SEP. 24
The Legacy of 1968: A History Roundtable Discussion Hosted by Department of History

7:30pm, PAC 134, 898-4284. Reception to follow, Trinity 100

Forty years ago, student movements convulsed campuses and cities from China to Mexico, from Paris to Berkeley. Was 1968 an ephemeral flash in the pan or did it represent a genuine turning point, politically or culturally? Join us for a roundtable discussion on the legacy of 1968.

OCT. 15
Stephen Berry Joanna Dunlap Cowden Memorial Lecture “House of Abraham: Lincoln, the Todds, and the National Family”

7:30 pm, PAC 134 (Reception to follow, Humanities Center Gallery, Trinity 100). 898-6054

Stephen Berry is an assistant professor of history at the University of Georgia. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. “Stretched between Confederate trenches and the federal White House, the Todds were a uniquely divided clan, a sort of Civil War writ small.”

OCT. 22
Elaine Scarry Presidential Scholar and Regarding Beauty Theme Guest “Beauty Restored: The Moral Pull of the Beautiful”

7:30 pm, PAC 134 (Reception to follow, Humanities Center Gallery, Trinity 100)*

Professor Scarry is the author of several books including On Beauty and Being Just, Dreaming by the Book, and The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. She is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University.

OCT. 28
Manuel Paul Lopez Poetry Reading, Writer’s Voice

7:30 pm, Trinity 100, 898-6457

Manuel Paul Lopez was born and raised in El Centro, CA, the setting for many of the poems in his book Death of a Mexican & Other Poems, which won the 2006 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize. "I think he's headed above and beyond."—Howard Junker (ZYZZYVA); "Indelible exuberance..."—Francisco Aragon (Puerta del Sol); "If there is a heaven, Andrés Montoya is looking down and exclaiming, '¡Órale!'"—Daniel Olivas (Devil Talk: Stories).

OCT. 29
Tim Miller At NOON in BMU 304, Tim Miller will be the guest of the Conversation on Diversity.

At 7:30 pm at the 1078 Gallery (820 Broadway, Chico), Miller will perform his Glory Box (343-1973 for tix).

This internationally acclaimed performance artist, whose creative work explores the artistic, spiritual, and political topography of his identity as a gay man, is co-sponsored by the A.S. Committee on Arts and Lectures (CAL), Department of Theatre, Office of Diversity, and the Humanities Center.

NOV. 5
Jessica Clark, History “Mussolini’s Roman History”

7:30 pm, PAC 134, 898-4284. Reception to follow, Trinity 100

Join the Department of History for an inaugural lecture by Jessica H. Clark, new professor of ancient history. Clark, who earned her Ph.D. at Princeton, explores how Benito Mussolini used Rome’s military history in the service of his fascist government’s final call to arms.

NOV. 6 Peggy Shumaker Poetry Reading, Writer’s Voice

7:30pm Trinity 100. 898-6457 

Peggy Shumaker will be reading new poems and from her memoir, Just Breathe Normally.

NOV. 13
Cadence of Hooves Poetry Reading, Humanities Center+Writer’s Voice

7:30pm, 1078 Gallery (820 Broadway), 898-6457

Suzan Jantz, a CSU Chico alum, has started Yarroway Mountain Press and recently published a stunning poetry anthology, Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses. Various poets will read from the anthology, which will also be on sale.

FEB. 25
William Campbell, History "The Opening of the Appalachians in the Mid-18th Century"

7:30 pm, PAC 134, 898-4284. Reception to follow, Trinity 100

Join the Department of History for an inaugural lecture by new Colonial America historian William J. Campbell, who earned his Ph.D. at McMasters University in 2007. Campbell explores the European expansion in the New World that led to the settlement of lands west of the Appalachian mountain range in the 1760s and later.

FEB. 26
Alexander Nehamas Regarding Beauty Theme Guest "The Place of Beauty"

7:30 pm, Ayres 106. 898-5122. Reception to follow, Humanities Center Gallery, Trinity 100*

In Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art, Alexander Nehamas, Edmund Carpenter Professor of the Humanities at Princeton, "seeks to restore beauty's place in art, to reestablish the connections among art, beauty, and desire, and to show that the values of art, independently of their moral worth, are equally crucial to the rest of life." Only a Promise of Happiness was deemed "a marvelous book" by the Times Higher Education Supplement and won the 2007 Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Philosophy Award from the Association of American Publishers.

MAR. 27
Kevin Prufer Humanities Center guest, and Troy Jollimore, Philosophy and director of Humanities Center Poetry Reading
7:30 pm, 1078 Gallery (820 Broadway), 898-5122

Kevin Prufer has won three Pushcart Prizes and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His latest book, National Anthem, is a stunning meditation on the decline of the American empire, and was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the five best poetry books of 2008.

Troy Jollimore is the author of Tom Thomson in Purgatory, which won the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and The Solipsist, a chapbook from Bear Star Press.

MAY 7
Writer’s Voice “The Writer’s Workshop”
7:30 pm, Trinity 100, 898-6457

Readers are students from the Department of English’s graduate writer’s workshop: fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

* The Humanities Center’s theme for this year—“Regarding Beauty”—is being partially underwritten by a grant from New Urban Builders, which enables the Center to bring a wide range of outside speakers to campus as well as to host a number of community events.