3.17.04
Children raise global awareness of AIDS through dance, song
Peter Kasule, a willowy 22-year-old, can't seem to keep from moving his feet and clapping to the drumming and dancing that swirls and pulses around him as the young members of the Children of Uganda dance troupe move jubilantly across the stage. "We try and represent as much of Uganda as we can -- the rhythm, the culture, the drums. We hope that people can see the joy," said Kasule, who like the other 21 members of the troupe -- children aged 8 to 18 -- is an orphan. The troupe is currently on a national "Tour of Light" that will include a stop at Stanford on Friday evening. Full Story

3.17.04
Oh, the humanities! Book celebration showcases 2003 works by campus fuzzies
The annual Humanities Center Book Celebration, which honors the scholarly and artistic output of Stanford's humanists, got under way for the 11th year running last week with the usual combination of champagne, hors d'oeuvres and a friendly roast. Full Story

3.17.04
Actor to give free reading of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities
Actor Marco Barricelli of the American Conservatory Theater will give a free reading from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 28, in Dinkelspiel Auditorium. The event, organized by Stanford University's Discovering Dickens 2004 Community Reading Project, is open to the public. Refreshments will be served at intermission. Full Story

3.10.04
Sound, electronics compose palette of inventive artist
Paul DeMarinis brings to life 'hybrids of past and present'
Leave it to Paul DeMarinis to make a parking garage fun. Ever since his interactive artwork Rebus was installed last fall at the entrance to Stanford Hospital's new underground lot on Pasteur Drive, the unusual piece has been eliciting both puzzled expressions and delighted smiles. Created in tandem with Stanford painter and printmaker Enrique Chagoya, Rebus consists of 20 square glass panels cross-stitched together and etched with pictures of things one might see on campus: ducks, birds, a bike, a cat, a horse, a frog, a bumblebee, a tennis racquet and a basketball, among others. Full Story

3.03.04
Finger points to new evidence: Remains may not be Romanovs'
One of the most riveting detective stories of the last century supposedly ended in 1998, when the Russian government declared that bones excavated from a Siberian mass grave seven years earlier indeed belonged to the Romanovs, Russia's last royal family, who were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. A new study, however, is reopening the book. Full Story

2.25.04
Course proposals sought for STS program
The Science, Technology and Society Program (STS) is seeking proposals from members of the faculty in the School of Humanities and Sciences and in the School of Engineering for the development of new undergraduate entry- or advanced-level courses concerned with science and/or technology in society. Up to two proposals will be funded in 2004-05. Each will receive a grant of $10,000, to be paid as a salary supplement or placed in the recipient's research account. Full Story

2.25.04
Humanities Center nabs Mellon grant
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $1 million matching grant to the Stanford Humanities Center's Mellon Graduate Research Workshop Program. Two successive expendable grants from the foundation have sustained the workshops since their inception in 1995. "This large step toward permanence is a powerful statement of support from the Mellon Foundation for which we are profoundly grateful," said John Bender, the Doyle Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Meier Family Professor in Humanities. Full Story

2.25.04
Mosaic exhibit shows rejected design for Memorial Church
Jane Stanford, who once declared that her heart was in the university but her soul was in Memorial Church, had her religious beliefs literally carved into the church's sandstone walls. Among them are these words: "Whichever form of religion offers the greatest comfort, the greatest solace, is the form which should be adopted." So it comes as a mild shock to see a watercolor sketch of an alternate version of the church's facade, now on display at the Museo ItaloAmericano at Fort Mason in San Francisco. In the sketch, figures rise from tombstones; one is a skeleton still draped in shrouds. A Christ figure at the top of the scene is surrounded by kneeling figures and raises a hand not in blessing but in judgment. To his left, damned souls tumble headlong into flames and the outstretched wings of a fanged dragon while sword-wielding angels beat them back from Heaven. Full Story

'God of geeks' examines superheroes, pop culture in new book
Batman, Plastic Man, cyberpunk novels and The Nutty Professor are not usually the stuff of academic tomes. But then again, Scott Bukatman is not your typical academic. "Superheroes, science fiction and Jerry Lewis -- I'm the emperor of the nerds, the god of geeks," the Stanford associate professor of art and art history writes candidly in an essay on mutant superheroes, one of eight in his brightly illustrated new book, Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century (Duke University Press, 2003). Full Story

Registration begins Monday for next quarter’s Continuing Studies Program classes
Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 23, for close to 100 courses, workshops and special programs offered Spring Quarter through the Continuing Studies Program. Instruction begins March 29. Stanford employees who work at least half time may use Staff Training Assistance Program (STAP) funds to pay for tuition and registration fees. All courses and programs are open to the public. Register online at http://continuingstudies.stanford.edu. Full Story

Drama Department to present Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis
The Department of Drama will present Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis in a fresh theatrical adaptation by Matthew Daube, a graduate student in drama. The show is scheduled to run March 3-7 in the Nitery Theater. Full Story

Three campus events to honor Isaac Babel, noted author, playwright
A trio of Stanford public events -- a stage production, exhibition and international conference -- will highlight the life and art of Isaac Babel, a Russian-Jewish master of short story. Also a journalist and playwright, Babel has influenced prose fiction worldwide with his bold commentary on war and society. Full Story

Computer games under sociological microscope in Cantor exhibit
If you've relegated computer games to the status of adolescent entertainment, then the exhibit "Fictional Worlds, Virtual Experiences: Storytelling and Computer Games" at the Cantor Arts Center has a message for you. "Wake up," said Henry Lowood, the exhibit's guest curator and a curator for the History of Science and Technology Collections in the Stanford University Libraries. Full Story

Gospel of John aims to discredit evangel Thomas, scholar says
In the Gospel of John, Thomas is the clueless one. He's the disciple who puzzles over Jesus' words at the Last Supper, the absent one who is chided by Christ because of his doubts about the resurrection. In fact, John's portrayal of Thomas is so unflattering, it suggests an intense power struggle between two camps of Jesus' followers, religious historian Elaine Pagels told a standing-room-only crowd Jan. 26 in Cubberley Auditorium. Despite a broken ankle, the best-selling author made several appearances at Stanford last week as the Humanities Center's 2004 Harry Camp Memorial Lecturer. Full Story

Modernist studies journal wins award
The Council of Editors of Learned Journals has named Modernism/modernity, the official journal of the Modernist Studies Association, winner of the 2003 Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement. Full Story

Two Stanford professors considered for book award
Books by two Stanford English professors are in the running for a National Book Critics Circle Award, one of the country's most prestigious literary prizes. Old School (Knopf) by Tobias Wolff, who teaches creative writing, has been nominated in the fiction category. Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) by Carol Loeb Shloss, a visiting professor at Stanford, has been nominated in the category for biography and autobiography. Full Story

Don't just take it for granite: Outdoor art abounds on campus
Alumnus Toby Schreiber and his wife Rita donated four works of art that had been on display in the garden of their Woodside home
At first glance, Georgia Granite Circle looks rather simple. The 1990 work by British land artist Richard Long consists of about 100 large chunks of white Georgia granite, all piled on the ground in a circle 16 feet in diameter. But when staffers attempted to install the starkly beautiful piece on the Cantor Center's outdoor art terrace last spring, they found the process anything but easy. Full Story