Events

Focusing on digital technology’s impact on culture
New lecture series focuses on science, reason and faith
Grace Street Festival celebrates fourth year
Elske v.P. Smith Lecture
Meet the 2006 First Novelist Award winner
EVGA awards
Cinema series to feature highly acclaimed films

Focusing on digital technology’s impact on culture

Using a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Honors College is funding Creating & Consuming Culture in the Digital Age, a year long series of events focusing on the impact of digital technologies on contemporary culture and the humanities and arts. The series is sponsored by the Department of English in collaboration with the schools of Mass Communications and the Arts.

The series is broadly interdisciplinary, drawing upon scholarship and creative work in both the humanities and the arts. It is meant to encourage dialogue among disciplines through encounters with major theorists and practitioners in the fields of media, art and literary studies. Our program recognizes the fact that traditional disciplinary divisions no longer define our academic or professional futures, and therefore proposes to explore the many convergences among printed, visual and virtual texts.

The next event in the series takes place on Nov. 16, 2006, at 7 p.m. in the Richmond Salons. Professor Alan Liu of the University of California, Santa Barbara, will be the featured speaker.

New lecture series focuses on science, reason and faith

The College of Humanities and Science is co-sponsoring a six-part lecture series, Science, Reason and Faith, at various locations on the Monroe Park Campus. The lecture series covers topics such as “Is it Reasonable to Believe in God,” “Our Place in the Universe” and “The Language of God.”

The range of speakers for the program hail from various backgrounds and represent a unique group of who’s who in religious and philosophical studies from around the world.

For more information, contact Brian Cassel at jbcassel@vcu.edu or (804) 628-1926.

Elske v.P. Smith Lecture

This year’s lecture features Dr. McKenna Brown, distinguished professor and director of the School of World Studies. Brown’s lecture will be “Language and Identity Among the Guatemalan Mayas.” The lecture will take place on Nov. 7, 2006, at 4 p.m. in the VCU Student Commons.

For more information, contact Shirley McDaniel at srmcdani@vcu.edu or (804) 828-0867.

Meet the 2006 First Novelist Award winner

The Virginia Commonwealth University Department of English chose Karen Fisher as the 2006 First Novelist Award winner. Fisher is recognized for her first novel, “A Sudden Country,” published by Random House. The award will be presented at the First Novelist Forum, located in the Richmond Salons at 907 Floyd Ave. on Nov. 10, 2006, at 7 p.m. The program will feature a reading from the novel by Fisher as well as a panel discussion on “The American West in Contemporary Fiction.”  Panelists will include:

Susann Cokal, author of “Breath and Bones”
Christina Ford, literary agent
Catherine Ingrassia, associate dean, College of Humanities and Sciences
Emilie Raymond, author of “From My Cold Dead Hands: Charlton Heston and American Politics”

EVGA awards

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The L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at VCU is pleased to announce the second annual Excellence in Virginia Government Awards. The 2006 ceremony and luncheon will be held at the Richmond Convention Center on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Formal invitations to the awards ceremony are presently being mailed. For additional information, contact Jennifer Thompson at jthompson2@vcu.edu or (804) 828-2339.

This year’s recipients include:

• Lifetime Achievement – Paul Timmreck
• Innovation in Government – Virginia Health Care Foundation
• Public Information – Virginia Access Project
• Public-Private Partnership – Fredericksburg PPEA
• Community Enhancement – Beans and Rice, Inc.
• Expansion of Freedom – Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson*
  

*Robinson awarded posthumously

Cinema series to feature highly acclaimed films

The School of World Studies’ fall 2006 world cinema series, Screening the City: Representations of Urban Spaces in World Cinema, probes the historical relationship of the city and film. This series, organized by interdisciplinary faculty in the School of World Studies, explores how filmmakers have represented the city in order to raise significant social, cultural, religious or political questions worldwide, and the impact these urban imaginaries have had on national and international film audiences. The series began Oct. 23 and runs until Dec. 6. Two feature films to be presented on the last night are “Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night” and “Water.”

“Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night” – In this insightful documentary, VCU assistant professor of photography and filmmaker Sonali Gulati explores complex issues of globalization, capitalism and identity through a witty and personal account of her journey into India’s call centers. Gulati, herself an Indian immigrant living in the U.S., explores the fascinating ramifications of outsourcing telephone service jobs to India, including how native telemarketers take on Western names and accents to take calls from the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia.
                       
“Water” – This finale of the cinema series follows 1996’s “Fire” and 1998’s “Earth” as the final installment in director Deepa Mehta’s elements trilogy — the Canadian director’s most devastating cinematic statement to date. The story follows three women at different stages of their internment, the youngest of which is just eight-years old and already a widow. From the get-go, the young girl is a destabilizing force, questioning not only her own confinement but the logic of sequestering widows. Click on the title above to learn more about “Water.”

The double feature of these films is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Dec. 6, 2006, in the Richmond Salons. We encourage School of World Studies alumni to come around 6 p.m. to meet professor Gulati and mingle before the lights go down. For further information please contact Julián Daniel Gutierrez at jdgutierreza@vcu.edu.