Bug Davidson

A multi-channel video by Bug Davidson is part of "Charles Burney's Musical Tour," March 5 in Barnes Hall, a program of keyboard music with Annette Richards and David Yearsley.

Alumnae in the arts

Actress Adepero Oduye ’99 (“Pariah,” “12 Years a Slave”) will introduce her recent film “The Big Short” and take questions from the audience at a Cornell Cinema screening March 5 at 9:20 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Oduye portrays Kathy Tao in the film.

Earlier in the day, in a panel discussion of “Issues in the Arts,” 5 to 6 p.m. in Alice Statler Auditorium, Oduye will talk about the challenges faced by black women pursuing careers in acting, writing and directing, and some of the pioneers who braved them. The panel also features Carol Fein Ross ’72, vice president at Hachette Book Group; and Antoinette Trotman ’87, vice president at Universal Records. Open to the Cornell community.

Cornell Cinema also hosts film editor Kathryn Schubert, M.A. ’05 (“Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Only Lovers Left Alive”), introducing her recent film “Experimenter,” March 4 at 7 p.m.

Schubert joins an alumnae panel on moviemaking, “Cornell Women in Film,” March 5 at 1:45 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre, with pioneering producer Lucy Jarvis ’38, Cornell Cinema director Mary Fessenden and student filmmaker Kimberly Scarsella ’16, moderated by local producer and filmmaker Deborah Hoard, M.P.S. ’78.

The panels are part of the President’s Council of Cornell Women annual weekend symposium. For more information, contact Catherine Holmes, M.S. ’85, at cah4@cornell.edu or 607-255-5376.

Musical tour

Annette Richards and David Yearsley will perform on 18th-century keyboard instruments (harpsichord, organ and fortepiano) in different combinations, March 5 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall auditorium.

The event is free and open to the public and presented as part of Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies’ symposium “Keyboard Networks,” March 4-5.

The concert program, with works by Bernardo Pasquini, J.S. Bach and his sons, Handel and Soler, traces the travels of 18th-century music historian Charles Burney. A video created for the program by Bug Davidson, “Charles Burney's Musical Tour,” is a contemporary mapping and reimagining of the experience of moving through the soundscapes of the past.

Design perspectives

Two prominent young architects from Japan will speak on campus next week. On March 7, Junya Ishigami gives an overview of junya.ishigami+associates and its work since 2004. Suo Fujimoto speaks on March 9. The lectures begin at 5:15 p.m. in Milstein Auditorium and are free and open to the public.

Ishigami’s office was awarded the Iakov Chernikhov International Prize for Young Architects in 2008, and the Golden Lion best project prize at the 2010 Venice Biennale’s 12th International Architecture Exhibition for “Architecture as Air: Study for Chateau la Coste.” His firm’s publications include “How Vast? How Small? How Architecture Grows.”

Fujimoto’s talk is titled “Between Nature and Architecture.” The youngest architect to design the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London in 2013, Fujimoto also won international design competitions for the New Learning Center at Paris-Saclay's Ecole Polytechnique in 2015 and for the Second Folly of Montpellier in 2014. 

Gender and Islam

Scholar Nimat Hafez Barazangi, Ph.D. ’88, will give a talk, “Quranic Shariah: Gender Justice in Islam,” Monday, March 7, at 4 p.m. in 182 Myron Taylor Hall. Presented by the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at Cornell Law School. RSVP to Emma Thompson at ert46@cornell.edu.

Barazangi, a research fellow at Cornell, will cite examples from her recent book, “Woman’s Identity and Rethinking the Hadith,” to argue that Islam is neither a law nor a dogma of submission, as Muslims generally translate it – and that each individual Muslim, male or female, has the right and responsibility to read, understand and apply the Quran, free of others’ interpretations.

Sharia (or shariah) in Islam is the path or the guidance of the Quran in its totality, and not the collection of rules derived by jurists or interpreters, she maintains. Most of these rules, solidified in the 19th and early 20th centuries, have been used to impose biased interpretations of the Quran, particularly with respect to gender and women’s roles.

Writing ‘Mad Men’ 

Semi Chellas, writer and co-executive producer of the television series “Mad Men,” will give a talk, “Telling Secrets: Notes from the Writers’ Room,” Thursday, March 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Klarman Hall Auditorium. The talk is free and open to the public.

Chellas ran the writers’ room for the final two seasons of “Mad Men,” earning six Emmy nominations. She shares a Writers Guild award with series creator Matthew Weiner for the season five episode “The Other Woman.” In her talk, she’ll reflect on the unique nature of television writing and explore how facts and research shape a story.

She studied English at Cornell on a Mellon graduate fellowship before attending The Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. Prior to “Mad Men,” she was co-creator, executive producer and head writer of award-winning Canadian network drama “The Eleventh Hour.”

For information, visit http://english.arts.cornell.edu/news/events/, email ser93@cornell.edu or call 607-255-7847.

Goddess studies

Lucinda Ramberg discusses her book “Given to the Goddess: South Indian Devadasis and the Sexuality of Religion” in a Chats in the Stacks book talk, March 9 at 4:30 p.m. in 107 Olin Library.

Ramberg is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies program. She based the 2014 book on two years of ethnographic research into an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Widely understood to be based in superstition, this kinship with the goddess is productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg argues.

The book talk is free and open to the public, with refreshments provided.