DECEMBER 14, 2004
THIS WEEK
Final Exams Are Here
Final Examinations for First Semester 2004-2005
will be given throughout this week (Dec. 13-17).
Click the link to view the university's official policy on
Final Examinations and Dead Week, from the Academic Services Handbook.
ACADEMIC
SERVICES HANDBOOK |
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MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Continuing this week at the Ross: Since
Otar Left, Being Julia
UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center
presents the winner of the prestigious Critics' Week Grand Prize
at the Cannes Film Festival, Since Otar Left and the film Being
Julia, the newest film from director István Szabó.
Since Otar Left is a bittersweet
tale of deception and affection. Three Georgian women--strong-willed
matriarch Eka (90-year-old former dental assistant and fledgling
star Esther Gorintin), her long-suffering daughter Marina (Nino Khomassouridze)
and rebellious granddaughter Ada (Freeze, Die, Come to Life's Dinara
Droukarova)--all live together in their stately-yet-crumbling apartment
in contemporary Tbilisi, the capital of the former Soviet republic.
Eka pines for her beloved son Otar, a physician who is now a construction
worker in Paris.
Marina is deeply resentful of her mother's obsession with her absent
brother, while Ada endures their bickering and yearns for a more
adventurous existence. When a friend of Otar's calls with tragic
news, Marina and Ada must make a seemingly impossible choice: Do
they keep Eka from learning the truth? Former assistant director
to Bertrand Tavernier and Krzysztof Kieslowski, Bertuccelli deftly
spins the delicate threads of familial conflict and maternal love
into a bewitching tangle of intergenerational duplicity.
In Being Julia, London theater actress Julia Lambert (Annette
Bening) starts having a nervous breakdown. She still rules the West
End, but is growing too old for ingénue parts. Enter Tom Fennell
(Shaun Evans), an adoring lad half her age, and a clandestine affair
begins. Though she's happy for a while, Julia eventually winds up
in a face-off with a Tom's other, much younger lover (Lucy Punch).
Luckily, the spirit of Julia's cantankerous old acting coach (London
theater legend Michael Gambon) follows Julia around offering some
tough-love encouragement.
Set in the late 1930s, this is a fine costume comedy-drama about
the sorrows and joys of art. The eternal question of "when am I acting
and when am I myself?" has seldom been addressed as intelligently
as it is here; Bening seems to be not only tangling with her own
status as an aging beauty, but also with the limits of her own acting
abilities, and it's a pleasure to see her transcend both with such
triumphant exuberance. Bravo, Miss Bening, and kudos to director
Szabó (Mephisto) for rendering his obvious love of theater,
cinema, and actors with such contagious warmth. Other fine performances
include Jeremy Irons as Julia's manager/husband and Juliet Stevens
as her jaded maid.
More information is available at the Ross website.
MRRMAC | SINCE
OTAR LEFT |
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DISCOVER MAGAZINE
Research Involving UNL Scientists Among Year's Top 100 Discoveries
Findings of two research projects
involving University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists were named among the
100 most important discoveries and developments in science in 2004 by
Discover magazine. Each year, Discover selects the 100 top science stories of the year
to feature in its Year in Science issue. Global warming topped the 2004
list, which is featured in the January 2005 issue. Research involving UNL
physicists Greg Snow and Dan Claes and agronomist Ken Cassman made the
list.
"This is terrific news," said Prem Paul, the university's vice
chancellor for research. "Having research our scientists are involved with
listed among the year's top 100 discoveries by a major science magazine is
indicative of the high quality of our research efforts."
Snow and Claes were part of an international team at Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago that established the mass of the top
quark, a discovery that ranked as Discover's No. 57 story.
Already known to be the heaviest of the fundamental particles that
make up the nuclei of atoms, the top quark nevertheless came in at a
surprisingly massive 178 billion electron volts (physicists use energy
measurements to express the mass of subatomic particles). Claes said that's
about as heavy as the nucleus of a gold atom.
Because of its size, the top quark extremely unstable, which is why
it was the last of the six quarks to be positively identified (in 1995),
and why it took nine more years to measure its mass accurately. But Snow
said real significance in finding the mass of the top quark is in narrowing
the search for a particle called the Higgs boson, which is believed to
endow all particles with mass.
"This Higgs boson should be somewhere in the vicinity of 117 billion
electron volts," Snow said. "We've narrowed down the possible window in
which the Higgs mass should exist, and we know better how to look for it in
the collisions that we see at Fermilab."
Research by Cassman and agricultural scientists at the International
Rice Research Institute in the Philippines provided some of the first
evidence that global warming could hurt food production. Their findings
were Discover's No. 68 story.
This 11-year field study found that rice yields decrease 10 percent
for every 1.8-degree Fahrenheit increase in nighttime temperatures when
solar radiation and temperature are the only factors limiting yields,
Cassman said. "These findings suggest the yield potential ceiling could decrease if
global temperatures continue to rise," he said.
Yields for rice, a leading food crop in much of the world, have
leveled off in several major rice-producing regions. With rice yields
already close to maximum potential in these regions, there's little room
for improvement. Global warming might lower that potential, said Cassman, a
scientist in the university's Institute of Agriculture and Natural
Resources.
This research has implications for Nebraska where major crops,
including corn, soybeans and wheat, also are sensitive to high temperatures
during the critical grain development period. "Meeting world food demand in the next 30-40 years is going to be a
challenge without global warming," Cassman said. "With global warming, it's
like an additional headwind facing scientists trying to ensure food
security."
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EISENTRAGER•HOWARD GALLERY, THROUGH
DEC. 17, NOON-5PM
Capstone Exhibition Presents Work
of Nine BFA Candidates
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The semiannual BFA Capstone Exhibition opens today in the Eisentrager•Howard
Gallery, on the first floor of Richards Hall.
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The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
Capstone Exhibition opens today in the Eisentrager•Howard
Gallery in Richards Hall, Stadium Drive and T streets, on UNL's city
campus. A closing reception will be held Friday, Dec. 17, from 5-7pm
in the gallery.
The BFA Capstone Exhibition features
the work of graduating seniors from the Department of Art and Art
History. This presentation is the culminating undergraduate presentation
for art students during their university program. The following nine
artists are included in the exhibition:
Shannon Bourne shows a series of oil paintings depicting
organic forms in atmospheric environments.
Matthew Gohring is a graphic designer who is exhibiting
several brochures and magazine covers he produced for the College
of Engineering and the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
Kris Haskin is presenting a series of small and
larger oil paintings that employ bold and textual abstractions.
Justin Irwin shows five larger abstract paintings
on shaper canvases distinguished by layers of marks and patterns.
Jessica Mills is exhibiting colorful etchings with
overlayed drawings and images that are identified by poetic titles.
Kathryn Scherfenberg presents exquisite sets of
earthenware ceramic plates, cups, serving dishes and place settings,
glazed with beautiful decorative surfaces.
Meghan Stratman shows paper and collage images depicting
women and works based on female storybook characters.
Nolan Tredway exhibits oil paintings of fantasy
landscapes, and a DVD series entitled "Milk" that employs puppet-like
figures in epistemological dialogues.
Timothy Wegner shows eight stoneware and porcelain
sculptures based on organic images with monochromatic satin glazes.
The Department of Art and Art History's Eisentrager•Howard
Gallery is open Monday through Friday, noon-5pm. The gallery is located
on the first floor of Richards Hall.
COLLEGE
OF FINE AND PERFORMING ARTS | ART
AND ART HISTORY |
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