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IAP 2010 Activities by Category

Literature

Epic "Alice in Wonderland" Extravaganza!
Alvin Kibel
Thu Jan 21, 09am-09:00pm, See description

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event

We will take on the task of reading and performing in one extraordinary day the entirety of Lewis Carroll’s multi-logical two-book, twenty-four chapter saga “Alice in Wonderland”--a young girl's heroic journey across a chess-board and through a deck of cards! Throughout this traveling road-show, no chapter will be excerpted, no anecdote overlooked, no joke omitted, no pun intended. Listeners and volunteer readers will be welcome to come and go as they please, as we wend our way across appropriate spaces at MIT to share this masterpiece of English Literature with new audiences and old friends. Unlike other such Alice-fests, traditional in the yawning gap of recess at academic institutions across the English-speaking world, ours is peripatetic and invites multimedia collaborations!

See the website for schedule.
Web: http://lit.mit.edu
Contact: Jamie Graham, 14N-407, x8-5629, jamiecg@mit.edu
Sponsor: Literature

Pleasures of Poetry
David Thorburn
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

Reading and discussion of memorable poems led by Literature Section faculty and other MIT colleagues.

A packet containing all of the poems in the series is available from the Literature Office, 14N-407 and at http://lit.mit.edu.
Web: http://lit.mit.edu/
Contact: Jamie Graham, 14N-407, x8-5629, jamiecg@mit.edu
Sponsor: Literature

John Keats
Noel Jackson
Ode on Melancholy
Mon Jan 4, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Czeslaw Milosz
Stephen Tapscott
Campo del Fiori
A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto
Tue Jan 5, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Julia Ward Howe
Wyn Kelley
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
John Brown's Body
Wed Jan 6, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Wei Yingwu, Wei Zhuang
Alexander Wei
Wei Yingwu
Lamenting My Loss
Seeing Off My Daughter to the Yangs

Wei Zhuang
Thousands of Knots at Heart
Thu Jan 7, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

John Donne
Howard Eiland
The Sun Rising
A Valediction of Weeping
Fri Jan 8, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

TBA
Mary Fuller
Mon Jan 11, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson
Ricardo Pitts-Wiley
Tue Jan 12, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Louise Gluck, Adrienne Rich
Joel Burges
Louise Gluck
The Wild Iris

Adrienne Rich
From an Atlas of the Difficult World
Wed Jan 13, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Omar Khayyam
Mark Hessler
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Thu Jan 14, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

TBA
James Buzard
Fri Jan 15, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Gerard Manley Hopkins
Anne Hudson
God's Grandeur
Pied Beauty
Tue Jan 19, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Seamus Heaney
John Hildebidle
Personal Helicon
From Clearances 3
Follower
Wed Jan 20, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Rainer Maria Rilke
Zach Bos
Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes
Thu Jan 21, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Sir Thomas Wyatt
Arthur Bahr
Whoso List to Hunt
They Flee from Me
Fri Jan 22, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Alexander Pope
Alvin Kibel
An Essay on Man, epistle I
Mon Jan 25, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Matthew Arnold, Daljit Nagra
Kate Gyllensvard
Matthew Arnold
Dover Beach

Daljit Nagra
Look We Have Coming to Dover!
Journey
My Father’s Dream of Return
Tue Jan 26, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Derek Walcott
Nora K. Delaney
Selections from Omeros
Wed Jan 27, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

E. E. Cummings
Gene Moore
Come Nothing to My Comparable Soul
Thu Jan 28, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Linda Gregg
Nadia Colburn
We Manage Most When We Manage Small
There She Is
Whole and Without Blessing
Growing Up
Fri Jan 29, 01-02:00pm, 14E-304

Science Fiction: Foretelling the Future?
Prof. Rosalind Williams
Wed Jan 13, 02-04:00pm, E51-191

No limit but advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 10-Jan-2010
Single session event
Prereq: Read E.M. Forster's “The Machine Stops” before class

Many MIT students enjoy reading science fiction. Does it offer more than pleasure? Does it also have a value in understanding the present and foretelling the future? To answer such questions, we will discuss a fantasy short story, “The Machine Stops,” by E.M. Forster, which will be distributed on-line so students can read it before Jan. 13.

The story is startlingly prophetic: written a century ago (in 1909), it imagines a world organized around a Machine that resembles a contemporary supercomputer, or network of computers, pervading both institutional and personal life. We will discuss resemblances and limitations; the connections between the imagined Machine and human life; how current sci fi might or might not have prophetic value; and the general role of technology in history. Hot chocolate and nibbles will be served.
Contact: Rose Rizzo, E51-185, x3-4085, rizzo@MIT.EDU
Sponsor: Science, Technology, and Society

Seasons, Pages and Pamplona -- An Hour of Adult Storytelling
Edward Dolan
Thu Jan 21, 03-04:00pm, N42-183 Demo Center

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up

In storytelling, the listener imagines the story. The storytelling listener’s role is to actively create the vivid, multi-sensory images, actions, characters, and events of the story in his or her mind. The completed story happens in the mind of each unique and personalized individual. The listener becomes, therefore, a co-creator of the story as experienced.

Ed Dolan’s storytelling has been characterized for its colorful imagery, “gentle dialectics,” and provocative stories that “made me think.”

In this concert he will tell 3 stories: “Seasons of a Shared Life,” “A Long Night in Pamplona” and “Empty Pages.”
Contact: Edward Dolan, W91-205c, x3-8403, edolan@mit.edu
Sponsor: Edward F Dolan, W91-205C, 617 253-8403, edolan@mit.edu

The Red Tent Project
Ricardo Pitts-Wiley
Tue, Thu, Jan 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28, 06-09:00pm, TBA

Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Signup by: 07-Jan-2010
Limited to 18 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
Prereq: Must read "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant by start of class

This page-to-stage project will give voice to the characters and songs of Anita Diamant's bestselling novel. The class will also explore women in the Bible, the Midrash as literature, and the worlds of men and women in pre-Biblical history and contemporary society. Class will conclude with a stage reading of a script developed during the class. Also offered for credit: 21L.994 for letter grade and 21L.995 for Pass/Fail.
Web: https://stellar.mit.edu/S/project/red-tent/
Contact: Jamie Graham, 14N-407, x8-5629, jamiecg@mit.edu
Sponsor: Literature


MIT  
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Last update: 19 August 2010