This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.
News

Briefs

Published: March 8, 2012

  • Ghosh to deliver academies’ keynote

    Award-winning novelist Amitav Ghosh will deliver the 2012 keynote lecture of the Global Perspectives Academy of UB’s Undergraduate Academies at 7 p.m. March 19 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.

    The lecture, titled “The World’s Emporium: Canton’s Foreign Enclave in the 19th Century,” is free and open to the public. It is part of “Fluid Culture,” the UB Humanities Institute’s arts, media and lecture series for 2011-12. The lecture also is being co-sponsored by the Asian Studies Program.

    Ghosh tells stories of travel and the Indian Ocean. His “River of Smoke” (2011), the second volume of his Ibis trilogy, continues where the first book, “Sea of Poppies” (2008) left off, weaving a tale of the 19th-century opium trade by following the ship Ibis and its motley crew of characters.

    With the Ibis trilogy, as well as his earlier novels like “The Hungry Tide” and “In An Antique Land,” Ghosh shows how water brings disparate people together and challenges easy understandings of fixed terrestrial boundaries and spatial structures. 

    His stories also show how, historically, water has facilitated the transportation of goods and people around the globe, contributing to global economic and human interconnectedness.

    As a scholar and creative writer, Amitav Ghosh will offer a perspective that encompasses a range of topics introduced through the “Fluid Culture” series, which focuses on international flows of water and culture, but also re-examines the place of the Buffalo-Niagara region and its water resources, with respect to the contemporary globe.

    For more information, call the Undergraduate Academies at 645-8177.

  • UB at the table for ‘Musical Feast’

    UB faculty members will be among the principal performers during the next “Musical Feast,” a series of chamber music, solo and chamber orchestra performances presented by violinist Charles Haupt, retired concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

    The concert, which is co-sponsored by UB’s Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, will take place at 2 p.m. March 18 in the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Auditorium in the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College.

    The concert will open with the premiere of “…wind, water, metal, skin…” by John Bacon, UB adjunct instructor of percussion and PhD graduate in music composition.

    The concert also will feature the world premiere of “Descriptions of the Moon” by UB PhD candidate Nathan Heidelberger. Pianist Eric Huebner, UB assistant professor of music, will accompany mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley on the “Descriptions of the Moon,” as well as perform two other pieces: Mozart’s “Fantasy in D minor” and Elliott Carter’s “Night Fantasies.”

    David Felder, Birge Cary Professor in the UB Department of Music, will introduce the pieces before the concert.

    Tickets to “A Musical Feast” are $20 for general admission and $10 for students and members of the Burchfield Penney.

    To purchase tickets, call 878-6011 or visit the Burchfield Penney ticketing portal.

  • Nickerson, Kielar elected to SUNY Senate

    Peter Nickerson and Kathleen Kielar have been elected as senators of the SUNY-wide Faculty Senate.

    Their terms will run from July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2015.

    Nickerson, professor in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, will represent the health sciences.

    Mouhamed S. Awayda, professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, has been elected as Nickerson’s alternate.

    Kielar, training and business process redesign coordinator in the Office of the Registrar, will represent the academic core campuses.

    Henry Durand, senior associate vice provost for undergraduate education and director of the Center for Academic Development Services (CADS) has been elected as Kielar’s alternate.

    The SUNY Faculty Senate serves as the faculty/staff governance organization for the state-operated units and contract colleges.

  • Robinson up next in speakers series

    Mary Robinson, Ireland’s former president and international human rights commissioner, will speak at 8 p.m. March 29 in the Center for the Arts, North Campus, as part of UB’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

    The lecture is sponsored by the Graduate Student Association.

    President of Ireland from 1990-97 and past United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Robinson is the first woman to hold either position.

    As Ireland’s president, Robinson is widely regarded as a transformative figure who elevated her country to a new international status by revitalizing and liberalizing a previously conservative office by building bridges among those with seriously conflicting religious, social and economic points of view.

    Today, she campaigns for worldwide democracy through her work as president of the Mary Robinson Foundation—Climate Justice, a center for thought leadership, education and advocacy for global justice.

    Tickets may be purchased at the Center for the Arts ticket office and through all Ticketmaster outlets, including Ticketmaster.com.

    For more information about the series, including details about the speakers and discount vouchers, visit the Distinguished Speakers Series website.