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Yale History Professor David Blight to present on the Civil War at Transylvania University on Monday, Sept. 17

Posted on September 12, 2012July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—The Kentucky Civil War Round Table and Transylvania University will host a presentation by David Blight Monday, Sept. 17 at 6:30 p.m. in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center’s Haggin Auditorium. The lecture is titled “Civil War and Emancipation in American Memory, Then and Now.” Blight is a professor of history at Yale University and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. Following the presentation, Blight will answer questions from the audience. Yale calls Blight “one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the US Civil War and its legacy.” He served on the board of advisers to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and is the author of American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era. He spoke at Transylvania’s Presidential Inaugural symposium in the spring of 2011.

Transylvania University’s Studio 300: Digital Art and Music Festival features two days of cutting-edge works by international artists

Posted on September 10, 2012July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s Studio 300: Digital Art and Music Festival offers up the cutting edge of art in the digital age with seven exhibitions, three concerts, two lectures and over 20 musicians and artists from eight countries. The festival, which is free and open to the community, runs Friday and Saturday, Sept. 28 and 29. The mission of the festival is to explore creative manifestations of technology through concerts and exhibitions of digital art and music. Digital art has expanded artistic and musical mediums far beyond paint brushes and pianos. “Studio 300 is an exciting event because all the artists and musicians involved are also technologists that build their own tools, instead of using preexisting tools in traditional ways,” says Timothy Polashek, director of the festival and music professor at Transylvania. Exhibitions include interactive art, pre-recorded tracks created in electronic music studios and music that is generated by original computer programs. The festival will give Transylvania students and the community “an exclusive front row seat,” Polashek says, to experience the newest developments of international digital art. Studio 300 begins with an artist’s talk on Friday at 10:30 a.m., an afternoon of open art installations across campus and a concert. Friday night offers two concerts. The first begins at 7:30 p.m. in Haggin Auditorium and the second at Al’s Bar starting at 11 p.m. Each concert features six different artist-composers offering the audience a wide exposure to unique video,

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Ink in the Cage: The Stories Behind MMA Fighter Tattoos opens in Transylvania University’s Morlan Gallery Monday, Sept. 17

Posted on September 7, 2012July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s Morlan Gallery opens its 2012-13 season on Sept. 17 with Ink in the Cage: The Stories Behind MMA Fighter Tattoos. The exhibition, an installation of larger-than-life photographic images, runs through Oct. 26. While tattoos are common among mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters and are highly visible in the cage, the stories behind them are less public. Ink in the Cage is a photographic exploration of those tattoos that reveal unique aspects of fighter identities—their convictions, passions and personal histories. Through interview excerpts and photographs, observers are granted entrée into the private lives of these athletes whose tattoos commemorate major turning points, serve as reminders of loved ones, echo religious sentiments and are frequently symbols of the philosophy fighters live by, both inside and outside the cage. Anthropology professor Barbara LoMonaco, who was named vice president for student affairs and dean of students this summer, began the project over two years ago. She combined her passion for mixed martial arts fighting and her academic interests in the gendered meanings underlying body decoration cross-culturally. She teamed up with photographer Angela Baldridge, a 2004 Transylvania University graduate with a master’s degree in visual communications from Syracuse University. Baldridge’s work has taken her to California, Las Vegas, New York, Mexico, Germany, Hungary, England and all over Kentucky, where she has been inspired by people’s shared and individual stories. LoMonaco and Baldridge traveled to Las Vegas, Lexington, Los Angeles, Hollywood, San Diego

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National Book Award winner Nikky Finney to address Transylvania convocation on Sunday, Sept. 9, at 7 p.m.; free and open to the public

Posted on August 29, 2012July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Poet and professor Nikky Finney, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry, will deliver the convocation address for the beginning of the academic year at Transylvania University on Sunday, Sept. 9, at 7 p.m. in Haggin Auditorium. Her presentation is entitled “The Art of Being Taken With Yourself.” Finney is Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky. Her 2011 collection of poems, Head Off & Split, was published by Northwestern University Press and won the National Book Award. The collection caused critics to hail Finney as “…one of the most eloquent, urgent, fearless and necessary poets writing in America today….” (Kwame Dawes, author of Hope’s Hospice) and as a writer who “…takes the reader to a wonderfully alive world where the musical possibilities of language overflow with surprise and innovation.” (Bruce Weigl, author of What Saves Us) Finney was raised in South Carolina as the daughter of a civil rights attorney and a teacher and came of age during the civil rights and black arts movements. Those facts of her upbringing continue to exert powerful influences on her writing and teaching. Many of her poems relate intimately to emblematic figures and events in African American life, from civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. The National Book Award nominating form said that Finney’s poems dramatize the struggle for justice and speak of “…family and politics, violence and compassion;

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Ashley Gutshall and Tristan Fretwell named assistant directors of residence life

Posted on August 28, 2012July 14, 2020 by Office of Marketing and Communications

Ashley Gutshall and Tristan Fretwell have been named assistant directors of residence life at Transylvania University. They will maintain housing records and the physical condition of the residence halls, lead staff functions, provide program support, and mentor the residence life student staff. In 2008, Gutshall worked through Americorps VISTA in Transylvania’s office of community service and civic engagement. She developed and recruited students for an Alternative Spring Break, established a mentoring program and bridged connections between the campus and the community. “I am so excited to be back at Transy,” Gutshall said. “I loved my time here with the AmeriCorps VISTA program and I am looking forward to working with our wonderful staff and students.” Gutshall interned with Housing and Dining services at Kansas State University and worked as a graduate assistant for sexual assault and violence intervention and prevention with the University of South Carolina (USC). She has a B.A. in English from James Madison University and an M.A. in higher education and student affairs from USC. Fretwell has been at Transylvania since 2011 as the area coordinator of residence life. He oversaw four upper-class student residence halls, participated in an emergency on-call system, maintained the staff budget, bi-weekly staff meetings and recruited prospective residence life members. “With so many exciting changes to the university this year I cannot wait to start working with our incredible students and amazing staff and faculty,” Fretwell said. Before coming to Transylvania he

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