October 21, 2004

Chicago Humanities Festival; Northwestern talent on display

Northwestern faculty members and alumni will take part in the 2004 Chicago Humanities Festival Oct. 30 through Nov. 14.
They will be featured in events held at various Chicago locations, as noted below. General admission for each of the following events is $5.

Leigh Bienen, senior lecturer at the School of Law and director of the Chicago Historical Homicide Project, will moderate a panel entitled, “Playing with Time.”

Northwestern staff and faculty members and students may attend these and most other festival programs (unless they are already sold out) for free.

Tickets may be reserved by calling the Chicago Humanities Festival Office at (312) 494-9509.

Among the Northwestern participants are the following. For a complete list of speakers and events, visit www.chfestival.org.

• Writer and visual artist Audrey Niffenegger, who earned a master of fine arts degree from Northwestern, will speak during the program “Audrey Niffenegger, Charles Dickinson: Local Time” from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, at the Claudia Cassidy Theatre, Chicago Cultural Center.

• Medill lecturer Alex Kotlowitz will talk about how a journalist or historian manages to capture a place at a particular moment in time, during the program, “Alex Kotlowitz: Accidental Chicagoan,” 1 to 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, at the Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington Library Center.

• Russian scholar Gary S. Morson, Frances Hooper Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, will talk about the great Russian writers — Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and others — during the program “From Determinism’s Moment to Open Time,” from 3 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, in Ganz Hall, Roosevelt University.

• Leigh Bienen, senior lecturer at the School of Law and director of the Chicago Historical Homicide Project, will moderate the Literary Panel: “Playing With Time,” 3 to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, at Thorne Auditorium, School of Law. The distinguished panel of writers and scholars will consider the processes and challenges of translating and transforming historical materials in order to bring the past into the present. Panelists will include Medill lecturer Alex Kotlowitz.

• Laura Kipnis, professor of radio/television/film and author of “Against Love: A Polemic,” will join Northwestern alumnus Scott Turow, during the “Crimes of Love” program from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14, at Thorne Auditorium, School of Law.

More than 55,000 tickets are expected to be sold or distributed free to festival goers for the 16-day annual cultural event that was launched 15 years ago.