Posted on Apr 4, 2003

Wilfried Wilms, assistant professor of
German, was invited to the Third Occasional Symposium on German Studies at Davidson
College, N.C. This
international symposium celebrated the works of W.G. Sebald. Prof. Wilms
presented a paper titled “Speak No Evil, Write No Evil – Managing
Devastation after '45.” A longer version of this talk will appear in a
collection of essays on Sebald to be published next year by the University
of Edinburgh Press in England.

Posted on Apr 4, 2003

Hilary Tann,
professor of music, is to be in Seoul, South
Korea, for the April 8 performance of her piece,
From Afar, in the grand opening concert
of the 2003 International Women in Music Festival (http://www.ifw.or.kr/eng_home.htm).
Tann will travel to the festival to rehearse with conductor Apo Hsu and the KBS
Orchestra and to pursue her interest in East Asian Music. From Afar was commissioned by Meet the
Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music USA
grant and premiered October 1996 by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. It
received its European premiere by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in January
2000. Tann is to be in Japan
this fall as the faculty member for the Term Abroad program at Kansai Gaidai.

Posted on Apr 4, 2003

— An exhibit that
blends traditional Chinese iconography with modern consumerism.

— A festival of
Japanese and Chinese films.

— A concert by the
musician who has been called the “Bruce Springsteen of China.”

All are part of
“Serious Pop! Social Commentary in Asian Pop Culture,” a series designed to
showcase modern Asian popular culture.

Sponsored by East
Asian Studies, the series is made possible with support from the Freeman
Foundation.

Following is a
chronological listing of events:

Through May 18, Mandeville Gallery

Luo brothers exhibition:

Luo Brothers – Welcome the World Famous Brand is
an exhibition of paintings by the Chinese trio of brothers Luo Weidong, Luo
Weiguo, and Luo Weibing, who live and work together in Beijing.
Their work blends traditional, Cultural Revolution, and consumer culture
imagery in paintings that burst with color and overflow with action. This
exhibition is on display at the Mandeville Gallery in the Nott Memorial. Hours
are Monday – Thursday, 9 a.m.–10 p.m.;
Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday,
Noon–5 p.m.; and Sunday, Noon–10 p.m.

For details and a complete
schedule, visit:

http://www.union.edu/Academics/Arts/Current.htm

April 3, 8:30 p.m., Reamer Campus Center Auditorium

Beijing Bicycle (2000, Directed by Wang Xia Oshuai) Modern Beijing.
This is the story of Xiao Gui, a 16-year-old bicycle courier. One day, Xiao
Gui's bicycle is stolen from in front of a building where he was making a
delivery. Xiao Gui can't work without a bicycle, so he scours Beijing
in search of it. However, when Xiao Gui miraculously finds his bicycle, Xiao
Tin is riding it. All he has to do is take it back, but Xiao Tin doesn't see
things the same way. This film represents the bicycle as allegory in the modern
Chinese city.

April 10, 7:30
p.m., F.W. Olin Center
Auditorium

Nausicaä (1984, Directed by Miyazaki
Hayao) A precursor to Princess Mononoke,
with a similarly strong and ecologically minded heroine. Nausicaä, the princess
of a small nation, tries to stop other warring nations from destroying
themselves and the only means by which their world can be saved from the spread
of polluted wastelands. A beautiful animated film.

April 17, 7:30
p.m., F.W. Olin Center
Auditorium.

Tokyo Story (1953,
Directed by Ozu Yasujiro) Classic “parents deal with ungrateful offspring”
drama, played out mostly in Tokyo.
This film illustrates how life in the big city has changed sons and daughters –
not for the better.

April 24, 7:30
p.m., F.W. Olin Center
Auditorium

Afterlife (1998, Directed by Koreeda Hirokazu) In Koreeda's
thought-provoking vision, the newly deceased find themselves in a way station
somewhere between heaven and earth. Each soul is given three days to choose one
cherished memory for their life that they will relive for eternity. As the film
reveals, recognizing happiness and finding a life's worth of meaning in a
single event is no simple task.

May 1, 7:30
p.m., Arts Building

J-Pop music culture presentation

Presentation on J-Pop music culture by Ian Condry (MIT)
and Jennifer Milioto Matsue (Dartmouth).
No film will be shown this week.

May 8, 7:30
p.m., F. W. Olin Center
Auditorium

Beijing Bastards (1993, Directed by Zhang Yuan) Beijing Bastards has been called the first “independent” Chinese
film. The film revolves around Cui Jian, a kind of Chinese Bruce Springsteen,
who also helped write the film and partly produced it. In the film, several
friends and acquaintances of a woman set out to look for her after she
attempted suicide for completely incomprehensible reasons. During their quest,
the viewer is a witness to the different cultures in the city. A real rock 'n'
roll star (Cui Jian) tries to organize a concert and is thwarted by the
authorities.

May 15, 4:30–6:30
p.m., Mandeville Gallery

Luo Brothers closing reception:

Closing reception for the exhibition Luo Brothers –
Welcome the World Famous Brand, at the Mandeville Gallery in the Nott
Memorial.

May 16, 8
p.m., Memorial Chapel

Cui Jian concert

Cui Jian (pronounced “sway jen”) is China's
most famous rock musician. The pioneer of rock music in China,
Cui has sold more than 10 million records. He became a pop culture icon during
and after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. His two
most recent albums, Balls Under the Red Flag and The Power of the
Powerless, received governmental criticism at home and critical acclaim
outside of China.
Cui has worked for years under a de facto performance ban in China,
his gigs limited to a few bars in Beijing.
His work explores the Chinese national character, a subject of chronic
sensitivity for the Chinese government. Cui has toured in Asia,
Europe, and North America. Visit www.cuijian.com. A cultural series presented by East Asian
Studies at Union College Spring 2003 Serious Pop!

Posted on Apr 4, 2003

Note: Due to weather, the competition has been postponed until Saturday, May 10

Let's face it – mornings are
rough. Most of us are on automatic pilot until at least 10 a.m. For the hard cases, the clock's a.m. side is as
unfathomable as the moon's dark side. What the world needs is more humanitarian
devices to gently jump-start the diurnally challenged. Such devices could operate
in tandem with a bedside alarm clock/coffee-maker combo with optional IV
infusion.

The proving ground for such
inventions will be on Saturday, April 5, when 15 teams from schools as far away
as Cooperstown and Warren
County compete in the College's Rube
Goldberg Machine Contest. The task will be to build a machine that uses at
least 20 creative steps to pour cereal into a bowl and add milk. Set-up will
start at 8:30 a.m. and competition
will follow at 9:30 a.m. in the
College's Memorial Field House.

Previous competitions' tasks
included opening a bag of M&M's, toasting a slice of bread, and making a
baloney sandwich. These comestibles are all very well and good. However,
everyone knows that breakfast is the most
important meal of the day. Therefore, teams will focus on Fruit Loops,
Cheerios, and Frosted Flakes (the earthy-crunchy types may substitute granola)
as they compete in what may be called the Cereal Bowl.

“The Rube Goldberg competition is
a great chance for high schoolers to explore the possibilities of engineering
design in a fun and relaxed setting,” said James Hedrick of engineering, who
organized the event.

The competition is named for the
late engineer and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. His cartoons appeared in a
thousand daily newspapers from 1914 to 1964. The “inventions,” he said,
symbolized “man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal
results.” His name has become eponymous for anything that is unnecessarily
complex, cumbersome, or convoluted – used almost exclusively when trying to
plumb the Byzantium nature of
governmental bureaucracies, programs, or legislature.