iStockphoto

Learn salsa, bachata and Latin dance in a six-week series Wednesdays, June 6-July 11.

Hey Venus

The Fuertes Observatory will be open June 5, 6-8:30 p.m., for a special viewing of Venus crossing, when Venus will pass directly between the sun and Earth in a rare planetary alignment. As observed from Earth, Venus will appear as a small disc slowly passing across the sun, an event known as a transit of Venus (TOV). A TOV has only been seen six times since the early 17th century. More information is available online.

Strut your stuff

Learn salsa, bachata and Latin dance in a six-week series Wednesdays, June 6-July 11, Big Red Barn. Information: http://www.palantetroupe.org/classes or email instructor Michael Luis Ristorucci mlr24@cornell.edu.

Imaginative

The "Collecting Imagination" exhibition lecture will be held June 7 at 4:30 p.m., Milstein Hall Auditorium, with inventor, entrepreneur, collector and curator Jay Walker '77. He will speak about the role of imagination on the occasion of the first comprehensive exhibition of selections from his private Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination, which traces the process of scientific and artistic discovery. Walker is curator of TEDMED, chairman of Walker Digital and founder of Priceline.com. Exhibition runs June 8 to Oct. 29, Kroch Library. A reception follows the lecture in the Hirshland Gallery, Kroch Library.

Scribes

A discussion by librarian Fred Muratori on "Cayuga's Writers: Celebrating Cornell Poets and Fiction Writers," will be held June 8, 1 p.m., at the Olin Library Current Periodicals Reading Room. The display features six Cornell poets, from A.R. Ammons to Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon. Each poet is represented through a poem that takes the physical location of the Cornell campus or its natural surroundings as a vantage point.

Moving

Science Cabaret on "Falling Paper, Flying Insects and Kinetic Mobiles" will be held June 12 at 7 p.m., Lot 10. Physicists Jane Wang and Werner Sun will discuss their fascination with the movement of all things. http://www.sciencecabaret.org

Public lectures

The School of Criticism and Theory will hold a series of public lectures in June and July at 4 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall:

• "The Literary Futures Market," June 19, Amanda Anderson, Johns Hopkins University.
• "Sebald and the Narration of Trauma," June 20, Dominick LaCapra, Cornell's Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies.
• "Modernism, Nihilism, and Belief: 'wrestling with (my God!) my God,'" June 25, John Brenkman, CUNY.
• "The Commons Sense, a Poetics: From Emerson to Spahr," June 26, Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago.
• "On Television: Duration, Endurance, Ethereality," July 9, Amy Villarejo, Cornell.
• "That Which Is Not: Plato, Kant, Sellars," July 9, Ray Brassier, American University of Beirut.
• "Inverse Versus Dialectical Theology: The Two Faces of Negativity and the Miracle of Faith," July 16, Hent de Vries, Johns Hopkins.
• "Before the Revolution," July 17, Rei Terada, University of California-Irvine.
• "Indian Girls in Search of the Party or the Lost Worlds of Indian Communism," July 2, Ania Loomba, University of Pennsylvania.
• "Stimmung of Latency: Cultural Moods after 1945," July 3, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University.
• "Disappearing History: Scenes of Trauma in the Theater of Human Rights (A Reading of Ariel Dorfman's 'Death and the Maiden')," July 23, Cathy Caruth, Cornell.
• "The Language of Lyric." July 24, Jonathan Culler, Cornell's Class of '16 Professor of English.

See http://sct.arts.cornell.edu.

Music! Dance!

The School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions presents performances and lectures:

• Dance, Ahhhhhh: A Festival of Sound, July 3 at 7:30 p.m., Schwartz Center. This performance will explore how the body and voice combust and collide in harmony and disharmony. Be prepared for delightful discoveries as the voice sings with the body and the body moves the voice.
• "The Pirates of Penzance," June 26 and 27, 7 p.m., at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, presented by the Cornell Savoyards.
• Performance by bluegrass band Cornerstone, June 29 at 7 p.m., Arts Quad.
• Zydeco/country band Gumbo Ya Ya, July 6 at 7 p.m., Arts Quad.
• Concert with jazz band Matuto, July 10 at 7:30 p.m., Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
• Lecture, "Lincoln's Emotional Life," with Lincoln biographer Michael Burlingame, July 11 at 7:30 p.m., Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall.
• Gypsy swing band Djug Django, July 13 at 7 p.m., Arts Quad.
• Performance by world music group Epiphany Project, July 17 at 7:30 p.m., Schwartz Center.
• Performance by Top 40 band Radio London, July 20 at 7 p.m., Arts Quad.
• Music: Journey West with Max Buckholtz, July 24 at 7:30 p.m., Schwartz Center. Music from the Middle East and Europe.
• Lecture, Karl Pillemer: "Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest (and Oldest) Americans," July 25 at 7:30 p.m., Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall.
• Latin dance band El Rumbon, July 27 at 7 p.m., Arts Quad.
• Music, Malcolm Bilson and Roger Moseley, July 31, Schwartz Center. Haydn and Mozart.
• Lecture, Steven Strogatz: "Doing Math in Public," Aug. 1, Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall.
• Roots/indie band, The Horse Flies, Aug. 3 at 7 p.m., Arts Quad.

See: http://events.cornell.edu/schwartz_centerhttp://www.sce.cornell.edu/ss/about/events.