International Accents

Abstract: The Passion Play of Oberammergau is arguably the most famous amateur theater tradition in the world, attracting a half-million spectators to this Bavarian alpine village every ten years. Indeed, the appeal of the play lies in its very status as lay theater: visitors flock to the village not just to witness a performance of the passion, but also to affirm the community’s dedication to a centuries-long tradition. To satisfy such an audience, the community’s role play behind the performance must be visible to outsiders. In addition to offering a general history of the play, the talk will explore the secondary performance frame of the “Oberammergau experience,” which shapes audience reception by representing the “real lives” of the performers. However, unscripted encounters with the play’s actors also reveal changing attitudes towards tradition.

“Young Starlets of Japanese Cinema” is the theme of a new film series at the UI, which begins Friday, Oct. 14, with a screening of “One Million Yen Girl” at 7 p.m. at the Bijou Cinema in the Iowa Memorial Union. All screenings are free and open to the public. This 7th Annual Japan Foundation Film Series is devoted to introducing young female actresses from films released in the 2000s. Additional screenings include “Harmful Insect” on Oct. 21, “Yunagi City Sakura Country” on Oct. 28, and “Kamikaze Girls” on Nov. 4, all at 7 p.m. at the Bijou.

The next WorldCanvass program from UI International Programs will explore “New Culture and New Welfare in South Asia: the Arts in India” at 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol Museum. The production is part of a larger UI conference of the same name from Oct. 6-8, and all events are free and open to the public.

I was born in Togo, a country in West Africa, and raised in Moline, Ill. Coming to the University of Iowa was exciting for me because I thought my days of culture shock were behind me, but I was wrong. “Diversity” isn’t a word people associate with a city in Iowa. Many are unaware of the number of diversity programs our university has to offer, and even more are unaware of how diversity affects them. This may be because of the lack of attention given to the UI’s multicultural organizations. We have more than 50 of these.

Is the making of art in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka since Independence a matter of privilege that rests with donors, patrons, and ministries of culture? Or, on the contrary, is art a necessity for life, like food and shelter, which ordinary people need to relieve the dreariness of poverty? On the October 7 WorldCanvass, we’ll explore the relationship in South Asia between different sorts of art and different levels of income (folk art, classical art, ritual art, studio art, public art) in order to answer the question of who makes and who consumes music, song, poetry, painting, dance and film.

Hoping to reverse that trend, the university spent $115,000 in budget year 2007-08 on international recruitment, including sending staffers to recruiting fairs around the world. That investment has paid off, said Scott King, UI assistant dean of international programs.

The University of Iowa European Studies Group Fall 2011 Lecture Series begins Friday, Sept. 23, with a talk by Mona Krook entitled “Tensions in Political Inclusion: Women and Minorities in Electoral Politics” at noon in Room N202 of the Lindquist Center. All lectures are free and open to the public. Krook will explain how prevailing norms of citizenship in France and the United Kingdom have shaped campaigns for political inclusion, resulting in solutions for women that have not been extended to racial and ethnic minorities. She is an assistant professor of political science and women, gender and sexuality studies at Washington University, St. Louis.

Corey Creekmur sometimes opens his comics class with a text that might seem odd even to comics aficionados: Nancy newspaper strips. “Early Peanuts and Nancy strips seem so simple,” he says. “But read carefully, they are more subtle than they look—they demonstrate how comics work.” Creekmur, associate professor of English, and other UI scholars like Ana Merino and Rachel Williams are introducing students and colleagues alike to the study of comics. Together they’re charting comics’ storytelling language, political and cultural rhetoric, and creative potential—and they have joined forces to put the University on the comics studies map. (Learn more about the comics symposium)

WorldCanvass will kick off the 2011-12 season with a program featuring “Comics, Creativity and Culture” from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol Museum. The monthly television and radio series from University of Iowa International Programs will continue each month with its tradition of lively discussion of culture, history, literature, language, politics and art, all surrounding an international theme. WorldCanvass takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. one Friday a month in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol Museum. All programs are free and open to the public.

Playwright and director Gowri Ramnarayan will be speaking about the writing and staging of three of her plays during an upcoming visit to the UI. Monday, Sept. 19, at 6:30 p.m. in Room 172 of the Theatre Buliding Ramnarayan will discuss “Serpent Speak” and “Dark Horse” and Tuesday, Sept. 20, at 5 p.m. in Theatre B of the Theatre Building she will discuss “Water Lilies.” These events are free and open to the public.

“When I think of all the memories from that day, tears actually come to my eyes—the emotions of that day and the days afterward are hard to forget. So many experiences in a short time. I think about how we were worried in Norfolk, where I was working at the time at Old Dominion University, that we would be attacked after the Pentagon, as the Norfolk area is the largest area of military bases on the East Coast. I remember frantically looking for the business card of a former student who had just visited me and was working for an international accounting firm in NYC, as his employer was just the type of employer in the World Trade Center, but, thankfully, he wasn’t located there.