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Renowned artists, scholars highlight Humanities Lecture Series

An artist, a journalist and a Pulitzer Prize winner are just three of the speakers for the 2007-08 Humanities Lecture Series, sponsored by the Hall Center for the Humanities.

The series is partially supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Each lecture is free, open to the public and begins at 7:30 p.m. on the date indicated below. Several speakers will also take part in public colloquiums on the mornings following their lectures.

Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith, best-selling author of the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series and "The Sunday Philosophy Club," will speak Sept. 24 at the Lied Center. His German professor series – "Portuguese Irregular Verbs," "The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs" and "At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances" – was published in the United States in 2005. McCall Smith was born in what is now Zimbabwe and was educated there and in Scotland.

Sara Ahmed

Sara Ahmed, professor of race and cultural studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London, is the author of more than 30 articles and book chapters and four books, including "Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism." Ahmed's lecture Oct. 22 at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union will explore how happiness works as a promise that directs people toward certain objects, as if they provide the necessary ingredients for a good life.

Orville Schnell

Orville Schell has devoted his professional life to reporting on and writing about Asia. His written work includes 15 books. He has also published in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, the New Yorker, Time, Wired and Foreign Affairs, and has been a contributor on China for PBS, NBC and CBS. Schell is director of the Asia Society's newly established Center on U.S.-China Relations in New York and a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the John F. Kennedy School, Harvard University. Schell's lecture will take place Nov. 8 at the Kansas Union ballroom and is supported by the Sosland Foundation of Kansas City.

Paul Muldoon

Paul Muldoon, who will speak Feb. 27 at Woodruff Auditorium, is the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for his poetry collection "Moy Sand and Gravel." Muldoon has been described by the Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the second world war." He is the Howard G.B. Clark '21 Professor at Princeton University and chair of its University Center for the Creative and Performing Arts.

Ian Buruma

Ian Buruma, an author, journalist and cultural commentator, was educated in Holland and Japan. In 1970s Tokyo, he was an actor and butoh dancer before turning to a career in documentary filmmaking and photography. He is currently the Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. His talk, the Frances and Floyd Horowitz Lecture devoted to issues related to our multicultural society, will be April 2 at Woodruff Auditorium.

Carol Ann Carter

Carol Ann Carter, KU professor of art, has shown her artwork nationally and internationally in individual and group exhibitions. She is currently working in multimedia installation-performance, mixed media and digital imaging and video and is interested in collaboration across cultures and disciplines in the arts. Her lecture, supported by the Friends of the Hall Center, will take place April 24 at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union.

TOPONYMS

The first residence hall built at KU, the English Colonial-style Corbin Hall opened in 1923 to house 115 women students. It was named — despite her protests — for Alberta Corbin, an 1893 alumna and professor of German who was the first university "adviser of women." In 1951 "South Corbin" was supplemented by "North Corbin"; the buildings were connected in 1958. Corbin adjoins the site of the first university building, North College, which opened in September 1866.