PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 28, No. 7, Oct. 2, 2008

Email to a friend

brief notes

Oct. 3-5

Japanese films featured in Asian Film Festival

Japanese films will be featured at the sixth annual Asian Film Festival, being held Oct. 3-5, at the Boardman’s Art Theatre, 126 W. Church St., Champaign.

“Asian Film Festival 2008: Young in Japan,” sponsored by the UI Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies and the Asian Educational Media Service, will present five feature films and one documentary seldom seen outside of Japan.

All screenings are open to the public and free of charge, with donations welcome.  The schedule of films, all subtitled in English:

• Oct. 3 (7 p.m.), “The Taste of Tea,” a film about the eccentricities just below the surface of a family living in the countryside outside of Tokyo;

(10 p.m.), “Kamikaze Girls,” about an unlikely friendship between a butch biker chick and Lolita-look girl, and a cartoonish, day-glow ride through Japanese subcultures.

•  Oct. 4 (1 p.m.), “Hinokio,” a science-fiction film for the whole family about a reclusive boy who rejoins the world and discovers new friendships through the eyes of his remote-controlled robot.

• (3:30 p.m.), “Wings of Defeat,” a moving World War II documentary film that tells the seldom-heard stories of surviving kamikaze pilots who trained for and flew, yet did not complete, suicide missions for their country.

(7 p.m.), “Train Man,” a story inspired by true events about a shy, awkward computer geek who emerges from fantasy to find love in the real world with the help of his chatroom friends.

(9:15 p.m.), “Josee, the Tiger and the Fish,” a thoughtful and unusual drama about a physically disabled girl hidden away by her grandmother who captivates an easygoing college student following a chance encounter.

• Oct. 5 Repeat screenings of “The Taste of Tea” at 1 p.m., “Josee, the Tiger and the Fish” at 4 p.m., and “Kamikaze Girls” at 7 p.m.

More information about the films, along with links to trailers and movie sites, can be found on the festival Web page.

Center for Advanced Study

Program deadlines announced

The Center for Advanced Study has announced deadlines for several programs administered by the center.

Applications for associate and fellow research appointments are due Oct. 7 with referee letters due Oct. 14.

In addition, applications for George A. Miller Programs – such as CAS/MillerComm public lecture series, GAM visiting professors, scholars and artists; and the Beckman Lecture – are due Oct. 14, with referee letters due Oct. 21.

All applications and supporting documents must be submitted electronically. The center no longer requires a paper copy of applications. For more information about these programs, go to: www-applications.cas.uiuc.edu/ or e-mail Jackie Jenkins, jrjenkin@illinois.edu.

Inaugural Kachru Distinguished Lecture

Linguist to speak Oct. 9

Kingsley R. Bolton, professor of English linguistics at Stockholm University, will deliver the inaugural Braj and Yamuna Kachru Distinguished Lecture in the Linguistics Sciences at the UI on Oct. 9. Registration is not required for this event.

The lecture, “World Englishes in the Global Context,” will take place from 7:30-8:30 p.m. in Room 210 of the Illini Union. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Bolton lectures at Stockholm University on language and society and world Englishes. He has published books and articles on sociolinguistics, Asian Englishes, Hong Kong English, Chinese pidgin English and Chinese secret societies.

He is the founding editor of the Hong Kong University Press book series “Asian Englishes Today” and a co-editor of the Routledge book series “The History and Development of World Englishes.”

Bolton’s recent publications include “Chinese Englishes: A Sociolinguistic History” (Cambridge University Press, 2003), “World Englishes: Critical Concepts in Linguistics” (co-edited with Braj B. Kachru; Routledge, 2006) and “Asian Englishes” (co-edited with Braj B. Kachru; Routledge, 2006).

A reception in the Colonial Room in the Illini Union will follow the lecture, which is sponsored by the UI School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics and the UI department of linguistics.

The lecture is named for Yamuna Kachru, professor emerita of linguistics at the UI, and Braj B. Kachru, professor emeritus of linguistics in the UI’s Center for Advanced Study.

‘Lecturing for Learning’

CTE hosts faculty workshop Oct. 3

The Center for Teaching Excellence will host a workshop, “Lecturing for Learning,” for UI faculty members from noon to 1 p.m. Oct. 3 in Room 223 Gregory Hall.

Mary-Ann Winkelmes, a senior faculty consultant at CTE and an educational consultant for the Lilly Endowment, is the speaker. She served as associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Chicago, where she continues to offer a pedagogy seminar for junior faculty.

According to Winkelmes, many lecturers are overly critical of their own performance and efforts to perfect lecturing techniques can sometimes lead to a counterproductive focus on what the teacher is doing and inadequate consideration of what the students are doing. This one-hour workshop focuses on how to be sure that students are “getting” what is being taught in lectures, and how to help students be active learners in a lecture class, whether the topic is science, social science or humanities. Four strategies will be offered, and their use will be discussed as the group analyzes video clips of famous lecturers from across the disciplines.

University Primary School

Community open house is Oct. 16

University Primary School will host an open house Oct. 16 at the Children’s Research Center, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign. Visitors may see the preschool in action from 8:30 a.m. until noon and the combined kindergarten/first-grade class from 8:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.

The school is an early childhood gifted education program that serves children ages 3-7 in a project-based curriculum. Children must be 3 years old on or before July 1 for the preschool classroom and 5 years old before Sept. 1 to be considered for kindergarten.

Applications for the 2009-10 academic year will be available in January. For more information, contact director Nancy Hertzog at 333-3996 or nhertzog@illinois.edu or visit www.ed.uiuc.edu/ups.

Department of dance

Site-specific performances scheduled

The second-year MFA candidates in the department of dance will present “Site Specific Works” in October at five locations around Champaign-Urbana:

Christine Betsill’s “Rendered Plot less” is inspired by the dilemma of modern agriculture and how industrial food has become invasive to our bodies. This dance will be performed at 6 p.m. Oct. 4 and 5 at the UI campus’s Morrow Plots, the oldest experimental crop field in the U.S.

Hope Goldman’s work, “One Stop Lift,” explores the idea of small spaces: how they make us feel and what they make us do. Limited space is available for the performance at the one-stop elevator in the tunnel between the UI undergraduate and main libraries and the lift, which is located in the Undergraduate Library just past Espresso Royale at the end of the hallway. Performances are at 5 and 5:30 p.m. Oct. 25 and 26. Reservations are strongly recommended and can be made at: http://illinois.edu/goto/onestoplift.

Kate Insolia’s “It’s a Good Year” stars Lev-Arie Ratinov. The work explores the juxtaposition of late capitalism’s corporate success with the sadness and devastation of the displacement of people. The work begins at the corner of Walnut and Willow streets in Champaign (in front of the Goodyear Service Station) and ends in the parking lot at Market and Bond streets (adjacent to the Amtrak Station). Performances are at 6 p.m. Oct. 22 and 23.

Young Sun Lee draws her “Afternoon Illusion” on the courtyard of the College of Education building on the UI campus. Lee’s illusion is created with musicians and performers through movement installations with titles such as “Little Bush Elf,” “Afternoon Muses,” “Jealous Snake,” “Happy Lovers” and “Sleeping Ballerina.” Performances will be at 4 p.m. Oct. 25 and 26.

In “Silos Phase IV,” choreographer Will Schneider explores the transitory and fleeting state of the performing art form. The performance will be at the silo complex just south of the UI campus, three blocks west of the round barn complex. Parking is available across the street at Assembly Hall. Performances are at 8, 8:45 and 9:30 p.m. Oct. 24 and 25. Because of limited space, reservations should be made at http://illinois.edu/goto/silos.

WILL-TV and IGPA

Series looks at election-year issues

The issues of energy and the economy are front and center in this year’s presidential election. In a series on Thursday nights in October, WILL-TV and experts from the UI Institute of Government and Public Affairs will examine how the positions of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain on these issues would affect people in Illinois.

The series, “For the People: Election 2008,” also will look at the ballot question on whether Illinois needs a Constitutional Convention, and end with an hourlong roundtable discussion on the presidential campaign with a panel scheduled to include former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar.

WILL’s John Paul will moderate the discussions.

Programs and scheduled panelists:

• Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m.: Energy: Don Fullerton, finance, and Andrew P. Morriss, law.

• Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m.: Economy: Elizabeth Powers and Daniel P. McMillen, both in economics.

• Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m.: Constitutional Convention, Brian Gaines, political science, and Richard J. Winkel, law.

• Oct. 30, 8 p.m.: Pre-Election Roundtable: Former Gov. Jim Edgar, Kent Redfield, IGPA director Bob Rich and state Sen. Mike Frerichs.

Graduate School of Library and Information Science

Speaker discusses ‘government secrecy’

As part of its “Information in Society” speaker series, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science will host Alasdair Roberts, who will speak on “Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age.” Roberts will speak from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Oct. 6 in Room 126 Library and Information Science Building.

The last decade has seen an extraordinary increase in the number of countries that have adopted laws similar to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Some people say that legal and technological change are producing a new age of transparency. But there also are complaints about new levels of secrecy: those justified in the name of executive privilege, national security and corporate confidentiality. Roberts addresses how to make sense of these conflicting claims and if governmental secrecy is on the decline or getting worse.

Roberts, the Jerome L. Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy at Suffolk University Law School, writes extensively on problems of governance, law and public policy. He is the author of “Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age,” and most recently “The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government.”

‘Living With Lincoln’

Series offers conversations about Lincoln

Six scholars, each with a Ph.D. in history from the UI and each working in Springfield, will discuss the field of Lincoln studies in conversations at 3 p.m. on three successive Mondays in October in the Authors Corner of the Illini Union Bookstore:

• Oct. 6: Wayne C. Temple, deputy director, Illinois State Archives, and Bryon Andreasen, research historian of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

• Oct. 13: Cullom Davis, editor emeritus of “The Papers of Abraham Lincoln,” and James Cornelius, curator of the Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

• Oct. 20: Tom Schwartz, Illinois state historian at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, and Stacy Pratt McDermott, assistant editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln.

Each “Living With Lincoln” program is planned simply as an informal conversation between two Lincoln specialists and the audience regarding Lincoln’s life and times.

For questions regarding the series, contact John Hoffmann, Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, UI Library, 333-1777 or ihlc@illinois.edu.

Chinese exercises

Workshops offered on Qi-gong

A series of workshops on the UI campus will explore Qi-gong, a traditional Chinese body-mind exercise designed to promote health by reducing stress.

The workshops will be Oct. 16 and 17 and are sponsored by the department of kinesiology and community health, the Office of Continuing Education, Mettler Center and the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies. The workshops will be held at the Activities and Recreation Center, 201 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign

In Chinese, “Qi” refers to the life force and “gong” to the application of effort in a particular discipline through practice. Qi-gong strives to produce a harmony of mind and spirit through a combination of movement, breath and mental discipline. It is easy to learn and practitioners can receive both physical and mental health benefits. 

The workshops:

• “Chinese Health Qi-gong: 21st Century’s Body-Mind Exercise,” 6:30-8:30 p.m. Oct. 16 in Multipurpose Room 6 at ARC. It is free and open to the public.

• “Chinese Health Qi-gong – Workshop I” will be from 9-11 a.m. Oct. 17 ; “Chinese Health Qi-gong – Workshop II” will be from 1-3 p.m. Oct. 17. These workshops will be in Multipurpose Room 4 at ARC. The four most popular health Qi-gong routines will be taught in the workshops, which are free to the first 40 UI students who register. The public may participate; the fee for one workshop is $20; for both $35.

For more information go to www.conferences.uiuc.edu/qigong2008 or call the Office of Continuing Education at 333-2880 to register or for Qi-gong related questions, contact Weimo Zhu at 333-7503.

Professional development

Enrollment still open for BIS courses

UI’s Business and Industry Services has received an excellent response to its fall professional development courses that it will offer on campus this fall. The course descriptions, dates, times and costs can be viewed at https://www.illinoisbis.com/UIUCFallSchedule.pdf.

Faculty members, academic professionals and staff members may enroll. 

In addition, if a department has six or more employees (up to 25) who would like to participate, classes can be customized, reducing the per-person cost.

For more information, contact Mary Rose Hennessy, 630-505-0500, ext. 225.

European Union Center 10th Anniversary

French ambassador to give keynote

The French ambassador to the United States, Pierre Vimont, will give the keynote address for “Celebrating the European Union” Week Oct. 20-23 on the UI campus. Vimont’s address, on the subject of transatlantic relations from the standpoint of the French presidency of the EU, is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Oct. 20 at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center.

“Celebrating the European Union” Week was organized by the UI’s European Union Center to commemorate its 10th anniversary. The center was established in 1998, with support from the European Commission, as one of the 10 original EU Centers of Excellence in the United States.

The keynote address will be preceded by a panel discussion on “The Future of the EU” at 2 p.m., also at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center.  The speakers will include Deputy Consul General Sidy Diallo, from the French Consulate in Chicago; Luc Véron, from the Delegation of the European Commission in the U.S., and other EU consuls general from Chicago.

Among other events scheduled for the week:

• Oct. 21, a symposium on “The Euro, the Dollar, and the Global Financial Crisis,” at 5 p.m. at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center, with speakers Charles Kahn, a UI professor of finance; Amy Medearis, from the Delegation of the European Commission to the U.S., and Anne Villamil, a UI professor of economics.

• Oct. 22, a “Taste of Europe” at the Bevier Café in Bevier Hall, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., featuring a lunch menu of European dishes.

• Oct. 23, a symposium on “US-EU-Russia: New Strategic Dynamics After Bush,” at 4 p.m. in 314 Illini Union.  Featured speakers will be Robert Brannon, from the George C. Marshall Center in Germany; Roger Kanet, a professor of international relations at the University of Miami; Carol Leff, a UI professor of political science, and Robert Pahre, from the UI’s European Union Center.

All events are open to the public, and all are free except for the “Taste of Europe.”

Back to Index