Tuesday, 1 December, 6-11pm

Writing Center staff and librarians will be in The Ames Library to support completion of student projects/papers/videos etc. If they need help working on video editing – we are there! If they are finishing a poster – Yes! Starting a paper and don’t know where to begin – we can talk them through the research process. Writing Center tutors and Joel Haefner will be on hand to review drafts of papers. ITS staff have agreed to be available for technical questions that may be hanging someone up with creating that special project. Poster printing on demand will also be possible from 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Thursday, 19 November, 7pm, Beckman Auditorium

International Film Series: “Women from the Lake of Scented Souls”

Presented by Professor of History Thomas Lutze. Due to copyright restrictions, this event is free and open to the IWU community only.

From the NYTimes: In a rural area of China, a woman makes the best sesame oil in the neighborhood. A Japanese businesswoman wants to buy her oil and proposes to modernize the oil mill. The woman agrees to cooperate. Her son is in love with a local girl, but the girl’s parents don’t let her marry him because of the boy’s epilepsy. However, using the poor financial state of the girl’s family, the woman arranges this uneasy marriage. The film is slow-paced and many story lines remain unresolved, but some viewers might be attracted by the fact that it received the Grand Prize at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

Believing in magic : the psychology of superstition

From Amazon: While we live in a technologically and scientifically advanced age, superstition is as widespread as ever. Not limited to just athletes and actors, superstitious beliefs are common among people of all occupations, educational backgrounds, and income levels.

In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs. Superstitions, he writes, are the natural result of several psychological processes, including our human sensitivity to coincidence, a penchant for developing rituals to fill time (to battle nerves, impatience, or both), our efforts to cope with uncertainty, the need for control, and more. In a new Introduction, Vyse discusses important developments and the latest research on jinxes, paranormal beliefs, and luck. He also distinguishes superstition from paranormal and religious beliefs and identifies the potential benefits of superstition for believers. He examines the research to demonstrate how we can better understand complex human behavior. Although superstition is a normal part of our culture, Vyse argues that we must provide alternative methods of coping with life’s uncertainties by teaching decision analysis, promoting science education, and challenging ourselves to critically evaluate the sources of our beliefs.

On Saturday 14th November from 4am to 8am the www.nature.com, www.palgrave-journals.com and www.palgraveconnect.com websites will be unavailable for scheduled maintenance.

During this time content will not be accessible. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

Nature Publishing Group/ Palgrave Macmillan

Monday, 9 November, 4pm, Beckman Auditorium

James Kilgore of the University of Illinois Global Studies Program will highlight why mass incarceration has become a crucial civil rights issue for the 21st century and ways of addressing its consequences. Sponsored by the Center for Human Rights and Social Justice.

Fourth Annual French Film Festival:

Monday, 9 November, 7pm, Beckman Auditorium

La Connection – Due to copyright restrictions, this event is free and open to the IWU community only.

Tuesday, 10 November, 7pm, Beckman Auditorium

L’ecume des Jours – Due to copyright restrictions, this event is free and open to the IWU community only.

Wednesday, 11 November, 7pm, Beckman Auditorium

Le Premier Jour Du Reste de Ta Vie – Due to copyright restrictions, this event is free and open to the IWU community only.

Thursday, 12 November, 7pm, Beckman Auditorium

French Immersion – Presented by Professor of French Christopher Callahan as part of the French Film Festival (Nov. 9-12). Due to copyright restrictions, this event is free and open to the IWU community only.

Thursday, 5 November, 7pm – International Film Series: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”– (2009, Sweden) Presented by Visiting Assistant Professor of German Adam Woodis. Due to copyright restrictions, this event is free and open to the IWU community only.

You may have seen the 2011 Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but did you know it was based on a series of books written by a Swedish journalist, and that it was first published on screen in 2009?

From the Huffington Post:

For the millions of fans who love the goth feminist hacker Lisbeth Salander and have been waiting for David Fincher’s new version of the Stieg Larsson novel to hit the theaters on December 20, it might not even matter how good the film is so long as it hews closely enough to the beloved book.

Luckily, most of the early reviews have been widely praiseful of the new take, and seem especially taken with both Fincher’s meticulous direction and Rooney Mara’s fierce turn as the title character.

“This is a bleak but mesmerizing piece of filmmaking; it offers a glancing, chilled view of a world in which brief moments of loyalty flicker between repeated acts of betrayal,” David Denby of the New Yorker wrote in his controversially early review…

Enthusiasts who’ve already seen the 2009 Swedish version may be wondering how Fincher’s new film differs from the original. The difference seems to lie mainly in Fincher’s work, Mara’s performance, and a twist change on the ending.

Justin Chang, writing for Variety noted that the movie was “considerably slicker and more sophisticated piece of film craft than the Swedish production or either of its Nordic TV sequels” and also hews “more faithfully to the novel.”

Read the rest of the comparison here.

Wednesday, 4 November, 7pm – “Rosewater” (2015) will be screened as part of a series of talks and films sponsored by the Political Science Department. These events are made possible through generous grants provided by the Betty Ritchie-Birrer ’47 and Ivan Birrer Endowment Fund.

Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGOYHIqmmiM

From the NYTimes:

Among its virtues, “Rosewater,” the directorial debut of Jon Stewart, is an argument for filmmakers to start their trade after they’ve looked beyond the limits of their own horizons. This fictional movie tells the story of the real Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-born journalist living in London who was arrested in Iran while covering the 2009 elections for Newsweek. Accused of being an agent for foreign intelligence organizations, he was thrown into the Evin Prison, where he was interrogated and beaten, partly for the surreal reason that he had appeared on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Mr. Stewart’s interest in the material is obviously personal, but his movie transcends mere self-interest.

Mr. Stewart adapted the movie from Mr. Bahari’s 2011 memoir, which was written with Aimee Molloy and published as “Then They Came for Me” but has been promotionally repackaged as “Rosewater.” The book’s original title echoes the oft-quoted line from the German pastor Martin Niemöller, “Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.” As a famous call to speaking out (originally against Nazism), it underscores the universal tug of Mr. Bahari’s ordeal even as it carries the complicating weight of the Holocaust. “Rosewater” is the better title, partly because, as Mr. Stewart makes clear, it’s the specifics of Mr. Bahari’s story — his voice, memories, fantasies, ghosts and abiding love of Leonard Cohen — that distinguishes it…

Read the rest here.