Pomona College February 2009 Events

Pomona College, one of the nation’s premier liberal arts colleges, is sponsoring the following on-campus events. Each of these events is open to the public, and there is no cost to attend unless otherwise noted.

Jan. 24 - April 12 - Exhibition: Suddenly!
Jan. 24: Opening Reception, 5-7 p.m.
Jan. 28: Curator and Artist Panel Discussion, 4:15 p.m.
SUDDENLY: where we live now comprises a set of exhibitions, an annotated reader and a series of public events that attempt to re-imagine cityscapes with contemporary art, literature, and the conversations they spark. Suddenly includes a range of projects and media such as painting, photography, and video, and community-based activities such as communal dinners, spontaneous public lectures, and a city-wide poster initiative. The artists include: Marc Joseph Berg, Zoe Crosher, Michael Damm, Molly Dilworth, Hadley + Maxwell, Fritz Haeg, Elias Hansen, Frank Heath, Michael Hebb, Michael McManus, Mike Merrill, Mostlandian Citizens Lady O and Junior Ambassador, Shawn Records, Storm Tharp, and Oscar Tuazon and Metronome Press, Paris.

The Pomona College Museum of Art (330 N. College Avenue, Claremont) is open Tues.-Fri., 12-5 p.m.; Sat-Sun., 1-5 p.m. Contact: (909) 621-8283 or visit www.pomona.edu/museum.

Feb. 4 - Lecture: The Rape of the Lock
Pomona College English Colloquium presents “Discontented Air: The Atmosphere of ‘The Rape of the Lock,’” a lecture by Jayne Lewis, professor of English at UC Irvine. The lecture will begin at 4:15 and be held in the Ena Thompson Reading Room, Crookshank Hall (140 W. Sixth St., Claremont). Contact: (909) 607-2122.

Feb. 4 - Concert: Chinese Music
This concert by the musical faculty ensemble of Xiamen University, PR China, will feature traditional and contemporary Chinese music and instruments. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. and will be held in the Scripps College Garrison Theater (231 E. 10th St., Claremont). The event is organized by the Scripps Music Department and co-sponsored by the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College.

Feb. 5 - Multi-Media Performance: Refugee Nation
“Refugee Nation” is an interdisciplinary/multi-media performance created by Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng in collaboration with Laotian community members from across the U.S. The show has toured widely, sparking dialogue about refugees, global politics, U.S. citizenship, and the impact of war. Organized by the Pomona College Theatre & Dance Department and co-sponsored by the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College, the event will begin at 3 p.m. and be held in Seaver Theater 100 (300 E. Bonita Ave., Claremont).

Feb. 5-7 - Theatre: Zoot Suit
In Louis Valdez's poignant musical retelling of the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial and the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, the events are reexamined through the eyes of those most adversely affected. The show will be performed in the Seaver Theater (300 E. Bonita St., Claremont) at 8 p.m. on Feb. 5-7 and at 2 p.m. on Feb. 7-8. Tickets are $5 for senior citizens, faculty, staff and students; and $10 for general admission. Box Office: (909) 621-8525 or 607-4375.

Feb. 6 – Tournees Film Festival: Heading South
Vers Le Sud (Heading South) is a 2005 film by director Laurent Cantet about the experience of three middle-age white women in the late 1970s traveling to Haiti for sexual tourism against a backdrop of class issues and deteriorating political climate. Won the Marcello Mastrioanni Award and the CinemAvvenire Award at the 2005 Venice Film Festival. The screening, part of the Tournees Film Festival ’09, will begin at 6:30 p.m., in the Pomona College Smith Campus Center Rose Hills Theatre (170 E. Sixth St., Claremont).

Feb. 7 - Music: Piano/Harpsicord/Toy Piano
Pomona music faculty Genevieve Feiwen Lee will perform an array of works on piano, harpsichord and toy piano including: Suite in D minor (for harpsichord) by Louis Couperin; Sonata in E Major, Op. 109 by Beethoven; Schroeder's Revenge (for toy piano) by Rob Smith; East Broadway (for toy piano and boombox) by Julia Wolfe; Evocation and El Albaicin from Iberia by Isaac Albéniz; and Soirée dans Grenade from Estampes by Claude Debussy. The concert starts at 8 p.m. and will be held in the Bridges Hall of Music (Little Bridges, 150 E. Fourth St., Claremont). Contact: (909) 607-2671.

Feb. 10 - Literary Series: Poet James McMichael
James McMichael, poet and author of six poetry collections including Each in a Place Apart and Capacity, will give a reading as part of the Pomona College English Department Literary Series. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. and will be held in the Ena Thompson Reading Room (108), Crookshank Hall (140 W. Sixth St., Claremont). Contact: (909) 607-2212.

Feb. 11 - Artist Lecture: Fritz Haeg
Los Angeles-based architect, artist and activist Fritz Haeg will lecture on his project Animal Estates 5.0, Portland, which is presented in the suddenly exhibition. This is the fifth iteration of “Animal Estates,” Haeg’s seven-city global initiative to stimulate creative civic participation in the lives of indigenous animal species, specifically those extirpated by human activity. The presentation will begin at 11:15 a.m. and be held in Lyman Hall, Thatcher Building (340 N. College Ave., Claremont). The lecture is sponsored by the Pomona College Museum of Art. Contact: (909) 621-8283 or www.pomona.edu/museum.

Feb. 12 - Lecture: Sleeping Mexican Phenomena
“Reading Pancho: Convoluted Interpretations of the Sleeping Mexican Phenomenon” is the subject of this International Relations Colloquium lecture by Maribel Alvarez, assistant research professor in the English Department and research social scientist at the Southwest Center, University of Arizona. The discussion includes the questions of why some meanings stick, while others slide. The lecture will begin at 12 p.m. in the Pomona College Oldenborg Center (350 N. College Way, Claremont). Contact: (909) 621-8108.

Feb. 12 – Pomona Student Union Great Debate: Free Speech
Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to October 2008, and Mari Matsuda, lawyer, activist and professor at the William S. Richardson Law School in Hawaii, debate the limits, if any, should be placed on free speech. The debate will begin at 8 p.m., location TBA. Contact: (760) 953-0117 or www.pomonasu.com.

Feb. 12 - Lecture: Globalization and the Nation-State
The Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College presents the Tenth Annual R. Stanton Avery Lecture featuring Ronald Grigor Suny speaking on “Globalization and the Nation-State: The Future of Failure.” Suny is the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History, University of Michigan, and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History, University of Chicago. The lecture will begin at 8 p.m. in the Smith Campus Center’s Rose Hills Theatre (170 E. Sixth St., Claremont).

Feb. 13 - Lecture: China-Middle East Relations, Energy
“China-Middle East Relations and China’s Energy Strategy” is the focus of this presentation by Pan Guang, director of and professor at the Shanghai Center for International Studies and Institute of Eurasian Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and vice chairman of the Chinese Society of Middle East Studies. This International Relations Colloquium lecture begins at 12 p.m. in the Pomona College Oldenborg Center (350 N. College Way, Claremont). Contact: (909) 621-8108.

Feb. 13 – Tournees Film Festival: Flight of the Red Balloon
Le Voyage de ballon rouge (“Voyage of the Red Balloon,” 2007), directed by Hou Hsiao Hsien, starring Juliet Binoche, and inspired by the 1956 classic The Red Balloon, involves a young boy, a red balloon, a pre-occupied puppeteer mother and Taiwanese film student hired to help care for her son. The screening, part of the Tournees Film Festival ’09, will begin at 6:30 p.m., in the Pomona College Smith Campus Center Rose Hills Theatre (170 E. Sixth St., Claremont).

Feb. 14 - Concert: Bobby Bradford and the Mo’Tet
Bobby Bradford and the Mo’Tet will perform an evening of jazz, beginning at 8 p.m., in the Pomona College Bridges Hall of Music (Little Bridges, 150 E. Fourth St., Claremont). This versatile ensemble plays everything from the highly structured to free improvisational styles of jazz with finesse and precision. Mo'Tet features multi-directional jazz artists Don Preston (piano), Roberto Miranda (bass), William Jeffrey (drummer), Ken Rosser (guitar), Michael Vlatkovich (trombone) and Chuck Manning (saxophones), in addition to Bradford (cornet/trumpet). Contact: (909) 607-2671, www.music.pomona.edu.

Feb. 18 - Concert: Traditional Korean Music
This lecture/demonstration brings the Hyun-Myung ("Sound of Strings") Trio from Seoul, to Pomona College's Lyman Hall in the Thatcher Music Building (340 N. College Ave., Claremont). The trio will perform a combination of folk tunes, as well as select pieces of court music, utilizing three traditional instruments remaining today, the kayagum (twelve-stringed zither), ajaeng (bowed zither) and haegum (two-stringed spike fiddle).

The event is co-sponsored by the Pomona College Music Department, the Pacific Basin Institute, the Public Events Committee, and Asian Studies; Claremont McKenna College; and the Scripps College Music Department. Contact: (909) 607-2621, www.music.pomona.edu.

Feb. 18 - Lecture: Global Climate Change
“Global Climate Change: A Paleoclimate Perspective from the World’s Highest Mountains” is the subject of the annual Woodford-Eckis Lecture to be given by Dr. Lonnie Thompson, distinguished university professor at Ohio State University, who has drilled ice cores from mountain glaciers and ice caps in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. In 2007, he received a National Medal of Science, the highest honor the U.S. bestows on scientists. The lecture, hosted by the Pomona College Geology Department, begins at 8:15 p.m. and will be held in the Smith Campus Center Rose Hills Theatre (170 E. Sixth St., Claremont).

Feb. 19 - Lecture: Global Climate Change
“Climate Histories from Tropical Glaciers and the Evidence for Asynchronous Glaciation” is the subject of this second Woodford-Eckis lecture by Dr. Lonnie Thompson, distinguished university professor at Ohio State University, who has drilled ice cores from mountain glaciers and ice caps in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. In 2007, he received a National Medal of Science, the highest honor the U.S. bestows on scientists. The lecture, hosted by the Pomona College Geology Department, begins at 11 a.m. and will be held in the Smith Campus Center Rose Hills Theatre (170 E. Sixth St., Claremont). 

Feb. 19 - Film: Man Push Cart
Film screening followed by Q&A with filmmaker Ramin Bahrani. The award-winning Man Push Cart tells the story of Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi), a former Pakistani rock singer and now one of the countless invisible workers of New York City who ekes out a living selling coffee and donuts from his push cart in order to make a better life for his son. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival (2005), screened at Sundance (2006), has won more than 10 international prizes and was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards and a Gotham Award (2007). The screening begins at 7 p.m. and is sponsored by the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College.

Feb. 20 - History/Politics Lecture: “Mass Murder by Mosquito”
“Mass Murder by Mosquito: The Vaeyama Malaria Reparation Campaign 1989-1997” is the subject of this talk by Alan Christy, an associate professor of history at UC Santa Cruz and author of the forthcoming book, Ethnographies of the Self: The Formation of Japanese Native Ethnology, 1910-1945. In 1989, residents of a remote island in Okinawa prefecture began a movement to claim reparations from the Japanese government for the deaths by malaria of one-quarter of the island's population during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. This talk examines the claims, the strategies available to the claimants and the ultimate resolution of the movement. The lecture begins at 3 p.m. in room 108 of the Pomona College Hahn Building (420 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont). The event is organized by the Pomona College History Department, Asian Studies and the Pacific Basin Institute. Contact: (909) 607-3075.

Feb. 20 – Tournees Film Festival: Before I Forget
Avant que j’oubile (“Before I Forget,” 2007) is the third semi-autobiographical by Jacques Nolot, this one focusing on a 60-year-old protagonist, who has been HIV positive for 24 years and who has outlived his working years as a male escort, after 15 years of being kept by a high-ranking member of French society who has just died. The screening, part of the Tournees Film Festival ’09, will begin at 6:30 p.m., in the Pomona College Smith Campus Center Rose Hills Theatre (170 E. Sixth St., Claremont).

Feb. 21 - Music: 17th Annual Ussachevsky Memorial Festival
Pomona College faculty and guests come together for the 17th annual electronic music festival with music by Ronald Perera, Rob Smith, Bill Alves, Eric Moe, Steve Reich and Tom Flaherty. Performers will be Lucy Shelton '65, soprano; Genevieve Lee, piano; Rachel Rudich, flute; Rachel Huang, violin; Jonathan Wright, violin; Cynthia Fogg, viola; and Tom Flaherty, cello. The concert begins at 8 p.m. and will be held in Lyman Auditorium of the Thatcher Music Building (340 N. College Ave., Claremont). Contact: Contact: (909) 607-2621, www.music.pomona.edu.

Feb. 22 - Music: Music of the 20th & 21st Centuries
Pomona College music faculty Rachel Rudich, flute; Jack Sanders, guitar; Joti Rockwell, mandolin; Tom Flaherty, cello; Joshua Ranz, clarinet; and Rachel Huang, violin; and Lucy Shelton '65, soprano; will offer a broad selection of works from the 20th and 21st centuries. Selections include When Time Was Young by Flaherty, Towards the Sea and Air by Toru Takemitsu, Mountain Moor by Stephen Funk Pearson, and the premiere of Concords III by Karl Kohn. The concert begins at 3 p.m. and will be held in the Pomona College Bridges Hall of Music (Little Bridges (150 E. Fourth St., Claremont). Contact: (909) 607-2621, www.music.pomona.edu.

Feb. 23 - 47th Robbins Lecture Series: “The Many Lives of RNA”
Jennifer Doudna, vice president of research biochemistry and biophysics at Genentech, a member of the national Academy of Sciences and Pomona Class of ’85, will deliver the 47th Robbins Lecture Series, presented by the Pomona College Chemistry Department. Her lecture on “The Many Lives of RNA” will begin at 8 p.m. and be held in the Seaver North Auditorium (645 N. College Ave., Claremont).

Feb. 24 - Lecture: Manga Publication in the U.S.
Ever wonder who or what made the manga industry in the U.S. grow from a mere $60 million in the early years to $375 million today? Carl Gustav Horn, editor of Dark Horse Comics and Pomona Class of ‘91, will give “An Inside/Outside Look at Manga Publication in the U.S.: Dark Horse and Its Publication of Lone Wolf and Cub, Astro Boy, Akira, CLAMP, and Beyond” beginning at 4:15 p.m. in the Pomona College Hahn Building (420 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont). The event is jointly sponsored by the Pomona College Pacific Basin Institute, Informational Technology Services, Asian Languages and Literatures, and the Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages & International Relations. Contact: (909) 621-8931.

Feb. 24 - 47th Robbins Lecture Series: “How Viruses Use RNA”
In this second installment of the Robbins Lecture Series, Jennifer Doudna, vice president of research biochemistry and biophysics at Genentech, a member of the national Academy of Sciences and Pomona Class of ’85, will discuss “Hijacking the Ribosome: How Viruses Use RNA to Control Protein Synthesis.” The talk begins at 4:30 p.m. and will be held in the Seaver North Auditorium (645 N. College Ave., Claremont). It is presented by the Pomona College Chemistry Department.

Feb. 25 - 47th Robbins Lecture Series: Gene Expression
In the third installment of the Robbins Lecture Series, Jennifer Doudna, vice president of research biochemistry and biophysics at Genentech, a member of the national Academy of Sciences and Pomona Class of ’85, will give a lecture titled “Dissecting Dicer: Towards an Understanding of DNA-Regulated Gene Expression.” The talk begins at 4:30 p.m. and will be held in the Seaver North Auditorium (645 N. College Ave., Claremont). It is presented by the Pomona College Chemistry Department.

Feb. 25 - Music: Student Recital
Music from Bach to new compositions from student composers will be performed by students in the Pomona College Music Department. The concert will be held in Lyman Hall, Thatcher Music Building (340 N. College Ave., Claremont) and begin at 8 p.m.

Feb. 26 - 47th Robbins Lecture Series: Drugs & Human Health
In the fourth and final installment of the Robbins Lecture Series, Jennifer Doudna, vice president of research biochemistry and biophysics at Genentech, a member of the national Academy of Sciences and Pomona Class of ’85, will give a lecture on “RNA: Drugs and Human Health.” The talk begins at 4:30 p.m. and will be held in the Seaver North Auditorium (645 N. College Ave., Claremont). It is presented by the Pomona College Chemistry Department.

Feb. 27 - Music: Pomona College Orchestra
Pianist Elisha Nuchi '09, winner of the Pomona College Orchestra 2008 Concerto Competition, joins the orchestra in Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor. Also on the program, led by guest conductor Raymond Burkhart, is Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 in A Major "Italian." The concert begins at 8 p.m. and will be held in the Pomona College Bridges Hall of Music (Little Bridges (150 E. Fourth St., Claremont). The concert will be repeated on Sunday, March 1 at 3 p.m.

Feb. 27 – Tournees Film Festival: Her Name is Sabine
The multiple award winning Her Name is Sabine (2008) is a beautiful, moving portrait of Sabine, a 38-year-old autistic woman film by her sister, French actress Sandrine Bonnaire, including personal footage filmed over 25 years. Intimate film shows that society still does not know how to take care of citizens with physical and psychological disabilities. The screening, part of the Tournees Film Festival ’09, will begin at 6:30 p.m., in the Pomona College Smith Campus Center Rose Hills Theatre (170 E. Sixth St., Claremont).

Feb. 27-28 - Conference: Science & Technology in the Making of Modern China
An international group of scholars will explore and showcase the history of science and technology in modern China, between China's humiliating defeats at the hands of Japan and western powers at the turn of the twentieth century, and the high-tech spectacle marking the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The 2009 Hixon Conference at Harvey Mudd College, which begins at 8 a.m. both days, is cosponsored by many groups including the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College and the Intercollegiate Program for the Study of Science, Technology and Society at the Claremont Colleges. Contact: (909) 607-3812 or (909) 607-0856.

Pomona College, founded in 1887, was named the 2009 Best Value in higher education among private colleges by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine and named among the 10 best values among private colleges and universities by Princeton Review. Both rankings evaluated quality of academics and affordability. Located in Claremont, CA, Pomona’s hallmarks include small classes, close relationships between faculty and students and a range of opportunity for student research.