Creative community

Cornell's Creative Writing Program sponsors a community reading by 17 local poets and fiction writers, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Community School of Music and Art, 330 E. State St., Ithaca.

Writers to be featured include Cornell English faculty members Helena Maria Viramontes, Ernesto Quiñonez, Daniel Schwarz and Lamar Herrin; alumni Tea Olbrecht, M.F.A. '09; Emily Rosko, M.F.A. '03; Edward Hower '63, and Epoch poetry editor Nancy Viera Couto, M.F.A. '80; Ithaca City of Asylum 2008 Writer-in-Residence Irakli Kakabadze; and local writers Catherine Taylor, Kate Sullivan, Matt Grice, Nicholas Kowalczyk, Jamie Warburton, Sarah Scoles, Christopher Kempf and Ingrid Arneson.

On Nov. 5 at 4:30 p.m., Sana Krasikov '01, Rattawut Lapcharoensap '01 and Angela Shaw, M.F.A. '95, will give a Centennial Reading in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.

Readings are free and open to the public. Information: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/creative/.

Looking back, and forward

Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center hosts a 40th anniversary symposium, "Looking Back/Moving Forward: Origins and Institutionalization of the Africana/Black Studies Movement," Oct. 30 from 2 to 4 p.m. A reception will follow in the ASRC Multipurpose Room.

Speakers are Noliwe Rooks, of Princeton University's Center of African American Studies, and Fabio Rojas, an Indiana University sociologist. Participants from Cornell are Carol Boyce Davies, James Turner and Robert Harris; Riché Richardson will moderate. Free and open to the public. Information: http://asrc.cornell.edu/.

Computing the future

Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, will visit Cornell Nov. 2 for a talk, "Rethinking Computing," at 4 p.m. in 101 Phillips Hall. Doors open at 3:45 p.m.

Mundie will discuss how software and information technology can help solve pressing global challenges and will demonstrate technologies that show how computer science is changing scientific exploration and discovery. Information: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/.

West Coast jazz

The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra will perform Nov. 4 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall. Tickets are $28 general, $25 for Cornell faculty and staff and $12 for students; available at http://www.baileytickets.com, at Ticket Center Ithaca, 171 The Commons; or by calling 607-273-4497.

The 20-member big band from Los Angeles includes co-leaders John Clayton on bass, his brother Jeff Clayton on saxophone and Jeff Hamilton on drums. They formed the band in 1986, have gone on to record six albums and serve as resident orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl. They were featured in Jazz at Lincoln Center's "Big Band Bash" last season, playing alongside Wynton Marsalis' orchestra.

Video vanguard

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is showing "Omer Fast: Looking Pretty for God (After G. W.)" through Jan. 24.

In his video works, Fast ties together multiple factual and fictional narratives. In "Looking Pretty for God," he overlays footage from a children's fashion photo shoot with interviews with funeral directors, and relates the two industries by emphasizing their involvement in the construction of images.

Fast's work was included in the 2002 and 2008 Whitney Biennials, and he is one of 10 artists commissioned to perform at Performa 09, a biennial of new visual art performance, in New York this November.

Curator Andrea Inselmann will lead a tour of the exhibition Nov. 5 at noon, and Fast will lecture about his work Nov. 23 at 5:15 p.m. at the museum; both are free and open to the public. Information: http://museum.cornell.edu.

Alumni filmmaker visits

Suman Ghosh, Ph.D. '02, will present two of his films on campus Nov. 6.

Ghosh teaches economics at Florida State University and is a film writer-director-producer with two recent Bengali feature films in global distribution. He received his film training in the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance while completing his Cornell doctoral degree in economics.

His documentary "Amartya Sen: A Life Reexamined" (2003), about the life and work of the celebrated economist and only living Nobel Laureate from India, was produced in consultation with Cornell economics professor Kaushik Basu. Basu will introduce the film with Ghosh at noon in the Asian Studies lounge, 374 Rockefeller Hall.

"Dwando (Conflict)" will screen at 7 p.m. in Cornell Cinema's Willard Straight Theatre. "Dwando" concerns a neurosurgeon and his actress daughter struggling to make a critical ethical decision. Information: http://www.dwandothefilm.com/.

Messenger Lectures

George Bass, professor emeritus of anthropology at Texas A&M University, will present three talks in the Messenger Lecture Series, Nov. 2-4.

His topic Nov. 2 is "The Birth of Nautical Archaeology." Bass will also discuss "Early Mediterranean Seafaring" Nov. 3 and "A Medieval Puzzle: The Glass Wreck at Serce Limani" Nov. 4.

Lectures are open to the public and begin at 5 p.m. each day in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Information on Bass: http://nautarch.tamu.edu/academic/FACULTY/bass.shtml.