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On October 18, the Liberal Arts Speaker Series was inaugurated as Carol Herselle Krinsky described for a fascinated crowd "How Midtown Manhattan Was Created." Aided by slides & a brisk delivery, Professor Krinsky explained the complicated, interwoven history of railroads, business & social planning that created midtown as we know it. Especially memorable were her descriptions & slides of Grand Central Station & Park Avenue as they developed in response to electric train technology, the demands of businessmen, & the pressures of a booming real estate industry. Liberal Arts Professor Greta Berman introduced the speaker & is pictured with her above. (Photo credit: Renee Baron)
Isabel Leonard, a recent Juilliard graduate fondly remembered as an enthusiastic & committed Liberal Arts student, was praised in the New York Times for her performance in the role of Stephano in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Gounod's Romeo et Juiliette for "making her company debut with remarkable aplomb." She is described as singing "with the assurance of one who feels completely at home on the stage." The reviewer notes that "it is hard to make a splash in a pants role in a long opera on a night when Anna Netrebko is singing, but Ms. Leonard did." For the full review, see newyorktimes.com, September 27, 2007, "The Lovers of Verona, Swaggering and Soaring." The production runs through December 31.
A new course, Arts for the 21st Century, team taught by Greta Berman of Liberal Arts & Vivian Fung of L & M, addresses issues crucial to young artists today, including innovative programming of music and dance repertoire, as well as curating and collecting visual art works. By means of specific examples, the course investigates what is meant by the "canon" or "mainstream" in the arts, re-examining the justification for the consistent inclusion of certain artists and the exclusion of others. How does inclusion or exclusion affect their significance? Who makes the decisions? How can programming and curating address more creatively the interests of present and future audiences? Classes will include guest speakers, museum visits, and presentationswith slides and music.
This new course examines the theories of major schools and figures in the history of psychology and social psychology. Traditions that may be addressed include psychoanalysis, functionalism, Gestalt psychology, behaviorism, symbolic interaction, and existential psychology. Among the figures who may be discussed are William James, Freud, R.D. Laing, B.F. Skinner, J.B. Watson, George Herbert Mead, Piaget, Rollo May, Lacan, Nancy Chodorow.
