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Harvard Scholar Discusses Merits of Medieval “Art” in Lawrence University Address

Harvard University scholar Jeffrey Hamburger shares his perspective on the debate of whether the Middle Ages produced “art works” or merely “images” in a William A. Chaney Lecture at Lawrence University.

Hamburger presents, “The Medieval Work of Art: Wherein the ‘Work’? Wherein the ‘Art’?,” Thursday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

A specialist in medieval art of the High and later Middle Ages, especially medieval manuscript illumination and iconography, Hamburger believes the argument need not be merely a choice between image vs. art, craft vs. artistry or manual vs. liberal arts. He will discuss some of the ways in which medieval images offer a statement over and against the texts which claim to speak for them.

Focusing on some of the archetypal works of art of the Middle Ages — the temple, tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant — Hamburger will examine the ways in which those images could be used to address issues of authorship, authority and artistic invention.

A native of London, England, Hamburger joined the department of history of art and architecture at Harvard as a full professor in 2000. He previously taught at the University of Toronto and spent 11 years on the faculty at Oberlin College.

A Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, Hamburger is the author of five books, including the award-winning “Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent” and “The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany.”

Hoft-March, Sarnecki Named Full Professors, Clark, Miller Granted Tenure

Eilene Hoft-March and Judy Sarnecki, members of the Lawrence University French department, have been promoted to the rank of full professor while Jeffrey Clark and Brigetta Miller have been promoted to associate professor and granted tenured appointments by the college’s Board of Trustees.

Hoft-March joined the Lawrence faculty in 1988. A specialist in modern French novels and autobiographies, her scholarship also includes literature about children and the Holocaust. In addition to the French department, Hoft-March also teaches courses for the gender studies major. She was a recipient of Lawrence’s Outstanding Young Teacher Award in 1991 and received the college’s Freshman Studies Teaching Award in 1997. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley.

A member of the Lawrence faculty since 1985, Sarnecki’s research interests focus on 20th-century French cinema and literature, women authors and gender issues. She served as editor of and contributor to the recently published book, “Subversive Subjects: Reading Marguerite Yourcenar” (2004 Fairleigh Dickinson Press), a collection of essays on the acclaimed French novelist. In 1996, Sarnecki founded Lawrence’s Francophone Seminar in Dakar, Senegal, a 10-week program on Western African culture. She earned her doctorate in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Clark, a fluvial geomorphologist specializing in the study of how human activity alters the characteristics of rivers, joined the Lawrence geology department in 1998. He has conducted more than a dozen research trips to Puerto Rico, where he has worked with the International Institute of Tropical Forestry and is currently involved with on-going student research on the impact on Apple Creek on Appleton’s north side as the area shifts from agricultural use to residential development. He was cited in 2001 with Lawrence’s Outstanding Young Teacher Award. Clark earned his Ph.D. from John Hopkins University.

Miller, a native of Tigerton and a 1989 graduate of Lawrence, returned to her alma mater in 1996 as a member of the conservatory of music faculty. A flutist by training, Miller is the conservatory’s director of music education, specializing in music methodology for early childhood. A member of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, Miller is in the process of completing a book of Native American lullabies that have been shared generationally through oral tradition but never written in standard musical notation. She earned a graduate degree in music education with a Kodaly emphasis from Silver Lake College.

“An American Place:” Noted Environmental Historian Closes Lawrence University 2003-04 Convocation Series

Lawrence University will recognize award-winning author and historian William Cronon with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree Tuesday May 25 during the annual Honors Convocation, which closes the 2003-04 series.

Cronon, whose scholarship combines the disciplines of history, geography and environmental studies, will deliver the address “The Portage: History and Memory in the Making of an American Place” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. He also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Union. Both events are free and open to the public.

The author of two books and editor several others, Cronon, 49, has earned critical acclaim for his writing and research on the ways human communities modify the landscapes in which they live and how people in turn are affected by changing geological, climatological and ecological conditions.

His first book, “Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England,” which explored the changes the New England landscape underwent as control of the region shifted from Native Americans to European colonists, was awarded 1984’s Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians.

His second book, 1991’s “Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,” an examination of Chicago’s relationship to its rural hinterland during the latter half of the 19th century, earned Cronon the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for the best literary work of non-fiction, the Bancroft Prize for the best work of American history and was one of three nominees for the Pulitzer Prize in history.

In addition, “Nature’s Metropolis” was recognized with the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History and the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award from the Forest History Society for the best book of environmental and conservation history.

The Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cronon is currently working on a local history of Frederick Turner’s hometown, Portage, Wis., in which he is exploring ways to integrate environmental and social historical methods with non-traditional narrative literary forms. He is also completing an anthology of first person accounts of past landscapes of the United States and the lives people have lived on them entitled “Working on Life on the American Land: A Commonplace Book.”

Cronon joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1992 after spending more than a decade teaching at Yale University in his hometown of New Haven, Conn. Among numerous academic awards he’s received, Cronon was named a Rhodes Scholar and a Danforth Fellow in 1976, received a $500,000 “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 1985 and was named the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1995. In addition to UW-Madison, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in history and English, Cronon holds advanced degrees Oxford University in Britith urban and economic history and from Yale in American history.

His professional affiliations include serving on the Board of Curators for the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Governing Council of The Wilderness Society and the editorial boards of Environmental History and the Journal of Historical Geography.

Art History Lecture Examines Famous German Church and its Importance to the Nazi SS

Annie Krieg, a 2001 Lawrence University graduate and former Fulbright Fellowship recipient, returns to campus to discuss in recent research on the appropriation of medieval architecture by the Nazi SS.

Krieg presents “‘As the Blood Speaks, So the People Build’: King Heinrich I, Heinrich Himmler and the Construction of the 1,000-Year Reich in Quedlinburg,” Thursday, May 20 at 4:30 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Krieg, who spent 10 months teaching English in Germany on her Fulbright Fellowship, will discuss the 12th-century collegiate church of St. Servatius in Quedlinburg, Germany, a small town 125 miles west of Berlin, and its importance to Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich.

St. Servatius Church houses the tomb of King Heinrich I, the first medieval German king who unified the Saxon, Bavarian and Swabian groups, among others, into the first German Reich in the 10th century. Heinrich Himmler, leader of Hitler’s infamous SS troops, took great personal interest in King Heinrich and fashioned himself the modern reincarnation of the medieval ruler.

The 1000th anniversary of Heinrich I’s death in 1936 became an official Nazi party celebration and extensive renovations were made to the structure of the church to better accommodate Himmler’s notion of medieval history and national heritage.

Krieg will address questions raised by the SS-led renovations of St. Servatius, including concepts of the modern and the reactionary and the looming shadow of the Third Reich over Western civilization.

A German and art history major at Lawrence, Krieg recently completed her master’s degree in art history from the University of Pittsburgh.

Former Lawrence University President Thomas Smith Dies, Served from 1969-79

Thomas Smith, who served as president of Lawrence University from 1969-79, died Wednesday (5/12) at his home in Pine Lake after a battle with cancer. He was 83.

Smith came to Lawrence from Ohio University, where he had spent two years as provost, assuming the president’s office on July 1, 1969. He presided over the college until his retirement on August 31, 1979.

He led the college during one of the more difficult periods in its recent history. Student unrest over Vietnam and civil rights activism, as well as pressure from the student body for more of a voice in matters of academic and student life required delicate but decisive leadership. When Smith arrived on campus in 1969, his first faculty meeting was disrupted by students protesting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

During the 1970s, the college, along with American higher education in general, faced an extended period of fiscal austerity, necessitating difficult decisions and the retrenchment of faculty, staff, and administration.

Among the milestones of his presidency were the completion of a major capital campaign; the opening of the Seeley G. Mudd Library in 1975; the strengthening of the university endowment; an extensive administrative reorganization involving academic affairs, admissions, development and student life; improvements in the curriculum and the renovations of Sage and Ormsby Halls.

“Tom was a quiet and unassuming man, yet forceful and straightforward in his dealings and interactions with others,” recalled Richard Warch, who succeeded Smith as Lawrence president in 1979. “I had the privilege of serving with him for the last two years of his tenure (as vice president of academic affairs) and counted him a friend and mentor and admired him as a man of principle and honor.”

In 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed Smith to the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science, the selection committee for the prestigious awards for distinguished contributions in physical, biological, mathematics, or engineering sciences. The following year, Wisconsin Governor Patrick Lucey appointed Smith chairman of the newly created State Ethics Board, a position he still held when he left Lawrence.

Smith also served on the boards of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and Independent College Funds of America, Inc.

After leaving Lawrence, Smith served as executive director of the Lakeshore Consortium in Support of the Arts, an organization promoting increased awareness of, participation in, and contributions to an enhanced environment for arts activities in the Fox River Valley. He maintained a commitment to liberal education in retirement remaining active with the Waupaca-based Winchester Academy, encouraging it to foster its historic focus on the liberal arts and sciences and music.

Born Feb. 8, 1921, Smith was one of 10 children — five of whom survived infancy — born to a Hubbard, Ohio steelworker and his wife. He attended Kenyon College on a full tuition scholarship and graduated magna cum laude in 1947, earning a bachelor of arts degree in physics. He earned a Ph.D. in physics at Ohio State University in 1952.

Later that same year, Smith began his academic career as an assistant professor of physics at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. In 1961, he was appointed an assistant to the president of Ohio University. From 1962 to 1967, he served as vice president for academic affairs and was named provost in 1967.

Smith is survived by his wife, Lillyan Beaver Smith, and their three children, Lizbeth, Steven, and David.

Conservative Author Dinesh D’Souza Celebrates America’s Greatness in Lawrence University Appearance

Noted conservative author Dinesh D’Souza takes on the critics and defends America’s unique standing as the “freest and most decent society in existence” in an address Thursday, May 20 at Lawrence University.

Based on his 2002 book of the same name, D’Souza presents “What’s So Great About America” at 7:30 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Written in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, “What’s So Great About America” celebrates the United States, in D’Souza’s view as, “the best life our world has to offer” while taking on those who hate America, including radical Muslims.

Born and raised in India, D’Souza, 43, immigrated to the United States in 1978. After earning a degree from Dartmouth University, he served as the editor of Prospect magazine and spent a year as managing editor of the conservative magazine Policy Review. In 1987, D’Souza joined the Reagan administration as a senior domestic policy analyst.

In addition to “What’s So Great About America,” D’Souza is the author of six other books, including 1991’s best seller “Illiberal Education,” in which he casts a critical eye on the state of contemporary American higher education. He has also written a biography of Jerry Falwell, “Falwell: Before the Millennium,” provided a controversial view of the role of race in American society in “The End of Racism” and argues the case why Ronald Reagan should be considered among the nation’s greatest presidents in his 1997 book “Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.”

Hailed by Investor’s Business Daily as one of the “top young public-policy makers in the country,” D’Souza’s writing also has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Harper’s and the Atlantic Monthly.

He currently serves as the Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, specializing in issues of social and individual responsibility, civil rights and affirmative action, economics and society and higher education.

D’Souza is speaking at the invitation of the Lawrence College Republicans and his appearance is sponsored by the Class of ’65 Student Activity Fund, the Young America’s Foundation and the Outagamie County Republican Party.

Lawrence Main Hall Green Transformed for Third Annual “Shack-a-thon”

More than 200 students will join forces to transform the Lawrence University Main Hall Green into a temporary shantytown May 15-16 for the college’s third annual “Shack-a-thon” for Habitat for Humanity.

Sponsored by the Lawrence Volunteer and Community Service Center, Shack-a-thon will test the design moxie and construction skills of more than 20 teams of students who will assemble living quarters from donated materials on 10-foot-square plots near Main Hall beginning early Saturday afternoon. The shacks will remain up until mid-morning Sunday.

Teams will be soliciting pledges for having at least one member remain in the shack overnight to simulate the plight of the homelessness. “Change jars” will be placed in front of each shack with cash donations serving as votes for a “Best Shack” contest. A host tent on site will provide information on issues related to homelessness and the need for affordable housing.

Jill Wiles, Habitat for Humanity’s Campus Chapters Coordinator for the Midwest out of Chicago, will deliver the address, “Low Income Housing and the Mission of Habitat for Humanity” at 7 p.m. Saturday. In addition, live entertainment provided by some of Lawrence’s best student bands will be performed throughout the evening beginning at 5 p.m.

Shack-a-thon organizers are hoping to raise $5,000 at this year’s event. Since Shack-a-thon was launched in 2002, the event has raised $9,000. All event proceeds will be used for the eventual construction of a Habitat for Humanity home in the Fox Cities. For more information, contact the Lawrence VCSC at 920-832-6644.

Lawrence University’s Jon Horne Elected Chair of the Wisconsin College Republicans

Lawrence University’s Jon Horne was elected state chair of the Wisconsin College Republicans at the organization’s recent annual convention held in Appleton. A sophomore from La Crosse, Horne will serve a one-year term until April, 2005, assisting with state fund-raising events as well as coordinating volunteer and training opportunities for the 46 campus chapters in Wisconsin.

Horne is the former chair of the Lawrence College Republicans and currently serves as a member of the executive committee of the Outagamie County Republican Party. As state chair of the College Republicans, he will be participate in a leadership training workshop in Washington, D.C. in June.

Gustavo Fares Awarded Fulbright Grant to Teach Graduate Course in Argentina

Gustavo Fares, associate professor and chair of the Lawrence University Spanish department, will return to his native homeland of Argentina this summer courtesy of a $10,000 Fulbright Scholar Program grant. Fares is the second Lawrence faculty member this spring to be awarded a Fulbright Fellowship.

Beginning in mid-July, Fares will spend 10 weeks teaching the graduate level course “Hispanic Identities in the United States” at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Fares spent the first 27 years of his life in Argentina, before coming to the United States in 1985 to pursue graduate studies.

“As soon as I entered the United States, I was classified as a ‘minority’ and as a ‘Hispanic,'” said Fares. “I have always been interested in those labels. They did not characterize me in my native Argentina but were applied to me here precisely because of my origin.”

In his course, Fares will examine the identities of Hispanic communities in the United States and the understanding of those identities outside of the U.S. borders, focusing on their history, the ways in which they are depicted in films, literature and the visual arts as well as the role those representations play in the political arena.

“The changes brought about by globalization have had profound effects on the identity of nations and peoples throughout the world,” said Fares. “As a result, what it means to be Hispanic in the United States has come into question as this sector of society struggles to become part of the mainstream while still retaining the traits and characteristics that define them.

“I expect that Lawrence students in particular will benefit from my experience teaching abroad given the updated perspective from Argentina I will be able to provide,” Fares added. “In my role as a student advisor, I will be able to better explain to those who are interested in studying in Argentina that country’s educational system and the best ways to benefit from it. During my stay, I expect to establish relationships with the host institution that will develop into long-term projects for exchanging information, students and faculty in the years to come.”

A scholar of Argentinean literature and Latin American art, Fares joined the Lawrence faculty in 2000 after teaching for 11 years at Lynchburg College in Virginia. He earned a law degree at the University of Buenos Aires and spent two years in private practice before pursuing a graduate degree in painting, drawing and art history at the Ernesto de la Cárcova Superior School of Fine Arts in Argentina.

After coming to the United States, Fares earned a master’s degree in foreign language and literature and a master of fine arts in painting and printmaking from West Virginia University. He earned his Ph.D. in Latin American literature and cultural studies from the University of Pittsburgh.

Established in 1946, the Fulbright Scholar Program provides grants for teaching and research positions in more than 150 countries worldwide and is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). Fares was selected from research proposals submitted in disciplines ranging from the sciences to the fine arts.

East Asian Scholar Discusses Hong Kong’s Transformation in Lawrence Lecture

Ming Chan, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, discusses Hong Kong’s transformative experience from British colonial rule to special administration region of China in a Lawrence University address.

Chan presents “The Making of China’s Hong Kong: Post-Colonial Crisis and Transformation” Thursday, May 13 at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 201. The event is free and open to the public.

A former member of the University of Hong Kong history department, Chan will focus on two major problems that have plagued Hong Kong since it returned to China’s jurisdiction on July 1, 1997: a prolonged economic downturn and problematic governance.

Economically, Hong Kong is experiencing high unemployment (7.2%), deflation that has dragged on for 60 straight months and rising budget deficits that aren’t expected to be balanced until at least 2009.

Politically, C.H. Tung, the chief executive Beijing hand-picked to oversee Hong Kong, has been criticized for his too-much, too-soon, all-at-once approach to reform. His attempt to enact a Beijing-desired national security law resulted in a protest march by more than half a million people last July and produced widespread calls for direct elections. Last month, Beijing preemptively vetoed any meaningful electoral reforms for Hong Kong until at least 2012, signaling a drastic departure from its previous non-interference stance to uphold Hong Kong’s autonomy.

Chan, the coordinator of the Hong Kong Documentary Archives at the Hoover Institution, is the author or editor of 10 books, including 2002’s “Crisis and Transformation in China’s Hong Kong” and “The Challenge of Hong Kong’s Reintegration with China.” He earned his Ph.D. in East Asian history from Stanford.

Chan’s appearance is sponsored by the Henry M. Luce Foundation and the government and economic departments at Lawrence.