This is Vassar...September 2009

Conference Examines Civil Rights and African American GIs in Germany

Maria Höhn, associate professor of history at Vassar, and fellow historian Martin Klimke of the German Historical Institute of Washington, DC—whose multimedia research project “The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany” explores the little-known experiences of African American GIs serving in Germany since WWII and their role in advancing civil rights in Europe—will convene the conference “African American Civil Rights and Germany in the Twentieth Century” on the Vassar campus September 30 through October 4. The conference will feature panels, screenings, lectures, and presentations on topics including Martin Luther King, Jr. in Cold War Germany, German jazz discourse and civil rights, and African Americans’ service during WWII.

This 1945 image of African American soldiers in Germany is one
of the many documentary photos collected by Höhn and Klimke.

Höhn and Klimke received the NAACP’s 2009 Julius E. Williams Distinguished Community Service Award this June for their multifaceted research project and their distinguished efforts on behalf of veterans and community service partnerships. The project website contains extensive digitized copies of underground newspapers, posters, and flyers from private collections, collected oral histories from GIs and their allies, and a wide collection of photographs and other images. Photographs from the project are part of a traveling exhibition that was first mounted at the German Historical Institute and will travel throughout Germany before a pending U.S. tour. The exhibition will, however, be on display at Vassar’s James W. Palmer Gallery during the conference.

The exhibition and conference events are free and open to the public.

Photo credit: Courtesy of the National Archives, Maryland

Loeb Show Examines History of Drawing and Watercolor in New York

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center exhibition, “Drawn by New York: Six Centuries of Watercolors and Drawings at the New-York Historical Society,” explores the history of drawing and watercolor in New York State, showcasing approximately 80 works, including one of the first-known views of New York Harbor, from 1650, and an early eye-view of Niagara Falls. The show celebrates the four-hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson’s famed river voyage.

This watercolor, part of the exhibition, shows the tip of
seventeenth-century Manhattan, then called "New Amsterdam."

A focal point of the exhibition is the development of landscape art and en plein air sketching (especially in the regions bordering the Hudson River) by such artists as Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Cropsey, and George Harvey. On display are works by American artists from the Civil War through the Gilded Age that illustrate developments in American draftsmanship and the advent of the American Pre-Raphaelites. Contemporary drawings by such artists as Oscar Bluemner, Raphael Soyer, Richard Haas are also featured.

The exhibition will be on display in the Center’s Prints and Drawings Galleries through November 1. Related events will include a lecture by exhibition curator Roberta J. M. Olson, Curator of Drawings, New-York Historical Society (September 11), and concert by Hudson River storyteller and legend, Pete Seeger (October 10, pictured). All are free and open to the public.

Photo credits: Watercolor, Gift of C. E. Detmold;
Seeger photo, Peter Rothberg

Davison House Renovation Brings Balance of New and Old

After a year of renovations, Davison House has reopened for the 2009-2010 school year. While alumnae/i might recognize traces of its prior form, the refurbished residence hall boasts an entirely updated interior with several new features unlike any other residential space on campus. Davison, for example, will be significantly more energy efficient than other dormitories and will feature low-flush toilets and showerheads. In addition, the entire building has been outfitted to comply with all codes for ADA accessibility, including the installation of a brand new elevator.

On each of its five residential floors there is a communal study space, complete with a sink and countertop, a community bulletin board, comfy chairs and side tables, and large windows overlooking the quad. Some of the heavy and opaque swinging hall doors in the dorm hallway have been replaced by double French doors and a set of windows have been added to the north and south ends of each hall, increasing the amount of natural light within the building.

A view of the main common room of the newly renovated Davison Hall.

The historical character of Davison was not altogether forgotten during the reconstruction. Original wood flooring and brick walls can be seen throughout the building and the trademark white window frames and cupolas of the quad dorm have been painted a deep forest green, echoing Davison’s earlier days. Remnants of the old Davison have been recycled for new use as well—old doors to rooms now serve as wall panels, concealing wiring in the basement. “We took the doors and re-used them to keep original architectural integrity literally within the building,” notes project manager Art Fisher.

New students moved into the newly completed building on August 25, followed by returning students on August 29. “The renovations are absolutely stunning,” says Davison House president for 2009-2010 Louise Conner ’11. “I’m extremely excited to make the year memorable and to help build a Davison community in our new dorm!”

New Dawn for Green Day Musical After Powerhouse Summer

If you’re searching for an American idiot, it’s safe to assume Vassar is a less than ideal place to look. But for two weeks in July, Vassar was home to the American Idiot, as New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater welcomed the cast and crew of the new musical based on the 2004 Green Day album of the same name. The show, which had been quietly workshopped several times over the past year, made one last pit stop in Poughkeepsie before it headed to Berkeley, CA, where it will begin previews this month at the Berkeley Repertory Theater.

Upon hearing the pop-punk trio’s record when it was first released, Michael Mayer, the award-winning director of the Broadway smash Spring Awakening, was convinced that the album was a “new musical drama begging to be staged.” He has worked alongside Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong for the past year and a half developing the project, which includes an on-stage band and a whopping 19 characters.

“We’re so unbelievably fortunate to be blessed with this safe haven,” Mayer said of Vassar during his time at Powerhouse, noting that the crew didn’t have to show the work to anyone, including the press. “This is the perfect environment and, because we’re not in the city, all of the actors can stay really focused on this particular project,” he concluded.

Pictured above: Playwright Keith Bunin talks about the play American Idiot on WAMC’S “The Roundtable.”

Street Fair to Celebrate Revitalized Arlington Community

Rain or shine, carnival rides, live entertainment, musical guests, and more than 100 vendors (including restaurants, shops, and craftspeople) will line Raymond Avenue, from Collegeview Avenue to the Eastbound Arterial (Rte 44/55) for the tenth annual Arlington Street Fair on September 26.

The festivities will start at noon with a ribbon cutting in celebration of the revitalized Arlington area and will continue until 6 p.m. All proceeds will go to support local charities.

Food lovers, in particular, will rejoice at the variety of Arlington restaurants represented at the fair—the Poughkeepsie Journal recently recognized that visiting Arlington was akin to “a culinary trip around the world.”

To add to the excitement, the fair’s annual local Chili Cook-off has now become even larger; it’s now the New York State Chili Cook-Off, boasting 30 judges, including public figures, local celebrities, business people, and students, who will taste entries in three categories: chili, chili verde, and salsa.

September Speakers Take the Podium

James Hevia, director of the International Studies Program and professor of international History at the new Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago, will give a lecture entitled “Tribute, Asymmetry and Imperial Formations: Rethinking Relations of Power in East Asia” on September 15. Hevia, whose numerous publications include Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793, winner of the 1997 Joseph R. Levenson Book Prize, has focused his research on empire and imperialism in eastern and central Asia. Read an interview with James Hevia.

Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University and former President of the Council for Development of Social Research in Africa, will speak at Vassar on September 21. An important voice in contemporary debates about Africa, Mamdani, who speaks 9 languages, has proved himself an expert in African history, politics, and international relations, In 2001, he was one of nine scholars to present at the Nobel Peace Prize Centennial Symposium, and in 2008, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 public intellectuals. His current work focuses on the intersection between politics and culture, and the politicization of culture in the making of political identities. Watch Mahmood Mamdani speak about Save Darfur and the conflict in Sudan.

On September 21, Dickinson College’s Michael Heiman, director and professor of environmental studies, and professor of geography, will deliver a lecture titled “The Inconvenient Truth of Neoliberal Carbon Offset Trading.” With a background in environmental science and social theory, Professor Heiman's research centers on environmental regulation and policy. His publications focus on U.S. and European energy policy, carbon offset trading, and the sustainability of alternative transportation fuels. Read Heiman’s article Race, Waste, and Class: New Perspectives on Environmental Justice.

Thibaut Schilt, assistant professor of French at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, will deliver the inaugural lecture in the Transnational Queer Lecture Series—a collaborative project among Bucknell University, College of the Holy Cross, Union College, Vassar College, and Williams College—on September 21. The series corresponds with a course of the same name that will be offered simultaneously at Bucknell and Vassar this fall, allowing students to engage in dialogue with classmates and peers outside the college.The course and lectures will focus on the ways in which different societies engage with discourses on gender and sexuality. Schilt will speak about the work of French film director François Ozon as a means of understanding queer identity construction in cinema. Learn more about Ozon in an essay written by Schilt.

Billy Collins (pictured), whose collection of poetry, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems, was the common reading for the class of 2013, will lecture on September 23. A celebrated American author who has published and contributed to numerous collections of poetry for more than 30 years, Collins served two terms as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He has received many honors, including fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Collins teaches English at Lehman College of the City University of New York. The lecture is part of the William A. Starr Lecture Series. Listen to an interview with Billy Collins on NPR’s All Things Considered.

Academy-Award nominated documentary filmmaker Gini Reticker will lecture at Vassar on September 24 as part of Peace Week. Reticker, who was nominated for an Oscar for Asylum, a 20-minute short focusing on the story of a Ghanaian woman seeking political asylum in the U.S., has worked on numerous documentaries over the past 20 years, with a particular focus on women’s stories. Her latest film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, examines the Liberian civil war and a group of extraordinary women who helped to put an end to it, showing a side of war and peace that is not normally seen on film. Watch the trailer for Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Photo Credit: Steven Kovich