Lecture Preview

Title: Drue Heinz Lecture Series — Billy Collins

The Basics: Poet Billy Collins will read and discuss his work. Collins was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003. He is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels, which is a National Poetry Series selection, and has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

When: Today at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Carnegie Music Hall

Title: School of Art Lecture Series — Nato Thomson

The Basics: Nato Thomson, curator at Creative Time, a public art organization in New York, will discuss his work. Recent projects that Thomson has presented include Waiting for Godot in New Orleans and Democracy in America: The National Campaign. Thomson will also discuss his upcoming project, a collaboration with the New Museum on Jeremy Deller’s It is what it is: Conversations about Iraq. He is the author of the upcoming book Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Age of Cultural Production.

When: Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Where: McConomy Auditorium

Title: AB Lectures — Anna Deavere Smith

The Basics: Playwright Anna Deavere Smith will discuss her work. Smith is the author of Fires in the Mirror — about the 1991 Crown Heights riot — which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993, and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 — about the Los Angeles riots — which was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1994, among other works. Each play won Smith the Drama Desk Award. Smith has also made a variety of film and television appearances, including in motion pictures Philadelphia and The American President, and television shows, such as The West Wing and The Practice.

The lecture is also sponsored in part by the School of Drama.

When: Wednesday at 5 p.m.

Where: Philip Chosky Theatre, Purnell Center

Title: Center for Arts in Society Lecture — “The Eleventh Plenum and Film Controversy in East Germany”

The Basics: Stephen Brockmann, Carnegie Mellon professor of German, will discuss the reasons behind the cultural controversy that occurred in Germany in the 1960s and the role of art in the socialist German state. In 1965, East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party met to discuss current economic and cultural issues. Members objected to a number of recent films and works of literature. As a result, the party decided to ban a whole year's worth of films, most of which weren’t viewed until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990.

When: Thursday at noon

Where: Baker Hall 154R