SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The fall semester at Wofford College gets off to a quick start, with classes beginning on Monday, Sept. 1. Other events in September include a performance by theatre artist Leigh Hendrix, a Constitution Day lecture and The Novel Experience, featuring author Elizabeth Cox.
These events are open to the public and are free of charge unless otherwise noted. Please check the online calendar at calendar.wofford.edu for frequent updates. For athletic events, please go to athletics.wofford.edu.
For more information, contact Laura Corbin at WoffordNews@Wofford.edu or 864-596-4180864-596-4180.
Monday, Sept. 1
8:30 a.m.
Fall classes begin
Tuesday, Sept. 2
6 p.m., Leonard Auditorium, Main Building
The Novel Experience Town-and-Gown dinner
The Novel Experience restaurant selection event. Then, Humanities sections visit local restaurants to discuss The Novel Experience book, “Night Talk” by Elizabeth Cox.
Thursday, Sept. 4
11 a.m., Leonard Auditorium, Main Building
Opening Convocation
Speaker, Dr. Will Willimon ’68: “Going for the Gold at the Old Gold and Black”
Dr. Will Willimon ’68, a retired United Methodist bishop and now Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, will be the featured speaker. For 20 years he was Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. A 1968 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wofford, member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, and recipient of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, he has been a Wofford trustee for many years. Both of his children, Harriet and William, are Wofford graduates. Willimon also holds degrees from Yale and Emory Universities. He has received honorary degrees from 14 colleges and universities, including Wofford. He is the author of 60 books. Patsy and Will Willimon have established endowments at Wofford for faculty study and travel as well as student scholarships.
Tuesday, Sept. 9
7 p.m., Leonard Auditorium, Main Building
Performer and theatre artist Leigh Hendrix, “How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less”
Performer and theatre artist Leigh Hendrix will conduct a master class for students in an experimental living-and-learning community called “Theatre of Justice” that will explore such issues as race, gender, sexuality and power. Hendrix also will perform her acclaimed work “How to be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less” that evening at 7 in Leonard Auditorium in Main Building, followed by a panel discussion on politicized performance and academic and artistic freedom. It is free and open to the public. The panel will include faculty from Wofford, the University of South Carolina Upstate and elsewhere.
Friday, Sept. 12
5-7 p.m., The Pavilion
Mid-Autumn Festival
Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, is the second important traditional holiday in China, which is for Chinese people to celebrate the autumn harvest and enjoy the full moon with family and friends. It is on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This year’s Moon Festival is on Monday, Sept. 8. Chinese food, performances and kids' crafts will be available.
Wednesday, Sept. 17
3:30 and 7:30 p.m., Olin Teaching Theater, Franklin W. Olin Building
World Film Series: “Calm at Sea”
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff; France/Germany, 2011; 96 minutes; French and German with English subtitles. Set in Nazi-occupied France in 1941, and based on a true story, “Calm at Sea” follows a young Frenchman who is sentenced to death, along with 150 of his countrymen, in retaliation for the death of a German officer. The film may not be appropriate for younger viewers. It may contain violence, nudity, sensuality, rough language, or contain or refer to alcohol/drug use.
Thursday, Sept. 18
11 a.m., Leonard Auditorium, Main Building
Constitution Day Lecture
Speaker: Dr. Tom Karako, Kenyon College
Wofford’s annual observance of Constitution Day will feature a lecture and discussion by Dr. Tom Karako, assistant professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Karako is serving as a visiting fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on national security, U.S. nuclear forces, missile defense, proliferation, and public law. Karako received his Ph.D. in politics and policy from Claremont Graduate University and his B.A. from the University of Dallas.
Monday, Sept. 22
7 p.m., Olin Teaching Theater, Franklin W. Olin Building
Writers Series: Novelist Elizabeth Cox
Elizabeth Cox, author of this year’s Novel Experience novel “Night Talk” will read from her latest work.
Tuesday, Sept. 23
11 a.m., Leonard Auditorium, Main Building
Class of 2018 Convocation: The Novel Experience
Novelist Elizabeth Cox, author of “Night Talk,” will be the featured speaker. In her novel “Night Talk,” Cox tells a moving story of two girls who, though they grew up in the same house, reflect on the alternate realities of white and black society. They are influenced by both the massive social changes sweeping the country during the Civil Rights era and by the extraordinary human capacities for fear, hate and love. In the end, the world they share under cover of darkness, through their candid nighttime conversations, proves to be the strongest force of all. The book centers on important issues that college students all over the country have explored in various ways for decades. Wofford’s Class of 2018 focused on them as they read “Night Talk” over the summer as this year’s selection for Wofford’s The Novel Experience first-year student reading program. The award-winning novel was published in 1997 by Cox, who retired in 2013 as the John C. Cobb Chair for the Humanities at Wofford. In 2011, she was inducted in the Fellowship of Southern Writers and was awarded the Robert Penn Warren Award for fiction for her body of work, which includes four novels and numerous collections of stories and poetry. “Night Talk” was the 1998 winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award for Fiction. The Novel Experience is a program that connects the members of the incoming class with each other through a shared experience and a shared meal. All incoming students read the same book before arriving on campus for orientation.
Tuesday, Sept. 30
11 a.m., Leonard Auditorium, Main Building
Center for Innovation and Learning Speaker: Dr. Jose Bowen
“Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning”
Technology is changing higher education, but the greatest value of a physical university will remain its face-to-face (naked) interaction between faculty and students. The most important benefits to using technology occur outside of the classroom. New technology can increase student preparation and engagement between classes and create more time for the in-class dialogue that makes the campus experience worth the extra money it will always cost to deliver. Students already use online content, but need better ways to interact with material before every class. By using online quizzes and games, rethinking our assignments and course design, we can create more class time for the activities and interactions that most spark the critical thinking and change of mental models we seek. Dr. José Antonio Bowen is president of Goucher College. He has won teaching awards at Stanford, Georgetown, Miami and Southern Methodist University, where he was dean of the Meadows School of the Arts for eight years. He was the founding director of the Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (C.H.A.R.M.) at the University of Southampton, England.
GALLERY EXHIBITS:
Through Oct. 31
Montgomery Music Building Courtyard
Circumpliance: The Decomposition of the Piano
A collaborative art and sound installation created by Peter B. Kay and Kris Neely, associate professor and coordinator of studio arts at Wofford, with Lynn Rhodes. During the 2013-2014 academic year, Kay served as an artist-in-residence at Wofford. In collaboration with Neely, Kay was asked to develop an installation that would alter the experience of a specific space using sound. Together with Wofford students and members of the community, Kay and Neely created sculptural elements using pieces of three decommissioned pianos. The pianos had been previously destined for a local landfill as they could no longer be tuned properly. The sculpted piano parts and the 88 electronic music tracks of “Circumpliance,” an original music composition by Kay, will shape the experience of the Montgomery Music Building Courtyard through October 2014. Visiting the installation is free and open to the public. The installation is designed to be different each time a person visits. The music is engineered to evolve as the tracks are played in an interlaced randomized sequence over six months. Sometimes the listener may experience harmonies, at other times dissonance. The unprotected sculptural elements will be left exposed to the natural elements, weathering and decomposing as the installation progresses.
Aug. 27 through Oct. 24
Sandor Teszler Library Gallery
Jiha Moon: Paintings & Prints
Artist Talk and Opening Reception: 3:30-6 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 2, Sandor Teszler Library Gallery
Artist Lecture: 3 p.m., Friday, Oct. 3, McMillan Theater, Campus Life Building
Jiha Moon (b. 1973), an artist from South Korea, earned her MFA from the University of Iowa and lives and works in Atlanta, Ga. Her art engages identity and societal diversity in the mixed-cultural world of the contemporary era. She labels herself as a cartographer of cultures and an icon maker, creating images loaded with multiple meanings and hidden truths. She has exhibited her works both nationally and internationally, including New York, LA, Berlin, Zurich, Seoul, and many other cities. Her works have been acquired by various institutions and collectors, such as the Asia Society in New York, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, Smithsonian Institute, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. She has been selected for international residencies at Art Omi, Arcadia Summer Art Program, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. In 2010 she had residencies at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia and the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H. Her one-year project with the Fabric Workshop and Museum was showcased in the spring of 2011 in Philadelphia. She is the recipient of prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painter and Sculptor’s Award for 2011.
Aug. 27 through Nov. 1
Slide Room Gallery, Roger Milliken Science Center
Expressions of Piety and Devotion: Photographs from Buddhist Cave Sites in India
Buddhist caves in India have been the focus of religious devotion for millennia. Interestingly, the Buddhist presence at these sites has waned, leading to other religious groups, such as Hindus, to reuse and repurpose sacred spaces. This exhibition of photographs documents the piety of ancient Buddhists through the caves, sculptures and paintings they created, while also addressing more recent developments of Hindu appropriation and the contemporary resurgence of Buddhist devotion at these fascinating sites.
Sept. 1 through Oct. 15
Martha Cloud Chapman Gallery, Campus Life Building
Kristofer M. Neely: Iconic
Artist Talk and Opening Reception: 4-7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 5
Kristofer M. Neely combines his affection for found objects, street and outsider art, and altered images in this exploration of the sacred and secular in contemporary culture. Neely serves as assistant professor and coordinator for studio art at Wofford. A brother in the monastic Order of St. Edward the Confessor, Neely has long considered his art making to be a manual act of contemplative prayer.