Washington College Joins Arts Council to Present Annual Kent County Poetry Festival

CHESTERTOWN, MD — Washington College and the Kent County Arts Council will present the fourth annual “Kent County Poetry Festival: A Day of Public Poetry in Celebration of National Poetry Month” at the Book Plate, 112 South Cross Street, on Friday, April 8, from 4 to 7 p.m.

People from throughout the county will gather to read aloud their favorite lines from the world of verse—a reminder that poetry, rather than being some rarefied specimen, is in fact a vital, living art with widespread appeal.

The public is welcome to simply drop by during the event to listen. Those who want to share a poem should register in advance by sending an email to poetry@washcoll.edu or by filling out one of the festival sign-up sheets posted throughout the county.

“This program is in the spirit of the ‘Favorite Poem Project’ pioneered by Robert Pinsky when he was Poet Laureate of the United States,” said Christopher Ames, Provost and Dean of Washington College. “The goal is to bring together diverse peoples in our community around the poetry people know and love to share and, in doing so, debunk the idea that poetry is just something for academics to study. During National Poetry Month, we want to illustrate the role that poetry can have in enriching our everyday lives.”

The organizer of the festival is Robert Earl Price, a poet and playwright who is lecturer and writer in residence in the Drama Department at Washington College. This year’s featured poet, Mark Nowak, the Director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House at the College, will read a brief selection from his works. Nowak’s most recent book is Coal Mountain Elementary and he has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to support the development of his next work. The rest of the program will be devoted to community members reading their favorite poems.

For more information about the Poetry Festival, contact Leslie Prince Raimond at the Kent County Arts Council (kentcountyartscouncil@verizon.net) or Tom Martin at the Book Plate (bookplate@verizon.net).

Photo: Poet Mark Nowak, director of the Rose O'Neil Literary House, is the featured poet at this year's festival.

Noted Expert on Italian Architect Palladio to Deliver Janson-La Palme Lecture in Art History

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Dr. Bruce Boucher, a distinguished expert on the highly influential 16^th century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, will deliver the eighth annual Janson-La Palme Distinguished Lecture in European Art History at Washington College on Wednesday, April 13.

Boucher, director of the University of Virginia Art Museum, will present "Palladio in a Cold Climate: The Pitfalls of Palladianism," at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts. A reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

The illustrated lecture will survey the characteristics of the great architect’s designs and discuss examples of his buildings. Addressing the translation of Palladio’s theories into modern realities, Boucher will point out the changes in scale and floor plans that complicate the notion of a lineal descent from the villas and palaces Palladio designed in the Vicenza region to today’s widespread use of the style. The talk will conclude with American buildings strongly influenced by Palladio, including Drayton Hall in Charleston, S.C. 


Boucher’s career as an architectural historian, educator and curator spans more than 35 years. Prior to joining the University of Virginia Art Museum last spring, he spent seven years as curator of European sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago (2002-2009) and two years as a visiting researcher and curator at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (2000-2002). For the previous 24 years, he taught art history at University College London.

Author of numerous books, including Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time, Boucher lectures widely on Palladio and other Italian artists from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He was chief curator of the exhibition, "Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova," which was shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2001-2002. He also co-authored the exhibition catalog.

Boucher earned his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Classics and English from Harvard University and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Before entering Oxford, he traveled to Italy and fell in love with the art and architecture there, an experience that led him to change his course of research. After Oxford he went on to earn a doctorate at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.

A member of numerous professional organizations and advisory committees, Boucher has been recognized with many awards and honors, including the Alexander von Humbolt Fellowship and a fellowship at the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at the Villa I Tatti. His monograph on the sculpture of Venetian architect Jacopo Sansovino won the prestigious Salimbeni Prize, awarded by the Fondazione Salimbeni in Florence to honor excellence in the writing of art history on an Italian subject.

The Janson-La Palme Distinguished Lecture in European Art History was established by Washington College Professor Emeritus Robert J. H. Janson-La Palme and his wife, Bayly, to bring internationally known scholars on European art to campus for public lectures and presentations. For more information, visit http://art.washcoll.edu.

Symposium Brings Top Chemists to WC to Focus on the Role of Metal Ions in Health

CHESTERTOWN—Washington College continues its celebration of the 2011 International Year of Chemistry Tuesday, April 5 with a symposium on the effects of metal ions on human health. Titled “Why Copper and Iron? Metal Ions We Need for Good Health,” the panel features presentations by a trio of award-winning chemists: Valeria C. Culotta, Caryn E. Outten, and Rosette Roat-Malone. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre, the Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.

Culotta, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, studies the role of metal ions and oxygen radicals in biology and disease. Metal ions such as copper, iron and manganese are not only trace nutrients but can be quite toxic. One mechanism of toxicity is the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which have been implicated not only in aging but also in numerous human disorders from neurodegeneration to cancer. Culotta has shown that cells in higher organisms have evolved with “metal-trafficking pathways” that guide each metal to its proper destination in the cell. She also has discovered numerous genes and proteins for metal trafficking.

Outten, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of South Carolina, works in the complementary fields of biochemistry and bioinorganic chemistry with a focus on the role of iron in biological systems. She worked with Culotta at Johns Hopkins as a post-doctoral fellow (2001-2005) and began her career at USC with a Transition to Independent Position (TIP) Award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. TIP awards recognize talented new investigators who have demonstrated an ability to improve the scientific community’s understanding of the problems and mechanisms associated with exposure to environmental agents. In 2010, she received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECAS), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Roat-Malone, adjunct professor of chemistry at Washington College, has written two editions of the textbook Bioinorganic Chemistry: A Short Course ( 2^nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2007). The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) of the American Chemical Society have supported her research in the development and testing of platinum coordination compounds as anticancer agents. She serves as a reviewer for NSF research grant applications and for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program. Through an NSF-funded Visiting Professorship for Women Award, she taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and completed research at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She will serve as moderator for the symposium and provide a “Primer on Metal Ions.”

The April 5 symposium is sponsored by the William James Forum and the Washington College Chapter of Sigma Xi. Following the presentations, the Washington College Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Theta of Maryland will host a reception in the Underwood Lobby.

The William James Forum was founded in 1963 by the late Washington College professor of philosophy and religion Peter F. Tapke to honor the multitalented nineteenth century philosopher William James, who was also an artist, explorer, medical doctor, psychologist, and theologian. The Forum considers issues from any field of inquiry that have practical relevance to life and decision-making.

Sigma Xi, the international honor society of science and engineering, was founded in 1886 at Cornell University to reward excellence in scientific research and to encourage a sense of companionship and cooperation among scientists in all fields. Sigma Xi has nearly 60,000 members in more than 500 chapters worldwide. The Washington College Chapter was founded in 2001.

Sweatshop Activist to Share Nike Campaign

CHESTERTOWN—Jim Keady, the activist behind the Nike accountability campaign, “Team Sweat,” will visit Washington College Tuesday, March 22 to talk about his efforts to improve working conditions and wages in the sportswear giant’s overseas factories. Keady will speak at 4:30 p.m. in The Egg, a performance and meeting space on the first floor of Hodson Hall Commons. His interactive multi-media event includes role-playing, video footage, and a question-and-answer period. The event is free and open to the public.

Keady was forced to leave a soccer-coaching job at St. John’s University in New York in 1998 when he refused to wear the Nike logo on his team gear. He has since devoted much of his life to protesting the company’s workplace policies. He spent a month living among Nike workers in an Indonesian slum, allowing himself only the $1.25 daily wage a typical worker would receive.

He now serves as the director of Educating for Justice, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that educates and organizes citizens around issues of peace and justice. For more information: http://www.teamsweat.org


Photos: Top, a sign from a Team Sweat protest in Australia. Bottom, Jim Keady.

MacArthur Foundation’s International Specialist Will Discuss U. S. Foreign Policy, Human Rights

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Barry Lowenkron, the MacArthur Foundation’s vice president of international programs, will talk about human rights issues around the globe when he lectures at Washington College on Thursday, March 24, at 4:30 p.m.

The talk—“Is There a Place for Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy?”—will take place in Hynson Lounge, which is located inside Hodson Hall on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. It is free and open to the public. Lowenkron will offer a brief history of human rights in U.S foreign policy and discuss today’s global challenges.

Lowenkron’s career in foreign policy spans five U.S. Administrations, with posts in the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department and projects in countries that include Russia, China, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia and Sudan. He was the principal drafter of the landmark National Intelligence Publication, Global Trends 2010, which studied how demographics, food and water, and environment impact traditional national security interests. He has led high-level human-rights and democracy dialogues in key countries and was one of the architects of the Middle East initiative “Forum for the Future,” a multilateral effort to nurture indigenous reforms in economics, politics, education, and women’s rights.

Before joining the MacArthur Foundation in 2007, Lowenkron was Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, where he spearheaded the establishment of a global human-rights defenders fund and created core principles for the protection of non-governmental organizations.

Other past positions include Director of European Security Affairs at the White House National Security Council; Civilian Special Assistant to Gen. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence; and senior member of the State Department’s Policy Planning staff under Secretaries Shultz, Powell, and Rice. He has also lectured at Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, where he earned a master’s degree.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences. For more information, visit www.washcoll.edu.

This Mon & Tues: The Beat Generation and All That Jazz!

CHESTERTOWN, MD— In 1978, Allen Ginsberg brought the iconoclastic poetry and freewheeling spirit of the Beat Movement to Chestertown. On a visit to Washington College, Ginsberg read his celebrated poem “Howl” to a packed house and, so the story goes, attempted to levitate a few stubbornly recalcitrant buildings.

This month, the spirit of the Beats will return to Washington College in The Beat Generation and All That Jazz, a two-day commemoration headlined by musician David Amram, an original member of the Beats who worked closely with Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and others.

The program begins on Monday, March 28 with a screening of Howl at 7:30 p.m. in Norman James Theatre on the College campus (300 Washington Avenue). This 2010 film, starring James Franco, is a genre-bending hybrid mixing Ginsberg’s original reading of his epic poem with animation and a dramatization of the obscenity trial that followed in 1957. Amram, who often accompanied Ginsberg and Kerouac at coffeehouse “jazz/poetry” performances, will introduce the film.

On Tuesday, March 29, at 7 p.m., Amram will give a concert in Decker Theatre accompanied by Washington College’s own Tom Anthony on bass and Ray Anthony on drums. The trio will play favorites from Amran’s long and varied career, which has included collaborations with iconic musicians and composers ranging from Leonard Bernstein to Dizzy Gillespie and Willie Nelson. The concert will also include a screening of the short 1959 film, Pull My Daisy, narrated by Jack Kerouac with music by Amram.

In his post-Beat years, David Amram has gone on to a stellar career as a musician and composer, producing orchestral and chamber music works, operas, and scores for Broadway productions and feature films, including Splendor in The Grass and The Manchurian Candidate. He has authored three books, including the memoir Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac (Paradigm, 2008). During his visit to Washington College, Amram will also offer a special "music/poetry" workshop and open rehearsal for students. (Contact Professor Kenneth Schweitzer, kschweitzer2@washcoll.edu, for workshop registration).

“We’re excited to welcome the Beat Generation – in the multitalented person of David Amram – to Washington College,” said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the C.V. Starr Center. “More than thirty years after Allen Ginsberg’s legendary visit to campus, a new cohort of students will be able to come face-to-face with a movement that continues to inspire millions.”

Sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center and co-sponsored by the American Studies Program, the Department of Music, and the Rose O’Neil Literary House, both Beat Generation programs are free and open to the public.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the nation’s past and present through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on written history. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Pianist Grace Kim in Solo Concert March 22

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Pianist Grace Eun Hae Kim will perform a solo recital on Tuesday, March 22, at 8 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts at Washington College. The program, which is free and open to the public, will feature works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff.

A lecturer in music at Washington College, Grace Kim has performed extensively as recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States, South Korea, Germany, and South Africa. Her performance of the Brahms C minor piano trio was broadcast on Maryland Public Television.

She is the winner of numerous top prizes in major international piano competitions, and her performances have been reviewed as “hypnotic from the first to the last note” (Die Rheinpfalz) and “provocative, lustrous and rich with emotional contrasts” (The Washington Post). For more information, please visit the artist’s website: www.pianist-gracekim.com.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences. The campus is located at 300 Washington Avenue in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. For more information: www.washcoll.edu.