Lectures

	Steve Almond public reading / discussion Tue, Jun 15, 6:30pm Free at The Center, Ketchum Steve Almond is the author of the story collections My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B.B. Chow, the novel Which Brings Me to You, and the non-fiction books Candy Freaks and (Not That You Asked). His latest book, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, was just released.
	Reading by Steve Almond workshop participants Thu, Jun 17, 6:30pm Free at The Center, Hailey
photo: Beowolf Sheehan	SIR SALMAN RUSHDIE NEW DATE & TIME: Fri, Sept 10, 6pm Sun Valley Pavilion, Sun Valley • Buy Tickets Raised in India and Pakistan and educated in England, Sir Salman Rushdie is one of the most celebrated and controversial authors and critics of our time. His novel The Satanic Verses provoked a fatwa (religious edict) by Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his death, as a result of which he spent nearly a decade “underground,” seldom appearing in public. A leading proponent for free speech, Rushdie was knighted by the British Government in 2007. Lecture Sponsors Martine and Dan Drackett, Wodecroft Foundation Judith and Richard Smooke A part of the Fall / Winter Lecture Series 2009-2010 The series in generously sponsored in part by Gail & Jack Thornton and the Waxenberg Wolfson Family foundations.
	Ira Glass Sat, Sep 25, 6:30pm • The Community Campus, Hailey Tickets will be available late summer Ira Glass began his career as an intern at National Public Radio’s Washington, D.C., headquarters in 1978. Today he is the host and producer of This American Life, a program that each week chooses a theme and puts together different kinds of stories on that theme. The show is heard on 500 radio stations and, most weeks, is the most popular podcast in America. Under Glass’s direction, This American Life has won the highest honors of broadcasting and journalistic excellence, including several Peabody and DuPont-Columbia awards. Media sponsor: Boise State Radio
	Maude Barlow as a part of the multidisciplinary project Water Thu, Nov 4, 6:30pm • Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum Tickets will be available late summer Maude Barlow is an international leader in what she has dubbed the “global water justice movement” and is the founder of the Blue Planet Project, which argues that water is a basic right and not a commodity. In 2008/2009, she served as senior adviser on water to the president of the United Nations General Assembly. Her books include Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World’s Water and the recently released Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. She has received honorary doctorates from four Canadian universities for her social justice work and is the recipient of numerous educational awards including a Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship and the 2005 Right Livelihood Award (known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”).
	Neil deGrasse Tyson as a part of the multidisciplinary project Cosmic: Artists Consider Astronomy Wed, Nov 17, 6:30pm • Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum Tickets will be available late summer Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and author of the New York Times bestselling book Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries. He is the host of PBS’s NOVA scienceNOW, co-host of the radio show Star Talk, the most frequent guest on The Colbert Report (as of now, he’s appeared seven times), a regular contributor to Natural History, and recipient of NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal. His groundbreaking work has helped to encourage and popularize scientific discussions and research—and to earn him the honor of being called the “Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive” by People magazine.

Blaine County teachers may reserve one free ticket to one of the lectures in the series.
Please call The Center to reserve your ticket.

Past

2010

	JOHN LEHMAN on the Role of Surveillance in National Security as part of the multidisciplinary project I Spy: Surveillance and Security Thu, Apr 1, 7pm The Center, Ketchum (this lecture is NOT a part of the Winter Lecture Series) John Lehman is currently Chairman of J.F. Lehman & Company, a private equity investment firm. During the Reagan Administration, Lehman served for six years as Secretary of the Navy. He was president of Abington Corporation between 1977 and 1981 and served 25 years in the naval reserve. Lehman was a staff member to Dr. Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council, as delegate to the Force Reductions Negotiations in Vienna and as Deputy Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Dr. Lehman served as a member of the 9/11 Commission. He is also an Advisory Board member of the Partnership for a Secure America, a non-profit dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. The Center has invited Dr. Lehman to share his perspective on the importance of security and the role that surveillance plays in the post 9/11 world.
	DONNA SHALALA Mon, Mar 22, 7pm Church of the Bigwood, Ketchum From 1993 to 2000, Donna Shalala served as President Clinton’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. In 2008, President Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. She served as co-chair of the Commission on Care for Wounded Warriors and is currently president of the University of Miami as well as a leading voice in the current health care debate. Lecture Sponsors Richard Carr and Jeanne Meyers A part of the Fall / Winter Lecture Series 2009-2010 The series in generously sponsored in part by Gail & Jack Thornton and the Waxenberg Wolfson Family foundations.
	FREDERICK LANE as part of the multidisciplinary project I Spy: Surveillance and Security Wed, Mar 10, 7pm NexStage Theatre, Ketchum • $10 / $15 nonmembers (this lecture is NOT a part of the Winter Lecture Series) From social networking and government surveillance to sexting and cyberporn, attorney and technology expert Frederick Lane takes a hard look at the rapidly evolving world of computers, privacy and free speech. The author of five books, Lane is a frequent guest on national television programs and a popular lecturer at universities and organizations across the country.
	ROXANA SABERI Thursday, January 7, 7pm $20 / $30 non-members • SOLD OUT Church of the Bigwood, Ketchum While working as a freelance journalist in Tehran in January 2009, Roxana Saberi became the center of international attention when she was accused of spying for the United States and sentenced to eight years in jail. She spent 100 days in prison before she was able to appeal her case and was eventually released by President Ahmadinejad.

---

2009

	David Sedaris Sunday, October 25, 7pm Limelight Room, Sun Valley $30 / $40 non-members - SOLD OUT NPR humorist and best selling author David Sedaris is one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers. He is the author of the bestselling collections of personal essays Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Time Out New York raves, “David Sedaris just may be the funniest man alive.” And, he’s even funnier when he reads his material out loud. JPC – Pre-Lecture Reception at the Bar at the Sun Valley Inn - 5:30pm Lecture Sponsors Martine and Dan Drackett, Wodecroft Foundation Rebekah and Larry Helzel Media Sponsor: Boise State Radio
	Junot Díaz Friday, November 20, 7pm $20 / $30 non-members • there will be a few tickets available at the door Church of the Bigwood, Ketchum “Hip, irreverent, funny, and above all, fiercely intelligent” and one of The New Yorker’s 20 top writers for the 21st century, Junot Díaz won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his “astoundingly great” (Time) debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Born in the Dominican Republic, Díaz draws heavily on his own experience of American culture as an immigrant. He teaches creative writing at MIT and is the fiction editor at the Boston Review. JPC Book Discussion as a lead up to Junot Diaz' lecture Thursday, November 12 at 6:30pm at Iconoclast Books, Ketchum Junior Patrons Circle members are invited to come discuss The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. (Iconoclast Books is offering 10% off all lecture series books to JPC members and 10% of Junot Diaz's book for those attending this book discussion.)
	LECTURE for Prospects Exhibition: Julie Weston, The Good Times Are All Gone Now Thu, Nov 5, 7pm The Center, Ketchum • Free What happens to a mining town after the mines are gone? Hailey resident Julie Weston has written a memoir, The Good Times Are All Gone Now, about growing up in the once rowdy mining town of Kellogg, Idaho. Her story starts the day the smokestack comes down and looks back into collective and personal memory to understand a way of life that is now over.
	Women Artists and Modernism in the United States - a talk by Courtney Gilbert & Kristin Poole Thu, Sep 17, 7pm The Center, Ketchum • Free of charge Two short lectures on different aspects of the modern art movement in conjunction with The Center’s current exhibition, Modern Parallels: The Paintings of Mary Henry and Helen Lundeberg. Kristin Poole, The Center’s Artistic Director, will start off the evening with a presentation on women who helped shape the modern art movement in the US. During the second half of the evening Courtney Gilbert, The Center’s Curator of Visual Arts, will trace the history of geometric abstraction, beginning with Russian Constructivism in the 1920s to Op Art in the 1960s. Of the evening, Poole says “this will be a fun, quick and dirty review of the most spirited and fast paced century in art history. Abstract art poses a challenge for many people. Understanding how the art world got to abstraction is much of the history of modernism. These two lectures should be interesting for both the curious as well as those well schooled in the history of art. Because we are focusing on women, there promises to be artists that are new for almost everyone.”
	The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World Mon, Aug 10, NEW TIME 4pm The Community Library, Ketchum Free Jacqueline Novogratz’s recent memoir, The Blue Sweater, tells the inspiring story of a woman who left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand and address global poverty. Through stories both hilarious and heartbreaking (including the titular one of her encountering a Rwandan boy wearing a sweater she gave away years earlier), she shares how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called “patient capital”—an approach exemplified by Acumen Fund, the nonprofit global venture fund she founded—can help make people self-sufficient and change millions of lives.
	The Contemporary Portrait: A Lecture with Jan Aronson Thu, July 9, 7pm at The Center, Ketchum, Free Jan Aronson is an artist whose work concentrates on the natural world but her interest in portraiture has also been a major force in her art. Aronson’s study of The Contemporary Portrait has revealed fascinating approaches to this enduring form of painting and her insights come from a lifetime of making and looking at art.
	Fiction Workshop Reading Fri, June 12, 6pm at The Center, Hailey, Free Students at The Center’s fourth annual writers workshop will read samples of their work. Please join us in celebrating local talent and hearing new voices in fiction.
	A Reading by Brady Udall Thu, June 11, 7pm at The Center, Ketchum, Free Celebrated author Brady Udall will be in the Valley to teach a fiction workshop for The Center. While here, he will read from his newest work. Udall is best known for The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (2001),which has been favorably compared with the work of John Irving and Charles Dickens (although Brady says his biggest influence is Mark Twain: “There has never been a funnier writer, and yet very few have possessed a darker view of human existence.”). He has also published a book of short stories, Letting Loose the Hounds, and has been featured on This American Life.
	Panel Discussion on Media and the Election Mon, Feb 9, 7pm NexStage Theatre, Ketchum $15 / $20 non-members The elections are over, and this election is being touted as different from any previous election. Join journalists as they discuss how the media covered the election and how that affected people’s decisions. Panelists include The Nation’s Net Movement Correspondent, Ari Melber; the Los Angeles Times’ Political Reporter, Mark Barabak; from CNBC, Julia Boorstin; and will be moderated by former CBS and FoxNews President Van Gordon Sauter.
	Exploring Contemporary Feminism with Amy Richards Wed, Feb 18, 7pm The Center, Ketchum Free Amy Richards is the author of Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation, and the person behind “Ask Amy,” an online activist column located at www.feminist.com
	Getting Green Done with Auden Schendler Thu, Feb 19, 6pm Community Library, Ketchum In his book, coming out February 23, Auden Schendler states, “We need fewer visionaries, and more grunts. It's time to make stuff happen.” Schendler, a sustainability foot soldier with 15 years in the trenches (and currently the Executive Director of Sustainability for Aspen Skiing Company), shows the way in this witty, human and contrarian presentation. Presented in coordination with The Community Library
	Coleman Barks Reads the Poetry of Rumi Mon, Feb 23, 6:30–8:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum Barks is the most highly recognized translator of Rumi's poetry. His reading will be accompanied by music from world-famous cellist David Darling and sacred dance by Hafizullah Chisti, a Whirling Dervish from the Sufi order established by Rumi's followers in the 13th century. This performance is collaboration between A Winter Feast for the Soul and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.
	Panel on Farming in the 21st Century Thu, Apr 16, 7pm Community Library, Free A group of Idaho farmers will discuss current trends in farming that affect both producers and consumers. Join this group of experts to learn more about what is happening in our state and continue the discussion begun by Michael Pollan when he spoke here last fall.
	Move Beyond “Green” in Your Home with Peggy Bates Thu, Jan 22, 7pm The Center, Ketchum Free The surge of the green building movement warrants taking a closer look at what “green” really means. Peggy Bates will show examples of eco-conscious architecture from around the world and outline the differences between green trends and deep changes.
	At Home with Gloria Steinem a part of the multidisciplinary Domestic Life Wed, Jan 14, 7pm • Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum A devoted activist and writer, Gloria Steinem is undeniably one of the most important voices of the modern feminist movement. Lecture sponsors: Jeri Waxenberg, Jack & Gail Thornton

---

2008

© photo: Stephanie Rausser

Michael Chabon as a part of the multidisciplinary Superheroes Tues, Dec 9, 7pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, an epic story of two Jewish cousins who create comics in America as Europe is torn apart by World War II. His recent New Yorker article, Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory, explores the power of superheroes in our collective imagination.

© photo: Alia Malley

Michael Pollan Thur, Nov 13, 7pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum Michael Pollan is the author, most recently of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. His previous book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He is the recipient of several journalistic awards, was the executive editor of Harper's Magazine for many years, and now serves as the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley. Lecture sponsor: Lava Lake Lamb

	Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a part of the multidisciplinary Identity and Biology Thu, Oct 16, 8pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, as well as director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. He is an influential cultural critic and author who hosted the PBS documentary series African American Lives which uses genealogy and DNA to trace the roots of influential African Americans down through American history and back to Africa.
	Mara Liasson, the first of two conversations about the changing nature of journalism Thur, Sep 18, 7pm Liberty Theatre, Hailey Mara Liasson is the national political correspondent for NPR, and a regular panelist on Fox News Channel. She has extensive experience covering political campaigns and has covered three presidential elections.
© photo: Rachel Giese Brown	Mary Oliver Thur, Sep 25, 7pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum Mary Oliver is one of the most celebrated poets of our time. Her poetry, which celebrates the natural world, has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Poetry. "Poetry isn't a profession; it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that," says Mary Oliver. Her highly celebrated work deals largely with the natural world. The Harvard Review states that her poems are "an excellent antidote for the excesses of civilization, for too much flurry and inattention."
	Author Anthony Doerr Tue, June 24, 7pm Free of charge at The Center, Ketchum Celebrated author Anthony Doerr will be in the Valley to teach a fiction workshop for The Center. While here, he will read from his newest work. Doerr is the author of three books, The Shell Collector, About Grace,, and Four Seasons in Rome. His fiction has won several awards, including the American Library Association Book of the Year. From 2007 through 2010, Doerr is the Writer-in-Residence for the state of Idaho.
	Fiction Workshop Reading Fri, June 27, 5pm Free at The Center, Hailey Students at The Center's third annual writers workshop will read samples of their work. Please join us in celebrating local talent and hearing new voices in fiction.
	Lecture with Ambassador Martin Indyk Tue, Jul 15, 7pm Free of charge at the Community Library, Ketchum Martin Indyk is uniquely qualified to address current events in the Middle East. Indyk served two terms as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel and acted as special assistant to President Clinton and as senior director of Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. While at the NSC, he served as principal advisor to the President and the National Security Advisor on Arab-Israeli issues, Iraq, Iran and South Asia. He is currently the Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. Thanks to Ron & Beth Dozoretz

Cheech Marin discusses his Chicano art collection
Tues, Jan 29, 2008

While he is best known as one half of the hilarious duo Cheech and Chong, Marin is now gaining recognition as the owner of one of the world's largest collections of Chicano Art. He will discuss the unique contribution Chicano artists have made to American culture and fine art in his lecture and slide presentation.

Humanitarian Stephen Lewis
Sat, Feb 9, 2008
St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Ketchum

Stephen Lewis is one of North America's most respected commentators on social affairs, international development and human rights. In 2005 TIME magazine named him one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" (in the same category as the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela) for his life-long dedication to social causes and improving the human condition. He spent more than twenty years at the United Nations, serving as the Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. Lewis is currently the director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, an organization committed to easing the suffering of women and families in Africa affected by HIV and AIDS. www.stephenlewisfoundation.org

Beth Gates Warren on Edward Weston and His Bohemian Friends
Thu, Mar 13, 2008
The Center, Ketchum, Free of charge

Photographer Edward Weston, one of the best known 20th century photographers, is most closely identified with Carmel, California, where he worked during the 1930s and 1940s. However, few people realize that he spent the first 17 years of his career in Los Angeles. Soon after Weston left Los Angeles, he destroyed many of his photographs and personal papers, thereby effectively deleting most of his early history. Independent photography curator Beth Gates Warren has spent the last decade piecing together the story of Weston's "lost years." She will reveal recently discovered information about his fascinating bohemian friends, in particular, photographer Margrethe Mather, who played an important and previously unrecognized role in his development as an artist. Warren will also explain why Weston attempted to rewrite his own history and why he resolutely refused to acknowledge those who influenced him during his years in the City of the Angels.

---

2007

Middle Easts: Mapping the Political Geography of a Troubled Region
Rob Satloff
Mon, Oct 15, 2007

As an expert and active player in Mideast policy, Dr. Satloff is uniquely qualified to discuss the ways in which the division and distribution of land have affected the people and nations of the Middle East. Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a public educational foundation dedicated to scholarly research and informed debate on U.S. interests in the Middle East. The author or editor of nine books, Dr. Satloff publishes frequently on Middle East issues in major newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, and he regularly comments on major television network news programs and National Public Radio. As the only non-Arab host of a program on an Arab satellite channel, he hosts Dakhil Washington, which airs on the U.S. government-supported channel al-Hurra.

Reading by Gregg Olsen
Thu, Sep 27, 2007

Cowboy Poetry Event - A Sense of Place
Tue, Sep 11, 2007

World renowned cowboy poets Wally McRae and Paul Zarzyski will read their latest work and discuss how sense of place has affected their poetry and perspective. While here, the poets will be working closely with Silver Creek Alternative School students.

Barbara Ehrenreich - On Not Getting By in America
Wed, Jun 20, 2007

Giving in the 21st Century - A Panel Discussion on Philanthropy
Mon, Jul 9, 2007

Author and Illustrator R. Gregory Christie
Thu, Mar 22, 2007

JOURNALIST Scott Simon
Tuesday, February 6, 2007

CONTEMPORARY ART FORUM
A series of lectures on contemporary art
Jan 26, Feb 22, Mar 1 & Mar 8, 2007

Ruth Bloom
Collecting Contemporary Art: A Current History of Curiosities
Fri, Jan 26, 2007

Regine Basha
Beyond the White Cube: Curating Outside the Museum
Thu, Feb 22, 2007

---

2006


Local Biodiversity with Trish Klahr
Thu, Feb 9, 2006

An evening with artist Isabella Kirkland
Thu, Feb 16, 2006

The Future of Life with Pulitzer Prize winner Dr. Edward O. Wilson
Thu, Feb 23, 2006

Virtual Tibet with Orville Schell
Monday, April 3, 2006

The Gift of the Tibetans with Professor Robert Thurman
Thursday, April 6, 2006

Lecture with the Drepung Loseling Monks: Opening the Heart: Arousing the Mind of Universal Kindness
Sun, May 28, 2006
Limelight Room, Sun Valley Inn

Artist's Talk with Marie Watt
Wed, Oct 18, 2006

Artist's Talk with Larry McNeil
Thu, Oct 25, 2006

Author Louise Erdrich
(a part of Album: Shifting Native Stories)
Wed, Oct 11, 2006

Author Louise Erdrich and poet Joy Harjo - Writing as Survival
(a part of Album: Shifting Native Stories)
Wed, Oct 13, 2006

Unlocking the Mysteries of Modern Dance with Charlotte Boye-Christensen
(a part of Whose Nature? What's Nature?)
Thu, Nov 9, 2006

Reading and Discussion with Terry Tempest Williams
(a part of Whose Nature? What's Nature?)
Thu, Nov 16, 2006

Garbage Land with Elizabeth Royte
(a part of Whose Nature? What's Nature?)
Thu, Nov 30, 2006

---

2005

An Evening with Geraldine Brooks
Thu, Feb 17, 7pm

Tom Kundig of Olsen Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects
Saturday, April 23rd, 7 pm, www.olsonsundberg.com

Exhibition walk-through
with artist Elizabeth Jameson
May 28, 6pm at the Center
Free of charge

Slide Lecture by artist Judy Hill
July 8, 7pm at the Center
Free of charge

Steinbeck and Documentary Expression
Lecture by Susan Shillinglaw, Former Director of the Center for Steinbeck Studies
Friday, October 14, 7pm

The Photographers of the WPA
Lecture by photography expert, Penelope Dixon
Thursday, October 20, 7 pm

"Wonder, Experience and Responsibilities" Slide lecture by photographer Eddie Soloway
Wed, Oct 26, 7pm

A Dustbowl Diary
Reading and discussion of Out of the Dust with author Karen Hesse
Thursday, October 27, 7pm

---

2004

An Evening with Geraldine Brooks
Thu, Feb 17, 7pm
Presbyterian Church of the Bigwood, Ketchum
$7 members / $10 non-members

During eleven years as a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal , Geraldine Brooks' beats included some of the world's most troubled areas, including Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East. Her journeys throughout the world resulted in two acclaimed works of nonfiction, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and Foreign Correspondence: A Penpal's Journey from Down Under to All Over. A compelling and animated speaker, Brooks' lecture will address her experience in the Middle East and discuss the social and political climate that has become the focus of the world. She will read from Nine Parts of Desire, which explores the sensual lives of women under Islam. (The title of the book comes from the declaration of a son-in-law of Muhammad, who claimed that God had created sexual desire in ten parts and given one to men, the other nine to women.)

In addition to her work for the Wall Street Journal , Brooks' writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Washington Post . Born and raised in Australia, Brooks lives with her husband, Tony Horwitz, and their son in rural Virginia. Year of Wonders was her first novel and her second, March, will hit bookstores in early 2005.

Workshops on the Middle East
Thursday, March 10 from 8am-4pm, & Friday March 11 from 8am-4pm
Free of charge - sponsored by the Sun Valley Center and the Middle East Policy Council

It is not often that in rural Idaho people get the chance to learn about the Middle East. While contemporary Western life is integrating into the Middle East, Middle Eastern culture is not entering our traditions in the same way. The Sun Valley Center for the Arts' program Confluence explores the mingling of Middle Eastern traditions and Western thought and gives the public the opportunity to spend two days of in-depth learning about the Middle East.

Audrey Shabbas with Arab World and Islamic Resources ( http://www.awaironline.org/index.html) will present two workshops about the cultures, religions and geography of the Middle East. The workshop is hosted by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts as part of the Confluence multidisciplinary program which explores the intersection of Eastern and Western culture through performing arts, literary arts and visual arts.

Thursday, March 10, participants will learn about the geography, history, politics and religions of the Middle East. Shabbas will present the Arab World Studies Notebook , which contains lesson plans and resources for K-12 students on a variety of subjects relating to the Middle East. Current issues such as the U.S. and the Arab World, Arab Americans and Muslim Identity, the Gulf and Iraq Wars, Palestine, Jerusalem and the colonial legacy in the Middle East will be discussed.

On Friday, March 11, workshop participants will learn about Islamic art and create an Egyptian tent wall with stencils, fabric and paint. Participants can attend either or both days.

In Celebration of The Hunt
A reading and discussion with Rick Bass
Thursday, January 13, 2005, 7pm
nexStage Theater , free of charge

Rick Bass has been widely applauded as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Terry Tempest Williams refers to him as "a force of nature." Less known but equally significant is his reputation as an environmental activist. Working for a decade now to preserve the wildlife corridor that surrounds him in his home in northern Montana, he is does not fill the bill of the stereotypical hunter. Having devoted essays and books to his love of the hunt, it would be difficult to call him anything short of an hunting advocate. His profound love for the wild, for his dogs and for the ritual of the hunt are beautifully and sometimes humorously written.

Writing Conversations with Rick Bass
Fri, Jan 14, 5-7:30pm & Sat, Jan 15, 10am-1pm
$75 members / $125 nonmembers
Registration Deadline: January 7, 2005

Join Rick Bass for an informal two-part workshop. Two lectures will be given, the first on the art and craft of writing, the second on the relationship between activism and writing. The remainder of the workshop will consist of Q&A and an opportunity for participants to speak with Bass about their own challenges in the writing arena. Bringing work for review is optional and will be handled on a case-by-case basis as time allows. The workshop is limited in size and the atmosphere will be comfortable, congenial and inspiring for readers and writers alike.

The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth- Century America
Lecture with historian Louis S. Warren, Ph.D
Thursday, December 2, 7pm, At the Center, free of charge

University of California, Davis, Professor Louis Warren will give a lecture based on his book by the same title. Warren provides interesting historical and local environmental perspectives on the subject of hunting. Until the turn of the century, hunting was unregulated, and for many of the working-class it was a way to supplement their family's diet. When the government intervened, designating wildlife as a community resource that had to be managed, war broke out between immigrant communities and wildlife officers sent to enforce the new regulations. After nearly 100 years hunting regulations remain a contentious issue and the story Warren tells is more relevant than ever.

A Night of Documentary Film
Thursday, December 9, 7pm, At the Center, free of charge
The Center presents an evening exploring cultural rituals that have long been associated with the hunt with two films about African people and hunting's role in tribal life. The Great Dance has received international awards for its presentation of the hunting and tracking skills of the San people. A Rite of Passage presents the marking ceremony that follows a young man's first large kill. The screenings will be followed by a group discussion led by Mark Farris.

The Wood River Valley, The Tongass and Beyond Slide lecture by photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum
Thursday, October 14, 7pm, nexStage Theater, free of charge

Robert Glenn Ketchum is one of the nation's most successful artist/conservation activists. For nearly thirty-five years his books, lectures and exhibitions have brought critical public focus to little known wild lands. Perhaps most recognized for his work about the Tongass rainforest, Ketchum's Aperture book, The Tongass: Alaska's Vanishing Rain Forest helped create momentum for the passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Bill of 1990, which established 5 new wilderness areas, protecting more than one million acres of old-growth trees.

In addition to being included in the collections of the nation's most significant museums, Ketchum was named by Audubon magazine as one of the 100 people "who shaped the environmental movement in the 20th century." Other awards include the Robert O. Easton Award for Environmental Stewardship; the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography; and a Lifetime Achievement Award in Photography and Conservation from Aperture Foundation.

Ketchum lived in Sun Valley from 1966 to 1975 and will include in his lecture images from the area as well as photographs from the many places that have captured his attention during his extensive career.

Reading and Discussion with Maxine Hong Kingston
Sunday, October 3, 7pm
Sun Valley Center, free of charge
Acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston addresses the Chinese American experience in her work – the journey to Gold Mountain, the labor on the railroads and in the mines, and her own families' account of running laundries and gambling houses in Stockton, California. Part myth, part memoir, part history, the author addresses the role of Chinese Americans in American history and the meaning of being Chinese American.

Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey and her recent memoir, The Fifth Book of Peace . She has earned numerous awards, among them the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the PEN West Award for Nonfiction, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the title of "Living Treasure of Hawai'i."

Book Discussion Groups in anticipation of Maxine Hong Kingston's Lecture
Tuesday, September 21, 12:30 at the Center
Thursday, September 23, 12:30 at Hailey Public Library
both meetings free of charge

Discussions moderated by CSI Instructor, Jenny Emery Davidson, PhD. The discussion will focus on The Woman Warrior, but Kingston's entire oeuvre will be considered in order to draw parallels between her books and fit her work into a larger literary context.

Polly Bemis: China's Daughter, Idaho's Legendary Pioneer
Ruthanne Lum McCunn reading from Thousand Pieces of Gold
Thursday, September 16, 7pm
Sun Valley Center, Free of charge

Chinese American Portraits
Brown Bag Lunch and slide lecture with Ruthanne Lum McCunn
Friday, September 17, 12:30pm
Hailey Public Library, Free of charge

The biographical novel Thousand Pieces of Gold tells the true story of Lalu Nathoy, later known as Polly Bemis. Born in nineteenth-century China, Polly was sold by her family at a time of great drought, auctioned off as a slave in San Francisco, brought to a mining camp in Idaho, and eventually settled on the River of No Return with her husband Charlie Bemis.

Ruthanne Lum McCunn will read from her novel and discuss her research before and since its publication. Ruthanne Lum McCunn, born to a mother from Hong Kong and a father from Idaho, has published eight critically acclaimed books about Chinese on both sides of the Pacific. Her work has been translated into ten languages and adapted for stage and screen.

Nakashima's Life and Legacy
A lecture by Mira Nakashima with Cristina Grajales
Friday, July 16, 7pm
Sun Valley Center, free of charge

Mira Nakashima, the artist's daughter, continues her father's rich legacy by directing his workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Trained as an architect and accustomed to working at her father's side, her lecture will provide insight into the choices, interests and influences of George Nakashima. The lecture will be followed by a discussion of the current marketplace for and rising popularity of Nakashima's work by Cristina Grajales, a celebrated New York Modernist furniture dealer and the former director of Gallery 1950.

Artist Preview with Hung Liu
Slide lecture and exhibition walk through
Thursday, August 5, 7pm

Sun Valley Center Gallery, free of charge

Hung Liu was born in Changchu, China in 1948 and came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Trained as a social realist painter and skilled as a political muralist, Liu emigrated to the United States and ran headlong into abstract expressionist painting. Today her powerful paintings demonstrate an integration of both traditions. Rich gestural marks and paint trails over the foundation of a deftly recreated photographic image reflect her interest in memory and history. Liu has created a unique body of work commissioned specifically for The Vanishing exhibition based on historic photographs from Idaho's libraries' archives. Recently Liu's exhibition Strange Fruit traveled throughout the United States. Her works can be found in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art; LA County Museum; National Museum of American Art, the Kemper Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

An Evening with Installation Artist Rene Yung
Thursday, August 26, 7pm
Sun Valley Center Gallery, free of charge

Rene Yung, installation artist, designer, and writer, grew up in Hong Kong before relocating to California as a teenager. Yung will discuss her diverse career and share images of her work exploring cross-cultural issues relating to the Asian experience in the Western world. Her multimedia installations have been included in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale; the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art. Yung has conducted numerous community-based art projects and has been commissioned to create public artworks in Seattle and at various sites in California. Her work is represented by Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco.

At the Epicenter of Design: Paris and George Nakashima
A slide lecture by Derek Ostergard
Thursday, July 8, 7pm
Sun Valley Center, free of charge

George Nakashima was exposed to important design trends of the 20th century when he lived in Paris in the 20s and 30s. As a young architect, Nakashima embraced the avant-garde in Paris, the epicenter of modernism, but eventually he became disenchanted with what he saw there and left for India and, later, Japan.

Despite his disenchantment, Paris left an indelible mark upon Nakashima. From the individuals engaged in the production of elitist, Art Deco designs, to their arch rivals, the functionalists, Nakashima would glean three principal design concepts that would define his later work – the primacy of the artist/designer, the supremacy of quality, and the mastery of materials and techniques. Although Nakashima would explore other philosophies, his Parisian years had an indelible impact. This lecture will present the personalities, designs and events of the era and reveal those elements that shaped Nakashima's growth as a major designer.

Derek Ostergard is the Associate Director and Founding Dean of the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts in New York City. He regularly publishes and lectures about !8 th to 20 th century design and was curator for the Nakashima exhibition Full Circle at the American Craft Museum in 1989.  

Considering Contemporary Art
A series of very informal discussions led by Kristin Poole
Thursday evenings, March 18 & 25, April 8 & 15
7pm at the Center Gallery - Free of charge

Each evening we will review two twenty minute interviews that are part of the PBS series Art: 21, Art in the Twenty-First Century. Kristin Poole, the Center's Artistic Director will then lead a discussion about the art, the artist, their motivations, their significance to art history and their relevance or seemingly lack of relevance to our daily lives. The discussions will cover emerging and established artists, sculptors, painters and performance artists, those who celebrate the craft of their art and those who believe it is all about the idea. Come, sit, watch, listen, share a glass of wine and some ideas or questions.  

West Word - Writing from the New West
Thursday, February 19, 7pm
Reading with William Kittredge

Friday, February 20, 12pm
Brown Bag Lunch Discussion with West Word authors
Hailey Public Library

Friday, February 20, 7pm
Readings with Robert Wrigley, Annick Smith and Debra Magpie Earling

A two-part series of readings with four notable authors who locate their writing in the American West. The literature of the American West has evolved from the time-honored traditions of frontier survival, gun-slingers, heroes and heroines to complicated but less confined stories and poems that more accurately reflect the place we call home. At a time when the West is growing more quickly than any other region in the United States, writers are mining this fertile ground and giving voice to new generations of Westerners.

One of the most well known of these authors is William Kittredge. Known internationally for his compelling memoirs and essays, he has influenced generations of new writers while teaching in the Creative Writing program at the University of Montana. West Word features William Kittredge the first evening and, then, he will introduce three authors whose work reflects some of the best, most compelling and provocative literature of the American West today. Join Robert Wrigley, Annick Smith and Debra Magpie Earling for brief readings followed by a panel discussion on writing in the West led by William Kittredge. This is an opportunity to learn about the writers of the West and hear directly from them about their craft, writing the West, and the larger literary scene that is becoming a vital part of culture in the West.

William Kittredge farmed on the MC Ranch in southeastern Oregon until he was 35, and taught creative writing at the University of Montana until 1997, when he retired as a Regents Professor. His most recent books are The Nature of Generosity, Southwestern Homelands, and The Best Stories of William Kittredge. At present he's finishing a novel under contract to Knopf. Of his memoir Hole in the Sky, Annie Dillard wrote, "A grand and true story by one of our finest writers." His honesty, eloquence and vision continue to offer both readers and writers vast sources of inspiration and food for thought. As the editor (with Annick Smith) of The Last Best Place , an anthology of Western writers and poets, he is also intimately familiar with the emerging and established voices of the West.

Annick Smith is a writer and filmmaker who lives in Montana's Blackfoot River Valley. She was co-editor with William Kittredge of the Montana anthology, The Last Best Place . She has published two volumes of essays, Homestead and In This We Are Native, as well as a study of the tallgrass prairies of Oklahoma, Big Bluestem: Journey into the Tall Grass for The Nature Conservancy. Her film credits include being executive producer of Heartland and a co-producer of A River Runs Through It.

Robert Wrigley received his M.F.A. from the University of Montana, where he studied with the late Richard Hugo and where he developed a profound and abiding love for the western wilderness. He has lived in Idaho since 1977 and teaches in the M.F.A. program at the University of Idaho. His recent books of poetry are In the Bank of Beautiful Sins and Reign of Snakes. About Reign of Snakes , National Poet Laureate Billy Collins wrote, "Robert Wrigley is an historian of the present. His smart, moving poems are attuned to the drama of the moment, and his honest, musical lingual lifts real experience deftly in art." Wrigley is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, in addition to numerous other honors.

Debra Magpie Earling is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation. She teaches at the University of Montana. Her novel Perma Red won the Mountain and Plains Regional Award; the WILLA Award; a Spur Award; and the American Book Award.

Cowboys, Cameras, and the Myth of the West
Slide lecture with Byron Price
Thursday, January 29, 7pm

Photos/Videos

	Michael Pollan - reception and lecture November 2008 see photos of lecture see photos of reception
	Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. October 2008 lecture photos
	February 2008 - Humanitarian Stephen Lewis interview on Plum Watch Video
	Feb 2008 - Interview with Cheech Marin about Chicano art Watch Video
	September 2007 - Cowboy Poets Paul Zarzyski and Wallace McRae Watch Video