April Highlights

Michael Anania, “Algren”

Special Collections Research Center
Chicago Poetry Symposium
1-5 p.m. Saturday, April 19

The Special Collections Research Center hopes to open a conversation on Chicago poetry of the past, present and future in the inaugural event. Speakers will include Michael Anania, professor emeritus in English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, author of The Red Menace and a collection of essays entitled In Plain Sight; Devin Johnston, associate professor of English at St. Louis University; and Michael O’Leary, a structural engineer in Chicago. Johnston and O’Leary are the editors and publishers of Flood Editions, an independent and nonprofit press for poetry. The event will feature the papers of Paul Carroll, the Chicago Review, Harriet Monroe and her Poetry: A Magazine of Verse; and others. Free. For more information, visit http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/.
Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St.

	Todd Gray, 7-34-08.5.26.05 (2005), archival pigment print, 21” x 14”

Renaissance Society
“Black Is, Black Ain’t” opening reception
4-7 p.m. Sunday, April 20

Franklin Sirmans, curator of modern and contemporary art in the Menil Collection in Houston, and Hamza Walker, Associate Curator of the Renaissance Society, will speak beginning at 5 p.m. in the opening of the “Black Is, Black Ain’t” exhibition, which runs through Sunday, June 8. The exhibition takes its title from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and explores a shift in the rhetoric of race from an earlier emphasis on inclusion to a present moment where racial identity is being simultaneously rejected and retained. The exhibition will bring together works by more than 15 black and non-black artists, whose work together examines a moment where the cultural production of so-called “blackness” is concurrent with efforts to make race socially and politically irrelevant. Free. For more information, call (773) 702-8670 or visit www.renaissancesociety.org.
Kent Hall, 1020 E. 58th St.

Doc Films
Milcho Manchevski screenings and Q&A
4:30, 8 and 11 p.m. Saturday, April 26

Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski will present and answer questions between screenings of three of his recent films, including Shadows (2007), Dust (2001) and the Oscar-nominated Before the Rain (1994). Shadows, the story of a young physician who seems to have it all, only to change after he suffers a near-fatal crash, will make its U.S. theatrical debut. The film is also the official Macedonian entry to the 2008 Academy Awards. Before the Rain will begin the three-film series at 4:30 p.m., followed by Shadows at 8 and Dust at 11 p.m. Free. For more information, call (773) 702-8574 or visit http://docfilms.uchicago.edu.
Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th St.

Department of Music
University Symphony Orchestra
8 p.m. Saturday, April 26

The Concerto Winners’ Showcase will open with Johann Strauss’ “Overture” to the operetta “Die Fledermaus,” under the baton of guest conductor William White. It will continue with two works by winners of the University’s 2008 concerto competition: Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme,” with Eric Kim, violoncello; and Prokofiev’s “Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-Flat Major,” with soloist An Qi. Barbara Schubert, Music Director, will conduct the concerto performances. Suggested donations are $10, $5 student. For more information, call (773) 702-8484.
Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th St.