So this very cool sounding event is the night before I have a very early morning flight. That means I totally can't go because I should be home resting before the trip. But wait! Did I tell you I'm afraid of flying? I am, I totally, totally am. So now I'm thinking I should hit this event and start drinking and just keep drinking most of the night so that when I get on the pre-dawn flight I can just pass out and sleep all the way across the country. Doesn't that sound like a much better plan than resting at home?

Brown-Forman AfterHours at the Speed Featuring live music by Teneia Sanders & Hambone, specialty cocktails with Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur, food tastings from Bristol Catering, caricature artists and special tours. Admission is $10, free to museum members. Doors open at 5:30 PM.

Tomorrow is the premiere of a new show at Rauch Planetarium called The Planets.

The Rauch Planetarium at the University of Louisville will have a special celebration for the premiere of its new show, "The Planets."

The 37-minute show provides an in-depth look at each planet and features images from NASA and the Hubble Telescope. Actress Kate Mulgrew, best known for her role in "Star Trek: Voyager," narrates the show. It's content is geared to middle and high school students.

Originally produced by the Southeast Planetarium Association, "The Planets" was "enhanced, updated and specifically designed for our dome," said Rauch Planetarium Director Rachel Connolly.

"It will be shown on a three-projection screen, designed to make the audience feel as though they are traveling through space," she added.

For opening day tomorrow all tickets will be $5, after that adult tickets are $7, children and seniors are $5. Showtimes are 11AM, noon, 1PM, 2PM and 3PM. "Family friendly activities such as a solar system walk and solar observing" are also on the agenda.

I bet poor Pluto is totally absent in The Planets show. Poor, poor Pluto.

Rauch Planetarium
Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium, north end, Belknap Campus (Directions and parking information)
University of Louisville

There are so few opportunities in life to watch a (mostly) live landing on Mars. Rauch Planetarium is giving you one of those opportunities on Sunday May 25 so don't squander it.

When the NASA rover, Phoenix, lands on Mars, the Rauch Planetarium at the University of Louisville will be one of only a few locations nationwide to show the action "live" via a NASA satellite connection.

Because the distance is so great, the signal from the Phoenix will take 10 minutes to reach Earth.

The kid-friendly event will feature Mars trivia games, red planet punch and Mars cookies. The planetarium has 160 reclining seats and a 55-foot diameter dome overhead.

UofL planetary scientist Kunio Sayanagi will answer questions and discuss the mission to Mars. Sayanagi has close ties to The University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory where the Phoenix mission is managed.

Landing of the Phoenix on Mars
May 25, 7 p.m.
Rauch Planetarium, Belknap Campus (Directions and parking information)
University of Louisville
Free and open to the public. Seating will be on a first-come first-seated basis.

This Brown-Foreman AfterHours at the Speed event next Friday April 11 from 6-9PM looks just about my speed.

Join us as we celebrate the charms of Kentucky with "Bourbon and Bluegrass." The evening will feature the live music of "Hog Operation," handicapping experts on hand from Churchill Downs, $2 tastings of Woodford Reserve cocktails, food samplings by Liquor Barn and tours of the Kentucky Collection. Admission is $10, free to museum members. Visit Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum for $5 with AfterHours admission. Parking is available in the Speed Garage for $3. Doors will open at 5:30 PM for this event.

Speed Museum
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, KY

Again I point out what a fantastic weekend this is for late night movie going. If Tarantino is not your bag then you can held of to Floyd Theater on the UofL campus tonight to watch Alien.

Alien
Friday March 29, 2008 11:55PM
$1 - students
$2 - all others

Trailer after the jump.

Floyd Theater
University of Louisville
Student Activities Center (Under the clock tower)
Continue reading

I don't know much about this event or the Anne Braden Institute so I'm just going to paste the email I got in its entirety:

The University of Louisville's recently established Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research is hosting its first Regional Symposium. Featuring national speakers, roundtable discussions and sessions on engaged scholarship and its relevance to social justice ideals.

April 3, 4:30
Chao Auditorium of Ekstrom Library
"Social Justice and the Engaged University," Dr. Steven Rosenstone, Vice President for Scholarly and Cultural Affairs and Former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Minnesota

April 4, 3:15
Brandeis School of Law  "Black Studies as Engaged Scholarship," Dr. Peniel E. Joseph, associate professor of African and Afro-American Studies at Brandeis University, and author of Waiting Til the Midnight Hour:  A Narrative History of Black Power

Sessions all day April 4 from 8:30-5:30 include arts and social change, academic-advocacy partnerships, initiatives for food and environmental justice, and more

This symposium is free and open to the public. First 100 registrants received free box lunches. Register online: http://louisville.edu/annebradeninstitute/symposium

Believe me when I tell you that no one on the planet loves Alfred Hitchcock movies, particularly Rear Window, more than my beloved. Seriously. So unless a hospital emergency pulls us away I'd bet money that on Tuesday March 18, 2008 at 6PM you'll find us at the Speed Museum for the lecture The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window.

In 1954, audiences were first treated to what is perhaps the ultimate Alfred Hitchcock movie, Rear Window. The film's unsettling murder mystery was certainly entertaining enough, but Hitchcock achieved more than the usual resonance with audiences, through the use of his mammoth set representing an apartment-house courtyard between West 10th and 11th Streets in New York's Greenwich Village. Hitchcock's apartments in Rear Window are emblematic of many factors common to American life in 1954, from new questions of privacy generated by smaller living spaces, to a need to individualize near-identical housing units, to the anonymity newly available to those who would live outside society's rules. The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window will attempt to demonstrate how the director used commonly encountered architectural elements and used them to manipulate his audiences into acceptance of the tale he wished to tell. Sandy McLendon writes about architecture and design.  His work has appeared in Old House Interiors and Arts & Crafts Homes, as well as Modernism Magazine, where he is a contributing editor. His book about the use of prefabrication in building custom housing, PreFAB Elements, was published in 2005 by HarperCollins. Admission is free. Presented in the auditorium.

Speed Museum
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40208

I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I was unaware that such a thing as the Italian Cultural Institute existed in Louisville. I still don't know much about them since I couldn't find a website for them but I do know they're sponsoring a very interesting sounding lecture series at the Speed Museum. The next in this series is next Thursday March 13, 2008 and will feature Dr. Christopher Fulton, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Louisville. Dr. Fulton will be discussing the city of Florence during the Renaissance.

Italian Culture Institute Lecture Series
Florence during the Renaissance
Thursday March 13, 2008
6PM
Free and open to the public

Speed Museum
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40208

If you want to totally follow me down a rathole I'll tell you that when I was a history major in college I thought that studying anything related to Medieval Europe was tedious and boring. Then I took a class with Dr. Blake Beattie that changed everything. It was a great class, Dr. Beattie a fantastic instructor and a switch in my brain was flipped. After the class I became a person who wanted to discuss the Avignon Papacy, Innocent III and any other manner of things relating to Medieval Europe. And now I'm totally wanting to go to a lecture about Florence during the Renaissance. Thank you Dr. Beattie. If you're a student at the University of Louisville and get an opportunity to take a class with Dr. Beattie sign up now.

Tomorrow night Pulitzer winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks will "perform from her works and lecture publicly at the University of Louisville. Her talk is the 2008 Minx Auerbach lecture in women's and gender studies and a feature of Women's History Month."

The Fort Knox-born writer won her Pulitzer for drama in 2002 for "Topdog/Underdog," the Broadway play that also was presented this year at Actors Theatre of Louisville. "In the Blood," a 2000 Pulitzer finalist, was performed at UofL in 2006.

She co-wrote the screenplay for "The Great Debaters" movie that debuted in December; also in 2007 her project "365 Days/365 Plays" was produced worldwide in more than 700 theaters, including Actors.

Suzan-Lori Parks
March 6, 2008 6 p.m.
Margaret Comstock Concert Hall, School of Music
Admission to the lecture is free and open to the public.
There will be a reception afterward.

Parking is available for $3 in the nearby Speed Art Museum garage, 2035 S. Third St.

We're in the middle of what I'd call an Abraham Lincoln bonanza. You can hardly turn your head sideways in Louisville without seeing or hearing something relating to Abraham Lincoln. The University of Louisville is no exception so they're brining in Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Civil War expert James McPherson to lecture about Lincoln's wartime leadership tomorrow March 5, 2008.

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
March 5, 2008
6 p.m.

Speed Art Museum
2035 S. Third St.
Louisville, KY

Parking is available for $3 in the adjacent garage off Third Street.
Admission to the lecture is free and open to the public

Last week I mentioned that Shelly Zegart, the Louisville based author, lecturer and consultant who is an internationally known and renowned expert on American quilts, is giving a tour of the exhibit Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt. That tour is only available to Speed Museum members but I've found out that Zegart will also be presenting a lecture on that same day, Sunday February 24, that is free and open to everyone, not just museum members.

Lecture: African American Quilt MakingQuilt authority Shelly Zegart discusses prevailing yet differing perspectives on African american quilt-making, including common misperceptions about various traditions.

Shelly Zegart lecture: African American Quilt Making
Sunday February 24, 2008
3:00PM

Speed Museum
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40208

You might not know this about me but I enjoy opera. I'm sadly not very knowledgeable about it (like I couldn't name the most important operas or hum their most famous songs) but I do enjoy it. Perhaps someone from the Kentucky Opera will volunteer to give me a primer. In the meantime I've found another way to increase both my opera knowledge and the amount of opera I enjoy in my life: a free concert at UofL featuring mezzo-soprano Katherine Rohrer. Rohrer "is a resident artist at the University of Louisville School of Music this month."

"She is the first resident artist to visit since the school received a grant from the Marilyn Horne Foundation to host performances of young opera singers over the next four years.

Rohrer's resume already includes appearances with San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera and Glyndebourne Opera. Her debut concert was at Carnegie Hall.

During her stay, Rohrer and pianist John Parr will give short recitals at area schools and perform for the West Louisville Boys' Choir. Her residency will culminate with the Feb. 21 concert."

That concert is February 21, 2008 at 8PM and it is free and open to the public

Mezzo-Soprano Katherine Rohrer Concert
Margaret Comstock Concert Hall, School of Music
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY

It looks like this is not the only free concert of up and coming opera singers we can expect.

"Daniel Weeks, a tenor and faculty member, was instrumental in helping to secure the Marilyn Horne Foundation grant. The foundation promotes the careers of emerging young singers by sponsoring concerts and artist residencies throughout the United States. Weeks is an alumnus of the foundation's young singers program."

That's fantastic. Well done Mr. Weeks, I'm serious about extending my opera appreciation so I'm really looking forward to future artists in residence with this program.
 

Shelly Zegart is a Louisville based author, lecturer and consultant who is an internationally known and renowned expert on American quilts. On Sunday February 24, 2008 Speed Museum members have a chance to experience Zegart's expertise when she leads a tour of Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt exhibit.

Members Only Tour of Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt Shelly Zegart will lead a members only tour of the exhibition. Tour is free but space is limited so reserve your spot by calling our reservation line at 634-2970. (meet at Information Desk)

The folks at Floyd theater say

Hate Valentine's Day? Spend it with us watching two awesome movies!

First up it's Blow with Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz.

IMDB says:
"A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950's. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family. It is finally revealed that George's father cannot make a living and the family goes bankrupt. George does not want the same thing to happen to him, and his friend Tuna, in the 1960's, suggests that he deal marijuana. He is a big hit in California in the 1960's, yet he goes to jail, where he finds out about the wonders of cocaine. As a result, when released, he gets rich by bringing cocaine to America. However, he soon pays the price."

Next up it's the shoot things/blow stuff up class Die Hard.

IMDB says:
"Tough New York cop John McClane finds himself in a tight situation when an office building in Los Angeles is taken over by terrorists. Apart from himself, everyone else in the building - including his wife - is held at gunpoint while their captors spell out their demands. The F.B.I. are called in to survey the situation, but John McClane has other plans for the terrorists."

February 14, 2008
6PM
$1 - students
$2 - all others

Trailers after the jump.

Floyd Theater
University of Louisville
Student Activities Center (Under the clock tower)

I'm going to confess to being a little hesitant about any film featuring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. I'm sure that makes me a bad person or something but I'm being honest here so cut me some slack. That being said I'm intrigued by Southland Tales, the second feature film from Richard Kelly writer and director of Donnie Darko.

Wikipedia says "The title refers to the Southland, a name used by locals to refer to Southern California and Greater Los Angeles. Set in the near future, the film is a portrait of Los Angeles and a comment on the military-industrial news-tainment complex. The film features an ensemble cast. Original music for the film was provided by Moby."

Sounds interesting. The film was released in theaters last year but apparently was only shown on something like 63 screens across the U.S. After seeing the trailer I could understand that it would be a little hard to market but I think it's definitely worth a look, particularly since seeing movies at Floyd Theater is such a great deal. The film is showing this weekend only (it actually opened last night but I'm a little late).

Friday February 8, 2008 8 pm
Saturday February 9, 2008 5 & 8 pm
Sunday February 10, 2008 5 & 8 pm
$1 - students
$2 - all others

Floyd Theater
University of Louisville
Student Activities Center (Under the clock tower)

Trailer after the jump

Tony Hepburn, a sculptural potter and artist in residence and ceramics department head at Cranbrook Academy of Art will be speaking this Saturday February 9, 2008 at the University of Louisville. The title of the free lecture is more than mouthful:  "Parafunctionality: The Fusion of Art, Design and Architecture" but the based on the information about the artist I imagine the lecture would be quite interesting.

"The Michigan multimedia artist works in sculpture, ceramics, drawing and digital photography."

"His many awards include a Friends of Contemporary Ceramics' lifetime achievement award, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and two New York Council of the Arts fellowships.

Hepburn's work is in private collections worldwide and in public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the International Ceramics Museum in Faenza, Italy."

Parafunctionality: The Fusion of Art, Design and Architecture
Saturday February 9, 2008, 4PM
Chao Auditorium in Ekstrom Library
University of Louisville

The Women's Center at the University of Louisville would like to announce the second annual Kentucky Women's Book Festival which will bring together Kentucky women writers and their readers to meet, discuss, and share their love and appreciation of the written word. The event is free and open to the public and will highlight and honor the outstanding accomplishments of women writers in and from the Kentucky area, expand the readership of women's works, encourage those engaged in creative writing and inspire a rising generation of readers and writers as an extension of our community-wide focus on literacy.

The festival is intended to be a celebration of women's reading and writing.

Plenary speakers include: Affrilachian Poet and writer Crystal Wilkinson, author of Blackberries, Blackberries (2000) and Water Street (2002); short story writer and novelist Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter; and columnist and novelist Betty Winston Bayé, an editorial writer and columnist for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY.

Kentucky Women's Book Festival
University of Louisville, Ekstrom Library
2301 S. 3rd Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40292
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Time: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

I've got to get my membership to the Speed Museum squared away. I keep meaning to but haven't done it yet. If I had I could hit this terribly festive Mardi Gras event next Friday night for free.

Friday February 8, 2008
6-9PM

Join us as we celebrate the magic and excitement of  Mardi Gras at the Speed with Live music from "Steve Ferguson and the Midwest Creole Ensemble", fortune tellers, $2 tastings of Southern Comfort Hurricanes and food samplings from Liquor Barn.  Parking is available in the Speed garage for $3. Admission is $10 per person, free for museum members. Doors will open at 5:30 for this event.

The weekend immediately after Valentine's Day is going to be an exciting one at the Speed. It's the Gee's Bend Quilters Weekend and there will be several special events celebrating the Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt exhibit. A group of the quiltmakers themselves will be here for this special weekend.

Saturday February 16, 2008
12:00 – 5:00 PM Celebration of the Quilters of Gee’s Bend A group of the Gee’s Bend quilters will be at the museum demonstrating quilting, singing, signing copies of the exhibition catalog, and discussing their work with visitors.

1:00 – 3:00 PM Discovery Case in the Galleries Explore a discovery case within the museum galleries with one of our knowledgeable docents.

Sunday February 17, 2008
12:00 – 5:00 PM Celebration of the Quilters of Gee’s Bend A group of the Gee’s Bend quilters will be at the museum demonstrating quilting, signing copies of the exhibition catalog, and discussing their work with visitors.

 3:00 PM- Gee’s Bend Quilters: Panel Discussion Join quilters of Gee’s Bend for a panel discussion exploring the creativity and necessity of their quilts. (Auditorium)

At 3:00PM today, January 22, 2008 the University of Louisville will be unveiling new logos, new tagline and anthems, desktop and mobile phone wallpapers and just about everything else having to do with the school's visual identity. It's a whole new branding campaign and you can be among the first to see it.

Go to: http://louisville.edu/itshappeninghere/ and in 8 minutes and 43 seconds (as of this writing) you'll see the newly designed icons and logos that will shape the University of Louisville's brand identity for the next however many years. Perhaps they've found a way to rewrite history and will actually make this past football season a successful one. That would be a definite brand booster.

Update: OK so the new stuff is live now. As the address above hinted the new tag
line for the University of Louisville is "It's Happening Here."

The sentiment behind that tag line is "Everything that is happening at the best schools across the country also is happening here."

Other than the obvious issue of sort of leaving yourself out of the "best schools" category by saying "we're doing what the best schools are doing too" I dig it. It's actually very similar to  the sentiments that drive me to write Consuming Louisville. So much good and cool stuff is happening in this city and people just don't know. We've got to get the word out about our great city and the fine folks at the University of Louisville have got to get the good word about the university out as well.

That said, I'd love to hear other people's opinions on this new branding campaign, including from people who are actually in the advertising/branding/media/design fields. Any thoughts?

As part of the new branding they've got two new desktop wallpapers in various sizes (including for iPhone). So go forth and download them if you're so inclined.

Tracy from the Louisville Film Society let me know about the incredible deal movie screenings at Floyd Theater at UofL are. $1 for students, $2 for the rest of us and some of the best and most interesting films in town.

Showing this week it's Control: "A film documenting the life of Ian Curtis, late frontman of Manchester band Joy Division, was made during 2005 and 2006. Celebrated rock photographer and video maker Anton Corbijn makes his debut."

Control will be shown Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 6 & 8:30pm

Next Friday January 25, 2008 at midnight American History X will be shown.

The Floyd Theatre
2100 South Floyd Street
SAC w308 (University of Louisville)
Louisville, KY

Cost:
$1 w/student ID
$2 without

The Speed Art Museum is honoring and celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by offering free admission to  its special exhibition Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt on Monday January 21, 2008.

I highly suggest you see this exhibit. It's outstanding and well worth your time. Seeing it for free would be even better. stillGee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt runs January 2, 2008 - March 23, 2008

Admission is free only on January 21, 2008 at all other times admission is $8, free to museum members. Gallery hours are:
Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.;
Thursday 10:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.;
Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.;
and Sunday 12:00 to 5:00 p.m.
The museum is closed on Mondays.

Speed Museum
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40208

Here's the press release for an interesting sounding free event on UofL's campus on Saturday January 19, 2008.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall will be the focus of a panel discussion on the University of Louisville’s Belknap Campus Jan. 19, 2008

The free, public event, “Chief Justice John Marshall: Origins and Consequences of Judicial Review,” will begin at 10:30 in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Auditorium.

Panelists will include Michael McDonald, a retired Kentucky Court of Appeals judge; Scott Miller, a retired Kentucky state senator, and Jane Lollis, a Louisville attorney. Charles Ziegler of Uof L’s Department of Political Science and Thomas Mackey of UofL’s Department of History will moderate.

Marshall, who served on the nation’s highest court from 1801 to 1835, is perhaps best known for establishing judicial review, a practice allowing courts to strike down laws that violate the Constitution.

For more information, call Lynn Olympia of the Alexander Hamilton Historical Society of Kentucky, 502-897-5726.

The quilts in the Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt exhibit probably have more in common with the last abstract painting exhibit you visited than the quilts you remember your grandmother making.

I became familiar with the quilts of Gee's Bend several years ago through Shelly Zegart the Louisville based, internationally acclaimed American quilt expert. Zegart was a consultant to the organizers and, if I'm not mistaken, advised them both on the actual exhibit and the two accompanying books.

Obviously none of the exhibition quilts are for sale but Zegart has additional quilts from Gee's Bend quiltmakers available for sale through her website.

I saw this exhibit when it was in Indianapolis and I'll be seeing it again at the Speed. Highly recommended.

This exhibition features the brilliant, bold quilts created in the twentieth century by a group of women who live in the small, isolated African-American community of Gee's Bend in southwestern Alabama. The 70 quilts in the exhibition, created by 42 women spanning four generations, provide a fascinating look at the work of 20th-century artists who lived and worked in solitude. Gee's Bend is located on a sliver of land five miles long and eight miles wide, a virtual island surrounded by a bend in the Alabama River. Isolated geographically, the women in the community created quilts from whatever materials were available, in patterns of their own imaginative design. The dynamic, abstract quilts' innovative patterns and brilliant use of line and color demonstrate a highly developed talent for structure and design. Unlike abstract painters, however, the Gee's Bend women created their quilts out of necessity and practical considerations rather than a conscious attempt to make art. Their focus on everyday concerns, such as salvaging discarded fabric, recycling old clothing, and finding ways to keep their families warm and comfortable, makes the extraordinary aesthetic appeal of their quilts even more remarkable.

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt runs January 2, 2008 - March 23, 2008

Admission is $8, free to museum members. Gallery hours are
Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.;
Thursday 10:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.;
Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.;
and Sunday 12:00 to 5:00 p.m.
The museum is closed on Mondays.

Speed Museum
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40208

This Saturday December 8 and next Saturday December 15, 2007 Rauch Planetarium at the University of Louisville is throwing a holiday family party complete with frickin' lasers holiday laser light shows, refreshments, activities for all ages and "general merriment."

Party hours are from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. with shows beginning hourly.

Admission: $7 adults, $5 children

Gheens Science Hall & Rauch Planetarium
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY

Apparently it's Speed Museum day as this is the second post in a row about an event there. I'm not really an architecture buff though so this one sounds a lot more exciting to me than that last event.

Join the Speed's Community Support and Outreach Committee in celebrating the Harlem Renaissance through song, dance, period costumes, food and drink.  This event will feature performances by the African American Theater Program at the University of Louisville and from Actor's Theater of Louisville's presentation of Spunk.  Passed and buffet hors d'oervres and a cash bar will be available.

Harlem Nights, an Evening at the Speed Art Museum
Saturday November 3, 2007
7PM-10PM
Admission is $35
Call (502) 634-2737 to purchase tickets

As part of its annual lecture series Crane House is presenting China in My Eyes, a panel discussion featuring regional business leaders.

A group of distinguished regional business leaders will present a panel discussion to share their unique experiences from different perspectives about the many aspects of interacting with the Chinese business community.

Asia: Insight and Perspectives

China in My Eyes

Wednesday, November 7, 6:30 pm

Presented in University of Louisville's Elaine Chao Auditorium

Free and open to the public

Please call Crane House for reservations 502.635.2240

This very special "A&S Life of the Mind" event will feature an interview and Q&A session with playwright Tony Kushner led by University of Louisville Department of Theatre Arts Chair Russell Vandenbroucke.

About Tony Kushner

In “After Angels,” a profile of Tony Kushner published in The New Yorker, John Lahr wrote: “[Kushner] is fond of quoting Melville’s heroic prayer from Mardi and Voyage Thither (“Better to sink in boundless deeps than float on vulgar shoals”), and takes an almost carnal glee in tackling the most difficult subjects in contemporary history – among them, AIDS and the conservative counter-revolution (Angels In America), Afghanistan and the West (Homebody/Kabul), German Fascism and Reaganism (A Bright Room Called Day), the rise of capitalism (Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Browne), and racism and the civil rights movement in the South (Caroline, or Change). But his plays, which are invariably political, are rarely polemical. Instead Kushner rejects ideology in favor of what he calls “a dialectically shaped truth,” which must be “outrageously funny” and “absolutely agonizing,” and must “move us forward.” He gives voice to characters who have been rendered powerless by the forces of circumstances – a drag queen dying of AIDS, an uneducated Southern maid, contemporary Afghans – and his attempt to see all sides of their predicament has a sly subversiveness. He forces the audience to identify with the marginalized – a humanizing act of the imagination.”

About the A&S Life of the Mind Series

During the Centennial Celebration, the College of Arts and Sciences is presenting "The Life of the Mind" Series, a special series of public lectures and programs by a fascinating group of guests, representing a wide range of intellectual and artistic interests. Events like these are one of the hallmarks of great universities as civic cultural institutions, and one of our goals during the Centennial is to raise the funds to endow "The Life of the Mind" on a permanent basis.

Thursday, October 11, 2007
6:00 p.m.
The Spectrum, 911 South Brook Street
For more information call (502)852-8977 or email AS100@louisville.edu