goldsen Lecture Series.

Weekly Vespers

Cornell United Religious Work and the Cornell Protestant Cooperative Ministry are sponsoring weekly Vespers, open to the public Thursdays at 5 p.m. in Anabel Taylor Hall Chapel. Information: 607-255-4224.