THE JUSTICE
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TUESDAY, september 4, 2012
15
ON CAMPUS NEW ARTS FACULTY
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRANDEIS FACULTY GUIDE
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRANDEIS FACULTY GUIDE
PHOTO COURTESY OF SOYEON LUCIA KIM
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRANDEIS FACULTY GUIDE
CREATIVE MINDS: From left to right, Profs. Lori Cole (FA), Elizabeth Bradfield (ENG), Soyeon Lucia Kim (FA) and Deb Todd Wheeler (FA) will all bring new perspectives and experience to the Arts at Brandeis.
New faculty bring variety to the Arts ■ Four new professors with diverse backgrounds add more artistic opportunities to the Brandeis community. By emily salloway and jessie miller JUSTICE editor and editorial assistant
JustArts sat down with Associate Director of the Office of the Arts Ingrid Schorr who was eager to discuss several arts faculty members who will be joining the Brandeis community this semester. “My aim is to get them involved,” Schorr told JustArts. “They’re all collaborators and they all are interdisciplinary.” Starting this year, Elizabeth Bradfield will serve as the Jacob Ziskind Visiting Poet-in-Residence and will also teach “ENG 109a: Directed Writing: Poetry.” She is the
author of two poetry collections, Interpretive Work (2008) and Approaching Ice (2010), and also has two more books coming out within the next year, along with several pieces that have been published in anthologies and journals. Bradfield’s work has received widespread recognition, having won the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry for her poetry in Interpretive Work and also receiving fellowships from many places, including Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner program. In 2005, Bradfield founded Broadsided, a collaborative online press that brings literary work from journals into the streets to be shared with the public and posted around the world. Taking leave from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Deb Todd Wheeler will spend the year working within the Fine Arts department and teaching “FA 4A: Three-Dimensional Design I” and “FA 110A: Senior Studio.”
Brandeis has also commissioned Wheeler to create large-scale public artwork on campus. Wheeler’s gallery exhibits have consisted of work ranging from an installation of live ants to interactive powergenerating pieces. According to Schorr, Wheeler is truly passionate about sculpture: “She’s really interested in using spaces that she thinks are inert and putting artwork in them, like spaces on the staircases between the railings. That’s what excites her.” Lori Cole is the inaugural Charlotte Zysman Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities. Having earned her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and both her master’s and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from New York University, Cole is no stranger to academia. Her work at NYU included research on the artistic interaction between Europe and Latin America. She studied questionnaires about art in these locations in order
to find out more detail about this transatlantic exchange. In addition to teaching, she is also a translator, and has written art criticism for artforum and the Journal of Surrealism and the Americas. Her class, “FA 160A: Global Surrealisms” will demonstrate her expertise in the art movement of surrealism and is only being offered this semester. Soyeon Lucia Kim comes to us primarily as an artist. She was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Korea, Myanmar and the United States. She has had several exhibitions in New York and was most recently awarded the Carol Schlosberg Memorial Prize from the Yale University School of Art in 2007. She will be teaching “FA 3a: Introduction to Drawing I,” “FA 3b: Introduction to Drawing II,” “FA 107a: Beginning Painting” and “FA 107b: Beginning Painting II.” She earned her B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and her M.F.A. from Yale University. A
statement from Kim on the Museum of Modern Art in New York’s website reads: “It is the errors in communication that I find particularly interesting, and exploring the gap between the physical and the literal is at the crux of my work. … Between that transitional gap lies the site of comedy and tragedy, function and dysfunction.” Schorr has enjoyed meeting with several of the new professors, but has yet to have a chance to speak with each personally. One of the best parts for Schorr about getting to know these four artists (along with Cameron Anderson, about whom you can read in the interview column on the opposite page) is “see[ing] the campus through a newcomer’s eyes,” she said. “I gave Deb [Todd Wheeler] a tour of campus. We walked up the hill past Usdan and she just stops in her tracks and goes, ‘they didn’t tell me there was a castle here.’”
events
Student Events showcases campus activities ■ The outdoor event was
designed to present Student Events to new first-year students during Orientation. By Jessie Miller JUSTICE Editorial Assistant
Friday night on the Great Lawn, Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” played and groups of students stood in clusters on the grass. Firstyears, orientation leaders and other students all mingled together and checked out the different stations made available to them. The event, titled, “The Hitchhikers’ Guide to Student Events,” was designed to showcase all that the club, which sponsors programming throughout the year, has to offer. Student Events Executive Director, Rachel Nelson ’13, explained to JustArts, “We just want them to know right off the bat [what] we do.” At one table, there were Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins and drinks set up. The table one over had carnivalstyle popcorn, already popped and bagged. Across the lawn, a table was set up to promote Thirsty Thursdays, an event in The Stein that serves beer and wine to upperclassmen, but also has plenty of food for other students. Student Events members dished out Stein classics, like onion rings and fries, and promoted this semester’s Thirsty Thursdays, set for Sept. 13, Oct. 11 and Nov. 15. There were also two Twister mats laid out in the center of the lawn. Though mainly orientation leaders were playing at first, other students joined in as the night progressed. Student Events also parked their be-
JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice
GETTING ORIENTED: Alex Faye ‘15, an Orientation Leader, plays Mafia with a group of a first-year students during “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Student Events” last week. loved Munchie Mobile, this time in the form of a mid-size SUV with the trunk popped open, at the event and enthusiastically explained to firstyears that they drive around to each quad bringing late night snacks, like pizza, chips, drinks and candy. Andrew Flagel, senior vice president for students and enrollment, was also in attendance Friday night. In an interview with the Justice, he stated his support for Student Events: “This driving force of students being at the center of event planning itself breeds an amazing sense of spirit and these events really embody that,” he
said. “So, attending [their programming] is important but even their existence itself is so different than what other schools have during their welcome weeks, which are largely staged by administrators. Instead, what we have is really an expression of what we love most about Brandeis, selected, executed and designed by our students.” This night was just the beginning for Student Events, who have many more exciting events planned for the year. Says Nelson, “I’m looking forward to the [fall] concert on Sept. 29 ... and for Louis Louis, our spirit
week, in November because we have a lot of exciting and new things for that as well.” Besides the organized activities, attendees also made their own fun. Groups of orientation leaders and first-years broke off into smaller groups and socialized on their own. Others circled up and started playing Mafia, an ice-breaker game where someone plays the murderer and the group tries to solve the mystery of who it is. When asked about the event, Tommy Clifton ’16 said, “It’s awesome. I had fun bonding more with my orientation leader and
friends.” Hitchhiker’s Guide to Student Events was a great night for everyone involved, but the event really was another part of orientation designed to welcome the incoming class to Brandeis. “I hope that the first-years learn that Student Events is awesome and that we are always there to brighten your day,” Nelson said. “We’re there as a club to make the overall campus experience more bright, especially when you’re tired walking to class early in the morning, but then you see donuts and your day is made.”