Convocation Events

Virginia Intermont College Spring Convocation:

 

Monday, January 16, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. Harrison-Jones Memorial Hall

Ms. Brenda White Wright – Civil Rights leader and motivational speaker

Dr. Brenda White Wright, civil rights leader and motivational speaker. Presentation titled “Respect and Responsibility: Making Dr. King’s Dream Your Reality” in honor of Martin Luther King Day.

 

 

Monday, January 23, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. Science Hall Lecture Room

Dr. Sue Ann Hulbert – “My Life as a Veterinarian”

Dr. Hurlbert is a 1990 graduate of North Caroline State Univeristy College of Veterinary Medicine and is the practice owner of HealthPointe Veterinary Clinic in Duncan, S.C. Her special interests include avian medicine and small animal dentistry.

 

 

Thursday, February 2, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. Nunn Recital Hall

Dr. Robert Rainwater – “Standing Room Only”

Virginia Intermont professor Dr. Robert Rainwater will address the topic of global population issues in a campus convocation event on February 2. Rainwater’s presentation, titled “Standing Room Only,” draws from his research and experience in global issues and addresses the problem of overpopulation. The event will take place in Nunn Recital Hall at 7:00 pm and is open to the public.

Originally from Shreveport, La., Rainwater graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Arts and from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. He has been a professor of philosophy and religious studies at VI for 31 years and has directed the Honors Program for 12 years. Rainwater has led students on various educational travel enrichment programs.

 

 

Friday, February 3, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. Nunn Recital Hall

Phil Nesmith – “The Positive Image”

Some of the earliest photographic processes produced positive images on polished copper, glass, and tin. Each image was unique– the film negative was many decades away when daguerreotypes, tintypes, and ambrotypes were all the rage. In this lecture demonstration artist Phil Nesmith gives an overview of this rich period in photographic history, as well as a discussion of the modern resurgence of interest in and use of 19th-century processes in contemporary art. While tintypes and other early photographic processes were thought by many to have died nearly a century ago, these media have had a renaissance in recent decades, including some of America’s most famous contemporary artists, from Chuck Close to Virginia artist Sally Mann. In addition to a lecture on historic processes and their modern applications, Nesmith will demonstrate the making of wet collodion tintypes, a magical process that sheds light both on the history of photography and on contemporary art. This program has been organized by the VMFA Office of Statewide Partnerships.

 

 

Thursday, February 9, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. Harrison-Jones Memorial Hall

Dr. Jim Glanville – “American Indians of Holstonia: A Personal View”

Glanville discusses the Spanish period of Virginia history, explains why the Spanish were in the Holston River valleys in the 1560s, and tells what we know of the American Indian people that were encountered there.
Dr. Glanville, born in London, England, moved to the United States in 1962 to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland. Now, a retired chemistry professor, he lives in Blacksburg, Va. with his wife, Deena. He explains his background and interest in the project: “My professional career lasted from 1962-2004 and included jobs in the chemical industry and academia; I spent the last twenty years of my career at Virginia Tech. Since retiring in 2004 I have made an encore career writing and publishing extensively about the history and archeology of southwest Virginia and the region I have dubbed ‘Holstonia.’” For more information on Jim Glanville’s work, visit http://www.holstonia.net/files/JimGlanvilleInfo.pdf.

 

 

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. Nunn Recital Hall

Dr. John Heil – Valentine’s Day Lecture: “Erotic Love & Platonic Love”

The topic is “Love” – the most powerful emotion in life and yet the hardest to understand. How, if at all, is physical love related to nonphysical love? Erotic love seems very different, not only from friendship and family love, but also from things like the love of reading or the love of justice. Why do we call them all “love”? That is the overarching question addressed in Plato’s “Symposium”, the first philosophical discussion of love known to us. Plato dramatizes a drinking party where each of the participants offers a speech on love. The result is a fascinating attempt to consider several different perspectives (aesthetic, scientific, moral) and develop a theory that unifies sexual desire and spiritual love. We will discuss the different speeches and their significance, and then look at the merits of Plato’s theory.

Joining the VI faculty in 2011, Dr. John Heil has developed a new program in Classics. He previously taught at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas for 13 years. Heil obtained his Ph.D. at University of Texas-Austin, and a B.A. from Emory & Henry. He has published articles, translations, and essays in ancient philosophy. His foremost interest is the classical Greek world and the thinking of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

 

 

Saturday, February 18, 2012 – 7:30 p.m. Harrison-Jones Memorial Hall

The Paramount Chamber Players present “Winter Journey”

The Paramount Chamber Players will present “Winter Journey” featuring the great Piano Quartet in C minor, op. 45, by Gabriel Faure; and, ancient music by Gottfried Finger, Music for the Humors of the Age, another unusual opportunity to hear a rarely-heard historically significant work.

The Paramount Players are a premiere chamber music ensemble in the Tri-Cities, dedicated to “promoting artistic excellence, providing performance opportunity for local chamber artists in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, sharing chamber music with local audiences, and ensuring that chamber music is a vital part of life in our communities.” Ticket prices: $12 for General Admission and $10 for Senior Citizens. This event is Free to VI Faculty, Staff and Students.

 

 

Monday, February 20, 2012 – EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

David Browning performs “From Gettysburg to Mayberry”

 

 

Monday, February 27, 2012 – 7:30 p.m. Nunn Recital Hall

Ofer Wolberger – Photography exhibition with lecture and artist’s reception

New York based artist Ofer Wolberger will exhibit in the Anne Worrell Fine Arts Center from Feb. 27-Mar. 22 an extensive collection of imagery from his creation of loosely related photographic book projects. Opening the exhibit on Feb. 27, Wolberger will speak about his works, with a reception to follow.

Wolberger’s award-winning photographs have been collected and exhibited internationally with recent exhibits in Canada, Sweden, Germany, England and France. In 2010, Wolberger began an ambitious project of creating a series of 12 self-published artist’s books, varying from uniquely subtle and mysterious to poetic and beautiful. Each book typically revolves around a specific subject or theme.

Wolberger received a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography and related media from The School of Visual Arts in New York in 2001. He is the recipient of The Humble Arts Foundation’s Spring 2008 Grant for Emerging Photographers and was a finalist for both the BMW Paris Photo Prize in 2008, as well as the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie in 2009. This year Wolberger was a finalist in The Royal Monceau Photography Competition in Paris.

 

 

Thursday, March 1, 2012 – 7:00 p.m. Nunn Recital Hall

Maurice Manning – poetry reading and discussion.

Maurice Manning was born and raised in Kentucky, and often writes about the land and culture of his home. He was inspired by the lives of his grandmothers, great grandmothers, and a great-great-grandmother, and he grew up listening to stories of his father’s childhood spent on a farm in Eastern Kentucky.

A recipient of Yale Younger Poets Award in 2000 and Fellow of the Fine Arts Works Center in Provincetown, Manning is the author of three collections of poetry: Lawrence Booth’s Book of Vision (Yale University Press), A Companion to Owls: Being the Commonplace Book of D. Boone, Long Hunter, Back Woodsman.%c (Harcourt), and Bucolics (Harcourt). Maurice Manning’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Southern Review, Shenandoah, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other journals and magazines. W.S. Merwin, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry (1971 and 2009) and United States Poet Laureate (2010-2011), praised Manning’s poetry for its “unfaltering audacity equaled by its content; the achievement of a fresh and brilliant talent.”

Much of Maurice Manning’s poetry echoes the early history of Appalachia. A Companion to Owls: Being the Commonplace Book of D. Boone, Long Hunter, Back Woodsman.%c is a fictive poetic memoir or autobiography in the voice of Daniel Bone, and Bucolics is an ironic appropriation of the classical tradition of pastoral poetry in the form of a series of metaphysical conversations between an unnamed, possibly illiterate, farmer, or field hand, and someone he calls “Boss.”

 

 

Thursday, April 19 – Sunday, April 22, 2012 – Thursday – Saturday, April 19 – 21, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 22 at 2:30 p.m. Trayer Theatre

“Lysistrata Wears Prada” Theatre Production

The play, written by theatre professor Bonny Gable, is an adaptation of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, by Aristophanes, in which the women of Athens go on a sex strike in order to entice their husbands to end the Peloponnesian war. This modern adaptation follows a similar plot but with a contemporary futuristic approach. The action is set in the high fashion world with Lysistrata as owner/senior editor of an haute couture magazine. Note: This production contains adult themes and language. Ticket prices: $10 for Adults, $8 for Senior Citizens, and $5 for Students

 

 

All events are free unless otherwise noted. For more information, please contact Will Hankins, convocation director, at (276) 466-7170 or complete this form.