PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 25, No. 15, Feb. 16, 2006

brief notes

'Making a Scene'
Art historians and curators meet Feb. 17-18
Art historians and curators from across the nation will gather Feb. 17-18 at UI for “Making a Scene: Curating Contemporary East Asian Art in the U.S.” The free, public event includes a panel discussion, performance, workshop and art exhibition.
According to event co-organizer Anne Burkus-Chasson, a UI professor of art history and of East Asian languages and cultures, visiting curators planning are among the most active and influential people in their field.

Most events take place at the Krannert Art Museum. A complete list of activities, including locations and times, is available on the Web at www.eaps.uiuc.edu.

“This is an important meeting of curators who are looking into contemporary Japanese, Chinese and Korean art,” said event co-organizer Anne Burkus-Chasson, a UI professor of art history and of East Asian languages and cultures. “Curators have the power to define and to frame what is contemporary East Asian art for their audience in the U.S. We have asked the curators to reflect on what they have chosen to exhibit and what they have chosen not to exhibit.”

What the curators have to show and tell should appeal to at least two primary audiences: “people who take an interest in art, generally, and people interested in Asia, but not necessarily art,” said the event’s other co-organizer, UI anthropology professor and EAPS director Nancy Abelmann said.

 “The number one question that will be looked at,” she said, “is, ‘What is contemporary Asian art?’ ”

“We are also interested in defining the difference – if any – between the reception of Chinese, Japanese and Korean art in the U.S.,” Burkus-Chasson said.

The event is sponsored by the university’s Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Krannert Art Museum, and Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities.

Center for Children’s Books
Book sale from Feb. 20 to 22
The Center for Children’s Books will host a book sale 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Feb. 20-22 in Room 24 of the Library and Information Science Building.

Thousands of new children’s books will be sold. Proceeds will go toward operating costs of the center. The titles represent the full spectrum of children’s publishing in fiction and nonfiction: board books, picture books, easy and transitional readers, chapter books, fiction series, novels, activity books and kits, nonfiction series, mass-market paperbacks and more.

Paperback books will be $1 to $2 each, hardcover books $5 each and individual items priced as marked. Visa, MasterCard, checks and cash will be accepted. For more information, visit http://ccb.lis.uiuc.edu or call 244-9331.

Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
Reading group applications due March 27
The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities will accept applications for reading groups for the 2006-07 academic year through March 27. Proposals for reading groups are sought each spring for the following academic year and awards are made in amounts of up to $1,500 for the full year. Reading groups may be formed around any topic or theme. They should aim to foster collaborative study in the humanities and across disciplines and should investigate questions of sufficient breadth to draw scholars from a reasonable array of intellectual traditions.

Applications are due in the IPRH office, 805 W. Pennsylvania Ave., MC-057, by 5 p.m. March 27. They may be submitted by e-mail as a Word attachment to Christine Catanzarite at catanzar@illinois.edu. Decisions will be announced in early April and all applicants will be contacted at that time.

Early childhood gifted education
UPS open house will be Feb. 24
University Primary School, an early childhood gifted education program, will host an open house Feb. 24. Visitors may see the preschool in action from 8:30 a.m. to noon and see the combined kindergarten and first-grade class from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The deadline for applications for the 2006-07 academic year is March 17. For more information, contact director Nancy Hertzog at 333-3996 or nhertzog@illinois.edu.

Survey Research Laboratory
Free survey research seminars offered
The Survey Research Laboratory is offering five intermediate seminars on survey research during the spring semester. The series is free to UI faculty and staff members and students; attendance for each seminar is limited and advance registration is required. You may register for one or all seminars. Each seminar will be from noon to 1:30 p.m. in Room 196 of Lincoln Hall.

To register, e-mail krish@srl.uic.edu. Include your full name, e-mail address, department and whether you are a faculty or staff member or a student. Registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Notes for individual seminars will be available at www.srl.uic.edu prior to each seminar. A basic understanding of survey research methods is recommended.

Dates and topics: Sampling Rare Populations (Feb. 15); Culture and Survey Measurement (Feb. 22); Cognitive Testing of Survey Questionnaires (March 3); Collecting Survey Data from Vulnerable Populations (March 8); Secondary Analysis of Survey Data (March 15).

UI Library
Librarians announce office hours
The UI Library is offering one-on-one walk-in assistance to students who need help with conducting research, using library resources and writing term papers. Assistance is provided by undergraduate librarians and by graduate assistants. Faculty and staff members are encouraged to guide students toward the office hours if they need assistance with these services.

Drop-in hours are from 3 to 5 p.m. on Mondays and from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays in the Undergrad Teaching Lab, Room 291 of the Undergraduate Library. The office hours will end on April 11 and there will be no hours during spring break. For more information, visit www.library.uiuc.edu/ugl/help/officehours.html.

English department
Reading Series continues on Feb. 22
More prize-winning writers of fiction, nonfiction and poetry will read from their works this semester at UI. The writers are part of the Carr Visiting Authors Reading Series, an event of the English department’s MFA Creative Writing Program. All readings are free, open to the public and will be in the Authors Corner of the Illini Union Bookstore.

Dates and authors:

• 4:30 p.m. Feb. 22: Ruth Ellen Kocher, a poet who teaches literature and writing at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.        
• 4:30 p.m. April 3: Chris Abani, a novelist, poet and the author of “GraceLand” and “Master of the Board,” among other novels.
  
• 4:30 p.m. April 5: William Wenthe, who teaches creative writing and 20th-century poetry at Texas Tech University.
• 5 p.m. April 11: Susan B. Anthony Somers-Willett, a poet and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Illinois, where she teaches poetry and poetics.
  

Cultural Engagement Council
Information on cultural assets sought
The Asset Preservation sub-committee of the Cultural Engagement Council has created a survey to gather information on the distribution and care of cultural and historical artifacts at UI. The survey is designed to help the sub-committee plan a program to assist campus units in caring for its collections.

The committee will collect information on all objects considered by each unit or department to have enduring value to UI. This can include art, historical and cultural objects, natural history specimens, documents and electronic media. The committee also will gather suggestions for possible areas of program development that it could undertake to assist in the long-term care of collections.

The survey will be available until Feb. 24 at https://webtools.uiuc.edu/survey/OrganizationSecure?id=1995962. For more information, contact Jennifer Hain Teper, chair of the Asset Preservation Sub-Committee, jhain@illinois.edu.

College of Education
Early childhood education to be discussed
The education of young children will be the topic at a public forum Feb. 25, the third in a UI series.

The forum, “Early Childhood Education in Illinois: At the Crossroads,” will be from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Krannert Art Museum auditorium.

“Research suggests that good quality early care and education can increase children’s school readiness and help them achieve their potential in school and in life,” says Dianne Rothenberg, co-director of the Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting at Illinois and the organizer of the event.

In Illinois, the number of children attending state-funded pre-kindergarten programs has grown rapidly in recent years, early learning standards are being implemented statewide, and a new professional development system has been established, called Gateways to Opportunity, Rothenberg said.

The forum will explore the implications of these and other developments, as well as other issues related to early childhood education in central Illinois. Parents, teachers, administrators, university faculty and students, and anyone with an interest in education are invited to attend.

The event will start with presentations, followed by a panel discussion during which audience members can ask questions. Continental breakfast will be offered at 8:30 a.m.

The scheduled presenters are Kay Henderson, head of the Early Childhood Division of the Illinois State Board of Education; Lilian Katz, UI professor emerita of early childhood education; Mark Obuchowski, professional development adviser coordinator for the Gateways to Opportunity project; and Margie Wallen, early learning project manager for the Ounce of Prevention Fund.

Joining the presenters for the panel discussion will be Susan Matoba Adler, UI professor of education; Nancy Barrick Gaumer from the Child Development Program at Parkland College; Kathleen Liffick, Champaign County Head Start; and Jill Moore from the Early Learning Center in Champaign.

The forum series is sponsored by the university’s College of Education and organized by the university’s chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, a professional association for educators. Co-planners include Parkland College and the Champaign and Urbana school districts. Co-sponsors for the Feb. 25 forum include more than a dozen campus and community organizations.

Teachers and school personnel can earn CEU and CPDU credits by attending.

The last of the Phi Delta Kappa forums, “The Transition Into Adulthood,” is scheduled for April 1.

‘Emancipation Betrayed’
Author talks about book on Feb. 22
Paul Ortiz, a professor of community studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will talk about his new book, “Emancipation Betrayed,” at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 22 in Room 113 of Gregory Hall.

Ortiz’s work makes the case for the important connection between community and organizing by African Americans, from Reconstruction through the 1920s, in the state of Florida. His work challenges the idea that black resistance was episodic.

The talk is sponsored by Afro-American Studies and Research Program, the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society and the department of history.

African-American children’s literature
Gryphon lecture is Feb. 23
The second annual Gryphon Lecture will be given by a pioneer in children’s literature, Rudine Sims Bishop.

Bishop’s talk, which is free and open to the public, begins at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 23 in Room 126 of the Library and Information Science Building.

Her topic is “Stony the Road We Trod: African American Children’s Literature, Stories of a People’s Journey.”

Bishop, professor emeritus in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University, was one of the first researchers to produce scholarly criticism about the way African-American lives are represented in children’s books and the impact that representation has on children’s lives.

Her book “Shadow and Substance: Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children’s Literature” was “a touchstone study that is still used today,” said Betsy Hearne, the director of Illinois’ Center for Children’s Books, one of the event sponsors.

Continuing Professional Development Unit credits will be available to teachers and school librarians who attend the talk, which also is sponsored by the Youth Literature Interest Group.

The group consists of faculty and graduate students from Eastern Illinois University, Illinois State University and the UI. Four disciplines at Illinois – American Indian studies, Education, English and Library and Information Science – are represented.

The Youth Literature Interest Group meets monthly to discuss texts and issues relevant to literature for children and young adults. It also hosts a research showcase every fall led by rotating members of the group, and the annual lecture by a leading scholar in the field.

Among the issues that the group studies are the impact of children’s literature on literacy, the epistemology of children’s literature, the role of children’s books for librarians, teachers and academics, and the necessity of considering multicultural issues and the impact of literature on children’s lives.

The Youth Literature Interest Group is an outgrowth of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Illinois. The Center for Children’s Books is a unit of the library graduate school.

Other UI sponsors of the event are the Center for Advanced Study, the College of Education, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities and the Trowbridge Office for American Literature, Culture and Society.

Center for Advanced Study spring lectures
Slavery, science, theater among topics
Global slavery, the role of serendipity in scientific research, and an all-female Japanese theater troupe are on the schedule of talks and performances this spring sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study at UI.

Other topics on the CAS schedule through early spring: the Pan-African movement, India-Pakistan relations, conflicts over cultural heritage, AIDS in South Africa, writing about new discoveries and inventions, the Black Power movement in the U.S., and crime, corruption and capitalism in the Balkans and Russia.

All but two of the lectures or performances are part of the CAS MillerComm series, begun in 1973 and supported with funds from the George A. Miller Endowment and several co-sponsoring campus units. The MillerComm events provide a forum for discourse on topics spanning the university’s many disciplines.

All CAS events are free and open to the public.

The first MillerComm lecture of the spring semester will take place Feb. 23 and is titled “Criminal Trafficking and Slavery: A Global Problem.” The speaker will be Susan Forbes Martin, executive director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. Martin will discuss the global dimensions of the trafficking and slavery problem, as well as current and potential measures to eliminate these practices and assist the victims. Her lecture, being held in conjunction with the university’s Joint Area Centers symposium on the topic (www.cgs.uiuc.edu/resources/jacs/index.html), begins at 7:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Levis Faculty Center.

Scheduled talks are listed. More information, including times and locations, is available at www.cas.uiuc.edu.

• Feb. 27, “21st-Century Color Lines and Other Lines: The Challenge of Pan-Africanism,” by Bill Fletcher, president and chief executive of the TransAfrica Forum.
  
• March 6, “The Prospects for Peace in South Asia,” by Rafiq Dossani, from the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University.
  
• March 10, “Closing Pandora’s Box: Human Rights Conundrums in Cultural Heritage Protection,” by William Logan, UNESCO Chair of Heritage and Urbanism at Deakin University, Australia.
  
• March 14, the Seinendan Japanese Theatre Troupe, performing the comedies “The Yalta Conference” and “Ronin Office Ladies.”
  
• March 16, “Serendipity in Practice: Breakthroughs in Nutrition of Animals and Humans,” the second annual Chancellor’s CAS Special Lecture, by David Baker, professor emeritus of nutrition in the UI department of animal sciences and Division of Nutritional Sciences.
  
• March 27, “Trusting Edison: From Speculative Belief to Reliably Reconstitutable Phenomena,” by Charles Bazerman, chair of the department of education at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
  
• March 28, “Realizing Human Rights: Access to HIV/AIDS-related Medication and the Role of Civil Society in South Africa,” by Zackie Achmat, a health-care activist, who received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.
  
• March 31, “The Black Power Movement: Self-Determination, Transformation and Sabotage,” by Kathleen Cleaver, senior lecturer in law at Emory University and in African and African American Studies at Yale University.
• April 6, “The Spider Trap: Corruption, Organized Crime and Transition in the Balkans and Russia,” by journalist and historian Misha Glenny, author of “The Balkans, 1804-1999.”
  

‘Practical Planning’
2006 Planning Institute is March 2-3
Extension specialists from Iowa State University will be coming to the 2006 Planning Institute at the UI March 2-3 with a couple of rather large props in tow.

Shadowing Mary Yearns and Ann Lundvall down the highway will be two demonstration trailers, which they are bringing to the annual institute to show participants how to redesign kitchens and bathrooms to universal design specifications that allow Baby Boomers to “age in place.”

That’s just one example of the truly practical nature of many of the sessions on this year’s institute program, “Practical Planning.” The event, hosted by the UI’s department of urban and regional planning and organized by its Professional Development and Outreach Program, will be held at the Levis Faculty Center.

Other topics on the agenda that may appeal to a broad audience include “Green Schools, Green Communities, Biodiesel”; “Disaster Planning”; “Live-Work Artists Lofts as Catalytic Developments in Community Revitalization Plans” and “Richard Florida + Creative Class + Community Culture.”

“Visioning, scenario planning, charrettes, good design, housing for ‘Boomers’ – some of the topics at this year’s institute – capture what is happening throughout the Midwest as community leaders plan and design for a ‘quality of life’ place to live and stay,” said Pattsi Petrie, the event’s coordinator.

A complete program, with times and locations of events, as well as online registration and a fee schedule, is available on the Web at www.urban.uiuc.edu/ce/.

The annual institute draws presenters and participants from the academic, government and public service sectors. And while presentations and discussions are geared toward these audiences, Petrie said sessions also may be of interest to community activists, citizen-planners and other members of the public.

Certain sessions will have a decidedly local focus.

“Some of the topics at this year’s institute were selected to “interweave with the project ‘big.small.all.champaign county’ and the 2,222 issues identified by the various focus groups,” Petrie said. Launched last year, “big.small.all.champaign county” is a community visioning project designed to engage citizens, companies and organizations in a conversation about the county’s future.

Co-sponsors of the planning institute include the university’s Center for Advanced Study, Environmental Council, and Lorado Taft Lectureship on Art; UI at Chicago; Illinois chapters of the American Planning Association and the American Association of Landscape Architects; Office of the Illinois Lieutenant Governor; Champaign County Development Foundation; and cities of Urbana and Champaign.

For more information about the institute, contact Petrie at 244-7424 or pattsi@illinois.edu.

WILL-FM’s ‘Classically Black’
Florence Beatrice Price featured
Roger Cooper will look at the life and work of Florence Beatrice Price with his newest “Classically Black” production, to be broadcast on WILL-FM (90.9/101.1 in Champaign-Urbana) at 11 a.m. Feb. 19 and 7:06 p.m. Feb. 27.

Price composed more than 300 works. Her symphonies and chamber works were famous for incorporating melodies from Negro spirituals. She won the Wanamaker Competition for symphonic composition with Symphony No. 1 in E minor, and became the first African-American woman to have her composition performed by a major U.S. orchestra when the Chicago Symphony played it at the World’s Fair in 1933.

In the program, Cooper also interviews Rae Linda Brown, author of “The Heart of a Woman,” a biography of Price, scheduled to be published by the UI Press in spring 2007.

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