The Program

The Directors

The Scholars

Contact Information

1992-1993 Centennial Scholars

Jamie Babbit directed films about e.e. cummings and spring. Her presentation "cummings triptych: an evening of film theatre, and music" celebrated the poetry of e.e. cummings and spring.

Ilana Blumberg focused on language and all its enigmatic qualities for her project. "Child of My Soul" dealt with auditory expectations, both met and unfulfilled, the breakdown of language and its constructive power, states of being and relationships as reflected by language, the way words reflect their speaker, the inevitability of language, the lack of choice in assuming and using language, the absence of language or its renunciation, and worlds language can create or evoke. She used her own short stories to explore these themes.

Esther Fried presented a pictorial journey through the lives and minds of Russian and Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. The project also looked at reactions of the natives who are affected as well. She named her project "Hope and Despair: the miracles and difficulties of the recent immigrant wave facing Israel."

Yona Friedman "The Struggle between Language and Identity" explores the translation of the essence of her self into American and Italian, viewing language as a powerful tool which she, as a bilingual person, had to learn to manipulate and conquer in order to find her self in two languages. She inteviewed bilingual people to discover the different and common threads in their experiences.

Camara Holloway presented "Snow Jobs: the images of African-American women in American popular culture" which discussed the origin of imagery of African-American women; the reason these images reflect inaccurately the lives of these women; the detrimental impact of these images; and the attempt of these women to counter this negative imagery by creating their own images.

Pei Hshieh's project "From Primitives to Liquid People: an Introduction to Computer Animation" discussed how, in this digital age, computer graphics and animation play important roles in the production and perception of visual information. Her presentation introduces fundamental computer graphics, concepts, and animation production techniques in non-technical terms. Her discussion centers around human-related issues and applications of this technology in diverse fields, using her own work and that of others as examples. Topics ranged from architectural modeling to the creation of the cosmic water weenie in "The Abyss."

Caroline Pet presented "The Blind and the Strange: a concert of musical and literary works about Asian-Americans." In this concert performance Caroline read a collection of her short stories, and Columbia University musicians and vocalists performed her musical compositions on piano, violins, viola, and violoncello.

Ede Thurrell's "Untitled As Of Yet" was a dance performance expressing a series of letters she never wrote home during her stay in Morocco. It was a performance about how the world looks at women.