- Our Spectacular Fall Kick-off: The University of Hartford Showcase!
A day-long non-stop program of lectures and discussion with leading UofH professors and some of your favorite President's College lecturers. They day will begin at 9:30am and run to 4:30pm, followed by a reception at Russell House, home of President Walter Harrison and Diane Harrison. At any time during the day, two sessions will be running concurrently in adjacent rooms - for a total of 14 fifty-minute sessions among which you can pick and choose as many or as few of you want. A box lunch will be provided and there will be ample free parking close by. Enjoy a day at college with our finest professors, meet new friends with similar interests - and learn a lot! Here's a preliminary list of some of the events of the day. More will be added:
The 19th-century Sensation Novel - Catherine Stevenson & Dianne Harrison
Emerging Healthcare Technologies & Advances in Bioengineering - Louis Manzione
Hamlet - Humphrey Tonkin & Malcolm Morrison
The Portrait from King Tut to Andy Warhol - Patrick McCaughey
New Ways of Thinking about Mathematics - Jean McGivney-Burelle
The Symphonies of Beethoven - Michael Lankester
The Bible and Archeology - Richard Freund
Social Ethics - Lynn Pasquerella
Reading James Joyce - Joseph Voelker
Date: Sunday, September 7, 2008
Location: Mali 1, #204, #205, #232 in Dana
Time: 9:30am-4:30pm, with lunch, followed by reception
Cost: $150 per individual; $250 per couple (Fellows $80 per individual;
$150 per couple where both are Fellows)
Registration Form
- Humphrey Tonkin on Hamlet Up Close
It's a play we all know, but how well do we know it?. The play is full of ambiguities, leading to tough directorial choices. What does Queen Gertrude know about the death of her husband? Does Hamlet know that Polonius and Claudius are listening in on his conversation with Ophelia? If he does, when does it dawn on him? And is her mad nor'-by-nor'-west or mad indeed? Of course, there are no right answers, and there's plenty of room for discussion... Humphrey Tonkin leads us through a close reading of the best-known episodes in this challenging and enigmatic play.
Date: Tuesdays, September 9, 16, 23; October 7 (no meeting on Rosh Hashanah)
Location: Wood's Family Classroom
Time: 5:00-6:30 pm
Cost: $80 (Fellows $60)
Registration Form
- Beethoven's Symphonies: The Artist as Hero - Michael Lankester
Perhaps the greatest achievement of all symphonic music, the nine symphonies of Beethoven bring the disciplined variety of Mozart together with the feeling for huge natural forces that we associate with Romanticism. Ranging from tragic impulse to expression of joy, they display astounding musical craftsmanship. No one is better equipped to talk about them than Michael Lankester, former music director of the Hartford Symphony Orchester (the HSO is performing all nine of Beethoven's symphonies this season) and renowned for his conversations about music.
Date: Mondays, September 15, 22; October 6, 13, 2008.
(no meeting on Rosh Hashanah)
Location: Wilde Auditorium
Time: 5:00-6:30pm.
Cost: $100 (Fellows $80)
Registration Form
- Fridays at the Mortensen: Art, Architecture & History of Connecticut -
William Hosley
The first "Fridays at the Mortensen" event of the new season will be William Hosley's talk on "Reading Places: Art, Architecture and History in Early Connecticut." In Connecticut, history is all around us; the state has a wide array of place markers, milestones, landmarks, artistic traditions and indigenous achievements by which its place in the large narrative of American life may be easily discerned and known. This fast-paced illustrated overview of 300 years of Connecticutisms, by the Executive Director of the New Haven Museum & Historical Society, will examine evidence and revisit emblematic stories to discover what makes Connecticut distinctive and what, in our physical and cultural envirionment, is especially important to know and save. Fridays at the Mortensen are a series of lectures and events held after hours in the Mortensen Library on Friday evenings. The evenings begin with a light dinner. Among other programs for the fall: Willie Anthony Waters on Mozart's Don Giovanni (October 10), and Jeff Feldmann on photography (October 24).
Date: Friday, September 12, 2008.
Location: Wood's Family Classroom
Time: 5:45-8:00pm.
Cost: $45 (Fellows $35), including dinner.
Or sign up for the whole series of five for $135 (Fellows $105).
Registration Form
- A Hamlet Festival - Humphrey Tonkin
See and compare some of the leading movie versions of Hamlet - Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh - and some of the lesser-known, like the brilliant Russian version by Kozintsev. See samples of Asta Nielsen's 1920 female Hamlet, Celestino Coronado's experimental version (with Helen Mirren), and numerous others. Screenings will go on all day in adjacent rooms and you will be free to wander from one to the other. The day will begin with a panel discussion led by Humphrey Tonkin. Box lunches will be provided.
Date: Saturday, September 27, 2008.
Location: Auerbach A421, A425, A426
Time: 9:30am-4:30pm.
Cost: $60 (Fellows $50) with lunch.
Registration Form
- How to Write America: The Achievement of Noah Webster
Four visiting speakers, under the guidance of Chris Dobbs, of West Hartford's Noah Webster House, celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of Connecticut's greatest sons. A joint program of the President's College and Noah Webster House.
Christopher Dobbs (October 16).
Publisher Michael Day - Education (October 23)
Historian Robert Forbes - Slavery and Abolitionism (October 30)
Scientist Laurence Davis - Global Warming (November 6)
John Morse, President of the Merriam-Webster Company - Dictionaries
(November 13)
Date: Thursdays, October 16, 23, 30; November 6, 13, 2008.
Location: see below
Time: Reception 5:30-6:00pm at Gray Conference Center Foyer;
Lecture 6:00-7:00pm at Wilde Auditorium.
Cost: $20 (Fellows $15). Or sign up for complete series $50 (Fellows and members of the Noah Webster House, $40). October 16 and November 6 lectures are free.
Registration Form
- Opera Panorama - Chris Devlin and Friends
Chris Devlin, of the Connecticut Opera, whose wit and charm takes audiences by storm, discusses the variety and musicality of Italian, French and American opera, comparing and illustrating the three operatic traditions with live performances by members of the Connecticut Opera.
Date: Mondays, November 10, 17, 24, 2008.
Location: Wilde Auditorium
Time: 5:30-7:00pm.
Cost: $75 (Fellows $55).
Registration Form
-
Bible and Archeology: What Archeology has to tell us about the Bible - Richard Freund
Richard Freund brings his formidable scholarship to bear on three of the great enigmas of the Bible and what archeology has to tell us about them: The Exodus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Tomb of Jesus. Attendance will be limited to 20 participants.
Date: Wednesdays, October 29; November 5, 12, 2008.
Location: Gray Conference Center, Room C.
Time: 5:00-7:20pm.
Cost: $65 (Fellows $50).
Registration Form
-
The Gothic Novel: Dark Side of the Romance - Kathleen McGrory
Dr. Kathleen McGrory will introduce intrepid readers to a macabre world of pleasant terror in a selection of 18th and 19th century novels called "Gothic." Readings will include Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto (1764), Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Gregory Lewis' The Monk, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Jane Austen's parody Northanger Abbey, Sheriden Le Fanu's Uncle Silas, and Bram Stoker's Dracula and more. Dress warmly. Expect chills.
Date: Tuesdays, November 18, 25; December 2, 9, 16, 2008.
Location: Wood's Family Classroom
Time: 4:30-6:00pm.
Cost: $100 (Fellows $80).
Registration Form
- We need your advice, ideas, suggestions, support. Let us know what you think, what you are willing to do, what ideas you have. We are eager to have your involvement and for you to feel part of the President's College community. Write to Humphrey Tonkin at tonkin@hartford.edu or call him at 768-4448, or contact Nancy Mather (633-7778) or any other member of the Steering Committee.
