Masha Gessen, who visits March 8, sends a dispatch from Moscow, where she participated in an unusual protest of the current Russian government on the highways that ring the city, with her ten-year-old daughter in the back seat.
"The occasion was a protest against the Russian government staged on the Garden Ring, the 16-kilometer-long road that circles central Moscow."
"As we turned onto the Garden Ring, we placed ourselves behind a compact Citroën while a Lexus SUV got behind us. Both were adorned with white ribbons, which have become the symbol of Russia’s protest movement. As more cars joined in the drive, our speed decreased, until we had white-ribboned cars in lanes on either side of us and the traffic had slowed to a standstill." More in the New York Times.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
On the Front Lines with Her 10-Year-Old Daughter
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Doorways to a Parallel Universe?
Big Bangs may be happening all the time, creating an ever-expanding number of parallel universes.
Physicist Michio Kaku, who visits 2/21, thinks he knows a way to create a portal to get into one.
Kaku formerly hosted the show "Physics of the Impossible," based on his 2008 bestseller, on Discovery's Science Channel. See a clip from the episode here (and pardon the commercials).
Slavery By Another Name on PBS Feb. 13th
Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, Slavery By Another Name will be broadcast nationally on PBS on February 13th.
It will also premiere locally tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 3rd at UAlbany, with a Q&A by book author Doug Blackmon and screenwriter Sheila Curran Bernard.
"For most Americans this is entirely new history. Slavery by Another Name gives voice to the largely forgotten victims and perpetrators of forced labor and features their descendants living today." Visit the film's PBS website here.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
What He Reads for Inspiration....
Alan Lightman on CBS News:
Q: What inspired you to write the book?
A: First of all, I have for a long time loved fabulist, imaginative fiction, such as the writing of Italo Calvino, Jose Saramago, Michael Bulgakov, and Salman Rushdie. I also like the magic realist writers, such as Borges and Marquez, and feel that interesting truths can be learned about our world by exploring highly distorted worlds. So, that is for form. As for content, with a background in science I am extremely interested in the meeting ground of science, theology, and philosophy, especially the ethical questions at the border of science and theology. All of these impulses served as inspiration for my new novel. More.
Alan Lightman visits Thursday, Feb. 2nd.
Where Spontaneity Is Almost Impossible
Adam Johnson, who visits 2/14, talked about his new novel of North Korea on the PBS NewsHour, Monday 1/30.
"It seemed, as a writer, that this was perhaps the most difficult place on Earth to be fully human, a place where spontaneity is almost impossible, where confessing your heart and your wants and desires run counter to the state and could get you in trouble, and because I found very few works from North Korean writers themselves that they weren't allowed to tell their own stories, that I thought this was something that literacy fiction could do, could fill in this void." More.
Picture: Performers at the Children's Palace in Pyongyang.
A War No One Brags About
"Saturday marks the anniversary of a war America won — but doesn't care to crow about. When the memory only produces shame and regret, you can understand why."
"Such is the fate of the Philippine-American War, otherwise known as the Philippine Insurrection, which began on Feb. 4, 1899. It's a reminder of a time when America's dreams of imperial greatness got in the way of its democratic values."
Emil Guillermo writes about the war, and about John Sayles's film Amigo in a commentary piece in Tuesday's Times Union.
Sayles visits Monday, Feb. 27th. Amigo will be screened prior to his visit, Friday, Feb. 24 in the Performing Arts Center uptown.
This Is Your Brain on Sports
"What your eyes see, your brain plays — as best it can, which is, of course, as variable as our actual playing and living." More.
In honor of Superbowl weekend, and in honor of the UAlbany home team, the New York Giants, we offer you a recent article in Grantland on the neuroscience of watching sports by Le Anne Schreiber, former New York Times sports editor (the first woman to hold that position) and former ESPN ombudsman.
A friend of the Institute and upstate resident, Schreiber has twice participated in the Visiting Writers Series, has served as Visiting Writer in the UAlbany English Department, and is the past instructor of a Writers Institute Community Writing Workshop in nonfiction.