Anson discusses Alexander the Great to kick of 2013-14 Evenings with History

Ed-AnsonThe Evenings with History series, sponsored by the UALR History Institute kicks off the 2013-2014 series tonight.  This year’s series will focus on how the study and writing of history is done.

The six sessions of the 2013-2014 Evenings with History series will be on the first Tuesday of October, November, and December of 2013 and February, March, and April of 2014.

They are held at the Ottenheimer Auditorium in the Historic Arkansas Museum at 200 E. Third Street in Little Rock. Historic Arkansas’s downtown location and the museum’s adjacent parking lot at Third and Cumberland make the sessions convenient and pleasant to attend.

Refreshments are served at 7:00 p.m., and the talk begins at 7:30 p.m.

An individual subscription to the series, at $50 annually, includes admission to all six lectures.

Tonight, Edward Anson discusses “The Character of Alexander the Great.”

Professor Anson has been working for many years examining aspects of the life of Alexander the Great but wanted to write something about who he was as opposed to what he did. Ancient history presents unique problems for the historian. Sources seldom are contemporary with the topic studied. Standards of behavior often do not coincide with those of today.

This talk examines Professor Anson’s efforts to establish the character of Alexander, which resulted in his new book, Alexander the Great: Themes and Issues. Simply detailing what Alexander did produces serious difficulties, but getting into the mind of someone who lived more than two thousand years ago turns out to be even more difficult. Anson offers insights into how the historian uses the evidence of antiquity to overcome these barriers.

Edward M. Anson has authored or edited seven books, including Alexander the Great: Themes and Issues (2013); After Alexander: The Age of the Diadochi (323-281 BC) (2013); Eumenes of Cardia: A Greek Among Macedonians (2004), and more than thirty articles in journals, including Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, The Journal of Cuneiform Studies, The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Classical Philology, and The American Journal of Philology; twelve book chapters, and over fifty encyclopedia articles. He received his PhD from the University of Virginia and is currently Professor of History, a faculty senator, and a former President of the University Assembly.

Corporate sponsors for the 2013-2014 season include Friday, Eldredge, & Clark; Union Pacific Railroad; Wright, Lindsey, and Jennings; and the Teaching American History Program of the Little Rock School District.

Support and gifts in kind are provided by the UALR Ottenheimer Library; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio—KUAR-KLRE; UALR public television; and Grapevine Spirits.

Orval Faubus, Language of Segregation – topic of UALR talk this evening

ualr logoDr. Lisa M. Corrigan, Assistant Professor of Communication and Chair of the Gender Studies Program at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas will be the features speaker this evening at the UALR Cooper Honors and Gender Studies Program Lecture.  She will deliver a lecture entitled “Orval Faubus and the Language of Segregation:  Sexualized Violence and Racial Anxiety during the Little Rock Crisis.”

Dr. Corrigan uses the Orval Faubus Collection at the University of Arkansas to examine the rhetorical strategies embraced by the former Arkansas governor during the desegregation of Central High School.  In examining Faubus’ public speeches and private correspondence at the height of the desegregation crisis, her lecture will cover how he sought to control the rhetorical situation in Little Rock and how racial anxiety was articulated as sexual anxiety.

The program will take place at 6pm in the Dickinson Hall Auditorium on the UALR campus.  At 5:30 there will be a reception.

LR Look Back: Fifty Years of Desegregated Downtown Little Rock

widget_2013commerationThe UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity is partnering with the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce to mark the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of downtown Little Rock businesses from 10:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013, at the Chamber.

This event is part of the Chamber’s 31st Annual Minority Enterprise Development Week and will include a public unveiling of the markers, reception, and the seminar, “Developing Future Leaders: How Strong Mentors Can Increase Diversity in Leadership Positions.”

Eleven  individuals from the Council on Community Affairs, Downtown Negotiating Committee, and Philander Smith College, will be honored with bronze markers placed on the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail in front of the Chamber. This will mark the third year of the Civil Rights Heritage Commemoration.

In 1963, this diverse group made up of members from COCA, DNC, and students from Philander Smith College worked together to plan a peaceful integration of downtown retail and restaurant establishments. Because of their efforts and others, by the end of 1963 most of the downtown retail businesses and restaurants had integrated.

2013 Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail Honorees
The following individuals will be honored:

    • Dr. Garman P. Freeman, COCA
    • Dr. Morris A. Jackson, COCA
    • William Starr Mitchell, DNC
    • James H. Penick, DNC
    • Arthur Phillips, DNC
    • Rev. Negail Riley, Pastor, Wesley Chapel at Philander Smith College; COCA
    • Bert Strauss, Philander Smith College student; DNC
    • Ozell Sutton, COCA
    • Dr. William H. Townsend, COCA
    • Dr. Evangeline Upshur, COCA
    • B. Finley Vinson, DNC

Public Commemoration Ceremony – 10:30 a.m.
Civil Rights Heritage Markers Unveiling

Reception – 11 a.m.

Artspree 2013 kicks off with Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano

(Photo by Dario Acosta, courtesy of UALR Artspree)

(Photo by Dario Acosta, courtesy of UALR Artspree)

Radiant American mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke caused a sensation as Kitty Oppenheimer in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, the DVD release of which won the 2012 Grammy Award® for Best Opera Recording. She was praised in The New Yorker for her “fresh, vital portrayal, bringing a luminous tone, a generously supported musical line, a keen sense of verbal nuance, and a flair for seduction.”

Cooke will be in recital today at 3pm at UALR’s Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall to kick off the 2013-2014 Artspree season.  Tickets are $15 for the general public, free to UALR faculty staff and students, and $10 for other students.

During the summer of 2012, Sasha Cooke opened the Hollywood Bowl’s summer season in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Leonard Slatkin and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and also appeared at Music@Menlo and the RoundTop Festival. She appeared in the closing concerts of the Aspen Music Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival, with Robert Spano in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and with Louis Langrée in Beethoven’s Mass in C, respectively. Returning to the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Sasha performed songs by Bernstein, Copland, Bolcom, Barber and Gershwin in the inaugural concerts of new music director Tugan Sokiev in Berlin and at the Beethovenfest in Bonn. The new season marks her San Francisco Opera debut as the title role in the world premiere of Mark Adamo’s The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, as well as her role debuts as Magnolia in Francesca Zambello’s production of Show Boat at Houston Grand Opera and as Sonja in Dominick Argento’s The Aspern Papers at Dallas Opera.

She returns to the San Francisco Symphony in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas, gives the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s Earth Echoes with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, appears with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center both in New York and in Mecklenberg, Germany, and sings Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Orchestre de Lyon. She also sings Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony with Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony, and Alexander Nevsky with Pinchas Steinberg and the Cleveland Orchestra. She returns to the New York Festival of Song for a program exploring the lives of women, joins the Mirò Quartet for music of Respighi and Schubert with Friends of Chamber Music Denver, and sings Das Lied von der Erde with the Columbus Symphony.

 

Racial Etiquette and Civil Rights Struggle focus of UALR talk tonight

NashvilleWayDr. Benjamin Houston of Newcastle University and author of the new book, “The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City,” will give a lecture on racial change at 6 p.m. Thursday, September 5, at the Historic Arkansas Museum.

Houston’s talk, “A Manner of Segregation,” is an opportunity for dialogue about how people in the South reacted to the dismantling of segregation as a way of life in the 1950s and 60s.

The event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the museum and the UALR Department of History.

Houston is a lecturer in modern U.S. history. His research interests include civil rights, the African American freedom struggle, history of the U.S. South, 20th century U.S. history, and oral history.

For more information, contact Dr. Barclay Key, professor in the UALR Department of History at 501.569.8782.

Clinton School features two programs this week

Clinton-School-of-Public-Service-LogoJust as the school year is underway, the Clinton School’s speaker series is getting back into full swing.  This week there are two different lunchtime programs.

Tuesday, August 27 – 12 noon “Feet, Forks and the Fate of our Families: Fighting Childhood Obesity,” Dr. David Katz

The epidemic of childhood obesity is having a significant impact on the future health status and workforce productivity of the people of Arkansas. Join us for a lecture about fighting the tide of childhood obesity in Arkansas and beyond by Dr. David Katz, founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center. Katz is the editor-in-chief of the journal Childhood Obesity, the only journal that provides a central forum for exploring effective, actionable strategies for weight management and obesity prevention in children and adolescents.

He is also president-elect of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, founder and president of the nonprofit Turn the Tide Foundation, which was created to help combat obesity by developing, evaluating and disseminating creative, yet practical programs that can be used in the real world for free. In 2009, he was a widely supported nominee for the position U.S. Surgeon General. He was named one of the 25 most influential people in the lives of children by Children’s Health Magazine.

The program will take place at 12 noon today, Tuesday, August 27 at Sturgis Hall in Clinton Presidential Park.

 

Wednesday, August 28 – 12 noon “Immigration Reform in Arkansas,” a panel discussion

Immigration reform advocates are making a push in Washington, DC, and across the nation to rally support for an effort to overhaul our country’s broken immigration system. The US Senate has passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration overhaul, and members of the US House of Representatives are at home during August Recess hearing from constituents about immigration reform among many other issues.

Immigrants have a tremendous impact in Arkansas. The immigrant population is the fourth fastest growing nationally, with a net economic impact of $3.4 billion in 2010 according to a study by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Join us for a panel about immigration reform in Arkansas with a diverse group of speakers including:

– Jeffery Hall, Associate Director of National Affairs for the Arkansas Farm Bureau
– Dr. Zulma Toro, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock
– Dr. Sherece West-Scantlebury, President and CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
– Randy Zook, President and CEO of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce / Associated Industries of Arkansas

The program will take place at 12 noon, Wednesday, August 28 at Sturgis Hall in Clinton Presidential Park.

*Reserve your seats for both programs by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or calling 501-683-5239.

LR Look Back: Mayor Buddy Villines

judgebuddyOn this date in 1947, future Little Rock Mayor (and current Pulaski County Judge) Floyd G. “Buddy” Villines was born.  A 1969 graduate of Hendrix College, he served in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971. He later graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law School.

Villines’ first interaction with Little Rock City Hall was as an employee in the City Manager’s office.  After joining the private sector, he returned to City Hall in 1985 serving on the Little Rock City Board of Directors.  He was re-elected in 1989.

While on the City Board, he was chosen as Vice Mayor for a two year term in 1987 and 1988.  The following year he was selected as Mayor for a two year term.  In 1990, Villines was elected Pulaski County Judge; he resigned from the City Board in December 1990 to take office.

Villines has served as Pulaski County Judge since January 1991.