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The lights dimmed, and a set of eyes stared out at the audience, stoically, from a projection screen. A voice soon followed, as the video panned out to reveal artist Marina Abramovic in full form. In a clip from her recently released documentary, The Artist is Present, Abramovic explains that embracing silence is essential to the creation of art—and the audience did just that as Abramovic’s voice ceased to accompany her image.

Professor of English Steven Yao delivered a lecture at the University of Florida in Gainesville on Feb. 24. Invited as part of the series in American Studies, Yao spoke on "Pacific Rim Encounters: Questions of Method and Archive in 'Transpacific' American Studies."

On a spectacular Sunday afternoon, Feb. 26, students on the Program in Washington visited Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place for 14,000 veterans.  The highlight of the visit was witnessing the changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns by soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment.

The lecture by performance artist Marina Abramovic has been moved from the Chapel to the Wellin Performance Hall.  “The Past, Present and Future of Performance Art” will be held Wednesday, Feb. 29, at 6:30 p.m. Please note both the time and venue changes. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Steve Mello ’11 has been selected as the 2011-12 winner of the Frank W. Taussig Article Award for a paper he wrote as an undergraduate. “Do Changes in Condom Availability Impact Short-Term Fertility? Evidence from Rwanda” began as Mello’s thesis during the 2010 spring semester and evolved into his Levitt Fellowship research project.

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Nigel Westmaas addresses Charles Dickens’ attitude to the non-white world in a commentary published in Pambazuka News, an online Pan-African website.

Andrew Fiala, professor of philosophy and director of the Ethics Center at California State University, Fresno, will give a lecture on Thursday, March 1, at 4 p.m. in the Dwight Lounge, Bristol Center. Fiala’s lecture, titled “The Just War Myth: From Bush to Obama,” is part of the Levitt Center’s Series on Security and is free and open to the public.

On February 22, students in the Semester in Washington Program met with Timothy Nussbaum ’07, Northern Virginia operations coordinator for the George Allen for U.S. Senate campaign. Previously, Nussbaum had served as senior research assistant for the Fred Thompson for President campaign in 2008 and as executive assistant to the president of George Allen Strategies LLC.

Some in the media would have their audiences believe that a major in English, creative writing or comparative literature may render a college grad unemployable. As was evidenced  in a discussion with recent graduates on Feb. 24, that perspective is quite off the mark.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Camille Jones was recently appointed to serve a three-year term as a member of the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography (USNC/Cr).