Inside Iowa State

September 9, 2005

Creativity nurtured in year-long lecture series

by Dan Kuester

Nurturing creativity is the subject of a year-long lecture series sponsored by the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities. Brenda Daly, interim center director, said the purpose of the series is to improve on the already-great faculty at ISU.

"The creative faculty already exists here at Iowa State," Daly said. "We just hope to cultivate it with this series."

"Cultivating the Creative Faculty" welcomes presenters from on and off campus to engage the ISU community in a conversation about creativity.

"We want to have a series that looks in two directions," Daly said, "both inside and outside the university."

David Bleich, professor of English at the University of Rochester, will speak on "The Repression of Language in the University" at 8 p.m. Sept. 22 in the Memorial Union Campanile Room. Bleich's research interests are language use, literature and literacy.

One of the headline events of the lecture series is planned for Oct. 13-15 in the Memorial Union. The event, titled "Breaking the Creative Barrier: The Arts and Sciences in Collabo-ration," will bring together top thinkers to discuss bridging barriers that separate arts and sciences. The symposium begins with a keynote address Oct. 13 by Arthur Miller, University College of London. Discussions and lectures will be held throughout Friday and Saturday.

Other highlights include:

• Oct. 27, "How to Make Yourself Disappear: A Meditation on Our Selves and Our Brains." William Robinson, ISU philosophy, has an international reputation as a philosophy-of-mind scholar. His most recent major work is "Understanding Phenomenal Consciousness," published in May.
• Nov. 10, "The Creative Campus: Who's No. 1?" Steven Tepper, Vanderbilt University, will explain how to evaluate the climate for creativity on campus and lead an audience discussion on the topic.
• Nov. 30, "The Kongo South: Roots of Black Dance, Gesture and Music," by Robert Farris Thompson, Yale University.
• Feb. 19, "Dance and Genomes" (lecture and performance), with Liz Lerman, choreographer, performer, writer, educator, author and speaker.
• April 6, "The Concert that Fell Asleep and Woke Up as a Car Radio." Libby Larsen, composer, examines how innovations in transportation and communications have influenced how our culture perceives classical music.

"The creative faculty already exists here at Iowa State. We just hope to cultivate it with this series."

Brenda Daly, Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities interim director