On the test, I’m awarding half a point for trying, and half a point for each person you correctly connect with a quotation, up to a maximum of 2 points total.

Finch’s reading is sponsored by the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series, Student Fee Council, the Office of Student Diversity and the Women’s Studies Program.  A reception will follow the reading, in the Heritage Room. The reading is free and open to the public.

Finch will also visit two classes during her time in Pittsburg.  She will give a talk in a class at 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 26, in 312 Grubbs, and another at 8 a.m. Friday, March 27, in 303 Grubbs. Visitors are welcome.

Date: Saturday, March 28th

Time: 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.

Where can you eat your way around the world in one evening? The International Food and Culture Fair! PSU international students will offer tastes from their native cuisines as well as performances of music and dance. Students, faculty/staff and the community are invited!

The Food & Culture Fair is an event hosted by the International Student Association every spring in which other international organizations prepare food from their home countries to sell. Throughout the event, performances take place as well. Organizations participating: Chinese Student Association, Paraguayan Student Association, Saudi Arabian Student Association, Indian Student Association, Korean Student Association, Malaysian Student Association, Spanish Club, French Club and Hispanics of Today, among others.

Cost: General admission is $1 (Free admission with PSU Student ID; Children under 12 free). Tickets for food purchased seperately. Tickets available at the door.

The Food & Culture Fair will be held at Memorial Auditorium, 503 N. Pine, Pittsburg, KS on Saturday, March 28th from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.

For more information, please contact:

Jazmin Ramirez at jazminanahi@gmail.com or 620-875-4792

Cathy Lee Arcuino at carcuino@pittstate.edu or 235-4680.

The only exception is the next document assignment: I’ve slipped that back two classes, so that we will be through the whole Enlightenment, Revolution and Napoleon section before you have to write it.

You can find the updated schedule here and the updated document assignment sheet here.

Oh, and a reminder: if you attend an extra credit opportunity event, all you have to do for me is write a short summary and reaction paper, no more than 1-2 pages, as proof of your participation. You can hand those in anytime during the semester, up to and including the last day; there’s no such thing as a “late” extra credit paper.

From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, that of painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. In Tibetan this art is called dul-tson-kyil-khor, which literally means “mandala of colored powders.” Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks.

Formed of a traditional prescribed iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.

On previous US tours the lamas have displayed this sacred arts in museums across the country, including the Arthur Sackler Gallery, Washington; Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem; the Indianapolis Art Museum, Indianapolis; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and The Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

The mandala viewing is free and open to the public.

The Mystical Arts of Tibet is part of the PSU Performing Arts & Lecture Series.  For more information visit www.mysticalartsoftibet.org or contact the PSU Campus Activities Center at 620-235-4795 or campusactivities.edu.

There will be an opening invocation at Noon on Monday, followed by a four day creation process. It will be open to viewing Monday 12-6, Tue and Wed 10-7, Thur 10-3, with a closing ceremony Thursday at 4 and a  lecture on the symbolism Thursday at 7pm (Governor’s Room).

The Montana Repertory Theater presents Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockinbird at 7:00 pm on Monday, March 2nd at Memorial Auditorium.

Tickets are on-sale now in the Overman Student Center Ticket Office or by calling 620-235-4796.

$12.00 – General Public

$8.00 – PSU Faculty/Staff, Senior Citizens (65 & over), Children (17 & under)

FREE – PSU Students with Current ID

For more information, please contact the PSU Performing Arts & Lecture Series at 620-235-4795.

Date: Tuesday, February 17
Time: 3:30 to 4:30 pm
Place: 109 Grubbs Hall

Speaker: Stephen Harmon, Department of History

Title: “What is Political Islam?”

Abstract: My talk will give a definition of political Islam (also called Islamism) and attempt to describe its major tenets. I shall argue that political Islam, far from being the menacing monolith often invoked in superficial analyses, is broken into various strains and numerous individual groups and movements. I shall describe three major strains of political Islam, including Shi’a political Islam and two strains of Sunni political Islam, reformist and radical. I shall focus on the major Sunni groups and movements, both reformist and radical and attempt to assess the threat level posed by them to the US and to US interests.

On Saturday, February 21, we will head to the Prairie Grove Battlefield in Arkansas (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/prairiegrovebattlefield/).  Check out the “Exhibits” link on their website to see everything they have available.  Bring your GPS and go geocaching, walk the Battlefield Trail, tour the Museum and Visitor’s Center, or enjoy several other activities.

We will gather at the shelter house by the University Lake.  The carpool will leave at 8 AM.  We will be traveling through Carthage and will make a brief stop at the Battle of Carthage historical site.  We will stop for lunch in Fayetteville (half an hour from the battlefield), then be able to tour Prairie Grove until 5 PM.

The self-guided Museum tour is $3.  The Battlefield Trail, Dioramas, Schoolhouse, and Geocaching are free.  The Latta House and Effects of the Civil War on Ozark Culture exhibits are $4 each.

Please contact me at pittstatehistory@hotmail.com if you’re interested in joining us, so that we can be sure to have enough transportation.

On Saturday, March 7, the Pea Ridge Battlefield (http://www.nps.gov/peri/index.htm) will be celebrating its 147^th anniversary.  They will have a re-enactors’ encampment, infantry demonstrations, and reproduction cannon.  We plan to leave at 8 AM from the shelter house at the University Lake.  Other details will be planned as the trip approaches.

Faculty are invited to attend all of these activities.

LaShawna Powers

Secretary of the History Club

“Gordon Parks’ Learning Tree Experience” To be presented by: John Edgar Tidwell, PhD Professor of English, KU

On Thursday, February 19, 2009, at 4PM in the Crimson & Gold BallroomGovernor’s Room of Overman Student Center, PSU, John Edgar Tidwell, professor of English at KU, will present a talk on the life and career of the photographer, filmmaker, author and activist Gordon Parks. Parks, who was raised in Fort Scott, KS, wrote a memoir of his childhood experiences in the novel The Learning Tree, a novel which he later brought to the big screen in 1969. This gave him the distinction of being the first African American to direct a major motion picture. This event is in honor of African American History month and is sponsored by the PSU Tilford Group, Friends of the Leonard H. Axe Library and the Kansas Humanities Council. Refreshments will be served. All members of the PSU Community and the public are welcome.