Pitt’s Asian Studies Center Brings The Met to Pittsburgh Moms

If time or money will not allow you to give Mom a trip to New York City this Mother’s Day, never fear! Pitt’s Asian Studies Center is bringing a slice of “Big Apple” culture to Pittsburgh May 8.

James C.Y. Watt, the Brooke Russell Astor Chair of the Department of Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will give a free public lecture, “Form and Space in Chinese Art,” at 1 p.m. in the Frick Art Museum, 7227 Reynolds St., Point Breeze.

Watt was born in Hong Kong and educated at the University of Oxford and the University of Hong Kong. Before coming to the United States, he was curator of the art gallery and chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1981, Watt was appointed curator of Asiatic art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He joined the staff of the Department of Asian Art at The Met in 1985.

Watt has published books and catalogues on a number of different Chinese art media, including painting, porcelain, jade, lacquer, and textiles. Watt’s latest publication is China: Dawn of a Golden Age, the catalogue of a major exhibition of the same title at The Met (Oct. 2004-Jan. 2005) that traced the development of Chinese art, which was under strong foreign influence, from the 3rd to mid-8th centuries.

The May 8 lecture will discuss Chinese art in general, including painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. For more information, call 412-648-7371.

—Leigh Ann Wojciechowski

Goldstein to Receive Lautenberg Award

Bernard Goldstein, dean of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), has been selected to receive the 2005 Senator Frank R. Lautenberg Annual Award from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)-School of Public Health. Goldstein will accept the award and present the annual Lautenberg Lecture in Public Health during the UMDNJ-School of Public Health’s 2005 convocation ceremony May 23.

The Senator Frank R. Lautenberg Award and Distinguished Lecture is presented annually to an individual with a significant record of advocacy for public health and a record of lifetime achievements in the area of public health.

Goldstein also was selected to deliver the 2005 Samuel Kuna Distinguished Lectureship in Toxicology April 21 at the UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

The Kuna Lectureship is named for Samuel Kuna, one of the founders of the UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology. The audience for the presentation included faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff from the toxicology program and the Environmental and Occupational Health Services Institute, the largest academic environmental and occupational health program in the United States, which Goldstein helped establish and direct prior to his coming to GSPH in 2001. At UMDNJ, Goldstein also was chair of the Department of Environmental and Community Medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Goldstein, who announced last fall that he intends to retire as dean of GSPH in September, will remain on the Pitt faculty as a professor and continue his activities in environmental health and public policy. He is a member of the National Academies of Science Institute of Medicine; vice president of the Paris-based Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment; a consultant to the World Health Organization and to the United Nations Environmental Program; and a member of the executive committee of the Association of Schools of Public Health.

—Alan Aldinger

Book Center to Host Meet and Speak with Author Hilary Masters

Hilary Masters, professor of English and creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University, will take part in a Meet-and-Speak session and will sign copies of his new book, Shadows on a Wall: Juan O’Gorman and the Mural in Patzucuaro (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), at 5 p.m. May 12 in the University of Pittsburgh Book Center.

Masters is the author of eight novels, including The Common Pasture (Macmillan Co., 1967), Home Is the Exile (The Permanent Press, 1996), Strickland (St. Martin’s Press, 1990); two collections of short stories; a book of essays; and a family biography, Last Stands: Notes from Memory (David Godine, 1982), which has been called “an American classic.”

Masters’ short fiction has been cited in Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. He recently was awarded the Balch Prize for fiction and the Monroe Spears Prize for essays. The Yaddo Foundation granted Masters fellowships in 1980, 1982, and 2000. He received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature in 2003.

This free public event is sponsored by the University Book Center and the University of Pittsburgh Press. For more information, contact Melissa Grube in the Book Center at 412-648-1453.

—Julia Gottlieb