Kingdon Talk, Book Signing Set

Jonathan Kingdon, author and Oxford University scholar who was Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the Arts and Sciences at Skidmore in 1997-98, returns to the campus this fall as a visiting lecturer in Liberal Studies.

While on campus at the end of September, Kingdon will sign copies of his new book, Lowly Origin: Where, When and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up, and meet members of the campus community at a reception in his honor. The book signing begins at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, in the Skidmore Shop. At 5:30 p.m. that day Kingdon will be the guest of honor during a reception in the Payne Room of the Tang Museum. Both events are open to the campus community.

Currently a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Biological Anthropology and Department of Zoology at Oxford, Kingdon is a widely respected naturalist, illustrator, and field-guide author. In 1971 he discovered a new race of giant squirrel in Uganda. In the 1980s he became something of a TV personality as the focus of two BBC documentaries. He is a scholar of evolution and human origins who wrote Self-Made Man: Human Evolution from Eden to Extinction in 1993 and whose seven-volume East African Mammals: An Atlas of Evolution in Africa (1971-82) was cited by American Scientist as one of the “100 books that shaped a century of science.”

Kingdon was Skidmore’s inaugural Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the Arts and Sciences, a program funded by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation during the late 1990s. The program stressed the interconnections between art and science, especially the nature of creativity and the process of discovery and invention.

New York Times Art Critic to Deliver Fox/Adler Lecture

The history of American art museums as institutions of social and economic improvement will be the foundation for an upcoming lecture at Skidmore College by Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic at the New York Times. Titled “Art in Aisle One: The Early History of American Museum and Department Stores,” the lecture gets under way at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. Admission to the talk, this year’s Fox/Adler Lecture at Skidmore, is free and open to the public.
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Duncan’s Myth and Image to Be Explored in Performances

“Myth and Image in the Dance of Isadora Duncan” with Jeanne Bresciani and the Skidmore Dancers, will be presented at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1, and Thursday, Oct. 2, in the Skidmore Dance Theater. General admission is $5 per person, with Skidmore student tickets priced at $3.

Jeanne Bresciani, a 1972 Skidmore graduate, has been in residence reconstructing the works of Isadora Duncan for the Skidmore Dancers. This performance will include dances to Schubert and Scriabin, including Schubert Waltzes and the C Major Symphony.

The dances on this program originate from the period of the Grunewald School (1905-1908) and subsequently, as taught by Isadora and her sister, Elizabeth, to the “Isadorables” -- Anna, Irma, Maria-Theresa, and Lisa Duncan. These dancers of the Isadorian tradition later transmitted the technique and choreography of Isadora to their own pupils.

Bresciani studied and performed from 1974 to 1988 with Anna and Irma Duncan’s principle disciples, Julia Levien and Hortense Kooluris; and with Maria-Theresa Duncan as well as her long-time pupil, Kay Bardsley; and with Anita Zahn, the chief exponent of Duncan pedagogy in America.

Bresciani is artistic director and director of education of The Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc., a performing company of adults and children created in 1988.

From 1976 to 79 Bresciani was soloist with the Isadora Duncan Commemorative Dance Company was co-founder and co-artistic director of Dancers for Isadora from 1980 to 87. In 1987, she succeeded to artist-in-residence of the Isadora Duncan International Institute after Maria-Theresa Duncan, becoming also its artistic and educational director.

Bresciani has performed as soloist at New York’s Lincoln Center, at the National Museum of Dance at Saratoga Springs, before the United Nations General Assembly, at pre-Olympic ceremonies in 1988, and at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She has appeared as guest performer/teacher/lecturer at colleges and other stages throughout the United States and in Canada, Europe, South America and the Far East.

Middle East Scholar on Campus for New Residency

Skidmore’s inaugural Jacob Perlow Scholar-in-Residence, Meir Zamir of Ben-Gurion University in Israel, has two additional public lectures planned this fall. They are the following:

• “(Re-)Building an Iraqi State: From Establishment to the Post-Saddam Era, 1921-2003,” Tuesday, Sept. 30;

• “Territorial Extension and National Homogeneity: The Case of Lebanon,” Tuesday, Oct. 7;

The talks will begin at 8 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. Admission is free and receptions will follow. Zamir’s residency is made possible due to a gift from alumna Jane Greenberg Cameron ’81. For details on the new residency and Zamir, read the news release.


Annual Art Faculty Exhibition Announced

The annual Art Faculty Exhibition at Skidmore’s Schick Art Gallery opens Friday, Oct. 3 and runs through Sunday, Nov. 2. An opening reception is scheduled from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Oct. 3 and a gallery talk is slated for 3 p.m. Oct. 10 in the gallery.

These events are free and open to the public.

Multi-media works, including ceramics, metals, photography, graphic design, drawing, painting printmaking and sculpture will be among the works exhibited by the following full-time and visiting faculty members: Regis Brodie, John Cunningham, Deborah Hall, Kate Leavitt, Richard Linke, Margo Mensing, David Miller, Doretta Miller, John Moore, David Peterson, Paul Sattler, Janet Sorensen, Peter Stake, and Joanne Vella, John Danison, Leslie Ferst, John Galt, Trish Lyell, Jane Mackintosh, Deborah Morris, Victoria Palermo, and Sara Tack.

The Schick Art Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and from 1 to 4:30 p.m. on weekends. Admission is free.

In the News

Sandy Baum, professor of economics, wrote an essay titled “More Need-Based Aid Would Level the Playing Field” published in the Sept. 19 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education. In addition, Baum was the source for the following: a Sept. 13 story in In These Times (published by the Institute for Public Affairs), titled “Hard Knocks: For many poor students, college remains only a dream”; a Sept. 7 story in the Duluth News-Tribune titled “Debt clouds darken for recent grads”; a Sept. 4 story in The Los Angeles Times titled “GOP Report Says College Tuition Increases Causing ‘Crisis’”; and an Aug. 31 story in The Houston Chronicle titled “Loan debt the norm for college students.”

Don Hastings, director of residential life, was interviewed for a Sept. 7 Sunday Gazette story titled “Area colleges easing campus housing crunch.”

Bret Ingerman, director of CITS, was a source for “Copyright Infringement 101” a story in the Sept. 11-17 edition of Metroland.

Gary McClure, associate professor of management and business, was a source for a Sept. 14 Saratogian article titled “Owners risk double the defeat in hopes of double the dough.”

Pat Oles, dean of student affairs, was interviewed by Laura Vanderkam for an opinion essay titled “Get a life parents – and let adult child have one, too!” published Aug. 26 in USA Today.

Rick Scarce, assistant professor of sociology, was a source for a story titled “Chiron blasts may signal escalation by activists; Experts: Second bomb set to go off when responders arrived” on an attack by animal rights activists at the Emeryville, Calif., bioresearch firm Chiron Corp. Written by Sean Holstege of MediaNews Group, the story appeared in the following California newspapers: The Alameda Times-Star, The Argus (Fremont), The Daily Review (Hayward), The Oakland Tribune, and Tri-Valley Herald (Pleasanton).

Mary Zeiss Stange, associate professor of religion and women’s studies, wrote an opinion essay titled “Monument to an Inglorious Past,” published Aug. 26 in The Los Angeles Times.

Sue Van Hook, senior teaching associate in biology, was interviewed for a story titled “Fungus Fever: Mushroom fans finding bumper crop” published Sept. 14 in The Sunday Gazette.

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