A century ago, the world faced a global health crisis that in many ways parallels the present-day challenges we face during the COVID-19 pandemic. This Thursday Forum offers historical perspective and insights on the current public health crisis by providing an overview of the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, which erupted amidst the already-significant suffering and destruction of World War I. This two-session forum will begin with an overview of the origins, diffusion, mitigation, and impacts of the 1918 influenza outbreak. We will look into how the disease developed and spread, examining the pandemic from a global perspective. The presentation will consider the medical understanding of the disease and attempts to counter it, as well as the social and cultural factors that determined its evolution and treatment. The second forum will examine how the outbreak played out in Cedar Rapids, comparing and contrasting the experience of students at Coe and townspeople in the area. Through use of historical archival and newspaper sources, we will recreate the situation in eastern Iowa and evaluate the impact that the war, gender, and class had on healthcare and survival. This examination will be tied together with a look into the life and legend of Helen Roberts, the only Coe student to die in the epidemic and who is now alleged to haunt Voorhees Hall.
The virtual event will be found at
https://www.coe.edu/why-coe/events/thursday-forum
Join us for the 2020 Bette R. Spriestersbach Endowed Lectureship
Featuring Roberto Lugo, American artist, ceramicist, social activist, spoken word poet, and educator.
The artist will join us Thursday, October 29 for a Q&A discussion via Zoom: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/97930193356
We encourage you to mark your calendars and view his talk in advance.
Roberto Lugo is an American artist, ceramicist, social activist, spoken word poet, and educator. Lugo uses porcelain as his medium of choice, illuminating its aristocratic surface with imagery of poverty, inequality, and social and racial injustice. Lugo’s works are multicultural mash-ups, traditional European and Asian porcelain forms and techniques reimagined with a 21st-century street sensibility. Their hand-painted surfaces feature classic decorative patterns and motifs combined with elements of modern urban graffiti and portraits of faces historically absent on this type of luxury item—people like Sojourner Truth, Dr. Cornel West, and The Notorious BIG—as well as Lugo’s family members and, very often, himself. Lugo holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Penn State University. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, among others. He is the recipient of numerous awards, most recently a 2019 Pew Fellowship, a Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize, and a US Artist Award. His work is found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Brooklyn Museum, the Walters Art Museum, and more. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art and Architecture.
Stanley Reads puts the museum’s recent exhibitions in conversation with literature. This fall we will consider Follow Her Lead in relation to Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Both the exhibition and novel focus on women and motherhood across time and geography. During each meeting of the book club, we will pair artwork from the exhibition with chapters from the book to connect deeply with the themes and expand our understanding of the objects and the story.
Stanley Reads is led by Kimberly Datchuk, curator of learning & engagement and is presented in partnership with Prairie Lights Books.
Homegoing begins in Ghana in the eighteenth century. It follows the lives of two half-sisters and eight generations of their descendants, those who endured enslavement in America and those who remained in Africa. The powerful story shows the deep and lasting effects of slavery.
Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Homegoing won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the NBCC’s John Leonard Award. It is Gyasi’s first novel.
Register for Stanley Reads: https://uiowa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3VR83aPIweoUmHz.
Once registered, you will receive invitations to all Stanley Reads events.
Registration will cut off at noon the Friday preceding each event. Anyone registered after that will be added to the following meeting.
September 19
- “Effia” (pp. 1–26)
- “Esi” (pp.27–48)
October 3
- “Quey” (pp. 49–86)
- “James” (pp. 87–109)
October 17
- “Kojo” (pp. 110–131)
- “Abena” (pp. 132–152)
October 31 (Led by Derek Nnuro)
- “H” (pp. 155–175)
- “Akua” (pp. 176–197)
November 14
- “Willie” (pp. 198–220)
- “Yaw” (pp. 221–241)
December 5
- “Sonny” (pp. 242–262)
- “Marjorie” (pp. 263–282)
- “Marcus” (pp. 283–299)
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the SMA in advance at 319-335-1727.
Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning are two of the most well-known and groundbreaking American abstract painters. Friends and competitors, they jockeyed for position to be the most important American artist of the century. Find out how Pollock and De Kooning pushed twentieth-century American painting (and each other) in daring new directions. Kimberly Datchuk, curator of learning & engagement leads the discussion.
Join us on Zoom: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/98230324908
Saturdays at the Stanley brings the museum’s collection to you in a casual, fun, and interactive atmosphere. Each event has a theme – game day, frenemies, cats – that looks at our artwork from a different perspective. Curators lead visitors through a selection of works, share stories about the artists and subject matter, and open the discussion up to the audience. We invite visitors of all ages to participate in these conversations and get (re)acquainted with our collection as we look forward to the opening of our new building!
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the SMA in advance at 319-335-1727.
Terry Conrad, UI assistant professor and program head of printmaking, and Iowa Print Media Faculty Fellow, will discuss his new prints and their ecological connections.
Join us on Zoom: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/97332945281
smART talks highlights work of faculty and graduate students at the University of Iowa. It connects their recent research and art to the Stanley’s permanent collection. Join us for a conversation filled with art, discovery, and community.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the SMA in advance at 319-335-1727.
Stanley Reads puts the museum’s recent exhibitions in conversation with literature. This fall we will consider Follow Her Lead in relation to Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Both the exhibition and novel focus on women and motherhood across time and geography. During each meeting of the book club, we will pair artwork from the exhibition with chapters from the book to connect deeply with the themes and expand our understanding of the objects and the story.
Stanley Reads is led by Kimberly Datchuk, curator of learning & engagement and is presented in partnership with Prairie Lights Books.
Homegoing begins in Ghana in the eighteenth century. It follows the lives of two half-sisters and eight generations of their descendants, those who endured enslavement in America and those who remained in Africa. The powerful story shows the deep and lasting effects of slavery.
Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Homegoing won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the NBCC’s John Leonard Award. It is Gyasi’s first novel.
Register for Stanley Reads: https://uiowa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3VR83aPIweoUmHz.
Once registered, you will receive invitations to all Stanley Reads events.
Registration will cut off at noon the Friday preceding each event. Anyone registered after that will be added to the following meeting.
September 19
- “Effia” (pp. 1–26)
- “Esi” (pp.27–48)
October 3
- “Quey” (pp. 49–86)
- “James” (pp. 87–109)
October 17
- “Kojo” (pp. 110–131)
- “Abena” (pp. 132–152)
October 31 (Led by Derek Nnuro)
- “H” (pp. 155–175)
- “Akua” (pp. 176–197)
November 14
- “Willie” (pp. 198–220)
- “Yaw” (pp. 221–241)
December 5
- “Sonny” (pp. 242–262)
- “Marjorie” (pp. 263–282)
- “Marcus” (pp. 283–299)
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the SMA in advance at 319-335-1727.
