Archive | Special Events

• A Celebration of The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin
• Enjoy a discussion and cheese tasting with authors Jim Norton and Becca Dilley
• November 19, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
• Memorial Union
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• James Norton and Becca Dilley drove 7,600 miles during the winter of 2007-08, interviewing cheesemakers, listening to their stories, tasting their cheeses and exploring the plants where they work. The culmination of their journey is their new book, The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin.

  The book showcases 43 of the 44 Wisconsin Master Cheesemakers, who have devoted at least 13 years of their lives to attain the certification, the only one of its kind in the U.S. The Master’s program rivals similar rigorous training in Europe, and includes classes, facility inspections and a written final exam.

  Norton and Dilley will discuss their work and sign books at the UW-Madison Memorial Union's Main Lounge on November 19. There will be samples of cheese discussed in the book along with a cash bar for wine if desired.

  This event is co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Press and the Wisconsin Union Directorate

• Cunningham/Bausch: A Tribute
• October 23, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
• Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• The summer of 2009 saw the passing of two of the 20th Century’s great choreographers: Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch. This panel pays tribute to their art and influence.

  Panelists will include Andrea Harris (Dance); Michael Jay McClure (Art); Jane Simon (MMoCA); and Jin-Wen Yu (Dance). Moderated by Caroline Levine (English), author of Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts. Cosponsored with MMoCA.

  This panel has been organized in conjunction with Cage and Cunningham: Chance, Time, and Concept in the Visual Arts at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

• Jonah Lehrer
• From Marshmallows to Metacognition: What Can Science Teach Us About Decision-Making?
• October 9, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
• Promenade Hall, Overture Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• Co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Book Festival, this lecture brings Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide and Proust was a Neuroscientist to Madison.

  Jonah Lehrer is a Contributing Editor at Wired and the author of several acclaimed books.  He graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He has written for The New Yorker, Nature, Seed, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe and also is a Contributing Editor at Scientific American Mind and National Public Radio's Radio Lab.

  Jonah Lehrer Interviews, Articles, and Links:
  'On Point with Tom Ashbrook'
  'Fresh Air'
  New Yorker
  Blog: Frontal Cortex

• Judith Butler-Temporarily Postponed
• Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley
• September 16, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• Butler is the author of Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France; Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity; Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex"; Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death; and Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning.

• Martha Nussbaum, Year of Humanities Chancellor's Lecture
• Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago
• Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities
• September 14, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
• Chazen Museum of Art, L160 (Elvehjem Building)
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• Her award-winning books include: The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy; Women and Human Development; Sex and Social Justice; and Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of the Emotions

• Martín Espada
• Poet, Essayist, Editor & Translator and Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• Poetry of the Political Imagination: A Reading by Martín Espada
• April 30, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• See poetry and performance by Martín Espada, winner of the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2007, and a UW-Madison alum. His politics of poetry, rebellion, and laughter will take you on an unforgettable voyage of passion, edge, humor, and social conscience, from Puerto Rico and Chile to New York and Wisconsin. The Americas will never look the same.

  This event is co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities,the Vice-Provost Office, the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives, the Department of History, LACIS (Latin American, Caribbean, Iberian Studies), The Harvey Goldberg Center for the Study of Contemporary History, the Comparative  US Cultures Cluster, and Chican@ & Latin@ Studies Program.

  Martín Espada will also participate in the following campus events:

  Thursday, April 30th, NOON Brown Bag, 5233 Humanities- the Curti Lounge of the History Department 
  "The Redemption of Pablo Neruda," Join prize-winning poet Martin Espada for a brownbag lecture/reading on the great Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda and Chile.

  Friday, May 1st, NOON Brown Bag, 5233 Humanities- the Curti Lounge of the History Department
  "Colonialism and the Poetry of Rebellion," Join Martin Espada for a brownbag lecture on Puerto Rico and the poetry of rebellion and unacknowledged colonalism.

  
  
  

• Humanities NOW: Game On!
• The Culture of Video Games
• April 13, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
• Memorial Union
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• A community forum on the influence and impact of games, virtual worlds, and other interactive media on our culture. Featuring Thomas Malaby, author of the forthcoming book "Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab and Second Life" (Cornell University Press, June 2009) and contributing author to the blog Terra Nova.

  This event is co-sponsored by The Games, Learning, and Society group and DoIT Academic Technology

  Articles and Links of Interest:

  Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked, PBS

  Games, The New Lively Art, by Henry Jenkins

  Game Design As Narrative Architecture, By Henry Jenkins

  The War Between Effects And Meaning: Rethinking The Video Game Violence Debate, by Henry Jenkins

  What Would Herman Melville Say to Soulja Boy?: Remix Culture and the New Media, by Henry Jenkins

  Is it Art?, by John Lanchester in London Review of Books

• Christoph Menke
• The Self-Reflection of Law and the Politics of Rights
• April 2, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

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• Christoph Menke is Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center of Human Rights at the University of Potsdam. His English books include The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida (1998) and Reflections of Equality (2006).

  This event is co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies, the Institute for Legal Studies, and the Human Rights Initiative.

  Christoph Menke will also participate in a seminar titled "Law and Violence" April 3rd, 10:30-11:50 AM, Lubar Commons- Room 7200 at the Law School.

  Click below for readings related to Professor Menke's seminar:
  Law and Violence

  Excess of Judgment

  Hosted by Len Kaplan and Sara Guyer.

• Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
• The Brothers Karamazov: Laughter and Memory
• April 1, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• Translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky give the Keynote Lecture for "The Brothers Karamazov in Wisconsin" Student Conference.

   

  Schedule Overview

  Schedule of Presentation Sessions
  
  Keynote Audio Part One
  
  Keynote Audio Part Two

  Keynote Video Part One
  
  Keynote Video Part Two

• Richard Pevear
• A Translator's Surprises
• April 1, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• This lecture is co-sponsored by the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia.

• Coping With the Past: A Colloquium on Collective Guilt
• February 27, 2009 @ 10:00 am
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.

• A one-day symposium on uncomfortable inheritances, ambivalent feelings, and complex responses to the past. Participants will include: Ned Blackhawk (History, UW-Madison), Sara Guyer (English, UW-Madison), Deborah Jenson (French, Duke), Amaud Jamaul Johnson (English, UW-Madison), Steve Kantrowitz (History, UW-Madison), John Rowe (UW Alum, Exelon Corp), Jane Simon (MMOCA), Steve Stern (History, UW-Madison), Lara Trubowitz (English, University of Iowa).Please click HERE to register for the event. Registration is FREE and open to the public, but required.

  Sara Guyer (Center Director), Introduction
  Steve Stern (History, UW-Madison), "From Coping to Democratic Reckoning: Pinochet, Cheney, and the Problem of Torture."
  Sara Guyer's Introduction and Steve Stern's Remarks
  Lara Trubowitz (English, Iowa), "'The Jews are News': Wyndham Lewis, 'Coo-ing' Antisemitism, and the Jewish Refugee Crisis in Britain, 1938-1939"
  Amaud Jamaul Johnson (English, UW-Madison), "History is Intimate": a Poet's Guide to the Archives"
  Lara Trubowitz and Amaud Jamaul Johnson's Remarks
  Jane Simon (MMoCA), "Picturing Your Idols: Contemporary Artists and Influence"
  Jane Simon's Remarks
  Ned Blackhawk (History, UW-Madison)"Surviving the American Conquest: Perspectives on American Indian History"
  Unfortunately, Ned Blackhawk's remarks were not recorded due to technical difficulties.
  Deborah Jenson (Romance Languages, Duke), "American Reactions to the Haitian Independence (1804) in the Era of American Slavery"
  Deborah Jenson's Remarks
  John Rowe (UW Alum/Exelon Corp.), "Forgiving without Forgetting"Concluding Discussion and New Directions for Research
  John Rowe's Remarks
  Stephen Kantrowitz (History, UW-Madison), Moderator

• Humanities NOW: Elections 2008
• Reflections on Media, Voters, and Candidates – New and Old”
• October 29, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
• Madison Public Library, Central Branch
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• A discussion with UW-Madison faculty Jeremi Suri (History), Ken Goldstein (Political Science), Lewis Friedland (Journalism), Kathy Cramer Walsh (Political Science), and Susan Zaeske (Communication Arts) Moderated by Ben Merens, Wisconsin Public Radio. Location: Madison Public Library- Central Branch

  Wisconsin Eye Elections video

• Franco Moretti Brittingham Scholar in Residence
• Danily C. and Laura Louise Bell Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Stanford Universty
• October 20, 2008 @ 6:00 pm to October 25, 2008
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• This residency is made possible by a generous grant by the Brittingham Foundation through their Brittingham Visiting Scholars Grant. Franco Moretti has written, most recently, Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900 (1998), and Graphs, Maps, Trees (2005). Chief editor of The Novel (Princeton, 2006). He has given the Gauss seminars at Princeton, the Beckman lectures at Berkeley, and the Carpenter lectures at Chicago; he is a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and writes often for New Left Review.

• Aleksandar Hemon
• The Lazarus Project
• October 19, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
• Promenade Hall, Overture Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• In partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival and the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia

  As in his earlier works, Aleksandar Hemon continues to mine, in rapturously praised prose, his experiences as a Bosnian-American immigrant. But in his most ambitious, accomplished, and engaging book yet, Hemon has broadened his canvas to encompass the personal and the political, the contemporary and the historical, America and Eastern Europe, in a single unified story.

• Born in Sarajevo, Aleksandar Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for a matter of months. While he was there, Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. His work now appears regularly in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories. He is the author of The Question of Bruno and Nowhere Man, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Hemon was awarded a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. Riverhead will publish Hemon’s next book, Love and Obstacles, in 2009.

• Daniel Levitin, PhD
• James McGill Professor, Department of Psychology, McGill University
• The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
• October 16, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
• Borders Books on University Ave
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• A What is Human? event in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival In The World in Six Songs, Daniel Levitin picks up where his New York Times bestselling This Is Your Brain On Music left off. Blending cutting-edge scientific findings with his own sometimes hilarious experiences as a musician and music-industry professional, Levitin takes readers on a journey across human civilization to argue that the brain evolved to play and listen to music in six fundamental forms—for friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love.

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  In addition, please join Daniel Levitin in a conversation about "How to Write for the Public" on October 16, @ 4:00 pm. 6191 H.C. White

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• For ten years, Levitin worked as a session musician, commercial recording engineer, live sound engineer, and record producer for countless rock groups (including work with Santana, Narada Michael Walden, and The Grateful Dead), and also served as Director of A&R for 415/Columbia Records. A long time pursuer of interesting guitar tones, Levitin's custom modified guitar amplifiers have provided guitar sounds for albums by Blue öyster cult, Joe Satriani, and Chris Isaak. Dan has been awarded 17 gold and platinum records. In 1990, he returned to college at Stanford, earning his B.A. in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science, and where he lectured on audio recording in the Music Department. Dan went on to earn his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Oregon, researching Absolute Pitch in expert and non-expert populations. He has consulted on audio sound source separation for the U.S. Navy, and worked for two years at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, a Silicon Valley computer firm where he worked on issues in Human-Computer Interaction, and Applications of Cognitive Psychology. He taught at Stanford University for 10 years, as a Lecturer in the Departments of Music, Anthropology, History of Science, Computer Science, (Program on Human-Computer Interaction), and Psychology. Currently, he is an James McGill Professor of Psychology, Behavioural Neuroscience, and Music at McGill University. He has consulted for several internet music companies, and has been active in issues related to intellectual property rights and copyright in the digital music domain. Throughout his life, Dan has written extensively, both in refereed scientific journals, and in audio magazines and trade journals such as Grammy, Billboard, Audio, and others. He was the person who broke the now-infamous Steely Dan remastering scandal in Billboard, and has interviewed numerous artists including Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and kd lang. He was an associate editor of the Billboard Encyclopedia of Record Producers, and edited Foundations of Cognitive Psychology: Core Readings (M.I.T. Press, 2002). He is the author of the international bestseller This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (Dutton/Penguin, 2006), published in six languages. This event is co-sponsored by the UW Lectures Committee, the Wisconsin Book Festival, the What is Human? initiative at the Center for the Humanities, the Morgridge Institute for Research, the UW-Madison English Department and the UW-Madison Anonymous Fund

• David C. Lindberg
• Hilldale Professor Emeritus, History of Science, UW-Madison
• "Early Modern Eyes" Conference Keynote: The Eye and Visual Perception: From Plato to Kepler
• March 15, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
• Chazen Museum of Art, Room L160
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• David Lindberg's lecture will begin with a discussion the optical legacy of Greek antiquity which included three incompatible theories of vision. He will continue by discussing the medieval contribution (created in Islam, disseminated in medieval Christendom) which was a synthesis of these Greek theories, sensitive to the principal criteria of each. Finally, Johannes Kepler's theory of the retinal image (1604) will be addressed which was not what you get when you repudiate the past and start over, but what emerges if you apply the medieval canons of the discipline with exceptional rigor. Professor Lindberg has been a Member of School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (1970-71); a Guggenheim Fellow 1977-78; President of History of Science Society (1994-95); and recipient of its Sarton Medal (1999). His major publications include Theories of Vision from al- Kindi to Kepler ( Chicago , 1976); The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. - A.D. 1450 ( Chicago 1992); and Roger Bacon and the Origins of ' Perspectiva ' in the Middle Ages ( Oxford , 1996). This event is co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities.

• Empires in Transition
• Presented with Josep Fradera, Professor of Imperial Transitions, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
• Reading Imperial Transitions: Spanish Contraction, British Expansion & American Irruption
• November 9, 2006 @ 5:00 pm
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• The Center presents the keynote lecture for the international conference, "Transformations in the U.S. Imperial State," November 9-11 which is co-sponsored by the A.W. Mellon Interdisciplinary Workshops in the Humanities, and made possible by the Anonymous Fund. Josep Maria Fradera Barcelo holds a national chaired professorship in History and is Spain's leading scholar of empire. An eminent researcher at one of the most dynamic historical research centers in Spain, he is author of five books including most recently Colonias para despue's de un imperio (2005).

• NEH Fellowshops Workshop
• September 28, 2006 @ 9:00 pm
• Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• All interested Faculty and Academic Staff are invited to attend a grant-writing workshop and information session to learn about NEH Fellowships and Summer Stipend applications . The workshop will be led by Jane Aikin, Acting Director of the Division of Research Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities. The workshop will take place on Thursday, September 28, 2006, at the UW-Madison's Memorial Library, Room 126 from 9:00-12:00 pm. The first hour of the workshop will provide an overview of the process of grant submission and evaluation, as well as a discussion of the different divisions and categories within which faculty members may apply for research support. From 10 a.m. to 12 Noon, Jane Aikin will discuss 4-5 actual proposals and go over them in detail with workshops attendees. Jane Aikin will also be available in the afternoon for individual meetings by appointment. Please contact the Center for the Humanities (608-263-3412 or infohumanities.wisc.edu) to make an appointment to see Jane Aikin during her afternoon appointment times.

• Enlightenment as a Challenge for the 21st Century: Johann Go
• A roundtable discussion
• September 20, 2006 @ 6:00 pm
• Lee Lounge, Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• This discussion is part of the international conference, "J.G. Herder as Challenge," September 21-23, 2006, organized by UW-Madison Professor of German Sabine Gross, President of the International J.G. Herder Society. This event is co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities.

• Violent Texts/Violent Textiles
• Memory, Absence, and the End of the Monument in Berlin and New York
• November 18, 2005
• School of Human Ecology, Room 21
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• A Symposium Organized with the UW-Madison Legacies of Violence Research Circle and the UW-Madison Design Gallery at the School of Human Ecology

  How do political violence, war, genocide, and exodus find their way into folkloric forms of expression? In the exhibition Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory, the UW-Madison Gallery of Design will explore this question through narrative textiles documenting violence and war in Asia, the Middle East, and Central and South America. Building on the issues and objects in the exhibition, the Center for the Humanities and the Legacies of Violence Research Circle will present Violent Texts, Violent Textiles, a one-day symposium on representations of authoritarian violence. Confirmed participants include James E. Young, Professor of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Leigh Payne, Associate Professor of Political Science at the UW-Madison; and Jo Ellen Fair, Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, UW-Madison. More participants will be announced in October. The Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory is a project of City Lore, the Michigan State University Museum, and the Vermont Folklife Center. The accompanying catalogue includes essays by curator Ariel Zeitlin Cooke, James E. Young, and others.

• James E. Young
• Professor of English and Judaic Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
• Memory, Absence, and the End of the Monument in Berlin and New York
• November 17, 2005
• Chazen Museum of Art, Room L160
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• In this slide-illustrated lecture, James E. Young explores the memorial processes surrounding international design competitions for Germany 's national Holocaust memorial in Berlin and the World Trade Center site memorial in New York City . As cultural historian of memorials and as a juror in both design competitions, Young will compare the ways two very different communities have turned to similar post-Holocaust architectural forms and themes in their attempts to formalize public memory of these two very different destructions. James E. Young is Professor of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he has taught since 1988, and currently Chair of the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies. He has also taught at New York University as a Dorot Professor of English and Hebrew/Judaic Studies (1984-88), at Bryn Mawr College in the History of Religion, and at the University of Washington, Harvard University, and Princeton University as a visiting professor. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California in 1983. He is the author of Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust (1988), and The Texture of Memory (1993), which won the National Jewish Book Award in 1994, among many other books, articles, and reviews. In 2000, he was appointed as Editor-in-Chief of the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, a ten-volume anthology of primary sources, documents, texts, and images, forthcoming with Yale University Press. At present, he is completing an insider’s story of the World Trade Center Memorial, entitled Memory at Ground Zero: A Juror’s Report on the World Trade Center Site Memorial. James Young's lecture is a part of the symposium, Violent Texts/Violent Textiles

• Ramie Targoff
• Associate Professor of English, Brandeis University
• Traducing the Soul: Donne's Anniversaries
• October 21, 2005
• 6191 Helen C. White
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• Scholar Ramie Targoff delivers the keynote lecture for a half-day colloquium organized by the Center for the Humanities, Center for Early Modern Studies. The Colloquium on Religion and Early Modern Culture is presented by the Center for the Humanities, Center for Early Modern Studies, and the English Department Renaissance Colloquium

• A Panel Discussion of the 2005 Wisconsin Book Festival
• The History of the History of Jazz: From Primitivism to Formalism to New Criticism
• October 15, 2005
• Overture Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• Scott Deveaux, University of Virginia Eric Porter, University of California, Santa Cruz Ronald Radano, University of Wisconsin-Madison Gunther Schuller, Composer, Musician, Writer, Critic This specially organized panel discussion will reveal that the history of jazz is not as simple as it seems. Like the music itself, historical and critical approaches to jazz have changed over time, with each shift adding a new layer to the way we understand the music. The panel will include four major writers who have made very different contributions to our understanding of jazz.
  Gunther Schuller is a major American composer, conductor, musician, and writer whose two histories of Jazz, Early Jazz and The Swing Era, are key texts in the history of the music. Scott Deveaux is the author of The Birth of BeBop and numerous other books and essays. Eric Porter is the author of What is this Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Activists, and Critics, a book which draws attention to the role of musicians as caretakers and critics of their traditions. The panel will be moderated by Ronald Radano, Professor of Music at the UW-Madison and author of Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music.

  The History of the History of Jazz is presented with the UW-Madison Arts Institute as a part of the fall, 2005 residency of Gunther Schuller, the 2005 Wisconsin Book Festival, and the Overture Center for the Arts' presentation of Sonny Rollins in concert on the evening of Saturday, October 15. The performance by Sonny Rollins is by ticket only (available at the Overture Center box office). The History of the History of Jazz is free and open to the public.

• Dava Sobel
• Galileo's Daughter: Counselor and Confidante in Search of the Truth
• November 17, 2003
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• Acclaimed science writer Dava Sobel joins the Center for her first-ever lecture in Madison. Sobel is the author of the wildly popular Galileo's Daughter (Walker and Co., 1999) and Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Penguin, 1996). In addition to her public lecture, Ms. Sobel will be on campus for a three-day residency in which she will lead workshops and discussions with an interdisciplinary range of UW-Madison faculty and staff. Dava Sobel's visit is presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy.

• Writing Science
• October 23, 2003
• Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• Deborah Blum, University of Wisconsin-Madison Antonio Damasio, University of Iowa Alan Lightman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sherwin Nuland, Yale University Writing Science will bring together four renowned writers for a panel discussion on the special challenges of writing about science for a general readership—while simultaneously keeping specialist readers happy. Deborah Blum is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Love at Goon Park (Perseus, 2002) and The Monkey Wars (Oxford Univ, Press, 1994). Antonio Damasio, a neurologist at the University of Iowa, is well-known for his best-selling book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (Avon, 1995), and the recent Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Harcourt, 2003). Alan Lightman, a physicist who directs the writing program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of Einstein's Dreams (Warner Books, 1994) and a host of novels, volumes of poetry, and scientific works. Sherwin Nuland is clinical professor of surgery at Yale University, where he also teaches medical history and bioethics. He is the author of How We Die and How We Live (Vintage Books, 1995 and 1998) and the forthcoming The Doctors' Plague (W.W. Norton, 2003). Writing Science is organized by the Center for the Humanities as a part of the 2003 Wisconsin Book Festival.

• New Blues: Robert Gordon, Peter Guralnick, and Craig Werner
• September 25, 2003
• Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• Robert Gordon, Journalist and Author Peter Guralnick, Journalist and Author Craig Werner, UW-Madison Writers Robert Gordon and Peter Guralnick join Craig Werner for a discussion of new ways of thinking about the Blues. Robert Gordon is the author of Can't be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. Peter Guralnick is the author of Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, and the editor of the forthcoming Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey. Craig Werner is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the UW-Madison and the author of A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race & The Soul of America. New Blues is organized in partnership with Wisconsin Public Television in support of the PBS series The Blues, airing September 28-30.

• Stanley Kutler
• Professor of American Institutions and Professor of law at UW-Madison
• Liberating the Nixon Tapes
• March 29, 2001 @ 7:30 pm
• Pyle Center
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• Well-known presidential scholar Stanley Kutler will give the talk, Liberating the Nixon Tapes and Other Encounters, at 7:30 PM Thursday, March 29, in the Alumni Lounge of the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St. The event was free and open to the public. Kutler, Professor of American Institutions and Professor of law at UW-Madison, will focus on his adventures with the Freedom of Information Act and his lawsuit to force the National Archives and Richard Nixon to liberate the president's tape recordings. He is perhaps best known as the author of the acclaimed Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes and writer in a wide number of fields of American history, particularly concentrating on American constitutional history and the twentieth century. His books include The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon; The American Inquisition, winner of the Silver Gavel Award, American Bar Association, 1983; Privilege and Creative Destruction: The Charles River Bridge Case; and Judicial Power and Reconstruction Politics. In addition, he has authored or edited more than half a dozen textbooks in various fields of American history, including The Supreme Court and the Constitution and Looking for America. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading history and legal periodicals. Most recently, he has edited the four-volume work, Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century America, awarded the prize for the best reference work by the Association of Book Publishers, and The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. Currently, he is editing the revision of the Dictionary of American History, a 10-volume work. He founded Reviews in American History, and edited it from 1972-1997. Kutler also has worked as a consultant on a number of film projects, most recently as the historical advisor for the Emmy-winning BBC documentary, Watergate. Currently, he is the historical advisor for a forthcoming Showtime film, The Day Reagan Was Shot. Finally, his recent books, Abuse of Power and The Wars of Watergate are being adapted for a Broadway play, to be produced by Metropolitan Entertainment.

• Five UW - Madison scholars
• What = Jewish x?
• February 21, 2001 @ 7:30 pm
• Memorial Union
• This event is one of the Special Events events.
• What makes something "Jewish"? Five UW - Madison scholars will attempt to solve the equation, "What = Jewish x?" at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2001, at the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St., Madison. Check "Today in the Union" for the room number. The event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the UW - Madison Center for the Humanities, in conjunction with the George L. Mosse/Laurence A. Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. Over the centuries, our culture has been enriched by the literary, intellectual and artistic accomplishments of the Jewish people, and many of these works are recognizably Jewish in character. Teachers and scholars from different humanities disciplines will address the question of what makes an artwork or a musical composition or a historical event or a work of literature specifically "Jewish." The four speakers are: Pamela Potter (Music), "What Is Jewish Music?"; Douglas Rosenberg (Dance), "What Is Jewish Art?"; Judith Kornblatt (Slavic Languages and Literatures), "What Is Jewish Literature?"; and David Sorkin (History), "What Is Jewish History?" Steven Nadler, director of the Center for Humanities and professor of philosophy and Jewish studies, will moderate.

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