Evergreen’s 2013-14 Artist Lecture Series Kicks off

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David Brody’s “Road Paint Room #1”

The Art Lecture Series takes place in Lecture Hall 1 at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, on 4-5 Wednesdays per quarter, from 11:30-1:00 pm. Free to the public, Evergreen’s visual arts programs offer an opportunity to hear local, national and international interdisciplinary artists, writers and art workers speak about their work. For more information, contact Faculty Member Shaw Osha.

Kicking off this term’s Artist Lecture Series is David Brody who speaks  Wednesday, October 9.

David Brody was born in New York City,  did undergraduate work at Columbia University and Bennington College, and received an MFA in painting from Yale University (1983). In addition to solo exhibitions at Gallery NAGA in Boston, Esther Claypool Gallery in Seattle, Gescheidle in Chicago, and Galeria Gilde in Portugal his work has been featured in over seventy group shows including ones at the Chicago Center for the Print; the Center on Contemporary Art (COCA) and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle; The Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Florida, Tallahassee; and at The Painting Center, Alternative Museum, and Bridgewater Gallery in New York City. His work has also been shown at the Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporàneo (ARCO Art Fair) in Madrid, the RipArte Art Fair in Rome, the Trevi Flash Art Museum, in Trevi, Italy, the FAC Art Fair in Lisbon and at Art Chicago in the US. He is represented in Seattle by Prographica,  Fine Works on Paper. Continue reading

Morgan Chambers ’08, Olympia’s Newest Entrepreneur

Morgan Chambers' new thrift shop in downtown Olympia

Morgan Chambers’ new thrift shop in downtown Olympia

Let’s see, where to go for first-generation transformers? Ebay? Seattle? San Francisco?  How about downtown Olympia?  Morgan Chambers ’08 and his partner Nick Poulakidas have opened a new thrift shop, Capitol Eclectic Merchants, that is sure to attract lots of Evergreen students and anyone with a sense of whimsy and adventure. Hot tip: Issues of Mad Magazine are only $2.00 and, in the “priceless” category,” a Star Wars Monopoly game with pewter game pieces.  Read the full story in The Olympian.

A Poetic Look at the Online Catalogue

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Andrew Reece, Evergreen Faculty Member, Author of The Online Catalogue

Editor’s Note: This poem was read by faculty member and academic dean Andrew Reece at the 2013 President’s Brunch, one of the events kicking off the academic year. It is composed from questions lifted directly from program descriptions. Hope it brings back happy memories.


 

 

 

 

 

2013-14 Undergraduate Index A-Z at Evergreen, or: The Online Catalogue, by Andrew Reece, Member of the Faculty

Yes or no?
Is a good life one full of pleasure and devoid of suffering?
A moral life? A long and healthy life?
Is there such a thing as a Caribbean culture,
or are identities complex amalgams
that defy easy categorizations
such as Caribbean,
Dominican American,
creole Martinican,
Afro-Cuban,
East-Indian Trinidadian?
Would you like
to really understand
“buzz terms”
the media uses
such as sustainability,
green materials,
climate change,
the water crisis,
the energy debate,
genetic engineering,
DNA fingerprinting and cloning?
Must quotidian always be associated with humdrum?
China: A Success Story?

What?
What kind of knowledge do we encounter
in fiction and poetry? What
are the psychological mechanisms involved
in the larger action of the human imagination,
urging us to explore new avenues, to see
what others have not seen, to create what
no one has yet created? What do you know
when you know a language?
Sustainability – what does it mean?
What can the study of play teach us
about the nature of power? What
are the limitations on the use of culture
when one has limited political
and economic self-determination?
Who’s Got What? What’s
been handed to you, and
what will you hand on?

Where?
Where did that Walmart come from?

How?
How does a group of indigenous people
from different countries create an activity
to reclaim ancient knowledge? How does imagination
respond to the emotional self, the physiology
of the body, and the psychology of the mind? How
does one’s understanding
of the physical environment shape
ways of writing and understanding the world?
How can we develop and nurture
the “civic intelligence” that will help ensure our actions
produce the best outcomes? How
can music and dance be used to transform lives?

Why?
Why do humans keep pets and
at the same time raise animals for food?
Why is it that humans can handle ambiguity,
but computers have such a difficult time?

 

Faculty Member Receives Journal of Public Affairs Education Best Article Award

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Member of the Faculty Cheryl Simrell King

Abstract:
This autobiographical essay addresses the question: How do the needs of students of working-class origins differ from those of their counterparts from more privileged backgrounds? As one of the invisible differences in the United States, class pervades everything we do, and we are mostly unaware of it. Readers are encouraged to examine their own presumptions about social class, including their suppositions about access to resources and how these can differ based on one’s family of origin. In addition to suggestions on how to address social class in the classroom, readers are encouraged to raise their own consciousness about class in order to reach out to students from working-class backgrounds.

The Situation
In preparing to write this essay, I sat with a student of working-class origins with whom I have a mentoring relationship and asked, “What do you want people to know about interacting with working-class students in our field?” Her answer came without hesitation: “presumptions of access.” She said folks who are not of working-class backgrounds presume everyone has access to whatever they need. Middle- and upper-class people do not think about these access presumptions, so deeply engrained are they in the consciousness of all Americans, even the working class. These access issues are like what Peggy McIntosh (1988) described regarding race in her work about White privilege. McIntosh said White folks, because of the privilege our culture affords us, carry an “invisible knapsack,” full of things always at the ready to smooth our path. We do not see, nor are we aware of, our knapsacks. Non-Whites do not have these invisible knapsacks, and they know it.  Read the full article.

Meet Puppetmaster Madison J. Cripps ’04

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Madison J. Cripps ’04, Master Puppeteer

Madison J. Cripps ’04 sent us an email recently, an RSVP responding to a “Return to Evergreen” invitation. Sadly, Madison can’t make it to campus this October 19 but he enclosed an intriguing photo (seen here at left). A web search turned up a video. Take a look: here be all manner of wondrous oddities.

Madison is on his way to the  Puppet Slam in Portland, Oregon in November. If you’re planning to go, give Madison a big “hello” from Evergreen.

Convocation Speaker Founded “StoryCorps,” Wrote this Year’s Common Read

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This year’s “common read” for new students and the Evergreen campus community.

Radio producer Dave Isay, founder of the “StoryCorps” oral history project and author of “Listening Is an Act of Love,” spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of new students at Evergreen’s 2013 convocation last Monday. The students who have only just arrived on campus gave strong evidence of having read the book by peppering Isay with questions. By all accounts, it was a great start to the 2013-14 academic year.

The book, a compilation of conversations that have aired over the years on public radio stations, was the assigned “common read” for all incoming students and all faculty members. Common read seminars will go on throughout the academic year, uniting the campus community around issues such as identity, agency, the power of voice, and the impact of stories as cultural and historical milestones.

At a college known for encouraging students to chart their own individual educational experiences, the common read program serves as a touchstone, something students will experience as a community as well as in their own, individual ways.

Alumni are encouraged to read “Listening is an Act of Love” this year and share comments in this web log, on Evergreen’s Facebook page or with each other in conversation circles wherever Greeners gather.

Let us hear from you about this book, the Common Read program, or other related issues. For information on how to form a reading circle in your area, contact R.J. Burt in the office of Alumni Programs.

Fotoland Galerie: a Look Back at Evergreen 2012-13

Editor’s Note: See the full text and gallery at Inside Evergreen, and more great photography by our Photo Services colleagues.

A photographer’s job doesn’t end after the pictures are taken. You could say that’s the beginning.

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On stage at the 2013 performance of the Vagina Monologues presented by the TESC Womyn’s Resource Center. Photo by Shauna Bittle

From untold thousands of images, (as well as videos and audio recordings) brilliantly captured during the last academic year, staff Photographer Shauna Bittle and her intern Andrew Jeffers continue to work. Continue reading

Bagpipes on Red Square: Martin Brendecke ’14

Martin Brendecke ’14 busking on Red Square.

Editor’s note: The sound of bagpipes, even from considerable distance, penetrates all other sounds and brings one straight to attention. This is what happened recently when the moaning drones and piercing chanter notes got us out on Red Square within seconds. There we met Martin Brendecke ’14, current student and an accomplished piper.

Martin was born in Tucson, Arizona but grew up in Kirkland, Washington. The son of a performing folk musician, Martin’s world was filled with music, at home and wherever there was a folk festival or traditional music gathering around the Northwest.

When he was eight years old, the Brendecke family went to the Enumclaw Highland Games where Martin’s mother was performing with her band “The Hot Lattes.”  That was when Martin’s fascination with all things Scottish began. On the way home, he asked for a practice chanter and a kilt. Continue reading

Seattle Turns out for Macklemore Filming

We’ve gotten one, maybe two comments under the general heading “enough already with the Macklemore.” Meaning no disrespect to the readers who took the time to comment, we simply cannot resist sharing a few great photos from The Seattle Times about Evergreen’s favorite rapper who returned to the Emerald City to shoot a music video on top of Capitol Hill’s iconic Dick’s Drive-in. It was a beautiful summer night and a good time was had by all.

Ben Haggerty aka “Macklemore” shooting a video at Dick’s Drive-in on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Photo: Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times

The streets around Broadway and Olive Way were filled with fans.
Photo: Erika Schultz/Seattle Times

Even the rooftops were full on this beautiful summer evening.
Photo Erika Schultz/Seattle Times

Thanks for coming, Ben and Ryan. Seattle loves you, and so does The Evergreen Mind. Photo: Marcus Yam/Seattle Times

The Prolific Dr. McChesney’s (’76) Latest Publication Celebrated in Madison, WI

Here’s an event notice for July 24, 2013, celebrating the publication of a new book co-authored by Robert McChesney ’76. We have shamelessly swiped this blurb from the Facebook page for The Center for Media and Democracy:

The Center for Media and Democracy will be hosting the inaugural event celebrating the publication of “Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America”, the new book from acclaimed authors John Nichols and Robert McChesney . The two authors, both Madisonians, will be at Tripp Commons, on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus for a 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 24th book reading, discussion and signing. Best-selling author of Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein says of their book: “John Nichols and Bob McChesney make a compelling, and terrifying, case that American democracy is becoming American dollarocracy. Even more compelling, and hopeful, is their case for a radical reform agenda to take power back from the corporations and give it to the people.” [ed. note: bolded text emphasis added]

Officially the Gutgsell Endowed Professor of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana, Bob McChesney ’76 just never stops writing. Working alone or paired with frequent writing partners John Nichols or John Bellamy Foster ’75, he churns out books and articles at a dizzying pace.  Hyperbole, you suspect?  Not so.  Go to his University of Illinois/Urbana faculty page, download his vita and see for yourself.

If you’re in the Madison area this Wednesday, July 24, stop by and hear the story first-hand.

Bob and John Bellamy Foster will be on campus at Evergreen November 13  for a talk on “Dollarocracy.” Watch The Evergreen Mind for Updates.

Here is Bob on You Tube talking about the crisis in U.S. journalism, and here are just a few of Bob’s publications:

Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy. New York: The New Press, 2013.
Nichols, John, and Robert W. McChesney. Dollarocracy: How the Money-and-Media-Election Complex is Destroying America. New York: Nation Books, 2013.
Foster, John B., and Robert W. McChesney. The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012.
McChesney, Robert W., and John Nichols. The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again. New York: Nation Books, 2010.
The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008.
Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media. New York: The New Press, 2007.