Miscellany

On February 11, Erna Brodber read from her work at Joyner Library and at the Greenville Art Museum.  Brodber is the current Whichard Visiting Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, and author of Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), and Louisiana (1994). Kristi Southern reviewed the Brodber Reading.

The Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences invited Mary Rose O'Reilley to speak as part of the Tag Lecture series, February 27.  She presented "Sustaining the Heart of Teaching and Learning," a method of teaching that incorporates meditation and contemplative practice in the classroom.  O'Reilley is Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.  She is the author of: The Peaceable Classroom (1993), Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice (1998), and The Barn at the End of the World: the Apprenticeship of a Quaker-Buddhist Shepherd (2000).

The Writers Reading Series sponsored readings by poet Mark Cox on March 19 at the Great Room in Mendenhall and Sheppard Memorial Library.  Cox is the author of The Barbells of the Gods (1988), Smoulder (1989), Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone (1998), and Natural Causes, forthcoming in the Pitt Poetry Series.

The North Carolina Humanities Council is conducting a writing competition to honor the memory of North Carolina's Linda Flowers, former English professor at North Carolina Wesleyan and author of Throwed Away: Failures of Progress in Eastern North Carolina (1990).  The competition is in all categories: poetry, prose, essays.  For more information contact [www.nchumanities.org.flowers].  Deadline for submissions is May 15.

ECU grad student Jason Myers will direct the Neil Simon Comedy "Jake's Women" at the Paramount Theater in Farmville, March 28-30 and April 4-6.  The players include ECU students Beth Thatcher, Lauren Davis, and Diane Lareau.  Others in the cast include:  Neal Fox, Eraine Oakley, Mary Morrison Dixon, Anne Rhodes, and Donda Rhodes.  Myers describes the play this way: "Written in 1992, the incredibly humorous piece still rings true with readers and audiences a decade after first being produced.  As the play begins, Jake's second wife Maggie is getting ready to leave him, and Jake is being bombarded by women from his past and present.  His sister, his psychiatrist, his first wife, and even his daughter creep into Jake's mind uninvited and not always welcome, while spouting words that he can't always control.  Jake, as a story-teller, can't seem to keep his work from entering his personal life, and he lets his imagination replay scenes from a story that may never take place.  The audience is privy to these 'delusional' scenes, which Jake can usually mold to his liking, but by the end of the play, the women have gained control of the ship, and Jake is just trying to stay afloat.  Filled with humorous monologues from his youth and 'realistic' dialogues with Maggie, Sheila, Karen, Edith, Molly, and Julie; this beautifully sad, but also uproariously funny statement about the relationships between men and women can be enjoyed by all people, real or imagined."  For more information call (252) 753-3832.

The Exposed Film Series presented Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950) on February 11 at 7:30.  Wilder's film is a classic black comedy/drama, and perhaps the most acclaimed, but darkest film-noir story about the workings of Hollywood -- its inherent self-deceit, spiritual emptiness, and the price of fame.  At the beginning of the film, the mood is immediately established by the narrator, a dead man floating in a swimming pool.  The screenplay was based on the story "A Can of Beans" by Wilder and Charles Brackett.  Brackett and Wilder worked together on many films between 1938 and 1950.

Jim Kirkland was recently selected as faculty guest coach for the women's basketball team.  ECU Lady Pirate, Samantha Pankey, an English major, gave Kirkland the nod for the Louisville game, and, fortunately for Coach Kirkland, the Lady Pirates defeated the heavily favored Cardinals. Congrats on the beginning of a new career!