A&H Forum Abstracts

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September 17

Gillian Conoley (English)

CANCELLED

October 1

Stephanie Hunt (Theatre Arts)

SSU show opens October 8 and plays through Oct 17 at Person Theater

Five unmarried sisters in rural Donegal County in 1936 struggle to survive and take care of each other and the vulnerable members of their family while the world around them changes swiftly and ominously.  As the sisters work, the music on their new luxury, a radio, enables them to periodically dance and dream.  Critic John Lahr has said about the play that "Friel’s enormous accomplishment in Dancing at Lughnasa is to flush out from the humdrum struggles of daily life a sense of wonder and to make the sacramental felt."  (Brian Friel in Conversation, 215)

October 15

Michael Ezra (AMCS)

I recently completed a book about Muhammad Ali that explored how someone
who was once reviled by large portions of the American public has been
transformed into an almost universally loved symbol of racial
reconciliation, moral authority, and the very best qualities humankind has
to offer. In this presentation to the A&H Forum, I'd like to share my
findings.

October 29

John Palmer (Music)

Many critics have written on Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony assuming a specific extra-musical intention on the part of the composer.  However, circumstances and documentation surrounding the work's composition suggest
that the composer did not have in mind from the beginning the program he penned in December 1901¬--the source most often cited by authors to support their programmatic interpretations.  When examined collectively, the three known versions of Mahler's program reveal less about the
symphony than about the evolution of an act of programmatic criticism,
similar to Beethoven criticism by A. B. Marx or Richard Wagner.  Mahler's metaphors are post-compositional in origin and designed to market the piece to its audience.
Sources of Mahler's verbal narrative¬-itself an aesthetic object apart from the symphony-range from Bible verses and Des Knaben Wunderhorn poetry to Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique program and Adam Mickiewicz's Dziady
("Forefather's Eve").  One important source that has thus far escaped notice is Richard Wagner's 1846 essay on the meaning of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with which Mahler's program shares atmosphere and phraseology.
The lengthy chain of events leading to the completed Second Symphony and the discrepancies between Mahler's metaphorical descriptions suggest the program had a twofold purpose.  The composer wished both to offer
programmatic justification for including the second movement (about which the composer was ambivalent) and to articulate through metaphor the referential musical relationships between the finale and the remaining
three movements.



November 12

Heidi LaMoreaux (Hutchins)

The Hutchins School of Liberal Studies (Hutchins), a dialogic cluster school within Sonoma State University, creates spaces for creative growth for both students and faculty through use of undergraduate seminar discussions, symposia and field trips, student-centered curriculum, flexibility in both course structure and student assignments, and an absence of formal examinations.  Through active participation in the Hutchins community, faculty creativity is enriched through: 1) course planning in collaboration with a cadre of five or six professors from varied disciplines who plan lower division classes; 2) introduction to new interdisciplinary ideas which may result in new avenues of individual scholarly research; and 3) the creation of upper division courses in alignment with faculty interdisciplinary interests and passions.  Student creativity is encouraged through: 1) student centered and student driven curricula; 2) seminar discussions of "big questions"; 3) open-ended student assignments; 4) symposia and speakers; 5) field experiences; and 6) a sense of community.  Through unique curriculum and many opportunities for personal connections between students and faculty, Hutchins encourages active learning, interdisciplinary connections, and integrative thought.

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