UIS Speaker Series looks at the impact of community organizing in Chicago’s Little Village

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series welcomes Kim Wasserman, executive director of Chicago’s Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, who will speak about “Community-based Environmental Justice and Beyond.” This event is free and open to the public.

WHEN: 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: For 20 years Kim Wasserman’s group, Chicago’s Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, has turned anger into positive energy in a series of grass-roots campaigns addressing issues including safe schools, public transportation, youth empowerment, community gardens, superfund site remediation, open space and the closure of two polluting coal fired power plants.

Wasserman’s work addresses crucial questions for society, including “what does it mean to organize within communities,” and “how can communities support each other?”

Wasserman also serves as the chair of the Illinois Commission on Environmental Justice and was the 2013 winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for North America.

This event is cosponsored by the UIS Department of Environmental Studies, UIS Students Allied for a Green Earth (SAGE) and the UIS Campus Senate Committee on Sustainability.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217-206-8507 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS presents the 42nd annual International Festival

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield invites the Springfield community to join us for the 42nd annual International Festival. The longest running student-led program in the history of the University, the festival features fun and games from around the globe, cultural performances and exhibits, plus a variety of ethnic foods. Admission is free.

WHEN: 5-8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1, 2019

WHERE: The Recreation and Athletic Center (TRAC), located on the south side of the UIS campus. Parking is available in lots F and I, located next to TRAC. A map of the campus is available at uis.edu/maps/.

DETAILS: For 42 years, the University of Illinois Springfield family has celebrated its rich international and cultural diversity with the annual International Festival. Many of our friends from the greater Springfield community will be joining UIS students, faculty, and staff to share an evening of cultural exhibits, artistic performances and food tasting.

Guests are invited to pick up a program as they enter so they can find their way to the many exhibits, food tastings and performances. Guests are encouraged to spend some time getting to know people you have never met before, literally from every part of our world.

According to Fall Semester 2019 census numbers, a total of 257 international students are enrolled at UIS from 32 countries.

For more information, please contact the Office of International Student Services at 217-206-6678 or iss@uis.edu.

UIS Theatre to present six performances of “God of Carnage” by Yasmina Reza

The University of Illinois Springfield Theatre Program will present six performances of “God of Carnage” by Yasmina Reza opening on Friday, Oct. 25 in the Studio Theatre, on the lower level of the Public Affairs Center at UIS.

All shows will begin at 7:30 p.m., except the Sunday performance (Oct. 27), which will begin at 2 p.m. Opening weekend performance dates include Oct. 25-27. The following week, the play will be performed on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1-2.

In “God of Carnage,” a playground altercation between 11-year-old boys brings together two sets of Brooklyn parents for a meeting to resolve the matter.

“At first, diplomatic niceties are observed, but as the meeting progresses, and the rum flows, tensions emerge and the gloves come off, leaving the couples with more than just their liberal principles in tatters,” describes Dramatist’s Publishing Company.

“God of Carnage” is the winner of the 2009 Tony Award for best play. According to the New York Times, the play is “a study in the tension between civilized surface and savage instinct, this play is itself a satisfyingly primitive entertainment.”

UIS Associate Professor and Director of Theatre Eric Thibodeaux-Thompson will direct the production with scenic design by UIS Associate Professor of Theatre Dathan Powell.

Cast members include UIS students Ivy Thomas, Will Moffett and Jenna Fleming, along with community member Sam Fogleman.

The production staff includes UIS students Alex Herter, Amirah Baker, Aaliyah Adams, Adrian Ishmael, Jonathan Strepek, Claire Larson, Franklin Aguilar, Sierra Buske and Alyssa Nino. UIS staff members Sabrina Holmes and Chip Deiss are also part of the production staff along with community members Cassie Reiterman, Janet Ferry-Campbell and Mary Wheeler.

Ticket prices are $15 for adults; $10 for UIS faculty/staff with a valid, current i-card; and $8 for UIS students with a valid, current i-card. Please note that service charges are not included in the prices above.

Tickets can be purchased between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday-Friday at the UIS Ticket Office, located on the second level of the UIS Public Affairs Center. Patrons may call the UIS Ticket Office at 217-206-6160 or visit uis.edu/theatre for more information.

UIS Speaker Series examines human rights atrocities happening in western China

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series presents a lecture and discussion on “Terror Capitalism: Uyghur ‘Reeducation’ and the Chinese Security Industrial Complex.” This event is free and open to the public.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8, 2019

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: Darren Byler of the University of Washington will present his research on the current human rights atrocities in western China, where the People’s Republic of China has detained, without trial, an estimated one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in concentration camps, called “reeducation centers.” Byler believes China is working to criminalize and eradicate Muslim culture.

Byler’s extensive ethnographic field work in western China with both Uyghurs and Han Chinese argues that this system of “reeducation” is, in fact, a social engineering system that works in concert with a Chinese form of illiberal capitalism. His fieldwork is able to provide an insider perspective on both populations.

This event is cosponsored by the World Affairs Council of Central Illinois; the UIS Departments of History, Global Studies, and Sociology/Anthropology; the UIS Division of Student Affairs; UIS Office of International Student Services and the UIS Diversity Center.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217-206-6245 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS Speaker Series examines the first U.S. town founded by an African American

Kate Williams-McWorter and Gerald McWorter - Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series will present “Free Frank’s New Philadelphia, Illinois: First U.S. Town Founded by a Black Man.” The lecture will discuss the history of the now-vanished town that was located near Barry in Pike County, Illinois. The event is free and open to the public.

WHEN: 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019

WHERE: UIS Student Union Ballroom

DETAILS: Learn the personal history and living legacy of Free Frank McWorter, who founded New Philadelphia, an abolitionist town situated in Illinois, only 20 miles from slavery, and purchased the freedom of 16 of his family members, including himself.

The biracial community was founded before the Civil War and was one of the stations along the Underground Railroad. The town site has been added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark.

Gerald A. McWorter, a descendant of Free Frank McWorter, and Kate Williams-McWorter will share more of the history and legacy of the town and excerpts from their recent publication “New Philadelphia.”

This event is cosponsored by the UIS Black History Month Academic Ad Hoc committee; UIS Brookens Library; the UIS Departments of History, Sociology/Anthropology, African American Studies; the Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum; UIS Capital Scholars Honors Program; the UIS Diversity Center and UIS Archives.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217-206-6245 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance.

For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS Visual Arts Gallery presents an exhibition and discussion by Chicago artist Hương Ngô

The University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery presents “Her Name Escapes Me,” an exhibition of recent works by Chicago artist Hương Ngô opening with a reception from 6:30-8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24. The free exhibit will remain open to the public through Thursday, Nov. 21. Ngô’s work connects language and power in the understanding of how colonial ideology is enacted on bodies of women.

In conjunction with this exhibit, Ngô will present an ECCE Speaker Series visual lecture from 5:30-6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24 in Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library. As part of her ECCE Speaker Series presentation, Ngô will deliver a visual lecture entitled “To Name It is to See it: Identity and Misrecognition” that articulates her use of visual art and performance to examine issues of colonialism, immigration, citizenship, intersectionality, marginalization and resistance.

Ngô was born in Hong Kong, often works in France and Vietnam and is currently based in Chicago where she is an Assistant Professor in Contemporary Practices at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through her artwork, she engages histories of colonialism and migration, particularly in relationship to language, structures of power, and ideologies. The body and, alternately, its absence and its traces are strongly present in her work, which often asks how we might make visible the process of our own subject formation.

This exhibition incorporates Ngô’s experimentation with materials that sit on the edge of visibility, including serigraph prints of figures from colonial postcards that emerge from darkness to haunt the space and books overprinted with thermochromic ink, revealed only when touched. Sharing the same title as the exhibition is a work that was prompted by her research in the National Archives of Overseas Territories, where she learned about the activities of women involved in the anti-colonial movement and the violence from both the state and their fellow comrades that they often had to endure, only to be forgotten by history.

Ngô’s research and archive-based practice began while she was a studio fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2012. She was recently awarded the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant in Vietnam (2016) to realize a project, begun at the National Archives of Overseas Territories in France, recently exhibited at DePaul Art Museum (2017) and continued through the Camargo Core Program (2018). The project examines the colonial history of surveillance in Vietnam and the anti-colonial strategies of resistance vis-à-vis the activities of female organizers and liaisons. Her work has been described as “deftly and defiantly decolonial” by New City and “what intersectional feminist art looks like” by the Chicago Tribune. Ngô has exhibited at the MoMA, MCA Chicago, Nhà Sàn Collective, and Para Site and is supported by 3Arts, Chicago Artists Coalition, DCASE and Sàn Art, among others.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Individuals with disabilities attending the ECCE Speaker Series event who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217-206-6245 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance.

The Visual Arts Gallery is centrally located on the UIS campus in the Health and Science Building, Room 201, and is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Thursday.

For more information, visit the UIS Visual Arts Gallery website at uis.edu/visualarts/gallery or contact the gallery at 217-206-6506 or alach@uis.edu.

Mary and James Beaumont endowed Lincoln Legacy Lecture to focus on immigration and citizenship

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Center for Lincoln Studies is proud to host the 2019 Lincoln Legacy Lecture, which will focus on Abraham Lincoln, immigration and citizenship.

WHEN: Reception with light refreshment at 6 p.m., lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2019

WHERE: UIS Student Union Ballroom, 2251 Richard Wright Drive, Springfield

DETAILS: Join professors Jason H. Silverman and Mark E. Steiner, both scholars in the field of Lincoln studies, as they discuss Lincoln’s views on immigration and citizenship. Professor Michael Burlingame, the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at UIS, will moderate.

Silverman taught history for more than three decades at South Carolina’s Winthrop University. He specializes in the history of the old South and the Civil War. Silverman is the author or editor of 11 books, including “Lincoln and the Immigrant” and “Immigration in the American South.”

Steiner is a professor of law at the South Texas University School of Law in Houston, specializing in immigration law and American legal history. He is the author of “An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln” and “Lincoln and Citizenship,” soon to be published.

This lecture series will now continue on in perpetuity thanks to a generous endowment gift from Mary and James Beaumont. This event is also cosponsored by the Abraham Lincoln Association, Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series, Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition, NPR Illinois, UIS College of Business and Management, UIS College of Education and Human Services, UIS College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, UIS Performing Arts Center and UIS Student Affairs.

This event is free and open to the public. Those unable to attend can watch the webcast at uis.edu/technology/uislive. For additional event information, visit uis.edu/advancement or call 217-206-6058.

UIS Speaker Series to examine the myths about the “essence” of women’s evil nature

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series presents “Salome’s Image Throughout History as an Example of Myths’ Creation about Women.”

WHEN: 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28, 2019

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: The story of Salome has long been linked to the beheading of John the Baptist, as described in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, since Salome was the supposed catalyst for the prophet’s execution. Evangelists have used the story throughout history to define the “essence” of women’s evil nature.

The history of the myth describes the process by which that myth was created, the roles that art, literature, theology and music played in that creation and how Salome’s image as evil varied from one period to another according to the prevailing cultural myths surrounding women.

UIS Associate Professor Rosina Neginsky will discuss the major cultural, literary and artistic works which developed and propagated it as an example of the creation of myths about women and developing the ideology that had been determining women’s place in society.

This event is cosponsored by the Department of Art, Music and Theatre.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217-206-6245 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/.