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The Core Connections Lecture Series in 2004-05 will explore the theme of "Mind, Body and Spirit." As we explore each of those elements, we'll look to the fluid and flexible nature of those categories and how those components make each of us human.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Time: Noon
Jennifer Finney Boylan, Colby College, author of "She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders." Professor Boylan will read from her autobiography and discuss the challenges of gender identity, raising the question of what happens when your body and your mind disagree. Co-sponsored by the Office of Multi-Cultural Services and the Maine Women Writers Collection.
Location: Simard-Pettapiece-Wescott Rooms, Campus Center, University Campus.
Boylan, co-chair of the English Dept. at Colby College, will raise the question of what happens when your body and your mind disagree. She lived, taught and published as James Finney Boylan until 2001. Her memoir addresses the issues of gender, family and friendship. Her published works include a collection of stories titled Remind Me to Murder You Later, and three novels:
The Planets, The Constellations, and Getting In. She also has written several screenplays. Since, 1988, Boylan has been a professor of creative writing and American Literature at Colby College. She was chosen Professor of the Year in 2000.
Playwright Edward Albee has said of her work, "Boylan observes carefully, and with love. [Her] levitating wit is wisely tethered to a human concern I often broke into laughter, and was now and again, struck with wonder."
October 6, 2004
Time: Noon
Professor Ali Ahmida, chair of the Political Science Department, "The United Nations Security Council and Conflict Resolution in Africa: A UNE Professor's Experience." Prof. Ahmida will discuss his recent appearance before the United Nations Security Council testifying on conflict resolution in Africa.
Location: St. Francis Room, Ketchum Library, University Campus.
Last June, Professor Ahmida was invited to participate in the United Nations-Security Council Ad-Hoc meeting on conflict resolution in Africa . The Meeting was organized by The UN International Peace Academy Round table Series. Professor Ahmida was one of six distinguished scholars of modern Africa selected from hundreds of scholars in the United States to participate in this meeting. At the meeting, Professor Ahmida was asked to assess questions related to the Libyan role in Africa with respect to the Horn and Northern Africa, and also, present long term recommendations for resolving political conflict in these regions. The focus of his recommendations included the role of political leadership, rule of law, national education, and arms control.
At this presentation, Dr. Ahmida will share his experiences with the UN and describe how Libyan history and politics is more complex and influential than the "mad dog" image of Qadhdhafi the American media portrays. Unlike much of mainstream political science, Dr. Ahmida looks at the soul of a political culture by examining diaries, novels, interviews and other historical documents to understand the way ordinary people, in this case Libyans, conceive of their political situation and under what circumstance they might transform it.
Friday, October 15, 2004
Time: Noon
Carrie Chrisco, McNeese State University, filmmaker. Professor Chrisco will discuss and screen her film "The Living Dance," an intimate portrait of the Garifuna people and how their culture is being kept alive in New Orleans and Honduras. The Garifunas are an African group who first came to the Americas 300 years ago when Spanish slave ships wrecked in the Caribbean. The survivors created their own independent and free communities. In this presentation we explore the spiritual life of a community and the mixture of cultures in the Americas post-Columbus. Co-sponsored by the Campus Diversity Club.
Location: Decary 208, University Campus.
October 27, 2004
Time: Noon
Rachel Meyn of the Yarmouth-based non-profit organization "Safe Passage," which was founded in 1999 by Bowdoin graduate, Hanley Denning. Visiting Guatemala, Denning became acquainted with the garbage dumps and the families who live and scavenge there. Moved to do something, she created Safe Passage, a program offering education, health care, and other assistance to the children. Ms. Meyn will talk about the work, origins, and future of Safe Passage.
Location: Simard-Pettapiece-Wescott Rooms, Campus Center, University Campus.
November 4, 2004
Time: noon.
Marlene Johnson, executive director and CEO of NAFSA: National Association of International Educators, will present a noon-time keynote address as part of UNE's commitment to internationalizing the curriculum.
Location: St. Francis Room, Ketchum Library, University Campus
Marlene Johnson was recently featured in the August issue of the Adminstrator where she spoke on the importance of integrating an international perspective into college learning. She served as Minnesota's lieutenant governor from 1983-1991, and was an outspoken advocate of international education exchanges at all levels of learning and supported visitor and professional exchanges to build ties between her state and the rest of the world. She went on to work in the Clinton administration and most recently to head NAFSA.
NAFSA promotes the exchange of students and scholars to and from the United States. Members share a belief that international educational exchange advances learning and scholarship, builds respect among different peoples and encourages constructive leadership in a global community.
December 1, 2004
Time: Noon
World AIDS Day. Berri Kramer, photographer and president of the Heartwood College of Art, will share and discuss her recent photographic work among South African children orphaned by AIDS. Kramer will be joined by John Dennen of the Brunswick Coastal Rotary Club, who accompanied Kramer on her trip. For more information see MaineToday.com.
Location: St. Francis Room, Ketchum Library, University Campus
Kramer made the trip to document with photographs the work of the Brunswick Coastal Rotary, which funds a palliative care unit in a hospital in the KwaZulu Natal district of the City of Durban. Although not an AIDS unit, most of the patients have the disease. Kramer plans to use the photographs to illustrate a planned children’s book that tells the story of an orphaned family whose parents have died of AIDS.
The trip to South Africa was Kramer’s fourth mission with Rotaplast International, a Rotary initiative that provides reconstructive surgery for children, especially those born with deformities. Kramer previously worked in the Philippines, Venezuela and Bolivia. The most recent trip came after she met Dennen, whose Rotary Club has been involved in KwaZulu Natal for 15 years, raising money for a variety of efforts to help the people who live there. The Brunswick Coastal Rotary helped build the AIDS hospice with a donation of $150,000, all raised locally. Kramer made the trip, which she paid for herself, to document the AIDS hospice, but ended up completing much more work.
February 9 [Chinese New Year], 2005
Time: Noon
“Living it UpBeat by The Chopsticks-Fork Principle” by Cathy Bao Bean, author of The Chopsticks-Fork Principle, A Memoir and Manual. Bao Bean will talk about how she and her husband, artist Bennett Bean, raised their son to be at least bicultural by asking and answering questions like “Can the tooth fairy survive the melting pot?”Co-sponsored with the Women’s Studies Program and the Office of Multi-Cultural Services.
Location: St. Francis Room, Ketchum Library, University Campus.
An immigrant from China, Bao Bean figured out how to be her several selves as well as raise a son whose father did things like paint the lawn. In doing so, she took seriously the diversity that is within and without us as well as the possibility of universal truths - like no father, regardless of culture, says to his daughter, "Please, marry an artist."
Bao Bean is a daughter, business manager, aerobics instructor, mother, friend, writer, sister, educational consultant, wife, and activist for the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and Society for Values in Higher Education. In a previous incarnation, she was a philosophy teacher, cook, student, carpool driver, as well as a founding member of the Ridge and Valley Conservancy. In the process, she makes ordinary experiences into extraordinary events. None of it has been painless. All of it has been fun - except the cooking.
March 9, 2005
Time: Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Complementary Medicine and the Integrated Healing of Mind, Body, and Spirit: A Panel Discussion. Dr. Craig Scheider, director of integrative medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Maine Medical Center; Dr. Debra Rothenberg, assistant program director, Maine Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program; Dr. Ralph Thieme, clinical assistant professor, OMM, UNECOM; and Cynthia Collins, Licensed Family Therapist, Wiccan priestess of Silver Cauldron Coven, will explore alternatives to contemporary medical practices. Co-sponsored by the Office of Multi-Cultural Services.
Location: Simard-Pettapiece-Wescott Rooms, Campus Center, University Campus.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a component of the National Institutes of Health, "Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.
While some scientific evidence exists regarding some CAM therapies, for most there are key questions that are yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies - questions such as whether these therapies are safe and whether they work for the diseases or medical conditions for which they are used. The list of what is considered to be CAM changes continually, as those therapies that are proven to be safe and effective become adopted into conventional health carte and as new approaches to health care emerge."
Our panel of speakers will share some of their practices and experiences related to this growing area of interest and research.
April 7, 2005
Time: Noon
"'I Make Books So I Won't Die' - Artist's Books and Illness." This Core Connections presentation will be given by Jennifer Tuttle, Ph.D., Department of English, Cally Gurley of the Maine Women Writers Collection at WCC, Holly Haywood and Kari Wagner of UNE Media Services. The presentation will consist of a film, book exhibit, and discussion of the wonderful original artist's books by Martha Hall of Orr's Island, Maine, who lived and worked until December of 2003. The books specifically treat her experiences during treatment for breast cancer.
Location: St. Francis Room, Ketchum Library, University Campus.
April 11, 2005
Noon
"Greening the Campus: The Essential Role of Student Leadership," by Tom Wojociechowski. Come celebrate Earth Week and increase your environmental awareness by learning more about Campus Ecology--the worldwide movement among colleges and universities to decrease their environmental impact. Tom Wojociechowski has extensive experience in leading campus greening efforts and has done significant research on the topic, especially in regard to the role of student leadership, the topic of his talk today.
Location: St. Francis Room, Ketchum Library, University Campus.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Time: Noon
Henry Drewal, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, "Beads, Body and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe." Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies Henry Drewal will share the results of 25 years of fieldwork in Africa and the Americas on Yoruba traditions. More than simply visual objects, Yoruba beaded objects reflect concepts of the Yoruba universe.
Location: Simard-Pettapiece-Wescott Rooms, Campus Center, University Campus.
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