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Scholar of the American West to deliver Betts lecture
The third annual Betts Lecture will be given by Elliott West, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, on Friday, Nov. 7.
The historian will discuss "Across the Border: The West in American Racial Thinking" at 4 p.m. in Rm. 211, Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St. A reception will follow the lecture. Sponsored by the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders, the talk and reception are free and open to the public.
West, who has taught at the Arkansas university since 1979, was honored with the Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award in 2001.
A specialist in the social and environmental history of the American West, he is the author of six books, including "Growing Up With the Country: Childhood on the Far Western Frontier" (1989), "The Way to the West: Essays on the Central Plains" (1995) and "The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado" (1998). "The Contested Plains" won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians and the Ray Allen Billington Prize awarded by the Organization of American Historians.
This lecture series honors Roland W. Betts II, an alumni fellow of the Yale Corporation, for his support of the Howard R. Lamar Center. The annual Betts Lecture is given by the immediate past president of the Western History Association, an organization founded in 1961 "to promote the study of the American West in all its varied aspects."
Prize-winning pianist and noted educator William Westney will teach his acclaimed "Un-Master Class" on Friday, Nov. 7.
Westney's class will take place at
4:30 p.m. in the Yale Opera Studio, Rm. 206, Hendrie Hall, 165 Elm St. Presented by the School of Music, the event is free and open to the public. For more information, call (203) 432-4158.
"The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self" is considered to be a groundbreaking book in which Westney helps readers rediscover their own path to the natural fulfillment of making music. Used by teachers, professionals and students of any instrument, the book is designed to bring out artistic ability regardless of one's skill level.
In his book, Westney offers alternatives for lifelong learning and suggests significant changes in the way music is taught. For example, he theorizes that playing a wrong note can be both constructive and useful.
Westney holds both a master's and doctorate degree from Yale in performance and has been honored with many awards, including the Yale School of Music Alumni Association's Certificate of Merit.
An active concert pianist, he won the Geneva International Competition and has appeared as a soloist with l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Houston, San Antonio and New Haven symphonies. His solo recital appearances include Lincoln Center in New York City, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., St. John's Smith Square in London and tours of Italy, Korea and Taiwan.
"Race, Health and Medicine," a yearlong speaker series sponsored by the Department of African American Studies, will continue on Monday, Nov. 10, with a lecture by Keith Wailoo, professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University.
Wailoo will deliver a talk titled "How Cancer Crossed the Color Line: The Strange Career of Race and Disease in 20th-Century America," 4-6 p.m., in Rm. 211, Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St. The talk is free and open to the public. For more information about the lecture series, which is co-sponsored by the Council on African Studies, the Center for International and Area Studies and the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund, visit the website at www.yale.edu/afamstudies/events.html.
A 1984 graduate of Yale College, Wailoo has a joint appointment at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers University.
Wailoo is the recipient of numerous honors, including the James S. McDonnell Centennial Fellowship in the History of Science and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award.
His publications include "Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America" (1997), which received the Arthur Viseltear Award from the American Public Health Association, and "Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health" (2001), which received the Lillian Smith Award for Non-Fiction and the 2003 Honor Book Award from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, among other honors.
Wailoo is currently working on two new books, "The Strange Career of Race and Cancer in America," and a second untitled book that examines the politics of pain and pain management in post-World War II America.
Freelance photographer and filmmaker Jenny Matthews will visit the campus on Monday, Nov. 10.
Matthews will present her new book on women and children in conflict zones, "Women and War," at 4 p.m. in Rm. 211, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 63 High St. Matthews' talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Women's & Gender Studies Program, the Center for the Study of Globalization, International Affairs Council and the Department of African American Studies. For more information, contact Vron Ware at (203) 432-0847 or vron.ware@yale.edu.
Matthews captures women's experiences of war as mothers, wives, fighters and survivors under exceptional circumstances. She began her career as a freelance photographer traveling to Central America to document the lives of Nicaraguan Sandinista women for the British agency Christian Aid, and she says that she "[has been] doing variations on that commission ever since."
Using photographs and writings, Matthews has focused her career on documenting women and children who are victims of conflict, and "Women and War" is the culmination of 20 years of her work. In the 1980s, Matthews traveled through Central America, documenting human rights activists in El Salvador, indigenous peoples in Guatemala and the revolution in Nicaragua. In the 1990s, she worked in the Middle East and visited Chechnya, Gaza and the West Bank, Nepal and Afghanistan. Her photographs show the lives of displaced people, and are accompanied by entries from her journal.
Previously, Matthews has worked for Africa Rights, Care International, Oxfam, SightSavers and the Salvation Army.
In 1998, she received the Photographer of the Year Award from One World Media.
This year's Maynard Mack Lecture will be given by composer and lyricist Adam Guettel on Monday, Nov. 10.
Guettel will speak about and illustrate "Writing for the Stage" at 5:15 p.m. in Sudler Hall, 100 Wall St. The lecture is free and open to the public.
A 1987 graduate of Yale College, Guettel wrote music and lyrics for the musical "Floyd Collins," which has been presented at locations including the Playwrights Horizons, New York; Prince Theatre, Philadelphia; Goodman Theatre, Chicago; Old Globe, San Diego; Bridewell, London; and will be performed by the Yale Dramat later this month. His other works include "Love's Fire," a collaboration with John Guare for The Acting Company, and "Saturn Returns," a concert at Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival.
Four of Guettel's songs are featured on Audra McDonald's Nonesuch Records release "Way Back to Paradise" (1998), and he performed a concert evening of his work at New York's Town Hall in 1999.
Guettel's film scores include "Arguing the World," a feature documentary by Joe Dorman, and the score for "Jack," a two-hour documentary for CBS by Peter Davis.
His newest musical, "The Light in the Piazza," with a book by Craig Lucas, workshopped at the Sundance Theatre Lab in 2002, premiered at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle in 2003, and will be performed at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in early 2004.
He is the recipient of the Stephen Sondheim Award, the Obie Award, the Lucille Lortel Award and the ASCAP New Horizons Award.
Elisabeth Sifton, senior vice president of Farrar Strauss and Giroux, and publisher of Hill and Wang, will be the guest at a master's tea on Tuesday, Nov. 11.
Sifton will speak at 4:30 p.m. in the Calhoun College master's house, 434 College St. The talk is free and the public is invited to attend.
Sifton began her career in publishing at Frederick A. Praeger in 1962, became an editor at the The Viking Press in 1968 and was named its editor-in-chief in 1980.
In 1983, Sifton became publisher of Elisabeth Sifton Books and vice president of Viking Penguin, and in 1986, her imprint won the Carey-Thomas Award for Creative Publishing.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Harvard University Press board of directors, Sifton has also served on the board of directors of Union Theological Seminary and the French-American Foundation, the board of advisers of Beacon Press and the AAP's Freedom to Read Committee.
Robert Horsch, vice president of the Product and Technology Cooperation at Monsanto Company, will speak on campus Thursday, Nov. 13, as a guest speaker for the Institution for Social and Policy Studies' Genetically Modified Plant study group.
Horsch's lecture, titled "A Role for Science, Technology and Partnerships in African Agriculture and Development" will begin at 4 p.m. in Rm. 305, Bass Center
for Molecular and Structural Biology,
266 Whitney Ave. The seminar is open to the public free of charge.
Horsch has published extensively on genetic engineering technology of crop plants. In 1983, in collaboration with two colleagues at Monsanto, he produced transgenetic plants with functional inserted genes that showed normal inheritance in progeny. This achievement was recognized in 1986 with the Thomas & Hochwalt Award. In 1999, President Clinton awarded the National Medal of Technology to Horsch and three colleagues for contributions to the development of agricultural biotechnology.
In June 2003, Horsch presented testimony before the House Science Committee, Subcommittee on Research on the topic of "Plant Biotechnology Research and Development in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities."
Previously he testified before the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on the topic of "Why Investing in Public Research is Important."
Horsch has organized international meetings on plant biotechnology. He has co-edited several scientific journals including Plant Cell and Plant Physiology, and he has served on numerous federal grant review panels.
Auden Schendler, director of environmental affairs at the Aspen Skiing Company, will deliver the next talk in the Industrial Environmental Management (IEM) Series at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) on Friday, Nov. 14.
Schendler will discuss "Trench Warfare, Not Surgery: Implementing Sustainable Business Practices," at 1 p.m. in Bowers Auditorium, Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St. A reception will follow the talk, which is free and open to the public.
Schendler is responsible for improving the environmental performance of Aspen Skiing Company, a firm that has been recognized for its progressive approach to sustainability. Aspen Skiing Company built the ski industry's first hydroelectric plant using water piped through its snowmaking system and runs its snowcats using a blend of biodiesel fuel to reduce air emissions.
Earlier in his career, Schendler was a research associate in corporate sustainability and served as the newsletter editor at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Schendler has spoken internationally on green business, and his writings on sustainable business, life in the West and mountaineering have been published in Harvard Business Review, the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, Green@Work, Corporate Environmental Strategy and the Journal of Industrial Ecology, among others.
Each year, the IEM Lecture Series brings speakers from a variety of companies to F&ES to discuss the relationship between business and the environment. The lecture series is supported by the Joel Omura Kurihara Fund. For further information regarding the lecture series, contact IEM at (203) 432-6953.
Author Bill McKibben will deliver a lecture on campus on Friday, Nov. 14.
"On Crossing Thresholds: Climate Change, Genetic Engineering, and other Awfully Large Questions" is the title of McKibben's talk, which will take place at
3 p.m. in Bowers Auditorium at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 205 Prospect Street. The talk is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Fred Strebeigh at fred.strebeigh@yale.edu.
McKibben is the author of eight books. "The End of Nature," his first book written for a general audience about global warming, is now available in 20 languages. His most recent book is "Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age."
A scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, McKibben writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, the Atlantic, Harpers, Orion and many other national publications.
He was the 2000 winner of the Lannan Prize in Nonfiction Writing.
Thomas L. Birch, legislative counsel for the National Child Abuse Coalition in Washington, D.C., will speak in the Yale Center in Child Development and Social Policy lecture series on Friday, Nov. 14.
Birch's talk, titled "Academics and Politics: The Uses of Research in Public Policy Development" will begin at 11:30 a.m. in Rm. 102, Becton Center, 15 Prospect St. The event is free and open to the public. For further information, call (203) 432-9935.
Since 1981, Birch has served as legislative counsel to a variety of non-profit organizations. He has advised clients on federal legislative and administrative actions affecting public policy issues and works closely with the boards and members of client organizations to develop policy positions. He represents those positions to members of Congress and the executive branch, designs advocacy programs, directs advocacy efforts that will influence Congressional action, and advises state and local groups in advocacy and lobbying strategies.
Birch received the American Psychological Association's 2003 Award for Distinguished Contribution to Child Advocacy.
Previously, Birch worked for Congress, serving as legislative counsel to members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives on issues of domestic policy. He was a Peace Corps volunteer for three years in Morocco, has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations, and is a founding member of the D.C. Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Children's Trust Fund.
T H I S
Acclaimed pianist and educator will teach "un-master class"
Race and disease in the 20th century to be focus of talk
Noted freelance photographer will discuss 'Women and War'
Celebrated composer/lyricist to give Maynard Mack Lecture
Publishing executive to be guest at Calhoun master's tea
ISPS lecture will focus on genetically modified plants
F&ES talk will examine environmental management
Genetic engineering to be explored in F&ES lecture
Public policy development topic of social policy talk
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