Events:
Screening of Girl Rising
Girl Rising is coming back! The film was here in Fall 2013, but if you missed it, here is your second chance. Directed by documentarian Richard E. Robbins, the film focuses on nine unforgettable girls living in the developing world–ordinary girls who confront tremendous challenges and overcome nearly impossible odds to pursue their dreams. It’s narrated by famous actors and actresses such as Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Alicia Keys, Cate Blanchett, Priyanka Chopra, Salma Hayek, Selena Gomez, and Liam Neeson. Both educators and students will enjoy the film, as the stories are fantastic tools for students in so many fields: film, education, international studies, social sciences, business, and even economics.
Only one screening will be held on Tuesday, April 5, at 1:30pm in the Student Union Theatre, near the ATMs. A short discussion will follow. Email sarah.prasad@sjsu.edu with any questions or to preview the film. Sponsored by the College of Humanities and the Arts, and the departments of English and Comparative Literature and Linguistics and Language Development.
Art & Art History: New Show at Thompson Art Gallery Opening April 12, 2016
Roger Ballen is one of the most original image makers of the twenty-first century. Asylum of the Birds showcases his iconic photographs, which were all taken entirely within the confines of a house in a Johannesburg suburb, the location of which remains a tightly guarded secret. The inhabitants of the house, both people and animals, and most notably the ever-present birds, are the cast who perform within a sculptural and decorated theatrical interior that the author creates and orchestrates. The resulting images are compelling and dynamic, existing somewhere between still life and portrait. They are richly layered with graffiti, drawings, animals, and found objects. In a world where photographers seek to avoid definition, Roger Ballen is a true original who not only defies genres, but has defined his own artistic space as well.
On exhibit from April 12, 2016 – May 13, 2016 at the Natalie and James Thompson Gallery, Art and Art History Department, SJSU.
English & Comparative Literature: WAC Workshops
The Writing Across the Curriculum program is offering a variety of workshops and seminars this semester, many of them developed by our H&A colleagues. Please visit the WAC website for a full list: www.sjsu.edu/wac
Music & Dance: World-famous Pianist and Teacher Jonathan Biss Comes to SJSU
The Beethoven Center is proud to announce several events taking place during the weekend of April 16th and 17th, including a Young Pianist’s Beethoven Competition as well as a Masterclass and later concert performance by Jonathan Biss, a world-famous pianist and instructor. On the morning of Saturday, April 16, 2016, the SJSU School of Music will be hosting a competition-level performance of six finalists pre-selected by the panel of judges, all working towards the prize of a master class with Jonathan Biss to take place later that day. The masterclass is open to others with additional admission. Jonathan Biss’ stay on campus culminates in a concert held at the Petit Trianon Theatre on Sunday the 17th, where he will perform works of Schubert and Beethoven. For additional information, and to purchase tickets, please visit: http://www.americanbeethovensociety.org/
Music & Dance: Brahms’ Requiem Performance
Join the SJSU Choraliers, Concert Choir, and Symphony Orchestra as they combine for a performance of Brahms’ Requiem at Mission Santa Clara on Saturday, May 7, 2016 at 7:30pm.
Music & Dance: SJSU Choraliers on Tour
The SJSU Choraliers will be on a concert tour of the central coast this April. Look for them presenting concerts in Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara from Wednesday, April 13, 2016, through Friday, April 15, 2016.
Faculty:
Art & Art History: Two New Essays on Architectural History
Professor Raynsford has recently published essays in two separate anthologies from Ashgate Press: “From Statecraft to Stagecraft: The Visual Politics of Britishness at the South Bank Exhibition,” in Ortenberg, Paperny and Devos eds., Architecture of Great Expositions 1937-1958 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015) 115-132; and “From Spatial Feeling to Functionalist Design: Contrasting Representations of the Baroque in Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s Experiencing Architecture,” in The Baroque in Architectural Culture, 1880-1980, ed. Andrew Leach, John MacArthur, and Maarten Delbeke (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015) 173-184.
Art & Art History: Assistant Professor Hobbs awarded VentureWell Faculty Grant
Assistant Professor Gary Craig Hobbs was recently awarded a VentureWell Faculty Grant for his proposal, Rapid Prototyping the Future at San José State v2.0. Professor Hobbs serves as project co-director for the Rapid Prototyping Challenge at SJSU in collaboration with Intel and the College of Engineering. The VentureWell Foundation has funded innovation and entrepreneurship on university and college campuses for over 20 years. Hobbs will use his VentureWell Faculty Grant to expand the scope of rapid prototyping at SJSU through the Paseo Public Prototyping Challenge and Festival — an innovation challenge design to address real-world problems in the City of San José. The project is also funded by the Knight Foundation and Intel.
Design: Graphic Design Student Wins Prize for Tiburon International Film Festival
The Bay Area loves movies and has many film festivals are here to prove it. We know the San Raphael Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Berlin and Beyond, the Jewish Film festival, and many more, but did you know that there was an International Film Festival in Tiburon? A student from Jean-Benoit Levy’s Graphic Design class just won the first prize with her poster.
When they enroll into the Design Department, the introductory class “Fundamental Graphic Visualization” taught by Jean-Benoit Levy is the very first contact in the discipline of Graphic Design that young students have at SJSU. At the end of each semester, all students receive a last assignment where they get the opportunity to participate in a real poster competition. At the end of this very intensive course that addresses many aspect of the basics of Graphic Design, the making of the poster is the moment for students to measure what they have learned during the semester. The themes vary depending the individual requirements of the poster competitions.
During the 2015 fall semester, Jean-Benoit’s two classes participated in the 15th Annual Tiburon International Film Festival’s Call for Posters. The winning poster is from DSGD 63 – Student Katherine Cheng. Have a look at almost all the posters created by the two classes: http://www.posterpage.ch/winners/tibu_16/tibu_16.htm
English & Comparative Literature: Professor Awarded ERFA Funding for Travel to Archives
Having established the undeniable impact of the British nineteenth literary annual with a digital archive, Forget Me Not Hypertextual Archive (2005), and a recently-published monograph, Forget Me Not: The Rise of the British Literary Annual 1823-1835 (Ohio UP 2015), Katherine Harris turns to her next book project to address unanswered questions about the annual’s global reach and subversion of boundaries. For the Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association Award, Harris has been awarded travel funds to visit special collections and archives to complete research on American pirated editions. Tracing this pirating will require a visit to inspect Alaric Watts’ papers at Princeton University (editor of the London Literary Souvenir, 1825-1835) as well as Thomas Wardle’s papers at the Philadelphia Company. In order to compare the volumes, Harris will also need to travel to the New York Public Library to compare volumes of literary annuals from her personal collection to actual print volumes of other American and London-published versions. None of these volumes have been digitized in Google Books or Hathitrust. By assessing pirating practices, Harris will be able to assess the commodification of British authorship in America during a century of immense colonial expansion and a struggle to control the cultural representations of the British empire.
Music & Dance: Performances of Three Music Compositions
Dr. Belet’s composition Summer Phantoms: Nocturne (piano and computer processed piano sounds), included on the audio CD Insomnia, was performed by pianist Kai Schumacher (www.kaischumacher.com) at the Zeiss Planetarium, Bochum, Germany, on February 20, 25, and 28, as well as March 3, and 6, 2016. Cross-Town Traffic 2.0, co-composed with William Walker, for any number of smartphones and tablets, was premiered at SJSU on February 23, 2016. Language is (slithering) in no particular order, co-composed with Stephen Ruppenthal, for two voices and Kyma processing, is part of an ongoing performance installation within the Digital Poetry Exhibition (part of Studio 300 Exhibition) at the BYTE Gallery, Transylvania University, Lexington, KY, running throughout 2015-16. Details are posted on Dr. Belet’s website: www.BeletMusic.com
Philosophy: Gottlob Frege (1848 –1925) by Peter Hadreas
The Begriffsschrift is worth the study.
The Grundlagen makes clear what was muddy.
And both make former philosophers — anybody —
into a muddled and befuddled fuddy-duddy.
Without language thought can’t be apprehended.
But language slips and slides and must be mended.
It produces many a blind sighting.
So, Frege produced his concept-writing.
‘A rat’ screamed a woman and swooned.
An object she thereby presumed.
‘A rat’ said the rat-catcher and displayed it.
With a concept he thereby conveyed it.
‘A rat,’ you see, is logically ambiguous.
It depends upon words that are contiguous.
‘A rat’ can some life-long rat identify
or ‘a rat’ can features rodentine ratify.
So, we really ought to be more exact
about how objects and concepts interact.
The mind can picture an object and review it
But for concepts a pix is nix; the mind can’t do it.
And since thoughts are of objects and concepts compounded.
By the mind, thoughts can be only plumbed and sounded.
