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University Common Reading Lecture
When the Rivers Run Dry:
Water -- The Defining Crisis of the 21st Century
Fred Pearce
8 p.m.
Wednesday, September 5
Weber Chapel Auditorium
When the Rivers Run Dry calls attention dramatically to the profound importance of this academic year’s University Theme: Water. The book portrays how the most vital sources of fresh water on earth — our rivers — are being depleted at an accelerating rate, creating a growing worldwide water crisis. From travels to more than 30 countries, veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce has documented how and why many fresh water sources in the world are threatened or already dry. Pearce advocates a new ethical perspective emphasizing shared water use and the wise management of water resources to maximize social benefits and produce useful remedies to avoid widespread catastrophe. To do so requires work to understand the issues and to connect science with enlightened ethical and political imagination and good engineering. It requires rethinking prevailing moral, political, and economic judgments, changing our behavior, and reshaping policies and practices in the use of water locally, nationally, and globally.
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Earth & Environmental Sciences Seminar
Why the River Matters: How the Susquehanna Shapes the History and Human Geography of Central Pennsylvania
Ben Marsh
Professor of geography and environmental studies, Bucknell University
12:30 p.m.
Friday, September 7
Isaacs Auditorium,
Seibert Hall
We cannot understand the economic, social, and urban history of central Pennsylvania without looking closely at the physical nature of the Susquehanna River. Where and how towns grew, what products were grown or made here, and how goods and people traveled through the land, have all been conditioned by the river and its valley. Even today our evolving and enlarging relationship with the Susquehanna -- as a landscape symbol, a recreation resource, an environmental challenge, and an urban hazard -- depends strongly on the physical character of the river itself. |
Histoire du Soldat, Igor Stravinsky
8 pm
Friday, September 14
Stretansky Concert Hall
Led by Maestro Eric Hinton, 10 SU students and faculty will collaborate to bring this provocative story to life with surprise narrator and actors. Stravinsky’s work of 1918 is based on a traditional Russian folk tale but the music demonstrates a variety of non-Russian “modern” idioms, moving through them as easily as one moves through water: jazz, tango, waltz, march, and even a chorale. Also fluid is Stravinsky’s genre itself, seeming to be simultaneously chamber music, theater or ballet. Blurred borders are demonstrated further by the overall themes of the story, as the soldier encounters confusion between good and evil, and between present and past. |
Earth & Environmental Sciences Seminar
SU alumna Heather Parent, environmental law attorney, Eaton Peabody, Maine
3 p.m.
Friday, September 28
Isaacs Auditorium,
Seibert Hall
Heather Parent will lead this seminar on issues of environmental law, including those related to wetlands and groundwater contamination.
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The State of the Susquehanna River
Alumni panel with Terry Bossert, Michael Smith, Fred Lubnow and Anthony Buda
12:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 6
Isaacs Auditorium,
Seibert Hall
Terry Bossert, an environmental law attorney with Post and Schell and former chief legal officer for Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, Michael Smith, manager of the Moshannon District office of the Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of District Mining Operations, Fred Lubnow, Director of Aquatics for Princeton Hydro, and Anthony Buda, a research hydrologist at USDA Agricultural Research Service in University Park, Pa., will discuss the impact of acid mine drainage, nutrient runoff and environmental laws on the state of the Susquehanna River. |
Nosferatu
8 p.m.
Wednesday, October 10
Stretansky Concert Hall
Summer is the time for water, but Halloween, with the first frost, the smell of smoke, and blowing of dying leaves, is truly a moment of maximum fluidity, a blurring of the lines between this world and the next. In this concert, the classic silent horror film Nosferatu will be presented with a live musical performance of an improvisational score by Patrick Long. The event will blur the lines between a concert and a film, between improvised and composed music, and between the worlds of electronic and acoustic sounds. |
Claritas Distinguished Lecture in the Sciences
The Weather Makers
Tim Flannery
8 p.m.
Thursday, October 18
Degenstein Center Theater
Dr. Tim Flannery, currently a professor at Sydney's Macquarie University and author of the New York Times bestseller The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, presents a powerful exploration of the connection between climate change, global warming and human activity. He not only informs audiences about what is happening on our planet, but presents a game plan to halt current warming trends to begin the achievable project of reversing the damage we have done. Believing that human activity is drastically altering the earth’s climate, he wants to mobilize the social and political will to address this problem before it is too late. As the former director of the South Australian Museum, Dr. Flannery also spent a year as professor of Australian studies at Harvard, where he taught in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Dr. Flannery is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement, as well as to ABC Radio, NPR and the BBC. |
Earth & Environmental Sciences Seminar
Jeff Hartranft
SU alumnus and scientist with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
3 p.m.
Friday, October 19
Isaacs Auditorium,
Seibert Hall
Jeff Hartranft will discuss the links between science and policy in river management initiatives. |
Saxophone & Chamber Music Recital
8 p.m.
Saturday, October 27
One can view water in many ways: its purity versus its complexity, its
gentleness vs. its power to name just a few. This recital features faculty
members Deborah Andrus and Gail B. Levinsky performing works for the
clarinet and saxophone. The beauty and simplicity of Schumann’s Fantasy
Pieces for Clarinet & Piano will be paired with a new work for saxophone by composer
Halim El-Dabh entitled The Miraculous Tale, which is the composer’s musical
interpretation of his personal experience of being hit by lightening. The
Abyss of the Birds for solo clarinet by Messiaen exposes two opposite
concepts – fluidity in the infinite nature of time, hope and joy beyond our
desolation. While utilizing music from the Anglo-Irish tradition, Evan
Chambers’ work Come Down Heavy! blurs the folk song tradition with the use
of contemporary compositional language. Arthur Frackenpohl’s Sonata for
Clarinet and Piano is a light, effervescent work. This recital will also
present the premiere of Jason Bahr’s Tipping Point for saxophone and piano. |
13th Annual Latino Symposium
Crossings/Travesías
Thursday & Friday, November 1-2
Degenstein Campus Center
The 13th Latino Symposium will focus on migration and exile. Presenters will examine issues involving immigration and exile from many areas of the Spanish-speaking world, including Atlantic migrations (from Spain and Africa to the New World or from Africa and Latin America to Spain), migration across the Rio Grande, or crossings of the Florida Straits from Cuba and the Caribbean. The Symposium will include a keynote address, a round table, student presentations, musical performances and dance workshops. It culminates Friday evening in a gala dance featuring a well-known Latin band and professional dance instructors. |
Earth & Environmental Sciences Seminar
Amanda Wooden,
professor of environmental studies
Bucknell University
12:30 p.m.
Friday, November 2
Isaacs Auditorium, Seibert Hall
Amanda Wooden will discuss water politics in the Aral Sea region. |
The Limits of Forgiveness:
A Panel Discussion of Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower
7 p.m.
Wednesday, November 7
Meeting Rooms 1-5
Degenstein Campus Center
Throughout history water has been the symbol of purification and atonement. Could water ever cleanse one, such as the dying Nazi soldier who confessed to burning Jews alive and then begged Simon Wiesenthal, a prisoner in a Nazi Labor Camp, for forgiveness? Wiesenthal was unable to respond to the request for forgiveness. He survived the Nazi era, but remained haunted by his experience with the German soldier and what the appropriate response should have been. His bookThe Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness challenges readers to examine their own ethical beliefs about atonement and forgiveness. This panel discussion will focus on the question of whether or not Wiesenthal had the responsibility to offer forgiveness. Panelists include Brian Johnson, director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs; Rabbi Nina Mandel,the Rev. Mark Wm. Radecke, university chaplain; and Coleen Zoller, assistant professor of philosophy. |
SU Symphonic Band Concert
3 p.m.
Sunday, November 18
Stretansky Concert Hall
This concert will feature works that, through musical metaphor, convey the idea of water. These works from Gustav Holst, David Maslanka, David Bedford and others attempt this evocative representation through form and technique. Holst’s work conveys the flowing River Thames as it makes it way past the town of Hammersmith. Bedford’s Sun Paints Rainbows on Vast Waves utilizes unusual orchestral colors to convey the interaction of sunlight and water. Tears by David Maslanka was inspired by the dissolution of a traditional African culture overrun by its European neighbors as told in a story by African writer Ahmadou Kourouma. |
Reauthorization of the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund: How Citizen Action Results in Change of National Public Policy
Earth & Environmental Sciences Seminar with John Dawes,
administrator, Western PA Watershed Program
3 p.m.
Friday, November 30
Isaacs Auditorium,
Seibert Hall
John Dawes will examine abandoned mine drainage and related state policy. |
10th Annual Student-Directed One Act Festival
The Power of Nature
8 p.m.
Thursday – Saturday, February 14-16
2:30 p.m.
Sunday, February 17
Degenstein Center Theater
For tickets, call 570-372-ARTS (2787)
The 10th Annual Student-Directed One Act Festival allows the most proficient and dedicated Susquehanna University theatre students to direct, design, act and manage challenging works from the canon of dramatic literature. Previous playwrights whose works have graced the Degenstein Theater include Tennessee Williams, Christopher Durang, Terrence McNally, Susan Glaspell and Lady Gregory. Inspired by this year’s university theme of Water, the 10th Annual Student-Directed One Act Festival is dedicated to plays in one act that reveal the power of the natural world. |
Water in the Middle East:
Policy, Law, and Culture
8 p.m.
Thursday, February 28
Isaacs Auditorium,
Seibert Hall
While sectarian and religious conflicts take center stage in Western coverage of the Middle East, less well known to American audiences is the important role that water plays in this arid region’s search for peace, especially in Iraq and Israel/Palestine. This program will highlight the geography of water resources in the Middle East (in and around the Nile, Jordan, Euphrates, and Tigris rivers), and explore the cultural, legal, and political issues facing the nations in the region as they negotiate water rights, international water disputes, and a just sharing of an essential natural resource. Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program, The Arlin M. Adams Center for Law and Society, the Department of Political Science, and the Department of History. |
SU Orchestra Concert
8 p.m.
Friday, February 22
Stretansky Concert Hall
The music of Ludwig van Beethoven synthesizes, in a most profound way, elements of classicism and romanticism. This concert will feature Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, a ground-breaking work reflecting Beethoven’s personal anguish at his imminent deafness. This extraordinary staple of western civilization is a bridge between classical form and romantic sentiment. Also featured on this program will be the world premiere of Kirk O’Riordan’s River Lights, a tone poem about the Susquehanna River. |
Alice Pope Shade Lecture
The Emerging Alliance of Religion and Ecology
7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, April 2
Isaacs Auditorium,
Seibert Hall
John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker, coordinators of Yale University's Forum on Religion and Ecology, will explore how the sacred and sacramental use of water has implications with regard to exercising responsible stewardship of water and the environment.
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SU Opera Studio & Orchestra
8 p.m.
Friday-Saturday, April 25-26
Stretansky Concert Hall
A fully-staged production of Orfeo commemorates the 400th anniversary of
this early masterpiece, in which Claudio Monteverdi forged the traditions of
solo singing, theater and madrigal into the first fully-fledged opera and
one of the few works of this period to remain firmly in the modern
repertoire. |
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