As a linguist, artist, semiotician, and interdisciplinary scholar committed to social action, graduating senior Mary Atwood is a Notre Dame original. Drawing on seven weeks of research in Peru, the theology major recently completed a senior thesis that included original oil paintings and English translations of three Inca legends gleaned from interviews with Quechua speakers in Cusco’s central market.
Grant Mudge has been named the Ryan Producing Artistic Director of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. Mudge succeeds Jay Paul Skelton, who departs after the conclusion of 2012 season of the Festival to pursue a research degree in England. “We chose Grant after an extensive national search,” says Peter Holland, associate dean for the arts in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame. “His success in building the Richmond Shakespeare Festival shows that he has the track-record and the talent to help us take the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival forward to an ever more exciting future.
In the spirit of ubuntu, or “togetherness,” University of Notre Dame faculty, students, and alumni, Kgosi Neighbourhood Foundation, and Pellegrino Collaborative have joined forces to develop together+, a multifaceted campaign designed to unite a South African community divided by xenophobia, and to inform, inspire, and empower its most marginalized citizens.
A signature work of the Bard just became more accessible thanks to a new iPad app developed by University of Notre Dame Associate Professor of English Elliott Visconsi and Bryn Mawr College colleague Professor Katherine Rowe.
Collin Erker and Erin Moffitt, both juniors in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, spent four weeks wading through the Great Lakes’ coastal wetlands to create a documentary called Waterlogged.
Olivier Morel’s film On the Bridge, about veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), has been selected for more than a dozen festivals, won multiple awards, and has been the subject of countless media interviews since its fall 2011 release. But all of that recognition pales in comparison with a chain of events that occurred earlier this year, the director and Notre Dame faculty member says.
The University of Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre (FTT) presents Light Up The Sky by Moss Hart. Directed by FTT faculty member Jay Paul Skelton, the play runs in the Decio Mainstage Theatre of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. April 17 through 21 (Tuesday through Saturday), with a matinee performance at 2:30 p.m. April 22 (Sunday).
Anna O’Meara, a senior art history major at the University of Notre Dame, has been invited to present her paper, “Cinema against Cinema: Imagery in the Films of Guy Debord,” at the 2012 National Conference on Undergraduate Research later this month. Her paper was selected from among more than 3,500 submissions.
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with the third annual “SonnetFest.” All 154 of William Shakespeare’s sonnets will be read sequentially from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, February 14 in the Great Hall of O’Shaughnessy at the University of Notre Dame. The event, sponsored by Shakespeare at Notre Dame and the College of Arts and Letters, is free and open to the public.
The University of Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre will present Antígona Furiosa by Griselda Gambaro in 10 performances beginning Thursday, February 23.
One weekend last month, members of the Notre Dame community sat down to watch 16 films, ranging from comedies to dramas and documentaries, in one evening. But these movies weren’t made in Hollywood. That’s because the 23rd annual Student Film Festival showcased the work of many students in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre.
A movie produced and co-written by University of Notre Dame alumnus John Hibey ’05 was awarded the jury prize for short filmmaking at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The winning film, Fishing Without Nets, tells a tale of a poor, young Somali fisherman who ends up joining a group of pirates.
The University of Notre Dame’s Department of Music will celebrate Franz Schubert’s 215th birthday on Friday, February 3, with an afternoon of music by the famed Austrian composer. The event, called Schubertiade, will take place from 12:30 to 5 p.m. in the O’Shaughnessy Great Hall and features performances from faculty and students, as well as readings chosen by J.W. Van Gorkom Professor of Music Susan Youens, an expert on Schubert’s work.
The Notre Dame Student Film Festival returns to campus January 19 to 21 (Thursday to Saturday) at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. in the Browning Cinema at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. Tickets can be purchased at the ticket office, 574-631-2800 or online at performingarts.nd.edu.
Dan O’Brien ’99 has always considered himself an actor and now he is a successful professional. As a lead on the NBC sitcom Whitney, he can share his passion for performance with all of America. O’Brien says he did not major in theater at Notre Dame because he knew already that his passion was for acting and he was not particularly interested in the technical and behind-the-scenes work which the major entailed. Instead, he participated in the College of Arts and Letters’ Program of Liberal Studies and took as many acting classes as he could.
The anonymous loan of a rare 17th-century Northern Italian chamber organ—installed in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center’s Reyes Organ and Choral Hall in 2011—is transforming students’ understanding of early Italian music, says Craig Cramer, professor of music.
The University of Notre Dame’s annual ScreenPeace Film Festival will kick off with a powerful film about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. On the Bridge, directed by College of Arts and Letters faculty member Olivier Morel, explores the impact of PTSD on former soldiers as they adapt to life outside of combat.
The Ambrosiana Collection, housed in the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters, was created through an agreement between His Eminence Giovanni Battista Montini, then the cardinal–archbishop of Milan (later Pope Paul VI) and President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. The collection includes microfilms and photographic copies of nearly all of the drawings in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy’s historic library founded in 1609.
Margot Fassler, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy and co-director of the Master of Sacred Music program at the University of Notre Dame, has won the biennial ACE/Mercers’ International Book Award. The award from Art and Christianity Enquiry (ACE) recognizes Fassler’s 2010 book The Virgin of Chartres: Making History Through Liturgy and the Arts as “an outstanding contribution to the dialogue between religious faith and the visual arts.”
In July 2012, scholar, conductor, and interdisciplinary artist Carmen-Helena Tellez will join the University of Notre Dame as a professor in the Department of Music and in the Master of Sacred Music program in the Department of Theology. She comes to the College of Arts and Letters from Indiana University Bloomington, where she was the director of graduate choral studies in the Jacobs School of Music
The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe fell on December 12, 2011 agreeably apposite to recent activities of Notre Dame’s scholars and administrators.
Electronic music roars and pulsates throughout the theatre. On stage, a blind man paces, struggling to escape the ring of steel bars that confine him. Meanwhile, a stern figure in a sleek suit and sunglasses stands guard. When the lights dim and dialogue begins to flash above the stage from an overhead projector, one thing is clear: This production of John Milton’s Samson Agonistes is far from ordinary.
Each year, International Student Services & Activities (ISSA), in conjunction with other campus departments and organizations, hosts International Education Week (IEW) at the University of Notre Dame. IEW is a national event that is coordinated by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to celebrate and promote global exchange between the United States and other countries. This year, IEW will take place November 14 to 18 (Monday to Friday).
Robert Sedlack, an associate professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Art, Art History and Design, recently won two American Graphic Design Awards for University-related projects. Graphic Design USA magazine honored Sedlack ’89 for his work on the Parallel Currents exhibition catalogue for the University’s Snite Museum of Art and for Words for Painting, an artist’s monograph showcasing the work of Notre Dame Assistant Professor Jason Lahr.
Intersecting cultures. Family heritage. Art. Love. Money. All these themes work their way onstage in Provenance, a new play by Anne García-Romero, a Moreau Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television and Theatre (FTT).
Is the Bard a fraud? Is someone other than William Shakespeare the true author of the some of the most revered works of English literature, as the upcoming movie Anonymous suggests? “Absolutely not,” according to University of Notre Dame Shakespeare expert Peter Holland, the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies and Associate Dean for the Arts.
A pair of documentaries by 2011 graduates of Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre are “cleaning up” on the film festival circuit.
The University of Notre Dame Band will be presented with the prestigious Sudler Trophy at halftime of the Notre Dame vs. Air Force game on Saturday, October 8 in Notre Dame Stadium. The Sudler Trophy is considered the Heisman trophy of college bands.
Olivier Morel was in his car one day when a story came on the radio about suicide among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the report, eight to 10 veterans were taking their own lives each day. The news was like a punch in the stomach for Morel, a Notre Dame faculty member whose research focuses on fiction and trauma. “I was trembling,” he recalls. “I was angry, and I felt helpless … I was thinking, ‘This is unacceptable.’”
There is growing recognition in academia that “screen literacy” is a valuable asset for many scholars—especially those who teach language and literature. To help develop this skill set, the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre (FTT) has created a new graduate minor in screen cultures. It is open to students in any Notre Dame graduate program.