The Community and Global Health concentration at Kalamazoo College will host a researcher and physician who specializes in infectious diseases at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 19, in Dewing Hall Room 103.
Larry Lutwick is a specialist within the Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and is a former professor of medicine and biomedical sciences at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. He will present his address, “The Pandemic Clock is Ticking. We Just Do Not Know What Time It Is. The Spread of Infections in a Connected World,” discussing how the medical field monitors and responds to epidemics in a globalized world. He received his medical degree from State University of New York Downstate Medical School and completed his residency training at Barnes Hospital through the Washington University School of Medicine. He completed an infectious diseases fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine.
A small reception follows the lecture. For more information, contact department student advisor Sofia Fleming at sofia.fleming21@kzoo.edu.
An immersive art exhibition titled Tipping Point—created by a Kalamazoo College faculty member and developed through eight years of projects—has drawn acclaim from viewers as it approaches subjects such as climate change, fossil-fuel extraction, environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.
You’re invited to hear directly from that artist, Jo-Ann and Robert Stewart Professor of Art Professor Tom Rice, in a free lecture at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, February 6. The presentation will take place in room 2008 at Western Michigan University’s Richard Center for Visual Arts.
Rice stated that “tipping point” is a term made popular by journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell in his 2000 book, Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.
“Gladwell was talking mostly about what he calls social epidemics or trends that suddenly have great success in our culture and how that happens,” Rice said. “Climate scientists, however, use the term to focus on changes to the atmosphere, oceans, carbon sinks, air temperature and ecosystems. In an ideal world, I’d want my work to be a tipping point as Gladwell describes it—one that starts a social epidemic toward real progress in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. There are other things that need to be done to slow the pace of global warming, but reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is critical.”
“Tipping Point” is currently in the Albertine Monroe Brown Gallery at Western Michigan University’s Richard Center. It features a 95-foot drawing of the mountain-top removal mining process, works addressing the complexities and absurdities of oil refining, and miniature silverpoint drawings portraying accidents related to fracking and crude oil transportation in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields.
The collection, currently in the Albertine Monroe Brown Gallery at the Richard Center, features a 95-foot drawing of the mountain-top removal mining process, works addressing the complexities and absurdities of oil refining, and miniature silverpoint drawings portraying accidents related to fracking and crude oil transportation in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields.
Rice says that his use of plastic made from natural gas is intended to raise questions in the viewer’s mind about the ubiquity of petroleum-based products in our culture.
“If people will be led to discuss the contradictions, then I’ve done my job,” he said. “While the effort to transition to renewable, upcycled and sustainable materials is gaining strength—even within industry—the truth is that complete divestment from petroleum-based design is going to require a growing awareness of how deeply petrochemical byproducts are embedded within capitalism. Everything from dyes and adhesives, the plastic in the products we use every day—such as our cell phones and computers—all the way to packaging and the synthetic fibers contained in our clothing and furniture are built on the foundation of petrochemicals.”
As a result, when presenting his work, Rice often questions whether his lecture is an artist’s talk or more of a call to action. To decide for yourself, hear the lecture or visit the exhibition, which is on display through Friday, February 7.
“Avoiding a complete climate disaster is going to mean sacrifice from all of us,” he said. “As author Naomi Klein says in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism and the Climate, it’s going to take mass social movements to start the change we need in regards to battling global warming and environment degradation. It’s not one behavior or action that humans can take to slow the pace of climate change and environmental degradation. We really can’t predict with certainty when the tipping point will be, or what outcomes will result, but we can be sure that our climate is changing and those changes are not only making the planet warmer, but less inhabitable for humans and many other forms of life.”
Alain Kassanda, the director of Coconut Head Generation, will virtually join a screening of her film live at 4 p.m. this Saturday, January 25, in Dewing Hall room 103 at Kalamazoo College. The event will be co-hosted by the African studies concentration and the student organization KalamaAfrica.
Dominique Somda, the director of African studies at K, said the film explores the daily lives of students at the University of Ibadan, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Nigeria, while focusing on their engagement with important social and political issues through a film club hosted by the Institute of African Studies. It also highlights the activism of Nigerian youths, particularly their involvement in the 2021 #EndSARS movement, a mass protest against police brutality. Somda explains that SARS, also called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, was notorious for abusing ordinary citizens. In fact, a video of a man being killed by police went viral, sparking outrage and demonstrations that largely were led by young people.
The film club participants watched works by John Akomfrah, Jean-Marie Teno, Med Hondo and others, which helped them have compelling discussions about corruption, gender roles, LGBTQ+ rights, colonialism and more. The young people at the time were called “coconut heads,” a term that accused them of being lazy and passive. However, the label was ironically reclaimed, transforming it into a badge of defiance and identity.
“This remarkable film centers on young people—students the same age as those at K—who, despite very different circumstances in another country, engage deeply with films that explore diverse ways of being human across the planet,” Somda said.
Hoping that many will attend the showing, Somda would love for participants to be curious about youth activism, different ways of life and the rich complexities of Africa. She added that students interested in films and filmmaking will find a unique, meta aspect to this experience with it being an opportunity to watch and discuss a film about people watching and discussing films.
“The film is about seeing, thinking and resisting,” Somda said. “Regardless of their positionality or political stance, I hope students at K can do the same—drawing inspiration from the vibrancy and resilience of the students at the University of Ibadan. This film helps viewers reflect on how every generation seems to think down on the younger generations, thinking that they were better, but actually shows how each and every generation has the opportunity to contribute and fight their own battles.”
Editor’s note: This story was written by Lily Stickley ’25. She serves as a social media ambassador for the College Marketing and Communication team. She’s also the co-editor for K’s student newspaper, The Index.
African studies and KalamaAfrica are co-hosting a special screening of “Coconut Head Generation” on Saturday, January 25, at Kalamazoo College.
She also explained that the film is the first installment of what she hopes will evolve into a rich and engaging film series, Seeing Africa.
“As we relaunch the African studies program at K, one of our core missions is to challenge and transform how we view the continent,” Somda said. “Rather than seeing Africa as a place of lack, waiting to be saved by foreign intervention, we aim to present it as a continent of vibrant humanity—a place where people suffer, smile, laugh, fight, debate and generate new ideas and movements. I, for one, think that this is going to be a wonderful installment, and I am excited to see how it continues going forward. This spring, the classes Africa Today and Global Black Feminism will provide great spaces to further explore themes of youth, art, activism and social justice from Africa, so please come and join the #KAfricanStudies community.”
A local theatre company’s full-circle moment will come to fruition this week when it presents Sunset Baby at the Nelda K. Balch Festival Playhouse, 139 Thompson St.
Face Off Theatre presented The Mountaintop in its first season at Kalamazoo College 10 years ago and is returning to stage Sunset Baby at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Also, before the Saturday night performance, the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe St., will host a community discussion about the play at 5 p.m. with Bianca Washington Ciungan—a local actor, director and theatre professor at Hope College—serving as the moderator.
Sunset Baby features Kenyatta, a former Black revolutionary, who visits his daughter, Nina, in East Brooklyn, New York. The estranged father looks to obtain pieces of his late wife’s legacy including the letters she wrote to him while he was in prison. Nina, meanwhile, pursues her own life with her boyfriend, Damon. Ron Ware portrays Kenyatta, Western Michigan University alumna Mikaela Johnson performs as Nina, and former WMU student Delanti Hall embodies Damon. K alumna Milan Levy ’23 will serve as a production manager.
Face Off Theatre Managing Artistic Director and founding company member Marissa Harrington, another WMU grad, will direct the play, her fourth at a K venue between company productions and the Festival Playhouse.
“I’ve directed at a lot of theatres,” Harrington said. “This is one of my favorites and an inspiring place to work. The College’s mission to lean into equity and representation with its stories makes this production a smart way to start our season. It’s a play by Dominique Morriseau, who is a fantastic playwright, and her work is hard. You want to produce a show like this with people who know what they’re doing. Everybody at K is a true professional and that has made this a great time.”
The director said she saw Sunset Baby for the first time herself with her husband in 2017 in Chicago.
“I was immediately taken by the story,” she said. “You have this beautiful woman in Nina who is strong, driven and convicted, and her father comes out of the woodwork to reconnect. That in itself is an intriguing storyline. But Dominique Morriseau weaves in current events with all her shows. She takes this man who was a figure in the Black Panther movement. He’s looking for things and Nina wants nothing to do with him. There’s discourse in this show around love, activism and their costs in fighting a system that isn’t made for you. When you have this interpersonal dynamic, between a man and his estranged daughter, that is powerful. You then layer in the idea that she was a lovechild—a product of two Black Panthers who wanted to continue their work through love because love was the answer after all that fighting. It’s a well-written, powerful show.”
The Festival Playhouse is hosting Face Off Theatre for its production of “Sunset Baby.” Five shows are available this week through Sunday.
Ron Ware (from left) portrays Kenyatta, Mikaela Johnson performs as Nina and Delanti Hall embodies Damon in “Sunset Baby.”
Sunset Baby will help Face Off Theater take its first steps toward its renewed goals of expanding opportunities for People of Color as actors, directors, stage managers, costumers and more in Kalamazoo while instilling a love for theatre in local Black and brown youths. Harrington said she grew up in South Central Los Angeles in an area that many would consider to be a bad neighborhood, where theatre was the only activity she had to shape who she is today.
“I think we take for granted the skills that youths gain from the arts,” Harrington said. “When we talk about arts education, we talk about a well-rounded education. All kids deserve to have access to that. We want to lean into how we can create community impact and change through what we’re doing. We talk about graduation rates, reading levels and attendance in Kalamazoo, and there are statistics to back up that. Kids engaged in the arts, especially with afterschool activities, their whole trajectory of learning changes. They’re more excited about learning and school, and their test scores increase. It’s about accessibility.”
Black and brown representations within all roles of theatre are important, she added, to ensure young people pursue that accessibility.
“Regardless of good intentions, safety means, ‘you look like me,’” Harrington said. “You look like me, I feel welcome, and I can do this, too. We’ve had 10 years of beautiful community work. Now it’s time to lean into training the next generation with an arts organization that is Black-ran, woman-ran and queer-ran to see what the need is in the community and address it. I think it’s important for us this year as an organization to show that we’re arts and activism together: artivism. That’s who we’ve been this entire time. But moving into this next generation, we see the importance of training Black and brown artists now more than ever. We want to be a beacon of light for the kids who don’t see themselves going into engineering or business, but they love creating, writing plays and seeing stories in their minds. They love taking a moment and recreating it. We have kids who have that talent, and they don’t have anywhere to put it. We want them trained to be hirable.”
Tickets for all performances of SunsetBaby and Face Off Theatre’s entire 10th season are available at its website.
A Kalamazoo College faculty member and expert in artificial neural networks, sometimes referred to as artificial intelligence, will discuss two of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recipients at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Olds-Upton Hall, room 207.
Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Péter Érdi will talk about the work of John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton in an address titled “Nobel Prize for Physics in 2024: Interdisciplinary Science, Neurophysics and Learning Machines.” Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data and perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, email Kristen.Eldred@kzoo.edu.
Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Péter Érdi
An award-winning author and assistant professor of history at Princeton University will visit Kalamazoo College this week to deliver the annual Edward Moritz Lecture presented by the Department of History.
Corinna Zeltsman will discuss her book Ink under the Fingernails: Printing Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico in a public event at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, November 7, in Dewing Hall, Room 103. A livestream will also be available.
As a trained letterpress printer, she researches the history of printing books, political culture and labor in Latin America. She is currently working on a project that mixes the material, political and environmental history of paper in postcolonial Mexico.
Zeltsman’s book, which received the Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History from the Latin American Studies Association, addresses individuals and factions who embraced the printing press as a key weapon in the broad struggle for political power during Mexico’s independence era. It takes readers into printing shops, government offices, courtrooms and the streets of Mexico City to reconstruct the negotiations and contests that surrounded print through a century of political transformation, from the late colonial era to the Mexican Revolution.
The history department’s annual Edward Moritz Lecture honors the late professor Edward Moritz, who taught British and European history at K from 1955–88 and served for many years as the department chair. For more information on this event, contact Abigail Davenport-Walker at Abigail.Davenport-Walker@kzoo.edu.
Princeton University Assistant Professor of History Corinna Zeltsman will discuss her book, “Ink under the Fingernails: Printing Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” during the Edward Moritz Lecture at Kalamazoo College.
Shayna M. Silverstein, an associate professor of performance studies at Northwestern University, will visit Kalamazoo College on Friday, November 1, to discuss the topics in her book, Fraught Balance: The Embodied Politics of Dabke Dance Music in Syria.
At 4:15 p.m. in Dewing Hall, Room 103, Silverstein will talk about dabke, one of Syria’s most beloved dance music traditions, which is at the center of the country’s war and the social tensions that preceded conflict. Drawing on almost two decades of ethnographic, archival and digital research, Silverstein’s book shows how dabke dance music embodies the dynamics of gender, class, ethnicity and nationhood in an authoritarian state.
Silverstein, originally from Spokane, Washington, has studied in New Haven, Connecticut, and Chicago; lived in New York City, Washington, D.C., Syria, and Lebanon; and is now permanently based in Chicago. She holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University.
The lecture, sponsored by K’s Department of Music, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Music Event Coordinator Susan Lawrence at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
Northwestern University Associate Professor of Performance Studies Shayna M. Silverstein.
The early history of the Bible and those central to assisting Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul in writing the New Testament will take center stage in the Kalamazoo College Department of Religion annual Armstrong Lecture on Wednesday.
Candida Moss will present “God’s Ghostwriters: The Lost Histories of the New Testament’s Enslaved Coauthors” at 4:30 p.m. in the Olmsted Room at Mandelle Hall. Moss is the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, U.K., and a research associate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. She specializes in ancient history and early Christianity, especially the New Testament, with focuses on martyrdom, persecution, disability, enslavement and questions related to marginalized groups. She is the author of God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible.
Clusters of unnamed, enslaved coauthors and collaborators have been hidden by history behind the sainted individuals credited with writing the New Testament. The essential workers were responsible for producing the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament by making the parchment on which the texts were written, taking dictation, and refining the words of the apostles. As Christian messages grew in influence, enslaved missionaries who undertook the arduous journey across the Mediterranean and along dusty roads to move Christianity to Rome, Spain and North Africa, and into the pages of history. The impact of these enslaved contributors on the spread of Christianity, the development of foundational Christian concepts, and the making of the Bible was enormous, yet their role has been almost entirely overlooked.
The Armstrong Lecture is made possible by the Homer J. Armstrong Endowment in Religion, established in 1969 in honor of the Rev. Homer J. Armstrong, a longtime trustee of the College. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit religion.kzoo.edu and click on Department Events.
Candida Moss, the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, U.K., and a research associate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, will present “God’s Ghostwriters: The Lost Histories of the New Testament’s Enslaved Coauthors” at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 23, in the Olmsted Room.
Tom Ginsburg, the Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, will present the 2024 William Weber Lecture in Government and Society on Tuesday, October 15.
Ginsburg also serves as the faculty director at the Forum on Free Inquiry and Expression, and the Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity. His lecture at 4:30 p.m. in the Olmsted Room will address “Surviving the Crises of Constitutional Democracy in the United States: Lessons from Abroad.”
The discussion, which is open to the public, will focus on the idea that many Americans feel that democracy in the United States is in grave danger with polarization high and institutional trust in decline. The U.S. is not alone in this regard as other constitutional democracies around the world are suffering from similar crises. Ginsburg will address the sources of institutional decay and how they might be reversed. The lecture also will approach what resources we as Americans might grasp in attempting democratic renewal.
The William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was founded by Bill Weber, a 1939 graduate of Kalamazoo College. In addition to this lectureship, Weber founded the William Weber Chair in Political Science at K. Previous speakers in this series have included civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson, Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen, political commentator Van Jones and author Tamara Draut.
A Detroit-based experimental theatre company, co-directed by Kalamazoo College alumna Liza Bielby ’02, will present its newest project, a critically acclaimed play billed as a funeral for whiteness, this month in the Olmsted Room at Mandelle Hall.
Will You Miss Me? layers traditional Appalachian songs with family secrets, ancient Welsh mythology, brutal comedy, and rituals—both inherited and invented—to push audiences to examine the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and grieve the selves that have been forgotten.
When a haunting song echoes, a weary traveler is drawn into a funeral service for one of many white workers who moved from Appalachia to Detroit in the past century. But as the funeral unfolds, the mourners are confronted by their pasts, their ancestors, and helpful and malicious spirits. Their confusion forces them to question whether they even knew the man they’re mourning and whether he existed at all.
Bielby is a former Fulbright Scholar; a student of the Sichuan Chuanju Academy, now Sichuan Vocational College of Art; a graduate of the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre; a board member of the Bangla School of Music; and a professor of movement at Wayne State University’s Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance. Bielby, Jenna Kirk, Richard Newman and Maddy Rager are performers in the show with direction from Bielby and Newman. Kirk and Bielby serve as scenic designers. Livia Chesley—who acted in the original performance—designed the show’s masks and puppets with assistance from Monty Eztcorn.
Will You Miss Me? premiered in 2022 with outdoor versions of the piece performed at Spread Art in Detroit; Tympanum in Warren, Michigan; and Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, Massachusetts. In 2023, the piece was presented at Play House in Detroit and at Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, through Goodyear Arts with lecture-performance versions shown at the University of Michigan Flint and Teatro Libre in Bogotá, Colombia.
“It hit me on a body level, a gut level, and it sent me into a kind of reverie that I haven’t felt from a piece in a long time,” said Zak Rose of Slate Magazine. “I was haunted by it, not just on my drive home, but I woke up the next day thinking about it. I kept talking about it and l couldn’t get back to my life before buying a ticket to go see it again the following week.”
For more information on Will You Miss Me? and the Hinterlands company, visit thehinterlands.org.
Actors Richard Newman, Livia Chesley, Jenna Kirk as Remy and Liza Bielby ’02 perform a remixed European bear ritual midway through “Will You Miss Me?” Photo by Milena Dabova.
Kirk and Newman take on ancient spirits as a funeral dissolves into a forgotten ritual in “Will You Miss Me?” Photo by Paul Biundo.
Newman, Kirk and Bielby perform in “Will You Miss Me?” Film still by Adam Sekuler.
