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.Upcoming Events Patricia Klindienst Work-in-Progress Talk Sunday, November 9, 2008, 4-6pm 707 Orange Street, New Haven Patricia Klindienst, a new member of CIS, will discuss her current book, How William and Sophie Got to Be American: From Czarist Russia to a Farm in Queens with the Help of Baron de Hirsch. Patricia says: “I will talk about the search for the fragments of a family story and through this discovering that a hugely important person--the Baron, and a movement that astonished the world--the attempt to resettle all the Jews of Eastern Europe--has been lost to history. I would particularly welcome a vibrant discussion of my hypotheses about why the Baron has never been granted his rightful place in history. This means talking about Herzl and the idea of a Jewish State--the birth of Zionism and the competing ideas for how to resolve ‘the Jewish question’.” Patricia’s first book, The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans,won an American Book Award in 2007. She earned a PhD from Stanford University in Modern Thought and Literature in 1984. She has taught at Yale, as well as at other area colleges, and now pursues an independent career of writing, lecturing, and teaching short workshops in creative writing. We hope that you might join us. Important: Please RSVP to Ruth Schmitt (ruth.hein@snet.net or 203-865-1491) if you plan to come to this meeting. CIS at the Theatre Join Center members on Sunday February 1, 2009, for the Matinee performance of Coming Home by Athol Fugard and a symposium following the performance, consisting of a panel discussion by experts and artists moderated by Long Wharf Theatre's dramaturg. Tickets will be available to Center members at the group price of $40.73. A block of tickets is being held, but the play, a world premiere, is expected to be very popular, so please call before Friday, January 16th to reserve. Members who have tickets may exchange them and will be seated with the group. Those wishing to see the play on another date may join us for the symposium on the 1st. Coming Home is Athol Fugard’s most recent work. The South African playwright is well-known to New Haven audiences as the author of Sizwe Banzi is Dead and Master Harold and the Boys. A script has been made available by the Long Wharf Theatre. Members wishing to read it may obtain a copy from Ruth Schmitt, either online or by mail. The play is a sequel to Valley Song, which is available from bookstores and libraries. For more information, or to reserve a ticket, contact: Ruth Schmitt, (203) 865-1491 or ruth.hein@snet.net ANNUAL FALL MEETING 4 PM, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2008 Room 211, Hall of Graduate Studies 320 York Street New Haven, CT Speaker: Mark Schmitt “Beyond the Election: The Next Era of American Politics” As newly-appointed executive editor of The American Prospect (TAP) and a long-time columnist for that magazine, Mark Schmitt thinks, writes, and blogs about politics and government. His areas of expertise include budget and tax policy, reform of the political process, and the history and role of ideas in politics. His talk will deal with the broad sweep of domestic policy and politics and his view that the conservative era is coming to an end. Before joining TAP, Mark was a senior fellow at the New America Foundation; earlier, he was a program director at George Soros’ Open Society Institute in New York. In the 1990’s he worked as speechwriter and then policy director on the staff of Senator Bill Bradley, and served as a senior advisor on Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign. Mark is a New Haven native, a graduate of Wilbur Cross High School and Yale College, class of 1983. He is the son of Center member Ruth Schmitt. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Democracy, and the Financial Times, in addition to TAP. When he was appointed editor in June, he was described on Politico.com by bloggist Ben Smith as “more of a left-center policy wonk than a polemicist,” one who has “embraced the rise of the progressive movement as a reaction to increased political polarization and Republican power—often acting as something of an intellectual broker between the Netroots and establishment DC.” Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 12 noon The Spring 'Anniversary' Luncheon took place at the New Haven Lawn Club, celebrating three decades of the Center for Independent Study CIS member and independent artist Jan Cunningham spoke and illustrated her talk, "Train to Marseille," with slides of her work. A brief business meeting to elect officers followed the luncheon. Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 4 PM At the home of Ruth Schmitt, 707 Orange Street, New Haven "Speech and Self, Part Two -- a conversation by, about, and with people who operate in more than one language" Lauren Pinzka will lead the continued discussion, centering around the question: 'How does language affect the way you think, feel, and present yourself?' (Monolinguists welcome, too. An interest in the subject is all you need!) For further information and to rsvp, please contact Ruth Schmitt at ruth.hein@snet.net or 865-1491 Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 4:15 PM Meet at the Long Wharf Theatre Joan Channick, managing director of LWT and a CIS member, will lead a backstage theatre tour and a conversation focusing on her role as managing director and the challenges and issues that face theaters. She will also provide free tickets (up to 20 total) for either the 2 PM or the 7 PM performance (your choice) of Long Wharf's production, 'The Bluest Eye'. Tickets will be distributed on a first-come basis, but preference will be given to dues-paying CIS members. For further information or to rsvp, please contact either Ellen Brainard (ellenrbrainard@yahoo.com or 562-1872) or Carol Ross (carolfross@sbcglobal.net or 624-9423. >Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 4 PM At the home of Ruth Schmitt, 707 Orange Street, New Haven "Speech and Self -- a conversation by, about, and with people who operate in more than one language" Ruth Schmitt will lead a discussion, centering around the question: 'How does language affect the way you think, feel, and present yourself?' (Monolinguists welcome, too. An interest in the subject is all you need!) For further information and to rsvp, please contact Ruth Schmitt at ruth.hein@snet.net or 865-1491 Stuart Feldman, Vice-President for Engineering at Google, spoke at the 2007 Fall Meeting on "The Impact of Speed and Scale on Scholarship." Following is a review of his talk. At the Center's annual Fall Meeting on October 21,2007, an enthralled audience listened to Stuart Feldman, currently a vice president of Google and, among other things, a developer of the Unix system at Bell Labs, as he laid out the many ways the Internet can aid scholars. Most importantly, new developments give independent scholars many advantages, increasing their parity with affiliated scholars. Stuart divided his definition of scholarship into five aspects: discovery, the pursuit of inquiry; integration, making connections across disciplines; application, relating knowledge to contemporary social issues; teaching, or the transmission of knowledge; and engagement, by which all these dimensions are applied to understanding and solving pressing social, civic, and ethical problems. The Internet facilitates these efforts by making available -- to an increasing degree--all(or most) of the research tools any scholar uses. More books are being digitized (over a million to date), specialized journals are being scanned or electronically archived, newspapers and magazines are simultaneously published on line, library catalogs are accessible to anyone. This access is possible because storage capacity is increasing rapidly; sizes that were considered ludicrous at one time -- terabytes and petabytes -- are now quite possible. At the same time, all this information is accessed much, much more quickly. What used to take hours and days browsing in dusty libraries can now be found in minutes (in an encyclopedia or dictionary) or seconds (on a search engine). These technical advances have wide ethical and social implications: because it is no longer necessary, for example, to travel to distant libraries or archives in other countries, scholarship is no longer restricted to the wealthy or the subsidized. Because a number of disparate sources are easily accessed, it has become easier to achieve accuracy and truthfulness. At the end of the talk we were all eager to get back to our computers and explore some of the newly suggested advantages. Mr. Feldman is Vice-President for Engineering at Google, responsible for engineering activities in the eastern half of the Americas. Prior to this, Mr. Feldman worked for many years at IBM, where he held a range of positions directing computer science research and policy, particularly the formation of policies relating to the future of the Internet, the development of long-term worldwide science strategy in computer science, and national and global computer science policy. With a background in computer science research at Bell Labs, he has written computer languages and is an expert in the architecture of software systems. Mr. Feldman is president of the Association of Computing Machinery, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electonics Engineers, and a member of several government advisory groups. Ruth Schmitt presented "Crossing the Language Barrier" at the Spring Luncheon on May 19, 2007. Her interesting talk noted that translation serves as a passport to other languages, other mindsets, other cultures. A good translator begins with the question, "What precisely is this author saying?" and ends by unraveling the question, "How would this author have said it if s/he were writing in English?" The first question is easy, requiring only a good dictionary and some facility in constructing an English sentence. The second can be treacherous. Colloquialisms, local dialects, and slang, often indicators of class or other cultural distinctions, simply cannot travel, while specifics of place and time are likewise so culture-bound that to give American equivalents may move a work unacceptably far from its origins. Imagin translating "rue de la Paix" as "Peace Street", for a work set in Paris! Another way to approach a foreign culture is to rewrite flawed translations, burning into acceptable English a work written originally in English by a foreigner. This work is not a laughing matter, and has distinct rewards. By figuring out why a writer who is originally, say, Chinese forms sentences in a certain way, we may go a little way toward understanding what it means to speak Chinese; and because language always reflects culture (or, as some believe, vice-versa) we may learn as much as if we had spent an hour strolling down a busy street in Beijing. In these senses, every translation, even a second-rate translation, is a travel guide. Toni Vogel Carey, Ph.D. presented "Tales Told Out of School" at the November 2005 meeting. Read her thoughtful paper here. |
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