Humanities Lecture Series

Louis Menand

Anne T. & Robert M. Bass Professor of English, Harvard University

"A Man is Shot: The Cold War Meaning of a Cinematic Technique" 

Thu, November 17, 7:30  p.m.                  

Auditorium, Spencer Museum of Art 

Additional Event: Reform and Resistance in the American University: A Conversation with Louis Menand 

 Fri, November 18, 10:00 a.m.

 Hall Center Conference Hall

Louis Menand is perhaps best known for his Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, The Metaphysical Club (2001), a history of late 19^th and early 20^th century American thought, hailed by critics as "an absorbing narrative about personalities and social history...about the evolution of the American mind." Most recently, he has written on the liberal arts curriculum, humanities and interdisciplinarity, and the development of the professoriate in The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (2010). In his Humanities Lecture Series presentation, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English at Harvard University will discuss a key moment in American self-definition, exploring how changes in film style and form reflect a broader Cold War story.

Bangere "Purna" Purnaprajna

"Indian Classical Music: The Art of Improvisation" 

Thu, November 10, 7:30  p.m.

Hall Center Conference Hall   

The Hall Center is pleased to announce an evening of discussion and music with Bangere "Purna" Purnaprajna, Professor of Mathematics. He will present "Indian Classical Music and the Art of Improvisation," commenting on Indian classical music and exploring some crucial concepts that differentiate it from Western classical music. Likening classical music to a syntax, he will demonstrate how, by stretching the boundaries of this syntax, one can incorporate melodies and rhythms of a variety of world music, due to the heavily improvisational nature of the genre. Purna has had rigorous training under the great violin teacher and well-known violin accompanist H.K.N. Murthy from Mysore, in southern India.