Campus Activities

• The ninth annual Civil War Seminar, co-sponsored by the Department of History and Political Science, will be held Saturday, March 1, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Orr Auditorium (Hull 132). This year’s seminar will focus on “Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln.” The seminar, which is free (no registration is required), is co-sponsored with Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. For more information, phone Dr. David Coles, associate professor of history, at 395-2220, or Patrick Schroeder at (434) 352-8987, extension 32.

• The last film in the February French Film Festival, Poison Friends, will be shown Monday, March 3, at 7 p.m. in Lankford Ballroom. The film has been called “steeped in shrewdness about the often contradictory workings of human nature” and “gratifying in the best tradition of French cinema.”

• The documentary film Darfur Now will be shown March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Molnar Recital Hall in Wygal. The film, which opened in November 2007, examines the genocide in Sudan’s westernmost region through the eyes of six people who are doing what they can to improve the situation.

• The Wind Symphony will present a concert Tuesday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m. in Jarman Auditorium. The 60-piece ensemble is conducted by Dr. Gordon Ring, professor of music. Dr. Christopher Swanson, assistant professor of music, will be tenor vocal soloist on “Irish Songs for Tenor and Band” by Robert W. Smith, four movements that are settings of Irish folk songs and end with the famous “Danny Boy.” Dr. Swanson, who directs the Opera Workshop and has performed leading roles in operas, specializes in Baroque vocal literature, German Lieder and the art songs of Benjamin Britten, and he has performed as a recitalist across the United States and in Canada and Italy. Other works on the program are “Proclamations” by Thom Ritter George, “Prelude, Siciliano, and Rondo” by Malcolm Arnold, “Lincolnshire Posy” by Percy Grainger and “Washington Post” by John Philip Sousa.

• John Prendergast, a human rights activist and former adviser to the White House and State Department, will present a lecture about Darfur on March 4 at 8 p.m. in the Lee Grand Dining Room in Dorrill Dining Hall. Prendergast is co-author of Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, as well as seven other books. He is the co-founder and co-director of the ENOUGH project, a joint initiative of the International Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress whose mission is to “end genocide and crimes against humanity.” Prendergast’s appearance is funded by an American Democracy Project grant.

• Melanie Goss, a senior English major, will speak Wednesday, March 5, at 3 p.m. in Greenwood Library 147B on “No One Can Hurt Me But Me: Illness as Agency, the Pro-Anorexia Community, and the Boundaries of Feminist Theory.” Her talk is part of the Women’s & Gender Studies discussion series.

• Jennifer Capaldo, assistant professor of music, will present a voice recital Monday, March 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Molnar Recital Hall in Wygal.

• Dr. John Peale, a retired Longwood faculty member who is a longtime Sinophile, will speak Tuesday, March 18, at 7 p.m. in the Stallard Board Room (Lancaster 102) on “The Love of God in China.” (This event was originally scheduled for February but had to be postponed.) The title is from his book of the same name, published in 2005, about Christianity in China. Dr. Peale has visited China nine times, most recently in the fall of 2006, and taught in 1990-91 at the College of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, which he called “the top place for training Chinese diplomats,” and at Jianghan University in Wuhan in 1988. Dr. Peale, professor emeritus of philosophy, retired in 1999 after teaching at Longwood for 23 years. A booksigning and reception in Lancaster Gallery will follow Dr. Peale’s talk.

• Dr. Naomi Johnson, lecturer in communication studies, will speak Wednesday, March 19, at 3 p.m. in Greenwood Library 147B on “Consuming Desires: How Advertisers and Publishers are Teaming Up in the Bestselling Teen Novels Gossip Girl, The A-List, and The Clique.” Her talk is  part of the Women’s & Gender Studies discussion series.

• Book artist Maureen Cummins will present a lecture March 19 at 6:45 p.m. in Bedford Auditorium. Cummins, of High Falls, N.Y., has produced limited edition artist’s books for more than 15 years, and her work is held in more than 100 public collections internationally. One online description says she “combines extensive historical research, evocative layerings of vintage and contemporary documents and texts with impeccable aesthetic execution.”

• Filmmaker Mike Shiley, who directed the documentary Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories, will speak March 19 at 8 p.m. in Molnar Recital Hall in Wygal. The film, based on a two-month tour he took throughout Iraq in 2004, “provides a remarkably personal face” to the war, the New York Times said. Shiley, of Portland, Ore., is the founder of Shidog Films, a documentary video production company focusing on developing countries.

• “An Evening of South Indian Classical Music” will be presented Thursday, March 20, at 7 p.m. in Molnar Recital Hall in Wygal by renowned flutist Shashank Subramaniam, accompanied by violin, mridangam and tabla. Shashank, who became famous as a child prodigy, is considered one of India’s leading classical flutists. The mridangam is a double-sided drum usually made of jackwood, and the tabla consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres.

• The second annual Longwood University Undergraduate Research Conference in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, “Meeting in the Middle: Testing the Boundaries of the Medieval World,” will be held March 21 and 22. This year’s plenary speakers are Julian Lethbridge from Tübingen University, visiting at East Carolina University, and John Bradley from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The conference is co-directed by Dr. Larissa (Kat) Tracy, assistant professor of medieval literature, and Dr. Steven Isaac, associate professor of history. Details of the conference can be accessed at www.longwood.edu/medieval.

• The Guerrilla Girls, a group of feminist artists, will conduct a workshop Tuesday, March 25, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Bedford Auditorium, then will give a lecture at 6:33 p.m, also in Bedford Auditorium. The Guerrilla Girls, established in New York City in 1985, are “known for using guerrilla art to promote women and people of color in the arts,” according to Wikipedia. “Over the years they expanded their activism to examine Hollywood and the film industry, popular culture, gender stereotyping and corruption in the artworld.”

• Dr. Brian Heinold, assistant professor of mathematics at Mount St. Mary’s University, will give a Mathematics and Computer Science Colloquium lecture March 25 at 4 p.m. in Ruffner 356. A reception will be held from 3:30 to 4 p.m. in Ruffner 300A.

• “What Do I Know about Globalization?” will be presented March 25 at 7 p.m. in Molnar Recital Hall in Wygal by Nayan Chanda, a foreign policy analyst, journalist and author or co-author of more than a dozen books. His most recent book, published last year, is Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors Shaped Globalization. Chanda, former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, is director of publications for the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and editor of YaleGlobal Online, its flagship publication.

• The Jazz Ensembles will present a concert March 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Jarman Auditorium.

• The Longwood Board of Visitors will meet Friday, March 28, at 8:45 a.m. and Saturday, March 29, at 9 a.m. in the Stallard Board Room (Lancaster 102).

• Children’s book illustrator Cris Arbo will discuss her work March 28 at 7 p.m. in the Greenwood Library Atrium. Arbo, who lives in Buckingham, has illustrated several award-winning books, including All Around Me, I See; The Dandelion Seed; and In a Nutshell. She also has worked as a background artist on animated feature films, cartoons and TV commercials in New York City and London. A book signing will follow her talk, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Janet D. Greenwood Library.