University Lectures

Monday January 15^th

5:00pm – Rangos Hall, UC

MLK Day Keynote Address

John Edgar Wideman, Professor of English, University of Massachusetts

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Tuesday January 16^th

4:30pm – Chosky Theatre, Purnell Center for the Arts

Embracing Reconciliation: The Meaning of Ubuntu in the New South Africa

Dr. John Kani, Chairman, National Apartheid Museum, South Africa

Artistic Director Emeritus, Market Theatre Johannesburg, and Tony Award Winning Actor, Director and Playwright

Presented in association with the August Wilson Center for African American Culture

After a lifetime of personally experiencing the political violence of apartheid, Dr. Kani candidly shares his struggle to embrace the New South Africa’s policy of truth and reconciliation. While confessing his lingering outrage over that country’s legacy of white supremacy, Kani explains how he eventually came to embrace Desmond Tutu’s call for ubuntu—a hopeful, if difficult, concept associated with African humanism. Roughly translatable as “self-respect through respect for others,” Kani reveals how ubuntu has guided his work as an award-winning actor, producer, playwright, and more recently, Chairman of South Africa’s National Apartheid Museum. Ubuntu, Kani concludes, represents an ancient moral compass with relevance far beyond Africa’s borders.

The invitation to Dr. John Kani to speak, as part of the University Lecture Series, is credited to Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama

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URBAN FARMING

This is the first in a series of four lectures on Urban Farming—Reconnecting Our Farms, Food, and Community

Thursday, January 18^th

5:30pm – Rangos 1, UC

Pittsburgh: Urban Food Forest of the Future?

Dave Jacke, Author and Ecological Designer

Dynamics Ecological Design

Healthy forests are self-maintaining, self-fertilizing, and self-renewing. Edible forest gardens mimic such natural forests, but can grow food and other products, provide meaningful jobs, and improve people¹s health and the quality of urban life. Since cities are ecosystems like any other, food forests can also teach us how to redesign urban communities for greater abundance, health, and integration. The lessons are simple and practical, yet profound, the possible results astonishing.

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Thursday, January 25^th

4:30pm – Adamson Wing, Baker Hall 136A

Ballbot: A New Locomotion Technology for Mobile Robots

Ralph Hollis, Research Professor, Robotics Institute

Multi-wheeled statically-stable robots tall enough to interact meaningfully with people must have low centers of gravity, wide bases of support, and low accelerations to avoid tipping over. These conditions present a number of performance limitations that make it difficult to maneuver through doorways and around furniture and people. Accordingly, we are developing an inverse of this type of mobile robot that is the height, width, and weight of a person, having a high center of gravity that balances on a single spherical wheel; such machines—which we refer to as Ballbots—appear to be a hitherto unstudied class of mobile robots. Unlike balancing 2-wheel platforms which must turn before driving in some direction, our single-wheeled ballbot can move directly in any direction. In this talk I will present the overall design, actuator mechanism based on an inverse mouse-ball drive, control system, and initial results including dynamic balancing, station keeping, and point-to-point motion. In conclusion, Professor Hollis will discuss plans for future enhancements including body yaw rotation and the addition of a pair of dynamically-significant arms.

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Saturday January 27^th

8:00pm Kresge Theatre, College of Fine Arts

Carnegie Mellon University Oakland campus

A Land Twice Promised

Noa Baum, Storyteller/Consultant

Co-sponsored by the Middle East Peace Forum of Pittsburgh

http://www.middleeastpeace.pghfree.net

Storyteller Noa Baum, an Israeli who began a heartfelt dialogue with a Palestinian woman while living in the United States, weaves together their memories and their mothers' stories. She creates a moving testimony illuminating the complex and contradictory history and emotions that surround Jerusalem for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

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The University Lecture Series is a partnership between the Office of the Vice Provost for Education and the Division of Student Affairs. All lectures are FREE and open to the public. For additional information, please call 412-268-8677 or send email inquiries to cr2@andrew.cmu.edu. ALL lectures are on Carnegie Mellon’s Oakland campus.