Extra Credit Opportunity: Cuarteto Latinoamericano

“Matchless in tonal magnitude, tuneful fluency and concentrated teamwork.” – The Washington Post

Cuarteto Latinoamericano, formed in 1982, is known worldwide as the leading proponent of Latin American music for string quartet. This award-winning ensemble from
Mexico consists of the three Bitrán brothers, violinists Saúl and Arón and cellist Alvaro, along with violist Javier Montiel. The Cuarteto has recorded most of the Latin American
repertoire for string quartet, and the sixth volume of their Villa-Lobos 17 quartets cycle, recorded for Dorian, was nominated for a Grammy award in 2002 in the field of Best Chamber Music Recording as well as for a Latin Grammy.

The Cuarteto has performed as soloists with many orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Seattle Symphony, the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, the Dallas Symphony and the Símón Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela. Under the auspices of the Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles of Venezuela, the Cuarteto has created the Latin American Academy for String Quartets, based in Caracas, which serves as a training ground for five select young string quartets from the Sistema.

February 10, 2012

All performances will be at 7:30 p.m. in McCray Recital Hall on the PSU campus.
Tickets are available at no charge to full-time PSU students with valid student ID.

New Scholarship on the Enlightenment

Fascinating review of Jonathan Israel’s new scholarship on the European Enlightenment, in particular the influence of philosopher Baruch Spinoza by Robert Leventhal.

In particular, note the definition of the “Radical Enlightenment”:

1) philosophical reason as the criterion of what is true;
2) rejection of supernatural agency (divine providence);
3) equality of all mankind (racial and sexual equality);
4) secular universalism in ethics anchored in equality and stressing equity, justice, and charity;
5) comprehensive toleration and freedom of thought;
6) personal liberty of lifestyle between consenting adults, safeguarding the dignity and freedom of the unmarried and homosexuals;
7) freedom of expression, political criticism, and the press in the public sphere; and
8.) democratic republicanism.

While Leventhal praises Israel’s defense of Spinoza’s influence, he also says that

One can reasonably advocate all of the values and moral precepts Israel attributes to the Radical Enlightenment on pragmatic grounds and not be a metaphysical monist. In other words, we do not need to believe in Spinoza’s metaphysics to believe in democracy, freedom of expression, social justice, equality, fairness, and tolerance. We can, but do not need to, align historical truth with progressive values. We can, but are not required to, adopt a naturalist vision of science and philosophy to be thoughtful and moral citizens.

Something like a study guide

You can find some exemplars of good work from previous semesters here and here. You can also see a comparison of good answers with the textbook sidebar definitions, if you’re thinking of memorizing those short definitions (hint: it’s not a good idea!)

I grade the individual questions on a 4-point scale: 4=A, 3=B, etc. I then total those up and, taking the highest grade in the class as 100%, convert them back to a 4-point scale letter grade with pluses and minuses. I record that grade (on a hundred point scale, so F is still worth more than zero) as your grade on the test.

Extra Credit Opportunity: Distinguished Visiting Writers

Pittsburg State University’s Distinguished Visiting Writers Series presents the 7th Annual Faculty Reading, featuring fiction writers Lizanne Minerva and Lori Baker Martin. The reading takes place at 7:00 PM, Thursday, February 2 in the Governor’s Room of the Overman Student Center. A reception follows in the Heritage Room. The reading is free and open to the public.
Lizanne Minerva has published short stories in literary journals such as Puerto del Sol, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, and Apalachee Quarterly. Originally from Tallahassee, Florida, Minerva was the recipient of the Ernest Hemingway Fellowship in fiction at Indiana University, where she earned an MFA in Creative Writing in 1992. She later completed a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Minerva has taught fiction and literature at Missouri State University and is currently an instructor at PSU. Fiction writer Roland Sodowsky says Minerva “creates characters both believable and surprising in their complexity. Her fiction is a pleasure to read.” Novelist Kathy De Grave says Minerva’s stories present “an incisive depiction of women’s lives in middle-class America. Lizanne’s characters are spunky and humorous. We laugh with them as they reveal their flaws. We recognize these women and sympathize with the hard choices they have to make every day!” Minerva is working on a collection of short stories about mothers and children, and on Thursday she will be reading some of her recent fiction.
Lori Baker Martin earned a Master’s degree in English from PSU in 2009, then completed her MFA at The Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she was named a Truman Capote Fellow. She was also the recipient of The Writer’s Workshop Clark Fischer Ansley Award for Excellence in Fiction. She has also received awards from Kansas Voices and the Cincinnati Review Schiff Prose Contest. Her work has been published in Prick of the Spindle and The MacGuffin, and is forthcoming in The Little Balkans Review. Novelist Kathy De Grave says that Martins’s writing “has a haunting quality.  Scene by scene the images are vivid and original; they stay in one’s mind. The characters, too, are so fully drawn they seem real, even though the story they inhabit often verges on the mysterious. Lori finds beauty in the grotesque and sees the struggle of the human spirit in everyday choices.”  Hailing from rural southeast Kansas, Martin is a third-generation Pitt State graduate, and on Thursday she will be reading from Bitter Water, her novel-in-progress set in Civil War-era Edna, Kansas and Carthage, Missouri.
For more information, contact the English Department at x4689.