04/07/11: "Amish Diversity in the Big Valley" (3:30 p.m., Foster Auditorium, Paterno Library): Joshua Brown will reprise his popular presentation which was held in February (see description below). This presentation is free and open to the public. It will also be available for viewing live online, via MediaSite Live. Please go to http://live.libraries.psu.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=5923e8e1da3e46b7ba4a1a989dc00fff to view the presentation.
Ongoing exhibit (March 22 - May 15, 2011): ”Establishing an Identity: the Cinema and Literature of Asian America in the University Libraries’ Collections” is on display in the new location for the Diversity Studies Room, second floor Pattee Library, to the right of the Arts and Humanities Library service desk.
In the early twentieth century, Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa was a big Hollywood silent movie star, along with Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Yet within a few years, Hollywood had discarded him. The “Asian” became a property created, packaged, and sold to the general American public, as either an inscrutable threat to the American way of life or as a comic caricature spouting the wisdom of Confucius, not as a romantic “lead.” Writers such as Sax Rohmer (Dr. Fu Manchu series) and Earl Derr Biggers (creator of Charlie Chan) began monopolizing the cinematic and popular literary world, to imagine and define Asians and Asian Americans. But today many Asian Americans are making their own films—finally speaking for and expressing themselves, to define who they are and what concerns them as Americans. This exhibit celebrates these Asian American images and shows the richness and substance of their cinema and literature.
02/04/11: "Amish Diversity in the Big Valley" (noon-1 p.m., Mann Assembly Room)
This presentation will highlight some of the differences within a single Amish settlement in Kishacoquillas "Big" Valley, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. Sponsored by the University Libraries and the University Libraries Diversity Committee, the presentation aims to create a greater appreciation of the diversity and lifestyles of our "plain" neighbors in central Pennsylvania.
Free and open to the public. (full story)
10/27/10: Latter-Day Saints Students at Penn State (2-3 p.m., Foster Auditorium)
A panel of members of the Latter-Day Saints Student Association at Penn State will provide background information on Mormonism, talk about some of the cultural and social aspects of the religion and share stories about what it is like to be a Mormon at Penn State. There will be time for audience questions.
This presentation is part of the Diversity Committee's ongoing Religion and Culture Speaker Series. Past events have included presentations on Islam, Hinduism and Paganism. For more information, or if you have questions about the physical access provided, please contact Dawn Amsberry, 814-865-5093/dua4@psu.edu.
Free and open to the public.
