The guests of this program live in Allen Hall and, in cooperation with students and staff, attempt to elicit an understanding for the necessity of creative thinking in society. All events are open to the public.
Fall 2009
September 13, 2009 – September 15, 2009
James Loewen
wrote Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong, a critique of existing high school textbooks, but also an account of American history as it should be taught. It has sold more than 1,000,000 copies and is probably the best-selling book by a living sociologist. Loewen taught race relations for 20 years at the University of Vermont and previously taught at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. His other books include Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong, The Truth About Columbus, and Mississippi: Conflict and Change, which won the Lillian Smith Award for Best Southern Nonfiction. This book was rejected for public-school text use by the State of Mississippi, leading to the path-breaking First Amendment lawsuit, Loewen et al. v. Turnipseed, et al. Loewen has been an expert witness in more than 50 civil rights, voting rights, and employment cases. During his visit to Allen Hall he will debut his newest book, Teaching What Really Happened, aimed at K-12 teachers and future teachers.
September 27, 2009 – October 1, 2009
Brian Tokar
is acclaimed as a passionate advocate of grassroots action for global justice and an ecological future. He has been an activist, author and a prominent voice on environmental issues since the 1970s. He is the author of The Green Alternative and Earth for Sale, edited two books on the politics of biotechnology, Redesigning Life? and Gene Traders, and co-edited the forthcoming collection, Crisis in Food and Agriculture: Conflict, Resistance and Renewal. Tokar's articles on environmental issues, emerging ecological movements, global warming, and genetic engineering appear regularly in Z Magazine, Synthesis/Regeneration, Toward Freedom, Counterpunch.org and many other publications and websites. Tokar holds concurrent degrees from MIT in biology and physics, and a Masters degree in biophysics from Harvard University. He is the Director of Vermont's Institute for Social Ecology. He has lectured throughout the U.S., as well as internationally, on ecological issues and movements.
October 4, 2009 – October 8, 2009
Gareth Branwyn
is a writer and professional amateur, focused on DIY media and technology, personal technology, and cyberculture. He has covered technology and cyberculture for Wired, Esquire, the Baltimore Sun and other publications. He's the author or editor of over ten books on DIY media, technology, language, and humor including one of the first books about the Web, Jamming the Media about the coming personal media revolution, and The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots. He's currently the Senior Editor of MAKE magazine and runs their website. For ten years, he was the Assistant Director of Patch Adam's Gesundheit Institute, and before that, lived at Twin Oaks Community for 6-1/2 years.
October 18, 2009 – October 22, 2009
Stefan Brun
and
Jenny Magnus
Stefan Brun is a director, performer, lighting designer, and producer. He has been creating theater work for the last 30 years both in Germany and in the United States. Born in Munich and growing up in downstate Illinois, he co-founded the Prop Thtr Co. in 1981. In the mid-eighties he went to Germany, directed at a number of theaters and then eighteen episodes of a television series, Westerdeich for RTL Television. Stefan then returned to Chicago and to the Prop Thtr, where he directed and helped co-found the National New Play Network. Stefan is now co-artistic Director of the new Prop Thtr on Elston Avenue. He does mostly new plays, like Hizzoner, which has run for nearly 400 performances and most recently he directed Busted City by Paul Carr at Prop Thtr. Stefan is interested in all work that promotes curiosity, a sense of humor and alternatives to fear.
Jenny Magnus is a writer, performer, musician and teacher who is a founding co-artistic Director of the Curious Theater Branch. She has authored plays that have been performed at Steppenwolf Theater, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, at the former Lunar Cabaret, the Prop Thtr and on tour throughout America and Germany. She has performed in many solo performances and was a long-time member of the band Maestro Subgum and the Whole and made multiple records with them as well as three solo recorded CDs. Currently, in addition to running the Curious Theater Branch and making work, Jenny Magnus is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Interarts Department and a guest teacher at The School of The Art Institute, The University of Chicago, Free Street Theater School and her own Curious School. In 1998, Jenny Magnus was named among the Artists of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, and from 1998 to 2005, she was included among the 50 most influential people in Chicago theater by Newcity Chicago.
Spring 2010
February 7, 2010 – February 11, 2010
Tim Eriksen Tim Eriksen's music is some of the most hair-raising in American old-time and alternative folk, with a decidedly Northern Roots twist. He also has many years and remarkable depth of experience in a kaleidoscope of musical styles including South Indian Classical, Bosnian/Balkan, Hardcore Punk, Sacred Harp, Experimental Electro-acoustic and Oromo Gospel. He has sung/performed/consulted and written songs for films including Cold Mountain, Chrystal, and The Ladykillers. He has worked, on stage and screen, in class or in the studio with folks including Sting, Jack White, Ralph Stanley, Elvis Costello, Alison Krauss, Nicole Kidman, Steve Reich, Yo Yo Ma, Steve Albini, Joe Boyd and T Bone Burnett. He was an early adviser in the creation of "MIM: the World's First Global Musical Instrument Museum.” He is a 19th century New England music scholar and teaches songwriting and world music at Hampshire College and Dartmouth.
February 21, 2010 – February 25, 2010
Climbing PoeTree Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman—the tag-team, two-spirited, boundary-breaking artist duo, Climbing PoeTree—have advanced what it means to be renaissance women. Poets, performers, print-makers, dancers, educators, bookmakers, muralists, designers, and new media artists, these janes-of-all-trades prove that you can be masterful in multiples. With roots in Haiti and Colombia, Alixa and Naima reside in Brooklyn and track footprints across the country and globe on a mission to overcome destruction with creativity. In a nutshell, Climbing PoeTree is a queer-feminist soul-sister co-conspiracy of acrobatic poets who moonlight as street artists and infiltrate public schools and prisons with infectious ideas of how people can shape their own destinies.
March 7, 2010 – March 11, 2010
Bryant Terry
is an Oakland-based eco chef, food justice activist, Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow, and author of Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African American Cuisine. For the past nine years he has worked to build a more just and sustainable food system and has used cooking as a tool to illuminate the intersections between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity. His interest in cooking, farming, and community health can be traced back to his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee, where his grandparents inspired him to grow, prepare, and appreciate good food. Called “ingenious” by The New York Times Magazine, Bryant’s first book, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, is a winner of a 2007 Nautilus Book Award. Bryant’s work has been featured in Gourmet, Food and Wine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Vibe, and many other publications.
April 4, 2010 – April 8, 2010
Sindiwe Magona
is one of South Africa’s most exciting and prolific female writers. She is an award-winning novelist, poet, storyteller, children’s book writer, inspirational speaker, actor, and playwright. Magona has written two autobiographical books, two books of short stories, a novel, and eighteen children’s books. Her works have been published in the United States, South Africa, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, and Sweden. Magona is also founder of the Gugulethu Writers’ Group, an amateur writer’s workshop. Magona, who received a masters degree in social work from Columbia University, has received numerous awards in recognition of her work in women's issues, the plight of children, and the fight against apartheid and racism. In August of 1976 she was one of two South African delegates to the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women, held in Belgium. From 1984 to 2004 she worked for the United Nations before returning to South Africa to write full time.