As reported in the last newsletter, our first attempt at webcasting, for the June 22 Lunch Colloquium, was reasonably successful.  Based on those results, we tweaked our sound settings and tried again for the July 6 Lunch Colloquium.  That was much better, and so we saved the recording of Steve Nowicki's talk.  You can view that webcast by clicking on the link below.  We hope to webcast at least most of our Lunch Colloquiums next year.

Click here to view the webcast 

July 20 Lunch Colloquium

Christine Smith (Gilliam): Atlanta's Film Censor, 1944 to 1962

MATTHEW H. BERNSTEIN, Professor and Chair, Department of Film and Media Studies

Most people are unaware that until the 1950s, movies were not granted First Amendment protection.  As a result, seven states and countless cities installed film censors, who were granted the power to ban entire movies outright or cut offending scenes in objectionable films.  In this talk, Matthew H. Bernstein will discuss the career of Atlanta's second major movie censor, Christine Smith.  Drawing upon her monthly reports and news reports, Matthew will discuss the several public controversies that arose during her reign in the post-war era, as Hollywood gradually began depicting illicit sex and sympathy for criminals in unprecedented ways.   Smith was a study in contrast with her predecessor, who took a cooperative if firm approach to dealing with Hollywood. For Smith, censoring films was an ongoing battle against an intractable enemy, as she sought to protect Atlanta movie lovers, especially from films featuring Hollywood's often maladroit attempts to depict social equality between the races.  This talk, which comes from a book project Matthew is undertaking with Emory professor emeritus Dana F. White about movie culture in segregated Atlanta, will be illustrated by film clips and historical documents.

Matthew received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, his MFA from Columbia University in 1982, and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1987.  He writes the following about his career:

A native of Long Island, New York, I have been teaching film history and criticism at Emory since 1989.

The courses I have taught range from Introduction to Film and the History of Film two-semester sequence to more specialized classes on African-Americans in American film, American film comedy, American film and media criticism, classical Hollywood cinema, the history of documentary film, Alfred Hitchcock, Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa, post-war European cinemas, and Billy Wilder. 

My research and teaching include the history of Hollywood, particularly in the studio era, and film reception.  More specifically, I explore the ways in which the business of Hollywood affected production, genre and style, and the dynamics of Hollywood's self-regulation of content along with its response to state and city censorship.  I also research the history of African-American representation in American film.

I am currently completing, with Dr. Dana F. White, professor emeritus of American Studies at Emory, two projects concerning the history of moviegoing in segregated Atlanta.  Atlanta at the Movies is an anthology; Segregated Cinema: Atlanta, 1895-1962 is a full narrative history, combining reception studies, censorship history, exhibition history, and business history.  Both will be published by the University of Georgia Press.  This Fall 2014 interview with the Harry Ransom Research Center on the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind in December 1939 is an example of the work we are doing, as are these radio interviews on the same subject.

I am active in the Atlanta film scene.  I have served as host and moderator of The Cinema Club since Fall 1998.  In 2011 and 2012, I served as co-chair of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, and I remain active with various committees and introduce many screenings each year.  I helped launch the Midtown Cinema's Tuesday night classic film series, for which I also introduce films.  I also currently serve on the board of the Plaza Theater Foundation, and I help plan each semester's Emory Cinematheque offerings. 

I also serve on the National Film Preservation Board, advising the Librarian of Congress on matters of film preservation and films that are named annually to the National Film Registry.

July 6 Lunch Colloquium

STEPHEN NOWICKI, Candler Professor of Psychology Emeritus

After hearing Steve Nowicki's talk, many emeriti may well have decided to monitor their facial expressions and speech volume in everyday situations. While much of his research centers on children and adolescents, Steve's findings include the fact that one out of three people in the general population has a "negative" resting facial expression. With aging, this figure can rise to six out of ten. Given that the hearing loss that often accompanies aging can cause people to speak more loudly, this can create the impression that one is angry when one is not, thus adversely affecting personal and social relationships.

Steve, who is Candler Professor of Psychology Emeritus, has recently been awarded a grant by the Templeton Foundation in support of his work titled Internal Locus of Control, Origins, Determinants and Benefits for which he will be conducting research in England over the next three years. Much of his work is on the importance of relationships to physical as well as mental health, and communication is key to relationships.

Verbal and nonverbal communication are similar in that both are learned and complex. Individuals can have receptive and/or expressive deficits in either or both. Difficulty in communicating nonverbally, known as dyssemia, differs from difficulty in communicating verbally in that the behavior of those with dyssemia is continuous and can't be stopped. It takes place more "out of awareness" than does difficulty with verbal language. While verbal language mistakes usually have a negative intellectual impact, the impact of nonverbal errors is emotional. Individuals with dyssemia experience negative emotional impacts but are unaware that they are the source of the negative emotional reactions they receive.

As promised in his title, Steve explained the top ten things you should know about nonverbal communication:

1. Its importance for personal and social adjustment cannot be overstated. Dyssemia is associated with a large number of developmental and social disorders, including such conditions as abuse, autism, anxiety, depression, and ADHD.
2. Dyssemia is not necessarily associated with general cognitive ability.
3. Receptive and expressive nonverbal abilities are not necessarily related to each other. An individual could have a deficit in either or both.
4. Due to cultural differences, nonverbal expressions of emotion are not universally recognized.
5. Women are better at recognizing and expressing emotion than are men, but there is hope for men!
6. There is a distinct developmental order to the learning of emotional expression and recognition: (1) happiness, (2) sadness, (3) anger, and (4) fear.
7. A "neutral" face is not really neutral, especially in interaction with another who is seeking empathy.
8. The decoding of postures, gestures, and expressions will be important areas for research in the development of robots.
9. The ability to identify emotion nonverbally can be a predictor of future personal, social and professional outcomes.
10. A deficit in the ability to recognize emotion can be improved by direct teaching.

Given the list of disorders that can be brought on by dyssemia, the promise inherent in the effectiveness of direct teaching for correcting dyssemia inspired Steve and his colleagues to develop a pedagogy to be used in schools. The text, Direct Teaching: The R-DANVA, Nowicki, Grinspan, and Johnson (2004), is presently being used to train students in the steps of identifying emotion by discrimination, identification, expression and application.

--Holly York

What is impossible to convey with any written article is the entertaining way that Steve delivered his talk.  Because this Colloquium was webcast, we were able to record it and you can take the opportunity of watching and enjoying it!

Click here to view the webcast 

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Interdisciplinary Seminar for Fall 2015

PROPOSAL FOR AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR

Fall Semester, 2015

Dear Fellow Member of the Emeritus College:

I would like to propose a seminar for the fall semester. It would deal with just one book, Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, published this year (2015) by Harper Collins.

The book has received strong reviews and is much talked about. In a blurb on the book jacket Jared Diamond writes that "Sapiens tackles the biggest questions of history and of the modern world . . . in unforgettably vivid language."

Even though we'd be reading just the one book, this would be very much an interdisciplinary seminar, since the comprehensive sweep of this "history" manages to invoke almost all of the various research disciplines and fields of study to be found in a modern university - from history to biogenetics, from economics to linguistics, from anthropology to literature. It's quite a tour de force.

Our requirements would be simple: members doing the seminar would get hold of the book and read it over the summer. It's just a bit more than 400 pages, not including the notes. Then, for the purpose of discussing the book in the fall, they would choose a topic or theme raised in it that seems most pertinent to their own particular scholarly or professional interests. In addition, they would choose a few pertinent readings from their own fields that commented on or supported the chosen topic, and then make these titles known to the leader of the seminar (me, in this instance), who would arrange to have them made available to all participants.

For example - and to tip my hand at the outset - as a literature person I'm especially struck by Harari's suggestion that homo sapiens became the most successful species of all mainly because we learned how to act cooperatively in large numbers specifically through a new-found ability to use language to make fictions. In other words, our myths, our stories, are what allow us to rule the world.

This is but one of hundreds of surprising and challenging insights about our evolved human condition that make the book so provocative, and I am sure that if you do join the seminar you will encounter more than a few to engage with intellectually.

What I would expect to do as a member of the seminar, given my interest in the topic of myth-making, is make a short list of works on the anthropological uses of myth and offer these to my fellow seminar members as commentary on Harari's point above. And a suggested format of the seminar would be for me to present the topic of myth to the group and then lead the discussion that ensues.

This, then, in broad outline, is how I see the seminar proceeding, with each participant taking responsibility in this fashion for a chosen topic and its development.

The seminar would start sometime in later September and meet at least once a week; it would meet often enough to give each participant a chance to lead a discussion on at least one tantalizing aspect of the book's argument.

If you are interested in this endeavor - a kind of intensive "book club" experience - I urge you to let me know by emailing me at engjmb@emory.edu.

This is in the nature of an experiment, of course, but rarely does a book come along that is worthwhile reading for just about every member of a university community!

With best wishes for an enjoyable summer,

John Bugge

For an NPR interview with the author, click here.

To read a review in The Guardian, click here.

For the book's page at Harper Collins, click here.

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Our Membership and Development Committee is sponsoring a Retirement Seminar here at the Luce Center on Wednesday, July 15, from 2:00-4:00.  We have decided to webcast this seminar. The title is Where to Next?  and it features representatives from four local retirement communities.  (Click here to see detailed flyer.)  These representatives will speak about what they have to offer including a description of financial arrangements, living quarters, dining, social activities, health care, transportation, security, and other amenities.  There will of course be an opportunity for you to ask questions of each presenter. 

Click here to register for the July 15 Retirement Seminar at the Luce Center.

Click here to register for the webcast of the Retirement Seminar. Registrants will be sent detailed instructions on how to participate in the seminar.

Thursday, July 16, at 12 pm:

Do you know what your loved one wants at the end of his or her life?

What do you know about completing an advance directive?

If these questions pose issues you want to know more about, you may want to attend:

End of Life Discussions With Someone You Love

July 16, 2015
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
N.H. Woodruff School of Nursing - Classroom 201

Facilitator: Katherine Abraham-Evans

Katherine Abraham Evans, DNP, FNP-C, GNP-BC, ACHPN, is a board certified Geriatric Nurse Practitioner with a specialty in palliative care and is a faculty member at the Emory Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. Dr. Evans will discuss how to have conversations with your loved ones regarding their desires for treatments near end of life. She will also review different types of advance directives as well as how to obtain and complete these documents.

Register now!

If you have any questions or concerns please contact Mary Ellen Nessmith at (404) 727-4177.

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