This Week

Monday, October 3

4 p.m. Katz Harris Room

LS 111 faculty meeting

 

Tuesday, October 4

11:30 a.m. Ascension Chapel

Reflections: Mark Vincent, Psychology — "Me-search: On the Other Great Commandment"

 

Wednesday, October 5

8 p.m. Java 101, Thomas Tredway Library

Panel discussion with Vietnam era veterans, "This Next Part You Won't Believe"—War and Remembrance . . . Beyond Vietnam

 

Thursday, September 29

10:30 a.m. Centennial Hall

Convocation — Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

After graduation from Macalester College, O'Brien was drafted to serve in the Vietnam war. Although he was against the war, he reported for service with what has been called the "unlucky" American division due to its involvement in the My Lai massacre in 1968, and event that figures prominently in another of his books, In the Lake of the Woods. After Vietnam he became a graduate student at Harvard, one of very few veterans there at the time. Having the opportunity to do an internship at the Washington Post, he eventually left Harvard to become a newspaper reporter. O'Brien's career as a reporter gave way to his fiction writing after publication of his memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Send Me Home. His book awards include; National Book Award in fiction - Going After Cacciato; France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Things They Carried. Tim O'Brien is now a visiting professor and endowed chair at Southwest Texas State University where he teaches in the creative writing program.

 

8 p.m. Wallenberg Hall

Tim O'Brien: A Reading

 

From Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried:

 

Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a life-time ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever.  That's what stories are for.  Stories are for joining the past to the future.  Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are.  Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story. 

 

Friday, October 7

 

4:00 p.m. Wilson Center (refreshments served at 3:30)

Conversations on Scholarship — Lauren Rabinovitz, University of Iowa, "Yesteryear's Wonderlands: The Cultural Legacy of American Amusement Parks"

 

Saturday, October 8

8 p.m. Centennial Hall

Quad City Symphony — featuring piano soloist Alon Goldstein

Piano and Pipes -A dazzling piano concerto and equally dazzling symphony featuring the "King of Instruments" highlights the opening QCSO concerts of the 91st season. Donald Schleicher leads the orchestra in Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, then welcomes pianist Alon Goldstein for a romp through Robert Schumann's virtuosic and brilliant Piano Concerto in A Minor. Following intermission the Centennial Hall "Mighty" Moeller Organ takes center stage as the orchestra performs Camille Saint- Saens' thunderous "Organ" Symphony (Symphony No. 3). Performance also on Sunday at 2:00 p.m . Tickets are available only through the QSCO office at 563-322-0931.