Miscellanea: Economics, Edith Wharton, Poetry + Jazz

Economics

A Harvard University professor called “America’s leading immigration economist” by Business Week and The Wall Street Journal will speak at 2 p.m., Thursday, April 18, in BU's Kehr Union, multipurpose rooms.

George J. Borjas, professor of economics and social policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will discuss “Immigration and Economics.” The free lecture is open to the public.

A research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor. His editorials appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journaland Le Monde, and he is the author of the textbook, Labor Economics, now in its sixth edition, and Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy.

He has appeared on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” the PBS “NewsHour” with Jim Lehrer, the nightly news shows of CBS and NBC, Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor” and “Fox and Friends,” and Ben Wattenberg’s “Think Tank.” The lecture is sponsored by BU’s College of Liberal Arts, economics department, and International Economics Honors Society. For more information, contact Mehdi Haririan, chair of economics, (570) 389-4682 or mhariria@bloomu.edu.

I know this isn't strictly arts related. However, the speakers that Mehdi Haririan has brought to campus over the years —including NYT columnist Paul Krugman — have been consistently superb and insightful. — EGF

Edith Wharton

BU English professor Ferda Asya will give a talk on "Edith Wharton's Transatlantic Homes and Friends" on Thursday, April 18, from 4:30 – 5:30 pm, in Warren Student Services Center, room 004 This event is open to the public and free of charge. Light refreshments will be provided. Edith Wharton was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence (1920) and she was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate degree from Yale University. For her war work, she was awarded la Légion d’honneur, the highest decoration given by the French government.

Asya will explore Wharton’s passion for her houses in the United States and France, devotion to her transatlantic friends, including Elisina Tyler, Rosa de Fitz-James, Minnie David Bourget, Paul Bourget, Walter Van Rensselaer Berry, and William Morton Fullerton, and enactment of her friends in some of her fiction.

Poetry

The River Poets will host readings Thursday, APril 18, at 7:30 pm (sharp) at Bloomsburg Public Library, 22 Market St. Abigail Hess and other poets from the Slam Poetry group at Susquehanna University will perform and present their poems. MC is Tara Holdren.

More Poetry + Jazz

A tidbit from guitarist Matt Leece: Channel your inner bohemian Friday night at the Center Street Café (next to Artspace). Poetry readings and jazz music commence at about 7 pm.

An unexpected exhibit on Main Street

Here's a great example of artistic initiative. A group of graduating BU art students are showing their work in a downtown storefront.

Dubbing their show the "Senior Squat Exhibit," the students will display their work at 40 East Main Street until Saturday, April 27 (Renaissance Jamboree). The gallery space, donated by Jag Student Housing, will be open from noon to 8 pm daily except for Sundays, when it will be noon to 6 pm. There will be an opening reception Friday, April 19, from 3 to 6 pm.

I had a chance to get a peek at the show as it was going up over the weekend. Definitely worth a walk on Main Street ... the students' work is big, bold and ambitious. I've posted the photo above to give a sense of the scale they've worked in without giving away the details. —EFG.

The parrot may be dead. This talk won't be.

BU philosophy professor Gary Hardcastle helped write a book about Monty Python, Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!

Hardcastle will share his Python prowess in a free talk, "The Philosophical Importance of Monty Python," on Thursday, April 18, at 7 pm in McCormick Center, room 2303.

At some point, someone will be upside down

Bloomsburg University's Dance Ensemble will perform Thursday and Friday, April 18 and 19, at 7 pm at Haas Center for the Arts. Admission is free. More than 150 students involved in the ensemble and the students really take on much of the choreography and organization of the show themselves — giving it a great roll up your sleeves, do-it-yourself vibe. There will be 25 different dance routines in the show and they typically range from ballet, jazz, hip-hop to tumbling. (This shot is from  the show two years ago.)

Looking ahead to more dancing ...

BU also has a dance minor and the Third Annual Repertory/Ensemble Dance Minor Concert will be Sunday, May 5, at 3 pm and Monday, May 6, 7:30 pm in Carver Hall, Kenneth S. Gross Auditorium. Admission is free. The doors open half an hour before the show.

Essayist and poet Lia Purpura to read Tuesday

Essayist and poet Lia Purpura will give a reading Tuesday, April 16, at 7 pm in BU's Hartline Science Center, Kuster Auditorium.

A leading author in the "New Essay" movement, A 2012 Guggenheim fellowship recipient, Purpura is the author of three collections of poems (King Baby, Stone Sky Lifting, The Brighter the Veil), three collections of essays (Rough Likeness, On Looking, and Increase) and one collection of translations (Poems of Grzegorz Musial: Berliner Tagebuch and Taste of Ash).

Her poems and essays appear in AGNI, The Antioch Review, DoubleTake, FIELD, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Orion Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Ploughshares. Southern Review.

Her visit, part of the Big Dog Reading Series, is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and is free and open to the public.

Miscellanea: Jazz in the afternoon ... film in the evening

Jazz in the afternoon

The Bloomsburg University Jazz Ensemble will perform Friday, April 12,  at 1 pm, and the John Vanore and Abstract Truth will play at 2 pm in Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall. The performances are part of BU's annual Jazz Festival for high schools and middle schools, but the public is invited.

Photos of the ensemble rehearsing and short video are at www.bloomufocus.com.

A film festival to celebrate women

LUNAFEST, a fundraising film festival dedicated to promoting awareness about women's issues, will be hosted Sunday, April 14, from 3 to 4:30 pm and 5:30 to 7 pm in BU's McCormick Center, room 1303. Three short films will be shown during each time. The screenings are sponsored by BU's WISE: Women Inspiring Strength and Empowerment There is a charge of $5 at the door to benefit the Breast Cancer Fund, Columbia Montour Family Health, Inc. and WISE.

A cinematic look at moving to America

The film Amreeka will be shown Monday, April 15, at 7 pm in BU's McCormick Center, room 1303. The screening is sponsored by BU's department of languages and cultures and the Middle Eastern studies minor. Free and open to the public.

A fun take on the expression: "Keep your pants on"

The Bloomsburg University Players will present comedian Steve Martin’s adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s play The Underpants from Wednesday, April 17, to Saturday, April 20, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 21, at 3 p.m. at the Alvina Krause Theater, 226 Center St., Bloomsburg.

Admission is free with BU ID, $6 for adults and $4 for students and seniors. Directed by David A. Miller, assistant professor of theatre, The Underpants tells the tale of Theobald Maske and his unusual problem: his wife’s underpants won’t stay on. One Friday morning, they fall to her ankles right in the middle of town. Mortified, Theo swears to keep her at home until she can find some less unruly undies. Amid this chaos, he's trying to rent a room in their flat, and the prospective lodgers have some surprises of their own.

 Miller said Martin’s comic genius and sophisticated literary style have transformed the 1910 German social satire written by Sternheim into a comedy about gender politics.

Advance tickets are available at Haas Center Box Office at (570) 389-4340. For more information, visit buplayers.org.