Map of Mt. Vernon by Washington

Before George Washington was a military officer or the nation’s first president, he was a surveyor and mapmaker. That expertise and interest in geography would stay with him throughout his life, shaping many of his decisions as a leader on the battlefield and in the political arena. A special exhibition and talk at Washington College on Wednesday, February 22, will focus on this often-overlooked aspect of Washington and his career.

The world’s leading authority on Washington’s maps, Edward J. Redmond, Senior Reference Specialist and Curator in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, will offer a Powerpoint presentation and talk at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre, the Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. Those unable to be present can watch a live webcast of the event at https://live.washcoll.edu/.

In addition, reproductions of 10 of Washington’s maps—spanning from his youth to his retirement years at Mount Vernon—will be displayed in the Gibson Center’s William Frank Visual Arts Hallway. Sponsored by Washington College’s Center for Environment & Society and the Global Research and Writing Program, the talk and exhibit are free and open to the public.

In a 1972 lithograph titled "The Young Surveyor," artist Walter Haskell Hinton imagined the future first president in his first career as a surveyor and mapmaker.

Beginning with his early career as a teen-aged surveyor and throughout his life as a soldier, planter, businessman, land speculator and President, Washington was always making good use of his knowledge of geography and cartography. In 1753, for example, when chosen to deliver an ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf in what is now Pennsylvania, he followed up with a report of the venture that included his sketch maps of the disputed Ohio Valley area. Printed first in Williamsburg and then in London, The Journal of Major George Washington catapulted the ambitious young man onto the world stage. Washington’s decisive involvement in the ensuing French and Indian War, in which he served as lieutenant colonel of the newly formed Virginia Regiment, relied in part on the backcountry knowledge and map-making skills he had gained from surveying.

Between 1747 and 1799 Washington would survey more than 200 tracts of land and hold title to more than 65,000 acres of land in 37 different locations. In addition to his professional surveying and land speculation activities, he also appointed the first Geographer of the Continental Army and, later, the United States.

Edward Redmond, who joined the Library of Congress staff in 1989, is currently working on an atlas of George Washington’s maps from the Library’s collections. He has written numerous articles on Washington’s cartographic career, contributed to several publications on Washington and the American Revolution, and made presentations before audiences that include the Association of American Geographers, the Society of Early Americanists, the Society for the History of Discoveries, the Washington Map Society, the Papers of George Washington Editorial Project, and the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012
5 pm

Decker Theatre
Gibson Center for the Arts
Washington College
300 Washington Avenue
Chestertown, MD  21620

David "Sonny" Lacks

CHESTERTOWN, MD—David “Sonny” Lacks, whose mother is the subject of Rebecca Skloot’s best-selling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will visit Washington College Tuesday, February 21, to talk about his family’s reaction to learning that their late mother’s cells were being sold in the billions for use in laboratories around the world. The event, a moderated discussion with the audience, will take place at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, with a reception to follow in the Underwood Lobby.

Sponsored by the College’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, William James Forum, Black Studies Program, and Department of Philosophy, the event is free and open to the public.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor African-American tobacco farmer and mother of five whose cells, harvested without her knowledge in 1951—the year she died of cervical cancer—became the first immortal human cells to be grown in a laboratory. Nicknamed HeLa cells, they became an important tool for modern medicine and remain the most widely used cell line in the world today.

Sonny Lacks and his siblings first learned of the cells in the 1970s when researchers wanted to conduct tests on them to learn more about the HeLa line. It has been a point of controversy that, although biotech companies have profited from sales of the HeLa cells, the family has never been financially compensated.

The story was catapulted into the national conscience when author Skloot published her book in 2010. In lectures to university and library audiences throughout the country, Sonny Lacks now celebrates his mother’s legacy and offers a personal perspective on the collision of medicine, race, ethics and business represented by her story.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012
5 pm
Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts
Washington College
Chestertown, Md  21620

Cuarteto Latinoamericano

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The award-winning string ensemble Cuarteto Latinoamericano will offer a Valentine’s treat for music lovers as the 60th annual Washington College Concert Series continues Tuesday, February 14 at 8 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts.

Formed in Mexico in 1982, the acclaimed Cuarteto consists of the three Bitrán brothers—violinists Saúl and Arón and cellist Alvaro—along with violist Javier Montiel. The group is known around the world as the leading proponent of Latin American music for string quartet. At Washington College, they will mix that music with beloved pieces from European and American composers Mozart, Barber and Gershwin.

The program will include “Four for Tango” by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, and pieces from Brazilian composers Francisco Mignone (Barcarola, Minuetto, Tres Canciones Españolas) and Heitor Villa-Lobos (String Quartet No. 5) plus George Gershwin’s Lullaby, Samuel Barber’s Adagio from Quartet Opus 11, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor K. 546.

Tickets at $15 for adults and $5 for students (Washington College students free with ID) will be available at the door. There is no reserved seating.

The Washington Post praised Cuarteto Latinamericano as “matchless in tonal magnitude, tuneful fluency and concentrated teamwork.” The group has toured extensively around the world and been featured with many orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, the Dallas Symphony and the Símón Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela.

The four musicians also have collaborated with many other artists, including cellist Janos Starker, pianists Santiago Rodriguez, Cyprien Katsaris and Rudolph Buchbinder, tenor Ramon Vargas, and guitarists Narciso Yepes, Sharon Isbin, David Tanenbaum and Manuel Barrueco. They recorded two CDs with Barrueco and have commissioned guitar quintets from American composers Miguel del Aguila, Michael Daugherty and Gabriela Lena Frank. For more on the quartet: https://www.cuartetolatinoamericano.com/en/

To purchase tickets in advance or learn more about the Washington College Concert Series, please call 410-778-7839, email director Kate Bennett at [email protected], or visit https://news.washcoll.edu/concertseries.php.

Cuarteto Latinoamericano

Tuesday, February 14, 2012
8 p.m.
Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts
Washington College
Chestertown, MD 21620

Paul Lisicky

Novelist Paul Lisicky will give a reading at the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College, 407 Washington Avenue, on Thursday, February 16 at 4:30 p.m. Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, the reading is free and open to the public.

Lawnboy, Lisicky’s debut novel, garnered much high-profile praise. Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cunningham called it “the real thing, a novel of mystery and great beauty,” and added that “The appearance of a writer like Paul Lisicky… is a rare event.”

In addition to Lawnboy (Turtle Point Press, 1998), Lisicky has published a memoir titled Famous Builder (Graywolf Press, 2002) and the novel The Burning House (Etruscan Press, 2011). His latest, a collection of prose pieces titled Unbuilt Projects, is scheduled for publication by Four Way Books next fall. Many of his shorter works have been included in anthologies or appeared in publications that include The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, and Story Quarterly.

A graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Lisicky has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Henfield Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., where he was twice a fellow. He has taught in the graduate writing programs at Cornell University, Rutgers-Newark, and Sarah Lawrence College. He currently teaches at NYU. To learn more, visit his Website: https://paullisicky.com/.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
4:30 p.m
Rose O’Neill Literary House
Washington College
407 Washington Avenue
Chestertown, MD 21620

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Princeton University scholar will lecture on “Jewish Approaches to Islam: Historical and Modern Reflections” on Thursday, February 9, at Washington College. The talk is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.

Elisha Russ-Fishbane

A historian of Jewish life and culture of the medieval Islamic world, Dr. Russ-Fishbane focuses on the socio-economic, religious, and intellectual intersections of medieval Judaism and Islam. He completed his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University before joining Princeton as a Fellow in the Tikvah Project on Jewish Thought. He also has studied Classics at the University of Chicago, Yiddish at Oxford University, and Latin at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

His talk is sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture at Washington College and is free and open to the public. For more information about the Institute, visit https://irpc.washcoll.edu/.

Thursday, February 9, 2012
7 p.m.
Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall
Washington College
300 Washington Avenue
Chestertown, MD 21620

John Beckman

CHESTERTOWN, MD— American history gives us one good brawl after another: Native Americans fighting Pilgrims; pirates bullying merchants; Patriots bloodying Redcoats’ noses; and scruffy young hotheads – from Kentucky backwoodsmen to Occupy Wall Street protesters – declaring war on elites that wanted them to fall into line.

In a February 13 presentation at Washington College, United States Naval Academy professor John Beckman will share a very different perspective on U.S. history by chronicling the ways that Americans have had fun – sometimes outrageous, even life-threatening fun. Sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and co-sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, Beckman’s talk, “American Fun,” is free and open to the public, and will begin at 5 p.m. in the college’s Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall.

According to Beckman, shared fun has often brought adversaries into harmony and made even the scariest social differences exciting. To adapt Jefferson’s famous phrase, perhaps sharing “the pursuit of happiness” does more to hold society together than we know.

“While it’s often said that a joke explained cannot be funny, John Beckman’s take on history proves otherwise,” says Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Starr Center. “In any case, this is sure to be a rollickingly fun event.”

John Beckman is an associate professor of English at the United States Naval Academy, and has taught novel-writing workshops at The Writer’s Center. His first novel, The Winter Zoo (Henry Holt), was a New York Times Notable Book of 2002. Kirkus Reviews praised the book as “potent and deeply disturbing…the work of a most ambitious and unquestionably gifted writer.” Beckman’s stories and essays have appeared in Book Magazine, McSweeney’s Quarterly, the Wallace Stevens Journal, and the Washington Post.

February 13, 2012
5 pm
Hynson Lounge,
Washington College
Chestertown, MD 21620

Verlyn Flieger

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College hosts Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger on Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 4:30 p.m. She will lecture on the topic, “Oo! Those Awful Hobbits: Tolkien Versus the Academy.”
The event is sponsored by the College’s Sophie Kerr Committee and is free and open to the public.

Flieger has taught courses on J.R.R. Tolkien at the University of Maryland for the past 35 years and has published three books on his fiction: Splintered Light, A Question of Time, and Interrupted Music. She also edited an expanded edition of his short story Smith of Wootton Major, and co-edited a collection of essays on the history of Middle-earth and a critical edition of Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories.” She is co-editor with Michael Drout and Douglas Anderson of Tolkien Studies, the only journal devoted exclusively to Tolkien’s work.

Flieger also is an author of her own fiction: a fantasy novel titled Pig Tale, its sequel The Inn at Corbies’ Caww, and the Arthurian novella Avilion.

To learn more about Verlyn Flieger visit https://mythus.com/. The Literary House is located at 407 Washington Avenue. For more information on its programs, visit https://lithouse.washcoll.edu/.

Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012
4:30 p.m

Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College

Lydia Chernicoff

Ronaldo Rolim

The Washington College Music Department continues its free lunchtime concert series, “12 at Hotchkiss,” on Friday, February 3 with the violin and piano duo of Lydia Chernicoff and
Ronaldo Rolim. The program will include Sonata in G minor by Debussy, Six Romanian Dances by Bartók, and Sonata in E-flat Major by Strauss.

Lydia Chernicoff received her B.A. in violin performance at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she was concertmaster of both the Concert and Symphony Orchestras. She is now pursuing a master’s degree at the Institute. Chernicoff began her violin studies at the age of 8 and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors. She has played professionally with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and the New England Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.

A native of Brazil, pianist Ronaldo Rolim has been praised for his interpretive power, brilliant virtuosity and rich sonorous palette. He began his musical studies at 4 and was later admitted as a full scholarship student at the Magda Tagliaferro School in São Paulo. After winning major national competitions in Brazil, he came to the United States and eventually studied with Benjamin Pasternack at the Peabody Institute, where he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree and received the Pauline Favin Memorial Award in Piano. In 2011, he was accepted into the prestigious Artist Diploma program at the Peabody Institute.

Ronaldo is active as a solo and chamber musician in his native Brazil and abroad, having performed in such venues as London’s Steinway Hall and Théâtre de Vevey in Switzerland. He formed Trio Appassionata with Peabody colleagues Lydia Chernicoff and cellist Andrea Casarrubios in 2007. The Trio has performed at Carnegie Hall and recently concluded a residency with Chamber Music Sedona, in Arizona.

Launched last fall, the 12@Hotchkiss series features internationally acclaimed musicians from the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. It invites students, staff, faculty and the general public to experience live classical music at noon on the first Friday of each month. All concerts are held in Hotchkiss Recital Hall in the Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.

For more information and a schedule of upcoming concerts, visit https://music.washcoll.edu/12hotchkiss.php or contact concert series director Grace Eun Hae Kim at 410-778-6457 or [email protected].

Friday, February 3, 2012
Noon

Hotchkiss Recital Hall in the Gibson Center for the Arts
Washington College
300 Washington Avenue
Chestertown, MD 21620