Here are more Chicago Humanities Festival events, focusing on those that take place on the festival’s two weekends. Descriptions are provided by the festival’s staff. Each event’s program number is provided to facilitate ticket ordering. Events currently oversubscribed are indicated with an *, although festival organizers advise that tickets may become available at the time of the event.
SATURDAY, OCT. 28
200. Chicago Tribune Young Adult Fiction Prize — Kate DiCamillo. Great for ages 8 and up. To kick off the 2006 Children’s Festival, the Chicago Tribune presents its annual Young Adult Fiction Prize to Kate DiCamillo. DiCamillo is the author of “Because of Winn-Dixie” (now a major motion picture) and “The Tale of Despereaux,” winner of the 2003 Newbery Medal.
10:30-11:30 a.m., Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Library Center
203. Performance: Loop Players, “The Miser.” In a fully-staged production, the Loop Players of Harold Washington College present Moliere’s classic of “domestic warfare.” It’s all-out war as repressed subjects (son and daughter) rebel against a tyrant (miserly father) — and prevail. The weapons of choice are wit and subterfuge wielded with cunning precision and comic abandon. Post-performance discussion.
3 p.m., Harold Washington College; Washington Hall.
SUNDAY, OCT. 29
Chicago Latino Composers Series: Peace and War. A program created for the CHF showcases string quartet-based compositions by Ricardo Lorenz and Gustavo Leone, plus a concerto for bandoneon by Elbio Barilari. Performers include soloists Raul Jaurena (bandoneon) and Kalian Patak (percussion), along with musicians from the CSO.
3-4:30 p.m., Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall.
SATURDAY, NOV. 4
400. Richard Nelson, Toni Dorfman: Families at War. Many dramatists are drawn to stories of families in conflict, ranging from internal tensions between family members to external disruptions from the outside world. Two playwrights — the esteemed Yale School of Drama professor Nelson (“Frank’s Home”) and the director of Yale’s undergraduate theater program Dorfman (“Family Wolf”) — consider the drama that results when war hits home. Goodman Theatre associate producer Steve Scott leads the discussion, while actors from the Goodman and Chicago’s Steep Theatre Company perform play excerpts.
10 a.m.-noon, Goodman Theatre; Owen Theatre
401. Walter Murch: Bode’s Law and the Harmony of the Spheres. In his spare time over the last 10 years, one of the world’s most celebrated film editors has been busy resurrecting an oddball yet just possibly true theory divining a relationship between the spacing of the orbits of planets and their moons and the Pythagorean musical intervals of the ancient world.
10-11 a.m., Loyola University; Rubloff Auditorium.
406. Charles Hill: The War on World Order. The Distinguished Fellow of International Security Studies at Yale discusses how the terrorist war of today is one in a century-long series of violent attempts to overthrow and replace the international state system.
10:30-11:30 a.m., First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple.
410. Cynthia Farrar: The Collective Choice. The director of a program on deliberative democracy at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies examines the role of democratic publics in decisions about war, in ancient Athens and modern America.
Noon-1 p.m., Alliance Francaise de Chicago.
412. Charles Falco: The Science of Optics, the History of Art. The physicist and professor of optical science at the University of Arizona presents findings, achieved in collaboration with artist David Hockney, in support of their controversial theory that artists from as early as the 15th Century were already deploying lenses and other optical aids to fashion their ever more “realistic” renderings.
Noon-1 p.m., Loyola University; Rubloff Auditorium.
415. Hiram Morgan, John McCavitt: Kinsale and The Great O’Neill. Two expert Irish historians recount the events surrounding the Anglo-Irish “Nine Years War” (1594-1603), including the role and tactics of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, the watershed battle of Kinsale in 1601, and the eventual “Flight of the Earls” in 1607. Morgan is lecturer in Irish History, University College, Cork; McCavitt is a schoolteacher in Newry, County Down.
Noon-1:30 p.m., The Newberry Library.
416. Peter Sis: Tibet Through the Red Box. Internationally noted illustrator Peter Sis tells the story behind “Tibet Through the Red Box” — his father’s experiences being lost and alone in the mountains of Tibet, and the Dalai Llama’s embracing friendship of his family then and now. Sis serves as Silk Road Illustrator in residence at the Art Institute.
12:30-1:30 p.m., The Art Institute of Chicago; Fullerton Auditorium.
421. John Lewis Gaddis: The Cold War as History. The Yale professor of military and naval history, who likes to note that his current students were 4 years old when the Berlin Wall came down, discusses what he teaches them about the Cold War–and what historians 400 years from now are likely to remember about it. Gaddis has written numerous books on U.S. foreign policy and Cold War history, including, most recently, “The Cold War: A New History.”
1-2 p.m., First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple.
426. Roger Hanlon: Octopus Garden. This senior scientist from the Marine Resources Center at the Marine Biology Laboratory at Woods Hole presents selections from his remarkable trove of underwater videos, bearing witness to the often unbelievable beauty and sophistication of marine invertebrates.
2-3 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
427. Wi-Fi or I Spy? Soon (perhaps sooner than we think) a stranger’s cell phone will locate, record, and herald us with digital precision — “there you are” — while a click of a mobile device will convert living rooms into virtual realities. Matt Adams of the British artists’ group Blast Theory (presenting “Can You See Me Now?” at the MCA) discusses the conflict between peace of mind and the siege against privacy, while describing his group’s pioneering use of new technologies within the realm of live performance. He is joined by associate professor and communication technology scholar Christian Sandvig from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
2-3 p.m., Museum of Contemporary Art Theater.
428. Performance: A Neighborhood Fight. Penned by local playwrights David Barr and Glenn Jeffers, and based on the book “The Dignity Of Resistance” by Roberta Feldman and Susan Stall, this play chronicles the organized resistance of several African-American women to the city’s proposal to tear down their homes in order to build the new White Sox stadium. Barr and Jeffers, as well as Feldman and Stall, join the actresses for a talk-back after the excerpted 25-minute performance.
2:30-3:30 p.m., The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Auditorium.
433. Teaching a Culture of Peace and Justice. Practitioners and scholars discuss the challenges of teaching peacemaking, justice and human rights. Participants include Kathy Kelly, founder of The Voices in the Wilderness movement against Iraqi sanctions in the ’90s (work that resulted in a Nobel Peace Prize nomination) and now co-coordinator for Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence; Shayna Plaut, human-rights instructor at Columbia College and former director of Amnesty International USA Midwest Region’s Human Rights Education Program; and Louis Silverstein, former dean and current professor of liberal education at Columbia College Chicago.
4-5 p.m., Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater.
434. Daniel Dinello: Dr. Frankenstein’s Footsteps. The amoral mad scientist of popular culture often serves as a lightning rod for contemporary anxieties about irresponsible scientists, military-funded science and the abuses of modern technology. Dinello is an independent filmmaker, teacher at Columbia College and author of the book “Technophobia!”
4-5 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
437. Aurea, War Music. This 80-minute theater piece brings to life — through spoken word, choreographed movement, costume, song and instrumental accompaniment — the adaptation by celebrated British poet Christopher Logue of Homer’s great epic of war and violence, “The Iliad.” Aurea is a performing group based in Providence, R.I., that draws its artists from the Brown University community. The group’s composer, Paul Phillips, is a distinguished professor of music at the school. Actors are joined by musicians onstage, with the composer conducting the action.
8-9:30 p.m., Merit School of Music.
SUNDAY, NOV. 5
503. Women and Torture. Tara McKelvey of American Prospect magazine and editor of the anthology “One Of The Guys,” which examines the issue of women as perpetrators of brutality in war, discusses the topic with Janis Karpinski, author of “One Woman’s Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story” and Karen Greenberg, co-editor of “The Torture Papers” and executive director of New York University School of Law’s Center on Law and Security.
11 a.m.-noon, Columbia College Chicago; Ferguson Lecture Hall.
506. Yusef Komunyakaa, The Autobiography of My Alter-Ego. A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Komunyakaa has often found a touchstone in his experiences as an African-American soldier in Vietnam. In a feat of empathic imagination, his latest poetic monologue gives voice to the title character — a white, male Vietnam War veteran. The piece is performed for the first time by playwright and Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble actor Tracy Letts under the poet’s direction.
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater.
507. Sara Terry: Aftermath, Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace. An award-winning photographer and writer, Terry deploys words and pictures to document Bosnia’s long struggle of recovery from its bitter 1992-95 war. In the process, she raises the wider question of the world’s obligation to pay attention long after the focus of the media has moved on. Her grant program The Aftermath Project is in turn helping other photographers to cover periods that follow conflict.
Noon-1 p.m., Alliance Francaise de Chicago.
508. Iowa International Writers Panel: Where Is War Hiding? Can language transform brutality into something beautiful? In the aftermath of armed conflict, what can artists unearth and what, if anything, should they leave buried? Where do wars — those in the past and others to come — hide in the fabric of a stable nation? American poet Christopher Merrill engages four international writers on how they and their work have addressed the enduring fallout of war and foreign occupation. With Senegalese novelist Ken Bugul; Uruguayan writer Rafael Courtoisie; Partaw Naderi; and Iraqi literary critic Fadhil Thamir.
4:30-5:30 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
511. Chicago Tribune 2006 Heartland Prize Winners: Louise Erdrich and Taylor Branch. Brilliant novelist, poet and children’s book author Louise Erdrich and esteemed historian/author Taylor Branch are this year’s recipients of this annual prize awarded for works “embodying the spirit of the nation’s Heartland.”
The Painted Drum, by Louise Erdrich. In a narrative that comes to embody the intricate, transformative rhythms of human loss and grief, Erdrich’s novel traces the passage of a ceremonial drum through time, across distances, and through the generations of a star-crossed Ojibwe family. At Canaan’s Edge, by Taylor Branch. Branch’s powerful history is the concluding volume of his magisterial trilogy, “America in the King Years (1954-1968).” “At Canaan’s Edge” recounts the period 1965-68, beginning with the violent suppression of a voting-rights march in Alabama on March 7, 1965.
1-2 p.m., Symphony Center; Armour Stage.
514. Jonathan Schell, Rebecca Solnit: Hope in the Dark. Schell, author of the classic “The Fate of the Earth,” longtime writer for The New Yorker and current columnist for The Nation, engages in a colloquy around the prospect of peace (against all odds) with perhaps his closest counterpart in the new generation — Solnit, an activist and equally trenchant and graceful essayist. Schell’s most recent book is “The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People.” Solnit’s latest is “A Field Guide to Getting Lost.”
1:30-2:30 p.m., Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center
515. Thomas Cummins: War and Peace in the Halls of Moctezuma. In recognition of the Newberry’s important fall exhibition, “Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico,” the chair of the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard and expert on pre-Columbian and colonial art discusses notions of peace, conflict, and warfare as they pertained to 16th Century Aztec culture and politics.
1:30-2:30 p.m., The Newberry Library.
517. Emily Hauser: Unilateralism vs. Reconciliation — Which is the Way to Peace? In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this Chicago-based journalist and lecturer (Graham School of General Studies, University of Chicago) considers the question of unilateral decision making (e.g., uncoordinated Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories) versus cooperative engagement (e.g., negotiation and mutual recognition).
2-3 p.m., Alliance Francaise de Chicago.
518. Peace Through Justice. Do the International Criminal Court and ad hoc international tribunals truly provide justice and promote peace, acting as deterrents and advancing the rule of law, or do they merely assuage international guilt, waste large sums of money and inadvertently give mass murderers a public platform? The promise and paradox of the ICC and other mechanisms of international justice are analyzed and debated by local international law experts Lydia Lazar, Chicago-Kent College of Law; Bart Brown, Chicago-Kent College of Law; Daniel Rothenberg, International Human Rights Institute, DePaul University; and Andrew Wachtel, Center for International and Comparative Studies, Northwestern University. Introduction by Jonathan Fanton, MacArthur Foundation president.
2-3:30 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
520. Betty Seid: Epic Battles/Epic Pictures. Narrative storytelling, exemplified by the battle-filled epic “Ramayana,” is the connective thread that binds contemporary artists to the rich traditions of India. Seid, a curator and specialist in South Asian art, discusses the upcoming Chicago Cultural Center exhibit “New Narratives: Contemporary Art from India.”
3-4 p.m., Columbia College Chicago, Ferguson Lecture Hall.
521. Eyes on Iraq. Four prize-winning experts offer commentary on the latest situation and events in Iraq. Participants include New Yorker staff writer George Packer (“The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq”); University of Michigan historian of the modern Middle East, Juan Cole (his blog is Informed Comment); Washington Post reporter Anthony Shadid (“Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War”); and British diplomat, writer and adventurer Rory Stewart (“The Prince of the Marshes, and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq”). Moderator is journalist Susie Linfield, associate director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program at NYU.
3-4:30 p.m., First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple.
523. Poems of Peace and War. The traditional “war poem” evolved from the epic to the bitterly elegiac by the end of World War I and hasn’t looked back since. Yet, can poetry plumb the experience of modern war? Philip Metres, poet, translator and teacher (John Carroll University), reviews the war poem’s development, followed by readings from distinguished poets, including Pulitzer Prize winners Jorie Graham (“Overlord”); Yusef Komunyakaa (“Neon Vernacular”); and Gary Snyder (“Turtle Island”); plus Iraq war veteran Brian Turner (“Here, Bullet”) and Iraqi-born Dunya Mikhail (“The War Works Hard”).
3:30-5 p.m., Chicago History Museum.
526. Film: Moshe Safdie, The Power of Architecture. A film portrait of the Israel-born, Canadian-American architect that traces his early influences, his move from Haifa to Montreal at 15, and his crucial apprenticeship under Louis Kahn. Visits to recent significant projects in Jerusalem, Boston and Vancouver allow Safdie to elaborate on his ideas about architecture’s role in society. Directed by Donald Winkler, Canada, 2004, running time: 1:30.
3:30-5 p.m., Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.
530. Ralph Williams: One More Gaudy Night. Shakespeare’s early histories afford fascinating glimpses into the often-violent acquisition of political power while his late tragedies and romances offer meditations on the loss of that power — over others and over the self. Williams, professor of English and literature at University of Michigan, joins actors from Chicago Shakespeare Theater in a stirring lecture/performance as the Bard’s wisdom is applied to “Peace and War.”
6:30-8 p.m., Northwestern University School of Law (Chicago Campus), Thorne Auditorium.
531. Performance: Pamela Z, Voci. Composer/performer Pamela Z’s aural and visual tapestries mesmerize and startle with the sort of serious fun reminiscent of John Cage. For Voci, she explores the human voice’s colorful range in Italian opera, Tuvan throat song, and her own rich, soul-wrenching singing all of which she processes and samples live using BodySynth technology “virtual duets.”
7:30 p.m., Museum of Contemporary Art Theater.
SATURDAY, NOV. 11
702. The War on Crime. Law-enforcement officials in Chicago and elsewhere serve on battlefields sometimes no less harrowing than those experienced in a military context. A distinguished panel considers the challenges faced by urban crime-fighters. Participants include Barbara D’Amato, award-winning crime novelist (“Good Cop, Bad Cop”; “Death of a Thousand Cuts”); Wes Skogan, fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University; Rob Warden, executive director, Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University School of Law; and others. Moderated by Leigh Bienen, director, Chicago Historical Homicide Project, Northwestern University School of Law.
10-11 a.m., Northwestern University School of Law (Chicago Campus), Thorne Auditorium.
706. Documentaries-in-Progress: Errol Morris. The Academy Award-winning MacArthur Fellow has spent his career pitching camp along some of the unsettled fault lines explored by this year’s festival. The creator of such edgy films as “The Thin Blue Line,” “Mr. Death” and “Fog of War” reviews that career, identifying common themes and through-lines while perhaps giving us a hint as to what to expect next.
11 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center.
709. Brian Scassellati: Meet Nico. Scassellati, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Yale presents Nico, a robotic baby project that focuses on the development of anthropomorphic robots that interact with people using natural social cues.
Noon-1 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
711. Rashid Khalidi: The Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. The head of the Middle East Institute and Edward Said Chair of Arab Studies at Columbia University discusses themes from his new book, “The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.”
Noon-1 p.m., Northwestern University School of Law (Chicago Campus) Thorne Auditorium.
712. David Blight — The Civil War in American Memory. The legacy of violent struggles to end American slavery in the 19th Century continues to haunt the national conscience. In a double program, Blight, the distinguished Yale historian (“Race and Reunion: the Civil War in American Memory”), considers the unique place of the Civil War in the collective American memory.
Race and Revolt. Following Blight’s lecture, actors perform scenes from the Victory Gardens Theater production of playwright Charles Smith’s “Denmark,” about the leader of a failed 1822 slave rebellion in South Carolina. Smith, an Ohio University professor whose other plays include “Black Star Line” and “Free Man of Color,” is joined by Blight and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign associate professor Stephen Hartnett to discuss the backdrop to and legacy of this fratricidal period in U.S. history. Moderated by James R. Grossman, vice president for research and education at the Newberry Library.
(Both programs for one ticket). Noon-2 p.m., Victory Gardens Theater at the Biograph.
713. Robin McFarquhar: Stage Combat, Text-to-Fight. A professor of theater movement at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, McFarquhar presents a demonstration of some of the techniques used in translating clues from the text into a fight onstage that defines character relationships and pushes forward the narrative of the play. McFarquhar has worked on Broadway and with Steppenwolf, Court, Goodman and Chicago Shakespeare theaters.
12:30-1:30 p.m., The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Auditorium.
715. Steve Okazaki, Brian Orend: The Ethics of War and Peace. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Okazaki (“Days of Waiting,” “The Mushroom Club”) discusses his inquiries into the human effects of the Hiroshima bombing and Japanese internment in WW II. He is joined in conversation by Orend, philosophy professor at University of Waterloo, Canada, who provides an overview of the major traditions of thought regarding the ethics of war and peace, with special focus on “just war” theory and international law.
1-2:30 p.m., Chicago Cultural Center Claudia Cassidy Theater.
716. Paul Fussell: The Culture of War. The retired professor of English at Rutgers and the University of Pennsylvania, and eminent cultural historian offers his views on the social and cultural aspects of war.
1-2 p.m., Chicago History Museum.
717. Documentaries-in-Progress: Edet Belzberg. The young MacArthur Fellow and creator of the highly prized “Children Underground” (2001), which looks at the lives of five street urchins eking out a violent existence in the bowels of a post-Communist Romanian subway system, and “Gymnast” (2005), a depiction of pre-teen Olympic aspirants, is currently working on a documentary following stateside military recruiters through their rounds as they attempt to persuade kids to enlist in the shadow of our Iraqi involvement.
1:15-2:30 p.m., Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center.
719. May Berenbaum: Six-Legged Chemists. Insects, despite their minuscule brain capacity, produce a staggering diversity of chemical substances useful for combating predators, attracting mates, detoxifying poisonous substances, securing and preserving food, and otherwise exerting control over their environment. Berenbaum, one of the world’s leading entomologists, is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
2-3 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
723. The Art of Peace and War. In a program presented in association with The Art Institute of Chicago, James Cuno, president and director, leads a discussion among AIC curators about images of war and peace across centuries and cultures. Participants include Richard Townsend, curator of African and Amerindian Art; James Rondeau, curator of Contemporary Art; and Stephanie D’Alessandro, curator of Modern Painting and Sculpture.
2:30-4 p.m., The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Auditorium.
724. Writing Vietnam. The Vietnam War and its aftermath generated an extensive literature, with a unique brand of prose that was subjective, direct and occasionally hallucinatory. This panel unites several of the most eminent exemplars of that war generation, each of whom continues to write with vitality and purpose: Philip Caputo, author of “A Rumor of War” (1976) and many subsequent novels; Jack Fuller, author of the novel “Fragments” (1984); Larry Heinemann, author of the National Book Award-winning “Paco’s Story” (1986); and Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain” (1992).
3-4:30 p.m., Chicago History Museum.
725. The Buffoon War of 1752 or, How Italian Opera Conquered France. During the years 1752-54 controversy simmered in Paris between defenders of French opera style (characterized by Lully and Rameau) and those supporters of the evolving Italian Opera Buffo style (championed by the philosopher musician Jean-Jacques Rousseau). A performance of Pergolesi’s comic opera “La Serva Padrona” famously set the two camps at odds. Performers of selections from both sides of the conflict include Carol LoVerde (soprano), Christopher Chroniak (countertenor), Louis Playford (harpsichord) and Andrew Schultze (bass-baritone and narrator).
3-4 p.m., Roosevelt University, Ganz Hall
726. Third Coast Festival: The Sounds of Conflict. The sounds and stories of wars both real and imagined as reflected in some of the world’s finest radio documentaries — a riveting “Listening Room” session hosted by Third Coast Festival executive director Johanna Zorn and managing director Julie Shapiro.
3:30-4:30 p.m., Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater.
727. Documentaries-in-Progress: Jessica Yu. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu (“Breathing Lessons,” “In the Realms of the Unreal”) explores in her latest work the moral dilemmas and contemporary relevance of Euripides’ tragedies. Yu offers scenes from this work-in-progress, which juxtaposes enactments of Euripides’ work (featuring wooden puppets modeled after ancient Greek theater masks) with portraits of four individuals whose single-minded pursuit of ideas led them to extreme actions.
3:30-4:45 p.m., Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center.
730. Donald Kroodsma: Mysteries of the Birdsong. This professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has studied birdsong for more than 30 years and is recognized as the reigning authority on the biology of avian vocal behavior.
4-5 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
SUNDAY, NOV. 12
800. Alma Guillermoprieto: On Pointe. The much-admired Latin American correspondent and contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker discusses the surprising relationship between two of her most persistent topics of inquiry, war and dance (the former as embodied in her classic collection “The Heart that Bleeds,” the latter constituting the subject of her recent memoir “Dancing With Cuba”) in a conversation with Adele Simmons, vice chairman and senior executive, Chicago Metropolis 2020.
10-11 a.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
*802. General Wesley K. Clark with Samantha Power. The former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe (and subsequent Democratic presidential candidate) led NATO’s first major combat action — the conflict in Kosovo. His leadership experiences in Vietnam, Latin America and other theaters inform his work as editor of the “Great Generals Series,” which chronicles the lives of eminent U.S. military leaders. Clark is interviewed by Samantha Power, professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.”
10-11 a.m., Northwestern University School of Law (Chicago Campus) Thorne Auditorium.
805. James Redfield, David Tracy: Regarding the Iliad. Two distinguished scholars from the University of Chicago consider various readings of Homer’s great poem of war, “The Iliad.” Redfield, a classics professor, suggests that it is not really a poem about war at all. Tracy, a professor of theology and philosophy of religion, examines the debate on tragedy and philosophy that animates responses to the Iliad by 19th and 20th Century philosophers Hegel, Nietzsche and Simone Weil, while offering his own perspective.
Noon-1 p.m., Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater.
806. Gillian Slovo: Truth and Reconciliation. It was the well-known catchphrase of the South African settlement. It resulted in a country turning from its terrible past and at long last, enemies making peace with one another. But was it that simple? The writer (“Red Dust”), journalist and playwright (“Guantanamo”) revisits and reconsiders the miracle of truth and reconciliation via her writing and personal experiences.
Noon-1 p.m., Chicago History Museum.
807. Lewis Erenberg: Head to Head in the Ring, Louis vs. Schmeling. Loyola University historian and author of “The Greatest Fight of Our Generation: Louis vs. Schmeling” analyzes the relationship between these two fighters from the 1930s through the 1950s, and demonstrates how their two head-to-head boxing matches embodied some of the deepest conflicts of the age.
Noon-1 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
*808. James Traub: Is The UN Worth Caring About? The veteran contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine discusses his new book “The Best Intentions,” a “fly-on-the-wall” account of Kofi Annan’s controversial tenure (now ending) as secretary general of the United Nations. Traub is interviewed by Joanna Weschler, director of research for Security Council Report.
Noon-1 p.m., The Newberry Library.
809. Amartya Sen: The Argumentative Indian. Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and philosopher, examines the highly charged subject of Indian intellectual and political heritage. He relates the 3,500 yearlong argumentative traditions of India to the country’s contemporary politics.
Noon-1 p.m., Northwestern University School of Law (Chicago Campus) Thorne Auditorium.
811. Richard Gray Visual Artist Panel: Appreciating Joel Meyerowitz. A distinguished group of curators and practitioners gathers for a conversation about the span of Joel Meyerowitz’s work and its importance to the photographic tradition in context of a broader consideration of the current state of the art form. Participants include independent photography curator and teacher Colin Westerbeck; Chicago-based photographer Terry Evans; former president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago James Wood; and Czech-born, Chicago-based writer and documentarian Jan Novak.
12:30-1:30 p.m., The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Auditorium.
814. War/Games. If, as Clausewitz asserted, war is “the continuation of state policy by other means,” might team sports represent the waging of war at a higher pitch? Sports rivalries — whether between neighborhoods, cities, or countries — can show faces ranging from the comic to the downright violent. A passionate showdown on sports-team fandom, rivalry and bloodlust featuring humanist-fanatics Samantha Power, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and Boston Red Sox devotee; Tony Fitzpatrick, Chicago-based visual artist, poet and White Sox loyalist; Lin Brehmer, WXRT radio personality, former English major, and die-hard Cubs fan; and Brooke Wyckoff, a star forward for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky. Ron Rapoport, longtime Chicago Sun-Times columnist, moderates.
2-3:30 p.m., Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater.
816. Passion and Witness, A Celebration of Twentieth Century Polish Poetry. Much of the bloody history of the 20th Century was played out across Poland’s broad, flat plains, explaining perhaps why that country’s national poetry captures so eloquently what it meant to witness, survive and honor our entire epoch. Six distinguished writers — Azar Nafisi, Grace Paley, Clare Cavanagh, Vijay Seshadri, Ronne Hartfield and Lawrence Weschler — accompanied by Polish actress Elzbieta Czyzewska, celebrate by reading from the work of five great Polish poets: Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Wislawa Szymborska, Tadeusz Rozewicz and Adam Zagajewski.
2-3:30 p.m., Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center.
817. Dispatches From the Domestic Front. Home can present its own field of battle — with struggles waged internally between spouses, siblings, in-laws and generations, or externally among neighbors of different beliefs, cultures, races or classes. A frequent source of inspiration for novelists and storytellers, this “domestic front” is assessed by a group of premier writers, including Elizabeth Dewberry (“His Lovely Wife”); Richard Bausch (“Wives and Lovers”); Elizabeth Berg (“Open House”); Dawn Turner Trice (“Only Twice I’ve Wished for Heaven”); and Mark Slouka (“Lost Lake”). Booklist’s Donna Seaman moderates.
2-3:30 p.m., Loyola University, Rubloff Auditorium.
*818. Laura Kipnis, Harvey Mansfield: The Oldest Conflict of All. A professor of government at Harvard, Mansfield is the author of the recent provocative study “Manliness.” Kipnis is a professor at Northwestern and author of her own new controversial work, “The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability.” In a lively discussion, they agree and disagree on masculinity, femininity, the legacy of feminism and the endless battle between the sexes.
2-3 p.m., The Newberry Library.
819. Art Spiegelman, Joe Sacco: Those ?%@*! Danish Cartoons. Why did the publication of a few relatively innocuous cartoons in a Danish journal spark demonstrations, boycotts and deadly riots all over the world?
2-3:30 p.m., Northwestern University School of Law (Chicago Campus) Thorne Auditorium.
820. James E. Young: The Stages of Memory. A distinguished juror for the World Trade Center Site Memorial competition discusses the importance of memorialization and architecture’s role and responsibility in the process. Young is a professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the author of “The Texture of Memory” and “At Memory’s Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture.”
2-3 p.m., Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.
822. Journal of Ordinary Thought: Borders and Boundaries. Through poetry and narrative, their accounts enhanced with live music and movement, writers from the Journal of Ordinary Thought, a publication of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, which is dedicated to publishing unheard voices in Chicago, will illustrate their experiences crossing cultural, class and economic borders in their own communities.
2:30-3:30 p.m., Chicago Sinai Congregation.
* 823. Jeffrey Goldberg: Prisoners — A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide. The correspondent for The New Yorker, raised as an American Zionist, recalls his 15-year friendship with a Palestinian insurgent that began when Goldberg worked as a military prison guard in Israel, and his friend, Rafiq, was his prisoner.
3-4 p.m., Roosevelt University, Ganz Hall.
*824. Garry Trudeau with David Stanford. Trudeau launched his legendary comic strip “Doonesbury” in 1970, when he was a 22-year-old student at Yale University. Five years later, “Doonesbury” garnered the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, the first strip cartoon to be so honored. Today, 60 bound collections later, it is syndicated in more than 1,400 papers and appears daily over the Web via Slate.com.
4:30-5:30 p.m., Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
*825. The American Musical At War, and After. For the Festival finale, musical theater historian Robert Kimball, along with Broadway performers Jenny Powers and Lewis Cleale; the Chicago-based performer Robert Sims; legendary artist Betty Garrett; Chicago cabaret favorites Beckie Menzie (musical director and pianist) and Tom Michael; and students from Northwestern University re-create in concert style two memorable WW II-era American musicals — “This Is the Army” and “Call Me Mister” — that recall how the Great White Way at midcentury “enlisted” in the war effort and reflected its aftermath.
7-8:30 p.m., Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
