Leader of American Muslim movement to speak
The Imam W. D. Muhammad, spiritual leader of more than two- and-a-half million orthodox Muslims in America, will speak on the topic "Islam: The Universal Message and a Behavioral Lifestyle" on Monday, Oct. 21, at 8 p.m. in Battell Chapel, corner of Elm and College streets. Earlier that day, he will talk at a tea at 4 p.m. in the Silliman College master's house, 71 Wall St. Both events are free and open to the public.
The son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad, W. D. Muhammad broke from his father's "racist" teachings in the mid- 1960s and, like his close friend Malcolm X Malik El Shabazz , came to embrace the orthodox Islam of the Koran. After several years of excommunication, he was readmitted to the organization and became its leader after his father's death in 1975. Mr. Muhammad's decision to reject his father's teachings and turn the National of Islam into a mainstream Muslim organization led to a split with Minister Louis Farrakhan, who formed a breakaway group which retained the heterodox teachings of the elder Muhammad and the Nation of Islam name. Many African-American Muslims followed Imam Muhammad's call to eschew racism, embrace patriotism including service in the U.S. armed forces and adopt the traditional Islamic religion.
Mr. Muhammad's ministries, headquartered in Chicago, now has mosques in most major U.S. cities, including New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport, as well as more than 36 elementary and high schools.
His visit is sponsored by the Common Quest Foundation in partnership with the Yale Black Political Forum, the Islamic Students' Association and the Silliman College master's office. The Common Quest Foundation invites distinguished teachers and spiritual leaders from a variety of religious paths to campus to share their traditions. For more information, call 782-9101.
Mademoiselle' editor to talk on 'Generation X'
"Looking for a Cause: How Gen X Helps Out" is the title of a seminar on Tuesday, Oct. 22, featuring Elizabeth Crow, editor-in-chief of the magazine Mademoiselle. Her talk will take place at noon in the first-floor conference room, 88 Trumbull St. Sponsored by the Program on Non-Profit Organizations, the seminar is free and open to the public; however, because seating is limited, those interested in attending should make reservations by calling Karen at 432-2121.
Ms. Crow believes that while American "20-somethings" are smart, enthusiastic and avid volunteers, their ability to promote positive change in society is limited by their beliefs that "big is bad," that government is ineffective and that change only comes through working one-on-one. She will explore this topic in her talk.
Ms. Crow was president and chief executive officer of Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing, editor-in-chief of Parents magazine and executive editor of New York Magazine prior to becoming editor-in- chief of Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle is the third largest lifestyle magazine in the United States.
Asian values is subject of talk by Hong Kong columnist
Hong Kong columnist and political analyst Tak-Lung Tsim will address the topic "Asian Values: Is There a Lesson for America?" on Tuesday, Oct. 22, at noon in Rm. 211 of the Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St. A light lunch will be provided during his talk, which is sponsored by the Yale-China Association and the Council on East Asian Studies. The public is invited, free of charge.
Mr. Tsim began his career in broadcasting news and current affairs with the BBC External Service in London. In 1976 he returned to his native Hong Kong and started writing a weekly column in the South China Morning Post titled "One Man's View." His analysis and comments on Hong Kong and China gained him the reputation of being one of Hong Kong's leading political analysts and commentators. He has since written for The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Asiaweek, The U.N. Observer, the French academic journal Projet and Chinese newspapers and magazines. His comments on China and Hong Kong have been quoted in nearly all of the major international newspapers and magazines, including Time, Newsweek and The New York Times. He is coeditor of "The Hong Kong Report."
Mr. Tsim currently heads the consulting firm T.L. Tsim Associates, Ltd. He formerly served as director of The Chinese University Press and was assistant director of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. He has served on a number of government committees. Berkeley scholar to read new translation of 'Genesis'
Robert Alter, a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley, will read from his new translation of the biblical book of "Genesis" and comment on the text on Tuesday, Oct. 22, at 4 p.m. in Rm. 208 of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. The event, sponsored by the Program in Judaic Studies in cooperation with the department of comparative literature, is free and open to the public.
Professor Alter's new volume, "Genesis: Translation and Commentary," is a reaction to what he terms "the literary insensitivity of modern translations." In his translation, he has attempted "to suggest the different styles, from the literary to the vernacular, and the different periods of writing that have been brought together in the original," and "mirror, unlike any other English translation, the elevated, archaic language of poetic passages," Professor Alter says.
A literary critic as well as a translator, Professor Alter is the author of more than a dozen books. Among his recent publications are "The Art of Biblical Narrative," "The Art of Biblical Poetry," "The World of Biblical Literature," "Defenses of the Imagination: Jewish Writers and Modern Historical Crisis" and "The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age."
Professor Alter's reading is supported by the David A. Oestreich Lecture Fund.
United Technologies CEO to be Dean's Guest Lecturer George David, president and chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp., will return to Yale Engineering to be a Dean's Guest Lecturer on Tuesday, Oct. 22. His talk, which is free and open to the public, will be at 4 p.m. in Davies Auditorium of Becton Engineering and Applied Science Center, 15 Prospect St. It will be followed by a reception in the Becton faculty lounge.
In April, Mr. David delivered a Sheffield Fellowship lecture at Yale, the second in a series honoring the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. Prior to becoming president and chief operating officer of the corporation in 1992, Mr. David was an executive vice president of the corporation and president of Commercial Industrial, where he was responsible for UTC's Carrier, Otis Elevator and UT Automotive units. He was elected to the additional position of chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp. in April 1994.
Mr. David has been a national leader in championing employee education and recently announced that he would increase spending on education for UTC employees to $50 million a year -- a move widely commended in the press and by President Bill Clinton. UTC gives employees time off to attend classes, pays for tuition and books, and will give employees who earn undergraduate or advanced degrees 50 shares of the company's stock, valued at more than $5,000. He hopes that 20 percent of employees eventually will take advantage of these education benefits.
Mr. David is a trustee of Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum and is president of the board of trustees of the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and of the US- ASEAN Council, which facilitates trade and investment with Southeast Asian countries.
Vietnamese writers to read from their works
Two Vietnamese women writers -- one raised in the United States and the other who remained in her homeland -- will meet for the first time to share readings of their works in English on Wednesday, Oct. 23, at noon in Rm. 203 of Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. Sponsored by the Council on Southeast Asia Studies, the reading is free and open to the public. Le Thi Diem Thuy, a Vietnamese American poet who lives in Northhampton, Massachusetts, will read in English from her one- woman show, "Mua He Lua Do Red Fiery Summer ." Phan Thi Vang Anh, who was born in Hanoi and is now a cardiologist in Saigon, will read from her short stories that were recently translated into English during her residency at the Iowa International Writers Conference. Her father was the poet Che Lan Vien, and her mother is author Pham Thi Thuong. Her short story collections include "When You Are Young" and "The Market." She is also working with other writers on a Vietnamese television show. Author of Holocaust memoirs to present talk at Slifka Center
Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, author of "Strange and Unexpected Love, a Teenage Girl's Holocaust Memoirs," will present a talk on Wednesday, Oct. 23, at 4 p.m. in the Zucker Reading Room, located on the third floor of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 80 Wall St. The public is invited to attend the free talk, which is cosponsored by Yale Hillel and the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies.
Ms. Heller has spoken extensively about her wartime experiences since the publication of "Strange and Unexpected Love" in 1993. The book has become a popular teaching tool; it is used in courses at schools ranging from Princeton University to Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Ms. Heller's letters and articles have appeared in The New York Times and in Anglo-Jewish newspapers nationwide.
Ms. Heller lives in New York City, where she is active in numerous social service, educational and cultural organizations. She serves on the boards of The Jewish Museum, Yeshiva University, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers ADL. She is a benefactor of UJA's "Project Renewal" in Lod, Israel, and of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and Re'uth, a system of comprehensive long-term care throughout the state of Israel. Ms. Heller is the recipient of an honorary degree from Yeshiva University. Olympic games photographer to be guest at master's tea Ted Grant, an award-winning photojournalist and photographer, will be the featured speaker at three campus events this week. On Tuesday, Oct. 22, he will discuss his recently completed 10-year project to create a photograph documentary dedicated to the world-renowned Canadian teaching physician Sir William Osler at a meeting of the Nathan Smith Club in the history of medicine. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Jonathan Edwards College, 70 High St.
The following day, Oct. 23, at 4:30 p.m. Mr. Grant will discuss his long career as an official photographer for the Olympic Games during a tea in the Calhoun College master's house, 434 College St. The event is free and open to the public; however, as space is limited, those interested in attending should contact the master's office at 432-0742. On Thursday, Oct. 24, he will present a photo documentary on "The Children: Legacy of Chernobyl" at 5 p.m. in the Beaumont Room of the Sterling Hall of Medicine, 333 Cedar St. The event, which also is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine. Mr. Grant will show and discuss his series of photographs illustrating what children of Chernobyl have to face in the future.
During a career spanning 45 years, Mr. Grant has covered major news and sports events in almost every country in the world. His photography assignments have included coverage of most of the Olympic games since 1969. In addition, he has photographed the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day's War in the Middle East, the pope's visit to Canada, NATO military exercises in Norway and Eskimo seal hunting in the Arctic, among other assignments. He has worked on feature stories for a multitude of international magazines; among those in which his work has been featured are Time, People, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated and Canadian Geographic. His work for his documentary dedicated to Dr. Osler was featured in a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada's Museum of Contemporary Photography and was the focus of his award-winning book, "THIS IS OUR WORK -- the Legacy of Sir William Osler." Other books he wrote or coauthored are "Joe Clark, The Emerging Leader," "Residence: Homes of Canada's Leaders," "Men of the Saddle: Working Cowboys in Canada" and "Montreal -- A Guide to the City, Berlitz."
Mr. Grant is the only photographer to earn both the prestigious gold and silver medals for photographic excellence presented by the National Film Board of Canada. He is an international lecturer on behalf of Kodak and Leica Camera corporations.
Boundaries of ritual and worship explored in museum lecture
Robert Orsi, professor of religious studies at Indiana University, will speak about his new book, "Thank You, St. Jude: Women's Devotions to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes" at a book signing and reception on Wednesday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave. His talk is free and open to the public. The book is based on Professor Orsi's research of 2,500 prayers published in a devotional periodical called "The Voice of St. Jude." It focuses on women who pray to St. Jude about matters of marriage, childbirth and infertility. "They seem to hold him in reserve for when all things seem to slip out of control," according to Professor Orsi, who says St. Jude was a cousin to Jesus Christ, a missionary to Persia and a martyr. St. Jude's feast day is Oct. 28. Professor Orsi says that women's devotion to the saint began on Chicago's Southside when second-generation immigrant women of Italian, Irish, Polish and Slovak descent prayed for hope during the Great Depression. St. Jude represented an attentive figure, unlike the men in their lives, Professor Orsi theorizes. "St. Jude's obscurity is what makes him so appealing," he says. Part of the tradition of the saint is that those who pray to him must promise to tell other people their stories. "It's a kind of relationship women form with this figure," Professor Orsi says. "Some call it delusional, I call it empowering."
Tanner Lectures on Human Values to be given by Princeton scholar Peter Brown, a specialist on modern and medieval history who teaches at Princeton University, will deliver this year's Tanner Lectures on Human Values on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 23 and 24. His lectures will take place both days at 4 p.m. in the auditorium of the Whitney Humanities Center WHC , 53 Wall St. A reception will follow the first lecture, titled "The End of the Ancient Other World: Death and Afterlife Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages," in Rm. 108 WHC. The second lecture is titled "The Decline of the Empire of God: From Amnesty to Purgatory."
Professor Brown is the author of "The Cult of the Saints," "Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity," "The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity," "Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire" and "Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World." He has taught at Marston College, Oxford, as well as at Royal Holloway College, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Padua.
An appointment as a Tanner Lecturer is a recognition of uncommon achievement and outstanding abilities in the field of human values. The lectures were established by the American scholar, industrialist and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, who was a member of the faculty of philosophy at the University of Utah from 1946 until his death in 1993. The O.C. Tanner Company, manufacturing jewelers specializing in corporate recognition awards, forms the material base for the extensive Tanner philanthropies.
Award-winning poet will read from her work
Award-winning poet Jacqueline Osherow will read from her work on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 4 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Institute of Sacred Music ISM , 409 Prospect St. The reading, sponsored by the Religion and the Arts program of ISM, will feature poetry influenced by the psalms. A reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public.
Ms. Osherow is the author of "Conversations with Survivors," "Looking for Angels in New York" and the forthcoming "With a Moon in Transit." Her poems have won several prizes and have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The New Yorker and The New Republic. She was most recently anthologized in "The Best American Poetry, 1995." She serves as an associate professor of English and creative writing at the University of Utah.
Editorial board member of New York Times to talk at tea
Steven R. Weisman '68, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times, will be the guest at a tea on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 4 p.m. at the Jonathan Edwards College master's house, 70 High St. The event is free and open to the public.
Mr. Weisman became a member of the editorial board last year, after having served as deputy foreign editor at The New York Times since 1992. He joined the newspaper as a news clerk in 1968 and rose through the ranks, working as a metropolitan reporter, then City Hall reporter and later City Hall bureau chief, Albany bureau chief, White House correspondent and senior White House correspondent. In 1975 he won a Silurian Society award for his reporting of New York City's fiscal crisis. He currently writes editorials on local and national politics, government and social issues, as well as international affairs and economics. This year he is specializing in the presidential campaign.
Former Clinton campaign adviser to present talk
"Gay Rights in an Election Year" is the title of a talk being presented on Thursday, Oct. 24, by David Mixner, who served as senior campaign adviser for President Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. His talk will begin at 8 p.m. in Davies Auditorium of Becton Center, 15 Prospect St. Sponsored by the Research Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies, the talk is free and open the public.
Mr. Mixner raised over $3 million for President Clinton's 1992 campaign and became the liaison between the homosexual struggle for empowerment and the White House. At the time, Newsweek magazine hailed him as "the most powerful gay man in America." After the election, Mr. Mixner directly challenged the President on gays and lesbians in the military, Colorado's Amendment Two, the nation's pace of battling AIDS and other issues. He was arrested in front of the White House and banned from there for four months. Today he works on various initiatives and campaigning for 27 Congressional candidates.
Mr. Mixner is president of DMB Associates, a corporate strategic planning consulting firm located in West Hollywood, California. He is the author of the recently published book "Stranger Among Friends."
Former nun to offer 'new interpretation' of 'Genesis'
Karen Armstrong, author of the new book "IN THE BEGINNING: A New Interpretation of Genesis," will present a lecture and sign copies of the book on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 8 p.m. at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 80 Wall St. The event, sponsored by Yale Hillel and Atticus Bookstore Cafe, is free and open to the public. Ms. Armstrong spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun before earning her undergraduate degree at Oxford University. After teaching at the University of London and later at a public girls' school, she became a freelance writer and broadcaster in 1982. Today, she is considered one of the foremost British commentators on religious affairs. She is one of the participants in Bill Moyer's current 10-part PBS series, "Genesis: A Living Conversation," which began Oct. 16.
In 1983 Ms. Armstrong worked on a six-part documentary television series on the life and works of Saint Paul. Her other television work has included "Varieties of Religious Experiences" and "Tongues of Fire." The latter resulted in an anthology by the same name on religious and poetic expressions.
In addition to her latest volume, Ms. Armstrong is the author of "Through the Narrow Gate," "Beginning the Word," "The Gospel According to Woman," "The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century," "Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet," "A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam" and "Jerusalem: One City Three Faiths." She teaches at the Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism and the Training of Rabbis and Teachers.
Child development expert to speak at Bush Center
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, a developmental psychologist at Teachers College, Columbia University, will present a talk titled "Developmental Research, Practice and Policy: Some Cases in Point" at noon on Friday, Oct. 25, in Rm. 410 of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, corner of Grove and Prospect streets. The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy.
Ms. Brooks-Gunn is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education at Teachers College. She is the first director of the Center for Children and Families, which was founded at Teachers College in 1992. In addition, she has directed the Adolescent Study Program at Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University for the past 15 years.
Ms. Brooks-Gunn conducts policy-oriented research with a focus on family and community influences on the development of children and youth, especially children living in poverty. She is also interested in transitional periods during childhood and adolescence and in the factors that contribute to positive and negative outcomes and changes in well-being during these years. She has several books in press: "Growing up poor," "The neighborhoods they live in: Effects on children and families," "Depression in adolescence" and "Family Conflict and Cohesion." She also authored three other books, including "Escape from poverty: What makes a difference for children?"
Ms. Brooks-Gunn has served on three National Academy of Sciences panels one on child abuse and neglect, one on preventing HIV infection and one on defining poverty . She is a member of the Social Science Research Council Committee on the urban underclass focusing on neighborhoods, families and children. She is also president of the Society for Research on Adolescence.
Biographer to be featured guest at tea
Beth Archer Brombert, author of the recent biography "Edouard Manet: Rebel in a Frock Coat," will be the featured guest at a tea on Tuesday, Oct. 29, at 4:30 p.m. in the Calhoun College master's house, 434 College St. The event is free and open to the public; however, as space is limited, those interested in attending should call 432-0742. Ms. Brombert is also author of "Portraits of a Princess," and has also published fiction, translations and numerous travel pieces for The New York Times.
Ms. Brombert divides her time between her home in Princeton and in France, where she did much of the archival work needed for her two biographies. For many years, she lived in New Haven, serving for a time as managing editor of the American Journal of Science. Her husband, Princeton University professor Victor Brombert, formerly taught at Yale in the department of romance languages.