Smile Politely

Listen Up: November 2015

Even with the Thanksgiving holiday, there are tons of events happening on campus this month. Here are a dozen to keep you busy.

WHAT: Eurochannel Shorts: My Dear Family

WHEN: November 3rd at 6 p.m. 

WHERE: Lucy Ellis Lounge, 1080 Foreign Language Building

ABOUT: Eurochannel is a world television channel dedicated to promote the European culture and lifestyle throughout movies and series, programs dedicated to fashion events, arts or mythical destinations. It’s back for its seventh edition, with a special programming theme: My Dear Family.

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WHAT: Less Commonly Taught Languages Film Series: “The Second Wife,” Part 1 

WHEN: November 4th at 6 p.m.

WHERE: Lucy Ellis Lounge, 1080 Foreign Languages Building

ABOUT: All films in the Less Commonly Taught Languages Film Series are shown with English subtitles. The Second Wife will be shown in Swahili. 

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WHAT: Public Lecture: “Cine inmobilario: The Politics and Place of Home in Movies of the Spanish Boom and Bust”

WHEN: November 5th at 4 p.m.

WHERE: Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building Room 1018

ABOUT: This lecture will be given by Matthew J. Marr, a professor of Spanish. It will foreground in an analysis of El cielo gira (“The Sky Turns”) by Mercedes Álvarez, 2004. In his film, Álvarez examines one year in the life of a tiny village in northern Spain. This talk will contextualize this filmic phenomenon not only in relation to a broader and still emerging vision of contemporary crisis-era cinema, but also with respect to a tradition of Spanish moving pictures, beginning in the 1950s, that privileges the motif of immovable property, especially vis-à-vis housing and a kind of national “home romance.”

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WHAT: Public Lecture: “Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and the Challenges of Senecan Reception”

WHEN: November 6th at 2 p.m.

WHERE: 1080 Foreign Languages Building

ABOUT: This talk will be given by Curtis Perry, a professor of English. From the abstract: “The title character of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus has occasionally been described as Senecan, both because he seems to embody a brand of masculine constancy thought of in early modern England as stoic and Roman and because his crazy desire for absolute autonomy seems to owe something to some of the similarly outsized heroes of Senecan tragedy. But the play lacks the kind of overt verbal allusion to Seneca found in many other renaissance tragedies, and its story, though Roman, is from the very early republic. I choose Coriolanus, in other words, because it’s engagement with Seneca is difficult to parse. This talk will offer a new reading of Coriolanus’s engagement with Seneca, one framed in relation to an analysis of how Senecan tragedy was understood in Shakespeare’s England. This will also allow me to discuss some of the challenges and affordances involved in assessing Senecan reception for drama in the age of Shakespeare.”

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WHAT: World of Science: Weird Weather

WHEN: November 6th at 7 p.m.

WHERE: Staerkel Planetarium, Parkland College

ABOUT: The state’s chief climate-services agent will talk about “Weird Weather” as part of the Staerkel Planetarium’s World of Science lecture series. Illinois has experienced a number of severe and costly climate/weather events in recent years. During his talk, Angel will focus on the record rainfall of April 2013, the cold, snowy winter of 2013-14, and more rains in 2015—what happened and why. The talk will finish by looking at the ongoing El Niño episode and what it means for this winter in Illinois. 

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WHAT: Faculty Recital

WHEN: November 8th at 3 p.m.

WHERE: Krannert Center for the Performing Arts Foellinger Great Hall

ABOUT: This recital will feature professors of percussion William Moersch and Ricardo Flores.

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WHAT: Film Screening: “Inheritance”

WHEN: November 9th at 5 p.m.

WHERE: Hillel (503 E John Street)

ABOUT: This event is sponsored by the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Chris Benson, Associate Dean, College of Media/Associate Professor, Journalism and African American Studies.

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WHAT: CLACS/Lemann Institute Lecture Series: “Beer in Latin America: A Mobility Studies Perspective”

WHEN: November 12th at 12 p.m.

WHERE: 101 International Studies Bldg, 910 S. Fifth St.

ABOUT: This lecture will be given by Jeffrey Pilcher, Professor of History, University of Toronto Scarborough.

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WHAT: INTERSECTIONS: Screening of “The Search for General Tso”

WHEN: November 12th at 7 p.m.

WHERE: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum

ABOUT: This mouthwateringly entertaining film travels the globe to unravel a captivating culinary mystery. General Tso’s chicken is a staple of Chinese-American cooking, and a ubiquitous presence on restaurant menus across the country. But just who was General Tso? And how did his chicken become emblematic of an entire national cuisine? Director Ian Cheney (King Corn, The City Dark) journeys from Shanghai to New York to the American Midwest and beyond to uncover the origins of this iconic dish, turning up surprising revelations and a host of humorous characters along the way. Told with the verve of a good detective story,The Search for General Tso is as much about food as it is a tale of the American immigrant experience. A Sundance Selects release from IFC Films.

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WHAT: Performance: “Second Shepherd’s Play”

WHEN: November 14th at 6 p.m.

WHERE: Illini Rooms of the Illini Union (1st floor), 1401 W. Green St., Urbana

ABOUT: Tickets for the performance of the fifteenth-century Second Shepherd’s Play are now available for purchase! Co-directors Ann Hubert (English Department) and Stephanie Svarz (Theater Department) invite you to be part of this night of entertainment and fun. The Second Shepherd’s Play will be performed as a dinner theatre in the Illini Rooms of the Illini Union on Saturday, November 14, 2015. The doors will open at 6:00 pm, and dinner will begin at 6:30. The play will start around 7:00, and a reception will follow the performance.

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WHAT: Public Lecture: “Parasites and Revolution: Scientists, Communists and Public Health in Brazil (1945-64)”

WHEN: November 16th at 2 p.m.

WHERE: 101 International Studies Building, 910 S. Fifth St. Champaign

ABOUT: This lecture will be given by Gilberto Hochman, Professor of the History of Science, Medicine and Public Health at the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/FIOCRUZ.

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WHAT: Less Commonly Taught Languages Film Series: “A Separation” 

WHEN: November 18th at 6 p.m.

WHERE: Lucy Ellis Lounge, 1080 Foreign Languages Building

ABOUT: All films in the Less Commonly Taught Languages Film Series are shown with English subtitles. The Second Wife will be shown in Persian.

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We live near a major university and a community college. There are smart people that come here every week to talk to the general public about interesting topics. Here’s a sampling of the talks and events you can find in the not-so-ivy-covered buildings near you. These events are free and will fill your brain with yummy knowledge (and sometimes will fill your stomach with free eats).

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