INTERPLAY OF RELIGION AND CULTURE AT CORE OF NEW BOOK ON BUDDHISM
Philosophy Professor Recounts His Life Altering Experiences Living & Teaching in Cambodia
Chicago, IL -- In The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha (HarperSanFrancisco), Stephen T. Asma writes with wit and candor of his experiences living and teaching in Southeast Asia. He combines travelogue, political history, social critique, philosophical analysis, and the teachings of the Buddha.
Asma, a 'big white barang (foreigner)' who teaches philosophy at Columbia College Chicago, was invited by the Center for Khmer Studies and the Khmer Education Assistance Program to teach a graduate seminar on Buddhist philosophy to Cambodian students at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh. The Gods Drink Whiskey is the story of his physical and philosophical journey in this 'land of the tattered Buddha.'
The Washington Post notes that Gods is 'a fascinating look at a land where every day is a challenge.' Time Out New York says that Asma 'artfully explor[es] Buddhism's role in helping a society maintain equanimity in the face of poverty, conflict and bloody oppression.' Shambhala Sun states that Gods 'is a raw, heartbreaking confluence of religion and adventure rarely encountered in works of non fiction these days and that 'Those curious about the murkey side of Theravada Buddhism in Asia couldn't ask for a better guidebook'' Booklist calls Gods 'Intense and revelatory [with] hair-rising anecdotes and expert analysis' and Publishers Weekly states that 'Asma's descriptions are skillfully interwoven with firsthand encounters from his time in Cambodia. His forays into Southeast Asian politics, violence and globalizing trends, colorfully entertaining as travel writing, illuminate the ways in which Buddhism plays a primary role in the collective welfare of the region.'
Stephen Asma is as multi-dimensional and engaging as the lands, events, issues, and people he writes about. A 36-year-old single father who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and teaches full time in the humanities department at Columbia College Chicago, he is also an accomplished artist and illustrator, as well as a blues musician. His critically praised book Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums (Oxford University Press, 2001), that explores the history of natural science museums, went to paperback in 2003. For more information on his activities visit www.stephenasma.com
-end-
SIX COLUMBIA COLLEGE THEATER STUDENTS NAMED LIBERACE SCHOLARS
Foundation Doubles Grant for 2005 Merit Scholarship Award to Chicago Arts College
Chicago IL - The Liberace Foundation and Columbia College Chicago have awarded merit-based scholarships to six of the college's outstanding theater students. Competing in a field of their peers, these aspiring theater professionals, were judged to represent "the highest degree of excellence in their particular area of the theater" by a jury comprised faculty from their department.
Three of the students - Eric Burgher, Sarah Seaman and Ashley Dobson - are receiving the award for the second year, having been named Columbia's first Liberace Scholars in 2004. Kyle Kratsky, Meghan Murphy and Lindsay Naas join them this year as all six carry the honorific of Liberace Scholars. The students, who hail from varied backgrounds, are concentrating in several different areas of theater arts.
Eric Burgher, who grew up in West Bloomfield, Michigan and graduated from West Bloomfield High School in 2002, is working on his undergraduate degree in acting. He came to Columbia as a freshman, choosing the school, in part, because of its location.
Ashley Dobson came directly to Columbia in the fall of 2002, after graduating from Pulaski High School in her hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin. She liked the idea of pursuing her degree in musical theater at Columbia because of the nature of the faculty, and the location. Ashley appeared in Guys and Dolls at Columbia this year and was tapped for a couple of special projects: in February she danced for Ben Vereen, and in April she sang for Mary Tyler Moore -- both stars were in town to participate in the college's "Conversations in the Arts" series.
Scenic design major Sarah Seaman has found Columbia to be "a breath of fresh air" after experiencing two other college programs since graduating from West Hall High School, in Gainesville, Georgia, in 2000. Sarah, who started at Gainesville College and then transferred to University of Illinois Chicago, selected Columbia because of its emphasis on blending theory with a good grounding in liberal arts and the very important practical skills necessary to achieving professional success. Sarah's been very busy the past year designing productions for Columbia and the Oak Park Festival Theater. This summer she is working on The Princess and the Pea for Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Orpheus Descending for the American Theater Company.
Kyle Kratky started at Columbia as a freshman after his 2002 graduation from West Belleville High School in his hometown of Belleville, Illinois. A directing major, Kyle chose the school because of its reputation for practical, hands-on experience and its faculty of working professionals." He has not been disappointed, and credits the practical experience at Columbia with giving him the skills to land "a few professional gigs"— most recently as stage manager for "Sketchbook 5" Collaboraction's annual new plays festival.
Acting major Meghan Murphy grew up in Lansing, Illinois and entered Columbia as a freshman after her graduation from Thornton Fractional South High School in 2002. Meghan was also attracted to Columbia because of the professional faculty and liked the location in a major city with a thriving cultural scene. Since coming to Columbia, Meghan has appeared in many theatrical productions, including the staring role of Desdemona in Othello.
Acting major Lindsay Naas came to Columbia in 2003 from her hometown of Chiesterfield, Missouri. Though she entered as a freshman, she had already appeared in many theatrical productions at her alma mater, Parkway Central High School. She chose Columbia because of the variety of coursework she is able to pursue - both in her theater studies and her other interest, American Sign Language. Someday, she hopes to use her ASL skills (she's pursuing a minor in the field while at Columbia) to open a Deaf Theater. At Columbia Lindsay's appeared in The Three Penny Opera, Guys and Dolls, and The Pajama Game. In the fall term, she'll portray Little Red Ridinghood in Into the Woods.
The mission of the Liberace Foundation is to help talented students pursue careers in the performing and creative arts through scholarship assistance. Since 1976, The Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts has awarded more than 4.5 million dollars in scholarship grants to over 100 universities, schools and organizations including The Julliard School, Northwestern University, Oberlin and UCLA. For more information visit www.liberace.org.
Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution committed to open access, opportunity and excellence in higher education, provides innovative degree programs in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to more than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Founded in 1890 as a communications school for women, Columbia College Chicago was revisioned in 1963 as a liberal arts college with a "hands-on minds-on" approach to arts and media education and a progressive social agenda. Under the current leadership of President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D. Columbia is aggressively pursuing this mission. Through the diversity of its students and graduates, the school brings a rich vision and multiplicity of voices to American culture. For further information visit www.colum.edu.
-end-
FROM BOOKER T, ARETHA, AND LITTLE RICHARD TO SLAVE SPIRITUALS AND CLASSICAL CONCERTOS, BLACK MUSIC SCHOLARSHIP IS ALIVE AND WELL
Columbia College Chicago's Center for Black Music Research Gets Boost with Two Major Grants
Grammy Foundation and NEH Lend Support to Archive/Access Projects
Chicago, IL - Squirreled away on the sixth floor of one of Columbia College Chicago's thirteen South Loop buildings is a resource known to ethnomusicologists, scholars, and researchers world wide. A product of the dedication of founding director Dr. Samuel Floyd and the vision of Columbia's founding president, Mike Alexandroff, the Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) is a facility unlike any other in the world.
The Center is dedicated to the documentation and preservation of materials related to the black music experience throughout the world. Under the current leadership of Executive Director Rosita Sands, a staff of nine stewards a collections that represents the mother lode of international scholarship on music of the African Diaspora. The collection includes more than 4,000 books, periodical titles and dissertations, approximately 7,500 recordings, 400 archival tape recordings, nearly 2,000 manuscript scores, approximately 3,000 musical scores, and more than 6,000 items of ephemera.
'CBMR is one of the jewels in Columbia's crown,' says Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D., president of the arts and media college. 'The value of the scholarship being done there is immeasurable and the resources being preserved for the ages are incomparable. We owe a debt of gratitude to the founders for having the foresight to bring the Center to Columbia and the college has a profound commitment to its work.'
Now, thanks to two recent grants, CBMR staff will be able to preserve, archive, and create public access to four diverse research collections that have been donated to the Center.
Grammy Foundation Targets Sue Cassidy Clark Pop Music Collection
Clark, a music journalist and photographer who specialized in soul, gospel, and rock music during the late 1960s and 70s, gifted CBMR with her collection of 131 audio interview tapes conducted with African American popular musicians and singers including Booker T and the MGs, Jerry Butler, Al Green, Isaac Hays, The Isley Brothers Gladys Knight and The Pips, Patti LaBelle, Little Richard, The Spinners, the Staple Singers, Sly Stone, Bill Wither, Stevie Wonder, and a host of others. The collection also includes research files and photographs.
The $19,500 Grammy Foundation grant allows CBMR to create digital backups for each interview and catalog and index the archive by subject (e.g. 'Stevie Wonder discusses the influence of Jerry Butler,' 'Gladys Knight talks about the challenges faced by African American women artists') ' allowing researchers to hone into their specific area of investigation across the entire collection.
'Through her interviews, Ms. Clark captured invaluable biographical data on some of American pop culture's most important figures,' says CBMR Director Sands. 'These interviews will be of interest and value to students and scholars of both music history and cultural history and we are thrilled that the Grammy Foundation has provided us with the assistance necessary to make this rich resource accessible to the public.'
NEH Funds Preservation of Research Collections of Groundbreaking Women Scholars
The extensive research collections of Eileen Southern, the mother of black music research; Dena Epstein, who established the scholarship on the music of slavery and the antebellum period; and Helen Walker-Hill, the foremost scholar on black women composers will now be accessible to students, scholars, and researchers through the generosity of a $94,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The collections are comprised of approximately 63 linear feet of research notes, correspondence, newspaper clippings, obituaries, reviews, editorials, manuscripts, programs, resumes, promotional materials, and other ephemera, as well as music scores and 130 audio tapes. The project is expected to take 12 months.
'This is exciting on a number of levels,' says Sands. 'Not only will the preservation and appropriate archiving of these collections provide incalculable resources to those working in the field of musicology, cultural and social history, and women's history, these particular collections represent the seminal work in the field, and provide exemplary models of the scholarly method. The fact that these scholars are all women, and had to overcome both gender bias as academics and embedded cultural bias around their subject matter, makes the body of work even more valuable and provocative.'
Eileen Southern (1920-2002) was on faculty at Harvard University during the 1950s. She is an acknowledged pioneer in the development of black music research as a humanities discipline. Her voluminous research and methodology set the standard for subsequent scholars and her publications continue to provide the groundwork for new research and serve as the most widely used teaching resources in black music history. Among her publications are The Music of Black Americans (1971), Readings in Black American Music (1971), and Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (1983). She was founding editor of the scholarly journal The Black Perspective in Music.
Dena Epstein, a past president of the Music Library Association, is a retired music librarian at the University of Chicago. Her groundbreaking study of primary source materials led to her monumental work, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals (1977; reissued in 2004), which documents black music in the United States from the beginning of slavery through the antebellum period. Her work to identify the African roots of black music as it developed in the U.S. during the 18th and 19th centuries has served as the basis for almost all subsequent research that has been done on slave songs and spirituals and was among the first to identify the African origins of the banjo.
Helen Walker-Hill, a concert pianist and independent researcher, is the foremost scholar on black women composers and her publications are the primary sources used to study a body of musical literature that has been largely overlooked. Walker-Hill's publications include Piano Music of Black Women Composers (1992); Music by Black Women Composers: A Bibliography of Available Scores (1995); From Spirituals to Concert Halls: African-American Women Composers and Their Music (2002); and two anthologies of piano music by black women composers.
CMBM Library Database Online
Of particular note to students, educators, and scholars is the news that the first portion of the CBMR Library Database is now available online at www.cbmr.org. Using STAR database, a sophisticated, searchable database software system, the staff is in the process of expanding its web site to help make the scholarship on black music and the black music experience more accessible.
'It has always been our dream to provide access to our collections to everyone, everywhere,' says Sands. 'Now that dream is becoming a reality. Our collections include archival materials dating back as far as the sixteenth century and spanning the globe. To know that a student in South Africa or Trinidad or Tokyo will be able to explore our holdings in Chicago at the touch of a button ' or the click of a mouse ' is simply wonderful.'
In addition to their central mission of research and preservation, the Center for Black Music Research presents public lectures, performances, and symposia throughout the year, as well as hosting international conferences and publishing two scholarly journals, a monograph series, a number of newsletters, and a book series with the University of California press. For more information call 312-344-7559 or visit http://cbmr.colum.edu.
-end-