Calendar highlights

'Visual Madness' series explores representations of mental illness

"Visual Madness: Perceptions of Mental Illness in Popular and High Culture," an interdisciplinary lecture and film series complementing the Smart Museum exhibition "Madness in America," continues in May. The series is sponsored by the Film Studies Center and the Smart Museum of Art.

"Visual Madness" includes the screening of four films, each followed by a lecture and discussion. The film series offers a range of perspectives -- psychiatry, cinema, literature and art history -- to explore how films have attempted to define and visually represent madness, a fundamentally "invisible" illness.

Two independent lectures are also offered as part of the series. On Sunday, May 7, Stephanie D'Alessandro, Associate Curator at the Smart Museum, will present "Nature Revealing Herself to Science: Images of Science and Sexual Politics in Fin-de-Siecle France" at 3:30 p.m. in the Cochrane-Woods Art Center, Room 157. "Madness in Shakespeare: Film Perspectives," was presented by Harry Trosman, Professor in Psychiatry, earlier this week.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information about the series, call 7028596 or 7020200.

The films, listed below, will begin at 7 p.m. in the Film Studies Center, Cobb 307. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Wednesday, May 3: Ingeborg Holm (Sweden, 1913, 75 min., silent with piano accompaniment). Victor Sjoestroem's silent classic, followed by a lecture and discussion with Miriam Hansen, Professor in English Language & Literature and Director of the Film Studies Center.

Wednesday, May 10: Titicut Follies (United States, 1967, 84 min.). Frederick Wiseman's landmark "direct cinema" documentary about a psychiatric hospital, followed by a lecture and discussion with Sander Gilman, the Henry R. Luce Professor in Germanic Studies and Psychiatry.

Thursday, May 18: The Snake Pit (United States, 1948, 108 min.). Anatole Litvak's acclaimed realist drama, one of the first Hollywood films to deal with mental illness, starring Olivia de Havilland, followed by a lecture and discussion with Lauren Berlant, Professor in English Language & Literature.

Thursday, May 25: Invisible Adversaries (Austria, 1977, 112 min., in German with English subtitles). The innovative, controversial science fiction feature by independent filmmaker Valie Export, followed by a lecture and discussion with Katie Trumpener, Associate Professor in Germanic Studies. Graduate students' work to be featured in New Music Showcase Chicago and world premieres of works by University graduate students Stacy Garrop, Sebastian Huydts and Ricardo Lorenz will be featured in the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra's New Music Showcase at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 29, in Mandel Hall. Music director Barbara Schubert will conduct.

The concert will open with the Chicago premiere of Ricardo Lorenz's "Entrada Triunfal del Rey Mangoberry," a fanfare for woodwinds, brass, piano and percussion. Works by Lorenz have been performed by orchestras throughout Europe, South America and North America. His Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by Germany's Orchester der Beethovenhalle and was recently performed at Carnegie Hall by the American Composers Orchestra under the baton of Dennis Russell Davis.

The second work in the program will be the world premiere of "SpiritCry" for full orchestra by Stacy Garrop. Before coming to Chicago, Garrop studied composition at the University of Michigan. Her solo clarinet piece "Mutterings of a Wand'ring Soul" received the 1994 Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize.

The concert will also feature Sebastian Huydts' Concerto for Piano and Double String Orchestra, which, according to Huydts, was inspired by his "fascination with the lush sound possibilities of the string orchestra, and the exciting prospects of a musical dialogue between strings and a contrasting solo instrument." Trained as both a composer and a pianist, Huydts will be the piano soloist in this world premiere of his concerto.

Admission to the concert is free, but donations of $4, $2 for students and children, will be requested at the door. Reserved seating is available for $10; to reserve seats, or for more information, call 702-8069. Neighborhood Club benefit April 29 President Sonnenschein and his wife, Elizabeth, will serve as honorary co-chairs of "Carnival on the Midway," a benefit to be held on campus Saturday, April 29, for the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, now in its 86th year.

"Carnival on the Midway" will be held in Hutchinson Commons beginning at 6:30 p.m. The event will include cocktails, dinner, music and dancing, a raffle, and a live auction and a silent auction at which more than 200 items will be offered for bidding.

Tickets are $75 per person. For tickets or more information, call 643-4062.