Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Famed director kicks off MillerComm lecture series at Illinois

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Francesca Zambello has directed stage productions everywhere from New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Broadway to the Paris Opera, the Bolshoi, Covent Garden and Disneyland. On Jan. 19 (Thursday), she will speak at the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois on “What is American Opera Today?”

Zambello’s talk marks the beginning of the MillerComm spring lecture series, presented by the U. of I. Center for Advanced Study. The annual series, begun in 1973, is supported by the George A. Miller Endowment along with co-sponsoring campus units.

Zambello is directing the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s upcoming production of “Show Boat,” starring U. of I. voice professor Nathan Gunn in the role of Gaylord Ravenal. She is the artistic and general director of New York’s Glimmerglass Festival, and artistic adviser to the Washington National Opera.

On Jan. 26 (Thursday), author Ezra Vogel will speak on the status of Asian nations in a lecture titled “China as Number One? Managing the End of Rapid Growth in Japan and China.” Vogel, a professor emeritus in social sciences at Harvard University, recently discussed his latest book, “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China,” on “The Charlie Rose Show.” The Washington Post described the book as “a masterful new history of China’s new reform era.” Vogel’s previous books include “Japan as Number One: Lessons for America” and “Is Japan Still Number One?”

On Feb. 23 (Thursday), in a joint presentation with the W.E.B. DuBois Lecture, Horace Campbell will speak on “U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa: Is Obama’s Policy a Continuation or a Break?” Campbell, a professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University, has written several books, including “Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney” and “Barack Obama and Twenty-first Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA.”

On March 1 (Thursday), Eric Swyngedouw, a geography professor in the University of Manchester’s School of Environment and Development, will discuss the uncanny similarities among recent protests in the Middle East and urban centers across Europe. His talk is titled “Every Revolution Has Its Square: Re-Politicizing the Unequal City.”

On March 2 (Friday), former U. of I. professor Lawrence Grossberg – now the Morris Davis Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – will talk about re-imagining counter-cultural unities in a lecture titled “How Can We Sing … in a Strange Land? In Search of Political Possibility.” Grossberg is the author of six books, most recently “Cultural Studies in the Future Tense.”

Archival records from the federal hospital for the mentally ill form the basis for the March 8 (Thursday) MillerComm lecture by Regina Kunzel, a professor of history, gender, women and sexuality studies at the University of Minnesota. Kunzel, whose latest book is “Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality,” will focus on what the archives reveal about the encounters of sexual- and gender-variant people with mental health professionals.

“Whither Syria?” is the title of Joshua Landis’ March 29 (Thursday) lecture. Landis lived in the Middle East for 14 years, and now teaches courses in modern Middle East history and politics at the University of Oklahoma, where he directs the Center for Middle East Studies. His daily online newsletter, “Syria Comment,” attracts about 3,000 readers per day. Landis is a frequent analyst on radio and TV program on CNN, FOX, NPR, PBS and the BBC.

On April 3 (Tuesday), self-described musicarchaeologist Bo Lawergren will lecture on “The Eurasian Angular Harp: Crossing Cultures Ancient to Modern.” Lawergren, a professor emeritus of physics at Hunter College, will be joined by harpist Tomoko Sugawara, who will demonstrate an instrument that first appeared in Mesopotamia 1,900 years ago.

The lectures begin at 4 p.m. in Knight Auditorium at the Museum, 600 S. Gregory Drive, Urbana.

The final lecture of the MillerComm series will begin at 5:30 p.m. on April 19 (Thursday) and be given by David Stork, Distinguished Research Scientist and research director at Rambus Labs in Sunnyvale, Calif. A physicist with 37 patents, Stork creates digital three-dimensional renderings of paintings to unlock mysteries of lighting, brush strokes and staging. His lecture, designed for non-scientists, is titled “When Computers Look at Art: Image Analysis in Humanistic Studies of the Visual Arts.” His illustrated talk will take place in Room 62 of the Krannert Art Museum, 500 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign.

All MillerComm lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, visit cas.illinois.edu/events/millercom.aspx.

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