CUNY Newswire

The 17th annual Queens College Chamber Music Live concert series offers subscribers the chance to enjoy world-class ensembles, choral performances, and opera presentations at a best-value price.

A February 13 lecture by NYS assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry on the significance of President Obama’s re-election is one of the highlights of Black History Month at Queens College. A musical performance of The Ghetto Chronicles on February 27 and an exhibition of work by young African-American artists on February 21 are among the other scheduled events.

Students take the lead as curators for the next exhibition at the college’s Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Re-Forming the Image in the Dutch Golden Age. On view from February 4 through March 23, 2013, the paintings, prints, sculpture and historical artifacts from the 16th – 18th century reflect the beginnings of modern democracy. The experience brought students into the learning environment and emphasized practical job training, with particular attention on museum issues. Offered as part of the exhibition are a free private tour of the Metropolitan Museum’s Dutch art collection and a lecture on Dutch art collectors in New York City. A fee-based offering includes tours of Dutch historic homes in Queens.

– A Contemporary Viewing of Previously Shown Artists, Each Selected to Represent One of the Past 25 Seasons  – FLUSHING, NY, January 07, 2013 – As it continues celebrating Queens College’s 75th anniversary, the QC Art Center will itself hit the quarter-century mark. Fittingly, the gallery will honor both milestones with the group show, 25/75: [...]

The Queens College Choral Society will hold auditions for new members on January 16, 23, 30 and February 6. Auditions consist of basic singing skills –no preparation is necessary.

What could be wrong with trying to wipe out a disease that can cause full or partial paralysis? Plenty, Queens College Urban Studies Professor William Muraskin explains in Polio Eradication and Its Discontents: A Historian’s Journey Through an International Public Health (Un)Civil War (Orient BlackSwan).

As an English professor at Queens College, Barbara Fass Leavy (English) concentrated on 19th-century British literature; the opportunity to teach courses in crime fiction prompted her to re-examine a genre she read for fun.

“Few juxtaposi­tions conjure as many mixed reac­tions from city dwellers . . . as the blatant appearance of ‘nature’ against their urban back­drop.” This dual­ism is the premise upon which Queens College Biology Professor John Waldman (Biology) edited Still the Same Hawk: Reflections on Nature and New York (Fordham University Press), a collection of essays by 11 writers offering their perspec­tives on the experience of nature in a total­ly urban landscape—a concept Waldman explored in a conference, Why Nature Matters to New Yorkers, that he convened at QC in December 2005.

Donations play an instrumental role in improving college facilities. That is literally true for the Aaron Copland School of Music, which recently received two vintage Steinway pianos from people closely associated with QC.

“I am interested in just about everything about the ancient world,” observes Jacob L. Mackey. the Classical, Middle Eastern, and Asian Languagesprofessor from Texas who joined Queens College this fall, is intrigued by ancient religions, with a soft spot for Epicureanism and an eye on cognitive science.

Voted into the Myanmar Parliament last spring, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is no ordinary lawmaker. A Nobel Peace Prize winner who spent 15 years under house arrest in Rangoon, unable to see her children or even visit her husband on his deathbed, she personified the struggle for democracy in an isolated nation ruled by a military dictatorship.

Last May, in a joint research project involving QC, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the New York City Parks Department, graduate student George Jack­man (Biology) documented the presence of juvenile glass eels in the Bronx River. “It was the first time they were reported in the Bronx,” says Jackman, whose data will support efforts to reverse depletion of the local eel population.

Electronic equipment and water generally don’t mix. Unless they’re elements in Queens College’s Being Green initiative.

In American Empire 1945-2000: The Rise of a Global Power, the Democratic Revolution at Home, an epic topic gets epic treatment. Drawing on sources as varied as the Statistical Abstract of the United States—an annual volume published by the U.S. Census Bureau until 2011—and major newspapers in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., Queens College History Professor JOSHUA FREEMAN presents a comprehensive survey that weaves together military growth, economic development, social change, and international relationships.

Television is often regarded as a detrimental influence; indeed, on the first page of Prescription TV: Therapeutic Discourse in the Hospital and at Home (Duke University Press), Queens College Media Studies Professor JOY V. FUQUA reports that as a child, she was barred from watching it.

Gold-plated, four-jewel Swiss movement, five-year battery life, water-resistant, adjust­able, even unisex. Stainless steel with a sleek Danish design, it can be labeled “Made in the U.S.A.” But there’s one thing the QC Quartz watch doesn’t have: a high price tag.

Apparently, a lot of folks love—and vote for—Louis. Enough so that the Partners in Preservation Program has awarded a $150,000 grant to the Louis Armstrong House Museum to help preserve the jazz giant’s residence in Corona.

Initially created to document the activities of several Queens College students who had participated in the Civil Rights Movement, the college’s Civil Rights Archive recently announced the acquisition of a new collection—this one from a QC faculty member.

It’s been a little over a month since Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast Coast, and Queens College
geologists Nicholas K. Coch and Stephen Pekar predict that a bigger, more potent storm is on the
horizon.

The Queens College Choral Society (QCCS) and Orchestra will ring in the holiday season with their presentation of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) on Saturday, December 8, at 8 pm in Colden Auditorium. This is the first time that this powerful and popular work is being performed in the borough of Queens. Distinguished guest conductor Maurice Peress will lead the chorus and orchestra.