The Valley Humanities Review is looking for high quality humanities essays and poetry written by undergraduates to publish in their Spring 2010 Issue.  They seek “essays of high quality, intellectual rigor and originality that challenge or contribute substantially to ongoing conversations in the humanities. Topics may include but are not limited to: literature, history, religion, philosophy, art, art history and foreign languages. VHR is also currently seeking poetry submissions; students may submit up to three poems.”

Due to their desire to encourage undergraduate scholarship, the Review will only accept submissions from currently attending or recently graduated undergraduate students.  Essays must be 3,000-6,000 words in length, be free from errors, follow the Chicago style of formatting, footnoting and bibliography, and the essay must have an original title.  All submissions are due by December 15th.    Please send essays and poetry to: submissions-vhr@lvc.edu .    Visit www.lvc.edu/vhr for more information.

The experimental musician Miya Masaoka is coming to Oberlin as a part of the Luce Margin Release lecture series.  Masaoka is an American artist who often performs on the Japanese 17-string koto zither.  Her work blends electronic innovations (such as using additional laser beams ’strings’ above the koto zither ) and concept-based, often improvisational performance.  A member of the Bay Area Improv Scene, Masaoka is noted for her performance “What’s the Difference Between Stripping and Playing the Violin?”  on Market Street which combined dozens of musicians, male and female exotic dancers and taped interviews with sex workers. 

During her visit to Oberlin, Miya Masaoka will give a lunchtime lecture at the Cat and the Cream coffeehouse on Thursday November 19th at noon (pizza will be served).  Then, the following Saturday (the 21st) at 4pm two Oberlin student groups, WAM! and OINC, will perform Masaoka’s work, including “For Birds, Planes and Musicians” and “Jagged Pyramid”.  The concert will be directed by Julia Christiansen and Per Bloland.  Masaoka will play with students during the performance after intensive rehearsals.  The show will be at the ‘Sco in Wilder and is free of charge.

To find out more about Miya Masaoka, click here.  Here for more information about the Margin Release series.

Oberlin alum Josh Neufeld (‘89) will be in Oberlin this weekend to discuss his recently published book;  A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge . His book was reviewed in the New York Times, you can see a related post about it here.   The book grew out of his experiences while volunteering for the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina.  He will give a talk about the book as well as his career and previous projects as an alternative cartoonist.  His talk will be followed by a discussion between Josh Neufeld and Kwame Webster, a current senior at Oberlin who is a character in the book.   Their discussion will be moderated by Caroline Jackson Smith, Associate Professor of Theater and Dance and also African American Studies.   This event will be in Hallock Auditorium (in the Environmental Studies building) at 3pm this Saturday, Nov. 7th.

Susan Kane, Professor of Classical Archaeology at Oberlin,  has been invited to attend meetings in Tripoli the week of October 25th to advise the Libyan government about substantial investments that are being  proposed for the five UNESCO World Heritage sites in Libya.  Susan Kane has worked on many archaeological excavations in Libya including the  “Terracotta Army”; found during excavation of Greek and Roman ruins of Shahhat in Libya.

“All You Can Eat: A Buffet of Architectural Ideas for Cleveland” is an exhibition at the Cleveland Sculpture Center which will be accompanied by a panel discussion by Cleveland-area architects, designers and researchers.   “All You Can Eat” will focus on new ideas for the use of vacant lots in the Cleveland Area.  The show’s organizers hope that the exhibition and surrounding events will generate interest and motivation towards not just building, but creating a forum for how to better use these spaces.

The show opens this Friday the 30th from 5-10 with an actual buffet of delicious food and music.   There will also be a  second event on Saturday from noon to 5pm with a panel discussion starting at 3.  The panel discussion includes Oberlin’s own Luce Visiting Professor of Emerging Media Julia Christiansen.   The panel moderator is the designer, critic and “All You Can Eat” organizer Michael Abrahamson.  You can find out more about the exhibition here.

Heads up, Obies:  a former Oberlin student who is now living in Oberlin has started up a new website to help college students and Oberlin residents know what is going on all the time, all over campus and all over town.  On the site you can view and submit to an events calendar, find out the weather, check out discounts and deals from Oberlin businesses and also view a user-submitted picture of the day.  Tom Geller, the site’s inventor and manager wants to have a single resource that will better inform Oberlin’s full- and part-time residents of what’s happenin’ ’round these parts.

www.inoberlin.com

“Eccentric Visions” just opened at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and was team-curated by Oberlin Visiting Professor of East Asian Art Michele Matteini along with Kim Karlsson and Alfreda Murck.  The show focuses on two Qing Dynasty painters, Luo Ping and his mentor Jin Nong.  Luo Ping is an important and remarkable painter of this time period  because of his original portraits, ‘ghost’ paintings made for his mentor as well as his paintings of the fantastical beings he claimed to see everyday.  Although Luo and Jin’s work are very different from each other, Luo was respected for his skill as a copyist as well as for his own unique work.   Many of the works included in the show are on loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Art Museum and have never been shown in the US before.  The show was given an extremely positive review by the New York Times; you can read the article here.

The show will be open until January 10th.  You can look at the Met’s site directly here.

The Morgan Conservatory and Art of Papermaking is having an opening reception for their new show “Paper in Motion”.  The show, which opens October 10th, includes the work of Oberlin Director of Cinema Studies Rian Brown-Orso as well as Nancy Baker Cahill of Los Angeles and Nina Sarnelle of Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The three artists collectively explore notions of “destruction and creation” and “violence and healing”.  The artists work in varied mediums, including collage, video, painting and installation.   Rian Brown-Orso’s new work, Circular Motion which draws inspiration from Eduard Muybridge’s studies of the human body as well as prehistoric cave paintings.  Her work uses spinning discs, paintings, back-lit illuminated collages and video projection to translate the language of cinema and motion.     The reception is Friday, October 16th from 6-9pm at Morgan Conservatory 1754 E. 47th Street, Cleveland.  The show runs from Oct. 10th to  Nov. 28th.   www.morganconservatory.org

Heads up all sculptors and artists interested in designing an award for AICUO’s (Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio) yearly honor. What they’re looking for, from the horse’s mouth:

1) The AICUO Award: Given to the Grand Award winner only. It should be the largest award.
2)The finalists’ award: Given to the five finalists. This should be smaller. It should be a variation of the AICUO Award.
3) The People’s Choice Award: Should be different from the other two designs, but a cohesive piece to the awards as a whole.
How it works: You design three awards, submit sketches/drawings, and if your design is chosen we will have it created by a local artist. Your signature will be on the awards as well as us highlighting that it is your design during the awards reception.
Who can enter: Any student! Not just Seniors!
All entries must be submitted by January 12, 2010 and can be sent via email to cmartin@aicuo.edu with the subject “AICUO Design Competition” or via mail to:

Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio

C/O Afton Gladman, Art Awards Coordinator

41 S. High St., Suite 2720

Columbus, OH 43215

Please call 614-228-2196 for additional information.

This coming week, the Oberlin Art History Department will host Pamela Smith, Professor of History at Columbia University.  The lectures are funded by the Baldwin Fund and organized by Christina Neilson.

Monday, September 21 at 2:30 pm in Classroom I of the Art Building Smith will deliver a lecture “Casting from Life: Art and Nature in Early Modern Europe.”  This lecture is an open session of Neilson’s Baroque class.

Tuesday, September 22 at 5:00 pm in Classroom I of the Art Building Smith will give a lecture titled “Butter and Gold, Lizards and Vermilion: Art and Science in Early Modern Europe”.

Butter, gold, vermilion, and lizards were all materials employed by sixteenth-century European metalworkers.  What understanding of matter and the transformation of materials stood behind the use of these substances?  This lecture describes a “vernacular science” of matter and nature that informed metalworking practices, and considers the origin and transmission of these ideas and techniques.

Pamela Smith is a specialist in early modern science and her most recent publication is a book she co-edited with Benjamin Schmidt called Making Knowledge in Early Modern Europe: Practices, Objects, and Texts, 1400 – 1800, in 2008.