January 30 (Saturday):  The Folktales of Zora Neale Hurston
Children’s workshop on African American Folktales — 11:00 a.m., Albany Public Library, Washington Avenue Branch (518-427-4310), and 3:00 p.m., Albany Public Library, Howe Branch (518-472-9485)

The Folktales of Zora Neale Hurston is an interactive theatre program developed by Young Audiences New York. A family activity, the workshop features folktales collected in Hurston’s anthologies

January 31 (Sunday):  American Place Theatre performance of Zora!
Performance — 3:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Pre-performance discussion at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets:  general public $15 in advance, $20 day of; students/seniors/UA faculty & staff
$10 in advance, $15 day of
Box Office:  (518)442-3997; [email protected]

A theatrical biography performed by Cheryl Howard, Zora! originally premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Adapted and directed by Wynn Handman from Laurence Holder’s play, Zora! captures the extraordinary spirit of the “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance.” The play is rich with folklore, intimate portraits of Hurston’s contemporaries, and excerpts from her significant body of literary work.
(Cheryl Howard as Zora Neale Hurston, photo by Jennifer Barnette)

Cosponsored by UAlbany Performing Arts Center, Albany Public Library, Albany High School, with support from the University  at Albany’s Offices of Diversity and Inclusion, Intercultural Student Engagement, Alumni Association, Auxiliary Services, and The University at Albany Foundation.

Carlotta Walls LaNier will be the keynote speaker for the annual University at Albany Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration. LaNier is the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of Black students who worked to integrate Little Rock High School over the objections of segregationist Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus-- a landmark event of the Civil Rights Movement. She is also the author (with Lisa Frazier Page) of A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School (2009). President Bill Clinton, who wrote the Foreword, called it a "wonderful book.... a story we all need to know."

Sponsored by Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Student Association, and University Auxiliary Services,
Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs

Jennifer Verdolin, behavioral scientist, applies her knowledge of animal courtship and mating behaviors to human relationships. Her book on the subject, Wild Connection (2014), grows out of her same-titled blog for Psychology Today. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, The Smithsonian, and on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Directed by David Shapiro (United States, 2015, 76 minutes, color)

MISSING PEOPLE is a nonfiction mystery about a woman who investigates her brother’s long unsolved murder. In the process she collects and researches the violent work and life of an artist from New Orleans. The film won the Best Documentary Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

David Shapiro, filmmaker, artist, and UAlbany graduate, directed the acclaimed 2000 documentary KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT: A MODERN CANNIBAL TALE, winner of many major film festival awards.

Seminar:  David Shapiro will hold an afternoon seminar on documentary filmmaking and art on Friday, February 26 at 4:15 p.m. in the University Art Museum, Fine Arts Building, on the UAlbany Uptown Campus.

Cosponsored by the UAlbany Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibition Race, Love, and Labor, and the School of Criminal Justice’s Crime, Justice, and Social Structure Film Series

Robert M. Dowling is the author of the critically acclaimed biography Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts (2014), a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and Publishers Weekly “Top Ten Pick” for Literary Biography. The Irish Times called it “Fast-paced, highly readable…a powerful narrative, with a fresh perspective.” The author of the two-volume Critical Companion to Eugene O’Neill (2009), Dowling also serves on the boards of The Eugene O’Neill Review and the Eugene O’Neill Society.

Sponsored by Friends of the New York State Library

Photo:Elizabeth Alter

David Gerlernter, a “rock star” (New York Times) in the computer world, is an expert in the fields of parallel computing, “mirror worlds,” artificial intelligence, and cognitive thinking. His new book is The Tides of Mind (2016), a revolutionary explanation of the phenomenon of human consciousness. Other books include The Muse in the Machine (1994), about teaching computers to experience emotion and write poetry, and Mirror Worlds (1991), a prophetic work that predicted the rise of the Internet. In 1993 Gelernter was a victim of a mail bomb sent by the “Unabomber,” an experience he recounts in Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber (1997).

Cosponsored by UAlbany’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Steven Millhauser, author of four novels and nine short fiction collections, received the Pulitzer Prize for his 1996 novel Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer, about a young entrepreneur in turn-of-the-century New York City. Kirkus Review called the book “A fascinating and provocative portrayal of America that hums with energy and wit.” His new book is the story collection Voices in the Night (2015), which the Boston Globe called “Masterful . . . intriguing and disturbingly intoxicating.”

Sponsored in conjunction with RPI’s 75th Annual McKinney Writing Contest and Reading and the Vollmer Fries Lecture
For directions see: http://www.rpi.edu/tour/index.html

Sheri Fink, award-winning journalist and New York Times correspondent, will deliver the keynote address at the University at Albany’s When Disaster Strikes: Ethics and Justice in Disaster Settings Symposium, on Friday, April 15, 2016 at 12:30 p.m. in the Campus Center Ballroom on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. The title of Fink’s address is “Emergency Response Ethics and Leadership Abroad and at Home: Observations from a Practitioner-turned-reporter.” Fink’s presentation will be followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Fink; Kevin Wisely, Director of NYS Office of Emergency Management; John Mutter, Scientist and Professor of Columbia University's Earth Institute; Eli Fresquez Attorney from NYC Emergency Management; and Michael Primeau, Director of the Office of Health Emergency Preparedness, NYS Department of Health.

A reception and book signing will follow at 2:15pm.
This event, which is free and open to the public is an initiative of UAlbany’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity with co-sponsorship from the New York State Writers Institute, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy, School of Criminal Justice, School of Public Health, School of Social Welfare, College of Arts and Sciences, Student Association, and Graduate Student Organization.

Pam MacKinnon, theatre director, received the 2013 Tony Award for Best Direction for the 50th Anniversary Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Charles Isherwood of the New York Times praised it for “superlative staging” and “the exhilaration of a fresh encounter with a great work of theater revitalized anew.” Widely hailed as a leading interpreter of Edward Albee’s work, MacKinnon also helmed the Broadway revival of Albee’s A Delicate Balance (2014-15).

Cosponsored by the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment and UAlbany’s Theatre Department

Laura van den Berg is the author of two story collections, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (2009), a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, and The Isle of Youth (2013), which was named a “Best Book of 2013” by more than a dozen venues. Her debut novel is Find Me (2015), set in a post-apocalyptic America beset by a plague that erases memory. The Los Angeles Times praised the book for its “radiant prose.…," and said, "Laura van den Berg has invented something beautiful indeed.”

Cosponsored by Friends of the New York State Library

Colm Tóibín is one of Ireland’s foremost living novelists and journalists. His novels include The Master (2004), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award; and The Blackwater Lightship (1999) and The Testament of Mary (2012), both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His newest novel is Nora Webster (2014), which Darin Strauss in the Los Angeles Times said “may actually be a perfect work of fiction…There is no pyrotechny in the writing – just compassion and shrewd insight…which is where Tóibín’s brilliance lies.”

Film screening of BROOKLYN with commentary by Colm Tóibín — 7:00 p.m. [Note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by John Crowley (Ireland/UK, 2015, 111 minutes, color) Starring Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson

BROOKLYN, a hit independent film based on Colm Tóibín’s 2009 same-titled novel, tells the tale of a young Irish woman who emigrates to Brooklyn, where she must choose between two countries and her life in each. The Hollywood Reporter said, “Tóibín’s superior novel...has been turned into a beautiful and moving film.” The film stars Saoirse Ronan, whose performance in BROOKLYN earned her a 2016 Screen Actors Guild nomination for best female actor in a leading role.

Sponsored in association with Albany Pro Musica’s City of Immigrants Concert, a celebration of the rich cultural heritage of the Capital Region. See http://www.albanypromusica.org/concerts/ for additional information.

Richard Russo, born in Johnstown and raised in Gloversville, is celebrated for work that fictionalizes small town life. Publishers Weekly has said “when it comes to evoking the cherished hopes and dreams of ordinary people, Russo is unsurpassed.” His novels include That Old Cape Magic (2009), Empire Falls (2001), which received the Pulitzer Prize, and Nobody’s Fool (1993), which was made into a 1994 film starring Paul Newman. His eighth novel, Everybody’s Fool, a sequel to Nobody's Fool, will be released in May 2016.