The Observer, April 20, 2007
Volume XXXIX, Issue 25
Baker-Nord center's Humanities Week entertains, enlightens
Cell phone movies, features movies, rare books, and lectures on hip hop have been just some of the subjects of events featured during the Baker-Nord Center's Humanities Week.
"The theme this year was Information Society, so we're interested in how information technology, communications technology and media technology affects the way we interact with one another and the way we convey ideas," said Tim Beal, Director of the Baker-Nord Center.
Tuesday, Richard Jackson – author, attorney and collector of rare books – opened an exhibit of rare books from the collections of Case libraries. "The History of the Book – Always in Transition" also featured a lecture titled, "Can the Book Survive the Information Revolution?" The exhibit was produced by Case Art History graduate students. The books display how the book as a communication form has evolved.
The exhibit started with a quarter-size Sumerian clay cuneiform tablet dated 2000 BCE, and a papyrus fragment from Egypt dated 300 BCE. A French fold-out book from 1745 displayed color life size drawing of the human anatomy. Classics on Human Proportions (1532) opens to an illustration by the famous German woodcut artist, Albrecht Dürer.
Kevin Smith's Book 91 (1982) explores the potential of the book as a communicator of ideas. The pages are filled with holes and string that runs from cover to cover, over all the pages. When turning the pages, the book can produce soft noises, shadows and other sensory phenomena not typically associated with books.
Lauren Hansgen, one of the students, said that while the focus was on the evolution of the book, the artwork in the books were also remarkable. "The illustrations here are great," she said.
The exhibit will be on display at the Dampeer Room in Kelvin Smith until 5 p.m. today. An online version of the exhibit is online at www.case.edu/artsci/bakernord/HistoryoftheBook.htm.
Elaine Richardson, English professor at Penn State and Cleveland native, gave a series of three lectures Monday through Wednesday. Richardson studies African American linguistics and literacy. Beal called Richardson "the intellectual attraction piece" of the humanities week.
Richardson summarized the book she is currently working on, a memoir From PHD to Ph.D. PHD is short for "po' ho on dope". Richardson originally went to CSU in 1978, but dropped out and began using drugs and entered into abusive relationships, eventually falling into prostitution. While she was using intravenous drugs she had two children before leaving that life behind. She went back to CSU where she became interested in the African American experience. Eventually she earned a Ph.D. in English from Michigan State.
Richardson was glad to see students from Hope Academy in attendance and fielded questions from them. "You've got to value yourself," she said to one of the students.
During her first lecture, "Critical Literacy and Discourse Practices of African American Females in the Age of Hip hop and the New Racism," Richardson discussed the way young black women read and react to the images of women and men in hip hop music, explaining that they look for signs of female empowerment in songs and videos such as Nelly's "Tip Drill," that are normally considered degrading.
Monday evening, Sprint sponsored the Cell Film Festival. Contestants entered videos taken on their cell phones using only the start, stop, and pause buttons. No video editing was allowed. Entries ranged from a 15 second clip of a student dancing and falling while the James Bond theme music played to a murder-thriller short that lasted a few minutes.
"I think it brings some fun and creativity and student energy to the week," said Beal of the cell phone event.
"I was looking for something that would maximize the shots a cell phone could take and a regular camera couldn't take, like putting it in the sink where you need to have something that would fit," said Eric Newman, $1000 grand prize winner.
Newman's video contained action shots from the point of view of a sink, a shoe and snowball. Videos of all the entries can be viewed online at the Baker-Nord Center website (bakernord.org).
Today at 4:30 p.m., NPR correspondent and Weekend Edition host Scott Simon will be giving a lecture entitled "Be Careful What You Wish For: What To Do When the Information Revolution Is a Way of Life, Not a Dream" at Amasa Stone Chapel.
There are other events and exhibits online including Quilt Using Information Digitally, a "quilt" connecting information and websites that users add, and Accordion Zine, a book created by CIA professor Kristen Baumlier and members of the Baker-Nord Seminar on Information.
