Culture

As part of SUNY Orange’s celebration of Black History Month, in conjunction with The New York Council for the Humanities’ Speakers in the Humanities program, we are proud to present “Fugitive Art and Fugitive Testimony: Slave Narratives Then and Now,” a lecture by Dr. Janet Neary on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 4pm in the Great Room, Kaplan Hall 101.

This lecture brings together contemporary “visual slave narratives” and classic slave narratives from the 19th century to examine the way black artists and writers respond to institutional constraints placed on their cultural production and examines the “fugitive” meanings within slave narratives which remain uncontained or challenge editorial constraints.
In the 1990s a number of visual artists (including Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon and Ellen Driscoll) created art that used literary slave narratives as templates for their work. Slave narratives of the 19th century told the story of enslavement and escape from the perspective of those who had been enslaved themselves. Often the contemporary artists place themselves or viewers in the position of the ex-slave narrator.  Slave narratives, called a “black message in a white envelope” by one critic, were constrained by the goals and directives of white editors. However, ex-slave narrators found creative ways to circumvent this narrative containment.

This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Cultural Affairs at the SUNY Orange Newburgh Campus and is made possible through the support of the New York Council for the Humanities’ Speakers in the Humanities program.

For further information, please call the Cultural Affairs office at the Newburgh Campus of SUNY Orange at (845) 341-9386.

Wednesday, March 7th: 8PM Buy tickets here!

Taylor’s Traditional Irish Cabaret is a spectacular showcase of Irish entertainment at its very best, captivating audiences with a unique blend of music, song, laugher and dance.

This spectacular show is produced by one of Ireland’s foremost producers Stuart O’Connor.  Stuart is well established as a dynamic and highly successful producer of Irish musical theatre and cabaret under the auspices of Spotlight Productions.  Inventively choreographed by national dance star Ciarán Keating, the show will feature dazzling dance routines performed by Ireland’s most talented dancers.  The dancers will thrill audiences as they tap with exuberance to the musical accompaniment of the accordion, uilleann pipes and piano.

Every heart will be touched by the stunning renditions of Irish songs by the unforgettable voices of soprano Emer Hartnett and Irish tenor Paul Hennessy.  You will have musical memories to cherish, long after the lights have gone down.  Irish ballad singer Andrew McCarthy captures the true spirit of Ireland with his lively renditions of traditional Irish songs such as Rocky Road to Dublin and Whiskey in the Jar.  The musical ensemble is led by Musical Director Pat Marnane with accordion player Ailbe Grace and uilleann pipes played by renowned piper Tommy Keane.

The prestigious Irish cabaret has entertained audiences from every corner of the globe for the past 35 years and continues to go from strength to strength.

Buy tickets here!

Dr. Irving Finkel, an archeologist who is considered among the world’s foremost authorities on cuneiform (the oldest known type of writing), will deliver a lecture entitled “New Light on Noah’s Ark: An Astonishing Archaeological Discovery” at 7 p.m., Monday, Feb. 6 in the Great Room of Kaplan Hall  on SUNY Orange’s Newburgh campus.

Finkel’s lecture will present archeological evidence that Noah’s Ark was not shaped as the sea-going vessel as has long been depicted, with a pointed stern and stem, but was actually a round raft-like craft built of reeds and designed merely to float. This revelation was recently discovered on a 3,700-year-old cuneiform tablet brought to England from the Middle East.

For the past 32 years, Finkel has worked at the British Museum in London as assistant keeper in the Department of the Middle East. He is the curator in charge of the museum’s vast collection of approximately 130,000 cuneiform artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia. Cuneiform is the process of pressing wedge-shaped symbols into clay tablets with a reed. The British Museum’s collection is considered the largest collection of any modern museum.

Finkel’s work involves reading and translating all sorts of inscriptions, sometimes working on ancient archives to identify manuscripts that belong together, or even join to one another. He has reviewed each of the objects in the museum’s collection at least twice.

He also works with children and adults to promote greater familiarity with the ancient Middle East, by means of lectures, workshops and media activity. He specializes in ancient Mesopotamian medicine and magic, and is also interested in literature, religion and the history of ideas in this part of the world. He is also interested in the history of board games throughout the world, and especially the preservation of traditional board games in many non-western societies.

Admission to Finkel’s lecture is free. His appearance is sponsored by the SUNY Orange Foundation and the College’s Global Studies Department. For more information, contact Paul Basinski, chair of Global Studies, at (845) 341-4828.