Briefly Noted

Cave Canem Foundation Sponsors Poetry Contest

The Cave Canem Foundation is hosting a poetry contest that is open to all African American writers who have not had a full-length book of poetry published by a professional press.

Manuscripts must be postmarked by no later than April 30, 2011. The contest’s winner will receive $1,000, publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press in fall 2012, 15 copies of the book, and a feature reading. For more information, visit www.cavecanempoets.org.

Established in 1996, Cave Canem is a nationwide fellowship founded by Pitt Professor of English Toi Derricotte and poet Cornelius Eady that cultivates the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.

—Ashley Gredzinski

Pitt to Host Duke Professor Rey Chow in April 14 Lecture

The University of Pittsburgh will feature Rey Chow, Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature at Duke University, in a lecture titled “Framing the Original: Toward a New Visibility of the Orient.”

The free public event—sponsored by Pitt’s boundary 2, an international journal of literature and culture; Humanities Center; and Film Studies Program—will take place at 4 p.m. April 14, Room 510, Cathedral of Learning.

According to American literary critic and author Fredric Jameson, Chow’s writing “completely restructures the problem of ethnicity,” noting that future discussions about the subject “will have to come to terms” with her ideas.

Chow is the author of numerous books, including Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema (Columbia University Press,1995), which received the James Russell Lowell Prize from the Modern Language Association; Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films (Columbia University Press, 2007); and Ethics after Idealism (Indiana University Press, 1998).

Chow’s work has been widely anthologized and translated into major foreign languages.

Chow earned her PhD at Stanford University and was an Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Brown University before assuming her Duke professorship.

—Ashley Gredzinski

Pitt to Host 43rd Annual International Cabaret Ball April 16

The Nationality Council of the University of Pittsburgh Nationality Rooms Program will host the 43rd Annual International Cabaret Ball at 5 p.m. April 16 in the Kurtzman Room and Ballroom of the William Pitt Union. This year’s event celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Greek and Syria-Lebanon classrooms.

The Grecian Odyssey Dancers will perform traditional Greek dances, and the Our Lady of Victory dancers will perform traditional Arabic movements. DJ Elie Mansour will play Syrian-Lebanese, Greek, and contemporary American pop music. Ethnic dress is encouraged.

The Nationality Council is the governing body of the Nationality Rooms committees and helps raise funds to provide scholarships for Pitt students to study around the world. Nationality Rooms Summer Abroad Scholarship winners from 2011 are invited as guests of the committees.

For more information, call the Nationality Rooms Program office at 412-624-6150.

—Ashley Gredzinski

Pitt Sets April 18 Lecture by Philanthropist Gara LaMarche

The Philanthropy Forum at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) will present a lecture by Gara LaMarche, president and CEO of Atlantic Philanthropies. Hosted by GSPIA’s Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership, the free public lecture will take place at 3 p.m. April 18 in Ballroom A of Pitt’s University Club.

LaMarche’s talk is titled “Advancing Social Change: Global Philanthropy, Human Rights, and Health.”

The Atlantic Philanthropies is an international grant-making foundation dedicated to spurring lasting changes in the lives of the disadvantaged by focusing on four areas of social challenges: aging, children and youth, population health, and reconciliation and human rights.

GSPIA’s Philanthropy Forum offers a university-based setting to explore philanthropy’s impacts and intentions.

An RSVP is required. For more information or to RSVP, contact the Philanthropy Forum at gspiapf@pitt.edu or at 412-648-1336.

—Ashley Gredzinski

Pitt GSPH to Hold April 15 Symposium on Health Disparities

The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health’s Center for Minority Health and Minority Student Organization will host a symposium titled “Health Disparities or Health Equity: Advancing the Dialogue” from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 15 at the Twentieth Century Club, 4201 Bigelow Blvd., Oakland.

Speakers will include Fatima Jackson, director of the Institute of African American Research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Janet Southerland, dean of Meharry Medical College’s School of Dentistry; and Alberto Cardelle, chair of the Department of Health Studies, East Stroudsburg University.

Registration is not required; a continental breakfast and lunch will be served on a first-come, first-served basis. This event is made possible by Pitt’s Provost Development Fund and The Commonwealth Fund. For more information, visit www.publichealth.pitt.edu./events.php.

—Ashley Gredzinski