Michael Thomas Roman

Cornell Cinema returns to Sage Chapel Sept. 29 with a free program of works by animator Lawrence Jordan.

Provided/Cornell University Library

Banned Books Week activities include a ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ public reading Oct. 2 at Olin Library.

'Two Journeys'

Two Cornell authors discuss their books about former slaves in “From Slavery to Cornell: Two Journeys,” Sept. 25 at 12:15 p.m. in 105 Ives Hall. The program is free and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to bring a lunch.

Former National Labor Relations Board Chairman William B. Gould, LLB ’61, is the author of “Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor,” based on his great-grandfather’s diary. Cornell’s Kevin Clermont, the Robert D. Ziff Professor of Law, wrote “Indomitable George Washington Fields: Slave to Attorney,” about Cornell’s first African-American graduate.

Moderated by Kevin Gaines, the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Africana Studies, the discussion is sponsored by the Law School and the ILR School.

Gould recently donated papers from his 1994 to 1998 labor board chairmanship to the ILR School’s Kheel Center. Currently chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and Stanford Law School’s Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law Emeritus, he is a scholar of U.S. labor law, workplace racial discrimination and workplace conflict resolution procedures.

Total eclipse

The Cornell Astronomical Society hosts a viewing night (weather permitting) for the total lunar eclipse Sunday, Sept. 27, from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Fuertes Observatory on North Campus. Free and open to the public.

The eclipse begins around 8:15 p.m. and ends at 1:22 a.m. Sept. 28. The moon will be furthest into the Earth’s shadow (totally eclipsed) at 10:48 p.m. Between 10:11 and 11:23 p.m., it will appear completely red in color.

The society holds regular viewing hours at the observatory on Friday evenings when skies are clear. For updates, call 607-255-3557.

Banned Books Week

Cornell University Library is marking Banned Books Week (Sept. 27-Oct. 3) with a public reading of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ‘44’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” which frequently appears on lists of banned or challenged books.

The “Slaughterhouse-Five” read-a-thon is Friday, Oct. 2 in Olin Library’s main lobby, beginning at 10 a.m. and ending about 4 p.m. Vonnegut’s anti-war novel is the 2015 New Student Reading Project selection at Cornell and the focus of a community read organized by Tompkins County Public Library.

During the reading Oct. 2, students can make their own Banned Book Week buttons; and all week from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, take mugshot-style selfies holding their favorite banned books at a display set up in Olin Library. Photos can be posted on social media with the hashtag #CaughtReadingatCornell or emailed to libcomm@cornell.edu for posting on digital signs in the library.

O’Donnell book launch

Caroline O’Donnell, the Edgar A. Tafel Assistant Professor of Architecture, is releasing her first book, “Niche Tactics: Generative Relationships between Architecture and Site” with an event Sept. 28 at 5 p.m. in L.P. Kwee Studios on Milstein Hall’s second floor.

O’Donnell correlates architecture and site with the relationship between an organism and its environment, and presents a series of historical case studies in the book, which also explores ecology, film, language, jokes and animal morphology as contexts for creating a language for architecture today. The book launch event will feature responses to individual chapters by O’Donnell and colleagues Catherine Ingraham, Greg Keeffe, Val Warke and Mark Morris.

Books will be available for purchase and signing. O’Donnell is director of the professional Master of Architecture program, faculty editor of the Cornell Journal of Architecture and founding principal of the design studio CODA.

The event is cosponsored by the Fine Arts Library as part of Cornell University Library’s Chats in the Stacks series, and the College of Architecture, Art and Planning.

Surreal animation

Cornell Cinema presents a program of five recent short films by experimental animator Lawrence Jordan in Sage Chapel, “Beyond Enchantment,” Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free. 

Influenced by Max Ernst and Joseph Cornell (Jordan worked with Cornell and finished some of the artist’s films), Jordan is known for collaging cutouts of Victorian engravings into meticulously crafted and imaginative films evoking the world of “Alice in Wonderland” and other surrealist works. The program features “Blue Skies Beyond the Looking Glass,” with silent film stars including Buster Keaton and Lillian Gish; “Beyond Enchantment,” wherein Victorian women encounter science and natural phenomena; and “Cosmic Alchemy,” with magnificent color images of ancient star maps. The program is part of the Animation Specials series this semester.

Also at Cornell Cinema: Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre, film scholar Scott MacDonald discusses a transformative decade in cinema studies and screens three seminal experimental films: Stan Brakhage’s “The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes,” Ernie Gehr’s “Serene Velocity” and Larry Gottheim’s “Barn Rushes.”

MacDonald’s new book “Binghamton Babylon” documents the emergence of a cinema department at SUNY Binghamton (now Binghamton University) between 1967 and 1977. Department faculty, students and visiting artists produced a remarkable body of work – including Nicholas Ray’s final film, “We Can’t Go Home Again” – and went on to influence the American media scene for the next half-century.

Both programs are cosponsored with the Cornell Council for the Arts.

'Made in Chicago'

Jazz legend Jack DeJohnette’s “Made in Chicago” free jazz collective opens the Cornell Concert Series (CCS) 2015-16 season, Sunday, Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall. Tickets are $28, $18 for students, available at BaileyTickets.com.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, DeJohnette and company recreate the spirit of the free-jazz movement that originated in 1960s Chicago. The quintet includes Muhal Richard Abrams on piano; DeJohnette on drums; Larry Gray on cello and bass; Roscoe Mitchell on saxophone and bass recorder; and Henry Threadgill on alto sax, flute and bass flute.

Before the concert, an interview and Q&A with DeJohnette is free and open to the public Oct. 3 at 1:30 p.m. in B20 Lincoln Hall, followed by a jazz piano master class at 3 p.m. with Abrams.

The Cornell Concert Series season includes classical duo Steven Isserlis and Robert Levin, Oct. 27; concert pianist Emanuel Ax, Nov. 6; pianist Sara Davis Buechner, Feb. 10; the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with baritone Christian Gerhaher, Feb. 26; and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, March 11.

Various season subscription packages are still available and single tickets for any show in the CCS season can be purchased online without fees until Sept. 30, after which a $2 per ticket service fee will apply.