Skidmore events welcome all back to campus

Each September, the Skidmore campus comes to life with cultural events galore, including lectures, art exhibitions, concerts, and much more. For a wide selection of events listings, check out the Case Center monitors or the College?s e-calendar. Here?s just a sampling of what?s happening early in the new semester.

Rogoff poetry reading
Jay Rogoff will give a poetry reading at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, in the Surrey Williamson Inn. Admission is free and open to the public. A member of the English Department faculty, Rogoff has published three collections of poetry: The Long Fault (2008, Louisiana State University Press), How We Came to Stand on That Shore (2003, River City Publishing Series), and The Cutoff (1995, Word Works). His poems frequently appear in such publications as Southern Humanities Review, Salmagundi, The Southern Review, and Salamander, among others. During the past two summers, Rogoff was the regular reviewer for The Saratogian, covering the New York city Ballet?s summer season at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Constitution Day lecture
Baylor University scholar David Nichols will present Skidmore?s Constitution Day lecture at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, in the Pohndorff Room, Scribner Library. Admission is free. Nichols, an associate professor in Baylor?s Department of Political Science and Interdisciplinary Core, is the author of The Myth of the Modern Presidency (1994, Pennsylvania State University Press), in which he demonstrates that the essential elements of the modern Presidency have been found throughout our history, although often less obvious in an era where the functions of the national government as a whole were restricted. At Baylor, Nichols? research interests include American political thought, constitutional law, the presidency, and politics and literature.

Constitution Day events commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution and are designed to foster good citizenship. Click here for more information about Constitution Day observances.

Greenberg Middle East lecture
The Greenberg Middle East Scholar-in-Residence program this fall will present two free public events featuring Yoram Meital, professor in the Department of Middle East Studies and chair of the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University. Meital?s residency, which runs from Sept. 1 to mid-October, will include teaching, class visits, and meetings with students and faculty.

Meital will deliver a lecture titled ?Peace in Tatters: Vision and Reality in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? (8 p.m., Monday, Sept. 18, Davis Auditorium) and will take part in a panel discussion, ?Can Performance Change the World?? (7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21, in Filene). The panel discussion is part of the multi-part event, Orchestrating Peace, which includes a 5 p.m. screening of the 2006 Paul Smaczny film, Knowledge is the Beginning, Daniel Berenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, followed by a light dinner.
For more information, call 580-5590.

Concert
The Student Entertainment Company will present Girl Talk, with special guest Prefuse 73, at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19, at the Sports and Recreation Center. Girl Talk?Pittsburgh native Gregg Gillis, a former biomedical research engineer?delivers infectious dance remixes and energetic live performances. (His credits include Secret Diary, Night Ripper, Feed the Animals). Prefuse 73 (Guillermo Scott Herren) is known for complex and textured hip-hop (One Word Extinguisher and Surrounded by Silence).

Tickets go on sale Monday, Sept. 8, in Case Center. For information, call the SEC at 580-9298 or e-mail pglennon@skidmore.edu.

	Drawn and engraved by Barry Moser for Moby Dick, or, The Whale (1851), by Herman Melville, Arion Press edition, 1979.

Annual Fox-Adler Lecture
Famed book illustrator and maker of books Barry Moser will talk about ?Whales, Monsters, and Solitary Voyages: One Investigator?s Travels Through Nineteenth-Century Literature? when he presents the college?s 20th annual Fox-Adler Lecture starting at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in Gannett Auditorium. The lecture and the reception following it are free and open to the public. Moser has more than 300 book titles to his credit, including beloved children?s stories, literary classics such as Moby-Dick and Huckleberry Finn, and the Bible. For samples of his work, check out his current exhibition at the Schick Art Gallery. For more information, call (518) 580-5049.

Caribbean dining, dance performance
In observance of Caribbean Awareness Week, a Caribbean Dinner begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in the Intercultural Center. Sponsored by Ujima and the Office of Student Diversity Programs, the dinner is free and open to all. (Reservations are required; call 580-8210). The Caribbean Dance Theatre will perform free in the Spa starting at 8p.m. Friday, Sept. 26, courtesy of Ujima, Raices, Late Night, and Student Diversity Programs.

Artworks
Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love will open Sept. 27 with a public reception at the Tang Museum. The exhibition will remain on view through Jan. 25, 2009. Robleto is widely known for creating dazzlingly hand-crafted artworks that make use of such unexpected art media as melted vinyl records, battlefield artifacts, rare herbs, minerals, and even prehistoric fossils and human bones.

The opening reception will begin at 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 27, for both Alloy of Love and the ongoing Opener 15: Amy Sillman: Third Person Singular. (Sillman?s brilliantly colored geometric oil paintings will be at the Tang through Jan. 4, 2009.) A curator?s tour of Alloy will begin at noon on Tuesday, Oct. 7, and on Thursday, Oct. 30, Robleto himself will visit campus to present an artist?s lecture at 8 p.m., followed by a DJ Dialogue Dance Party 10 p.m.?midnight. For more information on all Tang events and exhibitions, call (518) 580-8080 or click here.

?Sometimes Billie Is All That Holds Me Together? (1998-1999). Hand-ground and melted vinyl records, various clothing, acrylic, spray paint. Several new buttons were crafted from melted Billie Holiday records to replace missing buttons on found, abandoned, or thrift-store clothing. After the discarded clothing was made whole again, it was re-donated to the thrift-stores or placed where it was originally found.(Collection of Rebecca and Alexander Stewart, Seattle, Washington)