Posted on Jan 28, 2005

“Shangri-La,” a modern chamber
opera focusing on the sex industry in Thailand, will be performed on Thursday, Feb. 3, at 7:30 p.m. in the Yulman Theater.

The opera is told through the
voices of the many characters involved in the story: the prostitutes, male
solicitors and a detective. 

The libretto was written by Yusef
Komunyakaa. The score, which incorporates jazz, blues and Thai folk music, was
composed by Susie Ibarra.

This event is sponsored by East
Asian Studies, Africana Studies, UNITAS and Women's and Gender Studies.

The event is part of the series,
“Exploration of the Sex Trade,” sponsored by Women's and Gender Studies. Other
events are the film Lilya 4-Ever on Tuesday, Feb. 22, at 7:30 p.m.; and
a lecture on “Comfort Women” by Dr. Yuki Terazawa on Friday, Feb. 25, at 4
p.m. 

Posted on Jan 28, 2005

  Diane
Keller, director of academic computing, and Mary Parlett-Sweeney, associate director
of academic computing, made a presentation at the Nercomp-sponsored
workshop on “Campus Collaborations for Implementing New Technology in Old
Spaces” at Rivier College in Nashua, N.H. They discussed the process by which Union
has built electronic classrooms by retrofitting many of its existing classrooms
into electronic ones, and by creating new electronic classrooms in new
buildings. The presentation emphasizes the design and standardization that make
the rooms easier to use and maintain. A copy of the presentation is available
at http://www.nercomp.org/sigs/0405/092804NewTechInOldSpace/092804CampusKeller.pdf.

Posted on Jan 28, 2005

Karin
Hamm-Ehsani, assistant professor of German,
has authored an article, “Screening Transnational Turkish Community in Fatih Akýn's Kurz und Schmerzlos
(Short Sharp Shock)” in the January 2005 issue of Culture &
Communication (Kültür ve Iletiþim). Issued by the University of Ankara, Turkey, the journal
publishes critical work in the fields of communication, cultural criticism, and
social thought. The article elucidates the film's significance
for the crucial (if slow and subtle) changes manifest in
self-definitions of Germany's
Turkish diaspora
and its self-representations in the narrative of Germany
after the fall of the Wall.

Posted on Jan 28, 2005

David Cossey, chief information officer, presented “Glimpsing the
Future: Libraries, Reading and Technology” at the third annual New York State
Higher Education CIO Conference held at Pace University in New York City. The
handout for this presentation can be found at: http://appserv.pace.edu/doit/nyscio/presentations/cossey.pdf.
He also made the multimedia presentation “So Many Books, So Much RAM, Still So Little
Time: Libraries, Reading,
and Technology” at the annual meeting of the Capital District Library
Association. Cossey's article, “Information
Technology at Small Colleges,” was published in the November 2004 issue of The EDUTECH Report
as part of its ongoing “CIO Leadership Series.” The article discusses 12
issues that are receiving increasing attention at small colleges.

Posted on Jan 28, 2005

Teresa
Meade, professor of history, has been elected to the executive
committee of the Conference of Latin American Historians (CLAH),
an affiliate of the American Historical Association. She will serve as an
officer of the CLAH-AHA committee through 2007. Also,
she has published an essay, “Holding the Junta Accountable: Chile's Sitios
de Memoria and the History of Torture,
Disappearance and Death,” in Memory and the Impact of Political
Transformation in Public Space, Daniel J. Walkowitz
and Lisa Maya Knauer, eds. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). In the
chapter, Meade describes former torture centers, cemeteries and gravesites in
Santiago, Chile, that have been transformed into national monuments to remember
victims of the Augusto Pinochet military dictatorship
from 1973-90.