Upcoming events at Monmouth College
Baugh art exhibit now on display; Haq to speak about Ira Smolensky; Bradley's Fuller to give talk on American religion
Monmouth, IL (10/04/2018) —
Monmouth collage exhibit the work of art professor Stephanie Baugh
"Objects & Experience," a collection of 36 collage pieces by Monmouth College art professor Stephanie Baugh, is on display in the College's Len G. Everett Gallery in Hewes Library through Nov. 2.
On the final day of the exhibit, there will be a reception for Baugh at 3 p.m. She will speak about her works at 3:30 p.m. The exhibit, reception and gallery talk are all free and open to the public.
"My collage panels are expressions of self - documenting, in a non-literal way, my reflections on experiences, memories and conditions of consciousness," said Baugh, who began teaching at Monmouth in 2006. She was promoted to assistant professor two years ago.
"I rely on associative thinking and aesthetic cues when selecting and assembling imagery," she said. "Despite recognizable imagery, I consider these works to be abstractions - their creation is motivated by very specific attitudes or questions, but the presentation is suggestive rather than representational."
Baugh said the collages can be categorized primarily into three different styles - narrative, calligraphic and expanded-image.
Of the latter type, which features interlocking images and is seen on the largest and mid-sized panels in the exhibit, Baugh said, "These pieces are designed to be visually challenging to read. The style is an attempt to create works that require such a high level of attentiveness and effort to see that they necessitate that the viewers, including myself, be in the present - absorbed in the act of looking - rather than drawn into reverie, recollection or expectancy."
While Baugh's collages can be found on the walls of the Everett Gallery, a collection of chairs takes up the center of the space.
"The chairs are included in this exhibition as a signal to consider the gallery space as something other than a neutral box for displaying art," said Baugh. "The chairs, along with the subdued lighting, are intended to encourage visitors to linger, to pause, to rest - rather than only to walk the perimeter of the room, view the works in a linear fashion, and then leave. Visitors are free to move chairs to a new location within the gallery if it makes time spent in this space more comfortable, peaceful or contemplative."
Baugh, who also directs "Introduction to Liberal Arts," the College's first-year Integrated Studies course, completed her undergraduate education at the University of Montevallo in Alabama. She holds a master of education degree from the University of Georgia and a master of fine arts degree from Goddard College.
Monmouth's Haq to speak Oct. 6 about Smolensky as part of Great Lectures Series
Some of the talks in Monmouth College's new Great Lectures Series are repeat performances of classroom sessions. But the next lecture in the series, which will be delivered Oct. 6 by Monmouth political science professor Farhat Haq, will be a premiere and a tribute.
At 10 a.m. in the Pattee Auditorium of the Center for Science and Business, Haq will speak about her late department colleague Ira Smolensky, who died March 1 at the age of 69.
"One of the deepest of human desires is to be accepted for who we are - to be recognized and appreciated as a whole person, with the talents, challenges, potentialities and quirks that make us individuals," said Haq. "During his 33 years of service at Monmouth College, Ira never failed to seek out, to value and to delight in the individuality of all those he interacted with. This was a gift he gave to hundreds of students over the years - his non-judgmental respect."
Haq said the lecture's title, "Ira Smolensky and the Meaning of Living a Virtuous Life," is a reference to the 2004 book Character Strengths and Virtues by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman.
"Peterson and Seligman present readers with six virtues that all human beings should strive towards: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence," she said.
Haq will discuss how Smolensky's life exemplified those six virtues. By relying on her recollections, narratives by students who became his friends, and his family's contribution on the meaning of baseball for Ira, Haq hopes to illustrate how following Smolensky's example "can make us better human beings, better teachers and better citizens."
"Ira enriched the lives of generations of students, as was abundantly clear from the scores of stories shared by those who gathered, in Monmouth or online, to comfort one another upon his passing earlier this year," she said.
Following her talk, there will be an opportunity to share more of those stories at an 11:30 a.m. gathering in the Wallace Hall lobby.
Haq received her bachelor's degree from State University of New York-Fredonia and her Ph.D. from Cornell University. In what he called one of his proudest moments, Smolensky said he had the foresight to see that Haq could be a good fit for Monmouth, which led to her being hired in 1987 to teach political science.
The author of several articles, Haq is in the process of publishing her first book, Blasphemy Politics: Sacral State and Secular Sharia in Pakistan.
Acclaimed religion professor to deliver guest lecture Oct. 9 at Monmouth College
An authority on American religious thought will discuss what he calls "the fastest-growing segment of American religion" during a guest lecture at Monmouth College.
Bradley University religious studies professor Robert Fuller will deliver the talk at 4 p.m. Oct. 9 in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall. Free and open to the public, the talk is titled "Becoming Spiritual, But Not Religious: A Glimpse into the Fastest-Growing Segment of American Religion."
Increasing numbers of Americans - particularly among the millennial generation - are pursuing spiritual journeys outside of formal religious institutions, says Fuller.
"What do we know about them, their characteristic beliefs and their characteristic moral outlook?" he asks. "Choosing to be spiritual, but not religious, is deeply rooted in American history and appears to have a viable future in the 21st century."
The author of more than a dozen books, Fuller has received national and international acclaim for the compelling manner in which he ties concepts of religion with the social sciences. A Caterpillar Professor of Religious Studies at Bradley, where he has taught for more than 40 years, Fuller has earned the Samuel Rothberg Professional Excellence Award and the Charles M. Putnam Award for Teaching Excellence.
"Of all the events taking place this semester, this is the one that I am looking forward to the most," said Monmouth philosophy and religious studies professor Ermine Algaier, who organized the event. "I have been reading Bob's work for many years and am utterly delighted that our students, as well as the Monmouth community, can spend time with such a prolific and insightful scholar of American cultural history, psychology and religion."
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