Classical Music and the Crass and Ignorant World of Rock and Roll
Paul Vance - Professor, Music

This presentation will attempt to show parallel compositional procedures in "classical" music and rock and roll, especially in the music of the Beach Boys.

Introduction of the spring 2008 Athenaeum Series: Dr. Larry Hardesty
Introduction of speaker/event: TBA

Corruption and the Campaign Finance System
Kurt Hohenstein - Professor, History

Hohenstein will talk about the history and evolution of the American campaign finance system with emphasis on the current presidential campaign. He will also discuss his new book Coining Corruption: The Making of the American Campaign Finance System (Northern Illinois University Press, 2007).

Introduction by:TBA

For the Love of All Things Cricket: The Sport and Life
Santhosh Chandrabalan- WSU Student, Composite Engineering

What is cricket? How is it played? And what does it mean in the life of a WSU student? This presentation will provide an introduction to the sport of cricket and Chandrabalan will be open for questions about the game and cricket at WSU.

Introduction: TBA

Basics of Modern Art:
Impressionism and Moving through Post-Modernism
Vittorio Colaizzi - Professor, Art

Colaizzi will discuss the emergence and development of non-representation in Western art by starting with Impressionism and moving through Post-Modernism.

He will suggest ways for the non-specialist to understand and enjoy abstraction. These include the growing desire for art's autonomous existence, the application of different standards than fidelity to likeness, and the comparison of different works of non-representational art, to emphasize the concept that art is a conversation conducted throughout history.

Introduction by: TBA

Open Educational Resources: Are They Right for WSU?
Jim Reineke - Professor, Education

Reineke will provide an overview of open educational resources (OER_, issues of copyright, and intellectual property associated with open educational resources. He will review OER websites including MIT's open courseware, Notre Dame's OER Commons, and WSU's pilot educommons site. This presentation will concluded with a call for WSU Departments to participate in the open educational resources movement by adding their instructional materials to the WSU educommons site.

Introduction by: TBA

Culture Shock and Political Correctness: The Challenge of Teaching Foreign Cultures in America
Juan Fernandez Iglesias - Professor, Foreign Languages

Culture is often perceived as something that, well, other cultures have. Think, for example, of the French, with their “peculiar” culinary and social eccentricities. We, on the other hand, (whomever that “we” may be in any particular instance) tend to behave and interact with each other and interpret the world around us following the sometimes vague but generally accepted rules of what could be described as “common sense.” This stance makes us look at other cultures as literally eccentric, that is, out of center, not normal.  Since they behave differently than us, and our behavior is determined by common sense, then their behavior has to be motivated by something else, something strange. When two cultures interact, this clashing of two different systems of “common sense” results in what has come to be known as “culture shock,” the seed of stereotypes and ultimately of ethnic and cultural chauvinism.

When learning about a foreign culture, this is the biggest hurdle students have to overcome: the realization that there is no such as thing as common sense when we deal with cultural norms and taboos. That every society is a reflection of a shared history and a set of common values that permeate our every behavioral aspect, that, in the end, in culture everything “makes sense.”  This deep cultural understanding of others has at least two often overlooked added bonuses: on the one hand, the more we learn about another culture, the deeper we grasp and appreciate our own. On the other, the more able we are to negotiate difference, the better prepared we’ll be personally and professionally to live in a country and a world that are more and more diverse and interconnected.

Fernandez will illustrate these points by commenting on the difficulty of overcoming cultural stereotypes and political correctness when dealing with cultural aspects that are taboo in the American society He will also provide examples of “culture shock” experienced by our WSU students as they embark on the study of a foreign culture and submerge themselves in the experience of living abroad, and the profound transformation they go through after this process. It is a transformation that turns them into patriotic yet critical independent thinkers with a deep understanding and appreciation of diversity.

Introduction by: TBA

Dusty Archives and Fond Memories: The Sesquicentennial History

Peter Henderson – Professor, History

Co-sponsored by the Celebration of the Book Committee

Introduction by: TBA

The Sordid Past of the Piano Recital:
A Brief and History and Personal Reflections
Deanne Mohr -Professor, Music
A discussion of the history of the piano recital as a performance vehicle and reflection on my own experience in programming repertoire, preparing for a recital and performing as a solo pianist. Performance of works by Frank Martin and Cesar Franck.

Introduction by: TBA

Winona State University Scrapbook 1858-2008: Celebrating 150 years
Nancy Peterson, Rill Reuter, and Beth Halleck

Introduction by: TBA

The Compositional Process
Libby Larsen
Co-sponsored with the Music Department

Libby Larsen is "one of America's most performed living composers. She is a created a catalogue of over 220 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral and choral scores." Her work is Grammy award winning and widely recorded, including over 50 CDs.

Ms. Larsen will describe the compositional process espcially as it applies to the piece she is writing for the Winona Symphony Orchestra for performance on April 18, 2008.

Website for Libby Larson

Introduction by: TBA