Alabama Student National Winner in Letters About Literature Contest

The Alabama Center for the Book and the Alabama Humanities Foundation are pleased to announce that Cori Anne Mazer, a student at Highlands School in Birmingham, has been named a 2009 Letters About Literature national winner. Miss Mazer is the first national winner from Alabama.

Letters About Literature is a reading-writing contest in which student readers write a personal letter to an author, living or dead, from any genre-fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic-explaining how that author's work changed the student's way of thinking about the world or themselves. Letters are judged first at the state level.  First-place winners from state competitions across the country are then submitted to the national contest, where six winners will be chosen to receive $10,000 reading promotion grants for their school or community library.  Approximately 55,000 young readers from across the nation participated in this year's Letters About Literature initiative.

Mazer, a 6^th grade student, wrote to Lois Lowry after reading The Giver. She has designated her school library as the recipient of the grant. "I've spent countless hours in that library, so I'm happy to be able to give something back," said Mazer.

On the state level, the program is sponsored by the Alabama Center for the Book and the Alabama Humanities Foundation. State and national judges include published authors, editors, publishers, librarians and teachers.

The Alabama Center for the Book is a state affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Housed at the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University, the Center sponsors programs around the state on books and reading. For more information, please visit www.alabamabookcenter.org.

Miss Mazer's winning letter, after the jump.

The Creek War and War of 1812 in the South: A Symposium

Join scholars from across the country to discuss the Creek War and War of 1812 in the South on Friday May 22 and Saturday May 23 at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. The symposium will continue Saturday afternoon at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park in Dadeville.

More information about the symposium, including a schedule of events, can be found on the symposium site. A registration form can be found here (PDF).

This symposium is sponsored by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University and the Horsehoe Bend National Military Park, with funding from the National Park Service.

Don't miss the Alabama Book Festival!

Don't miss the fourth annual Alabama Book Festival! On Saturday, April 18, more than fifty novelists, poets, artists, illustrators, playwrights and children's writers will converge on the grounds of Old Alabama Town for the fourth annual state book festival. The festival is sponsored by the Alabama Center for the Book, an affiliate program of the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University.

Tasman String Quartet and Auburn Music Faculty Collaborative Concert

The Tasman String Quartet will perform with Auburn University Department of Music faculty in a collaborative concert on Monday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Goodwin Music Building Recital Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.

The Tasman String Quartet is composed of two violinists, Anna van der Zee and Jennifer Banks, violist Christiaan van der Zee and cellist Miranda Wilson. For Monday's concert, they will be accompanied by three assistant professors in the CLA's Department of Music: Michael Koon, baritone; David Odom, clarinet; and Jeremy Samolesky, piano.

The  program includes Samuel Barber's "Dover Beach," Dimitri Shostakovich's "Piano Quintet, Op. 57" and Brahms' "Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115."

Dr. Amalia Amaki returns for New Perspectives Lecture Series

The New Perspectives Lecture series continues on Tuesday, March 10^th, with Dr. Amalia Amaki. "Hale Aspacio Woodruff, the Academy, and the Paul R. Jones Collection" focuses on the life and work of artist and educator Hale Aspacio Woodruff, who played a significant role in educating and advancing the work of generations of African American artists.  Amaki will discuss his far-reaching influence and will also consider the connections between Woodruff's oeuvre and legacy and the Paul R. Jones Collection. Dr. Amaki will speak at 3 p.m. in the JCSM auditorium. The program is sponsored by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and the Alabama Humanities Foundation. The series is co-sponsored by the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, the Access and Community Initiatives unit of the Office of Diversity of Multicultural Affairs, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Auburn University, and the Department of Art in the College of Liberal Arts.

Liberal Arts Interdisciplinary Panel On Evolution

Members of the Faculty of the College of Liberal Arts will convene for an interdisciplinary look at evolution on Monday, March 2, at 3:00 in 112 Rouse Life Sciences Bldg as part of the Charles Darwin Commemorative Celebration.  Chris Qualls, Assistant Professor of Theater, Elizabeth Brestan Knight, Associate Professor of Psychology, Giovanna Summerfield, Associate Professor of Foreign Languages, and Brigitta Brunner, Margaret Fitch-Hauser, and Robert French, professors in the department of Communications and Journalism will offer varying interpretations of Darwin and evolution from perspectives within the arts and humanities.

Professor Qualls, who will present a dramatic reading from the transcripts of the Scopes "Monkey" Trial from 1925, will be followed by professor Knight who will offer a psychological theory of mate selection that is based on Darwin's theory of evolution.  Drs. Brunner, Fitch-Hauser, and French will next investigate the evolution of the public relations industry from Barnum to Bloggers.  The final presentation by professor Summerfield will explore Collodi's masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio.  Written one year after Darwin's death, its main character carries on the revolution against an intervening deity, with an emphasis on competitive struggle for existence and self-betterment.

This interdisciplinary panel presented by College of Liberal Arts' faculty promises to offer an interesting and unusual collection of original investigations of Darwin's groundbreaking ideas.  All are invited to attend.

For more information please visit www.auburn.edu/cah or call 334-844-4946

Follow the Tasman String Quartet!

Already into their second week of residency, the Tasman String Quartet has kept busy with visits to Birmingham, Scottsboro, and Pisgah, Alabama. Want to follow them on their mission to bring music to students around the state? Visit http://tasman.tumblr.com/ for photos and videos, as well as a calendar of their outreach activities.

Brought to Auburn under the auspices of the Breeden Eminent Scholar, held by Dr. Howard Goldstein of the College of Liberal Art's Music Department, the group will offer unique opportunities in string education and performance for students and faculty as well as the general public. The residency is coordinated by Goldstein, the Auburn University Music Department and the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities.

Questions about the quartet, the Breeden Scholar, or the center's outreach activities? Email us at cenarts@auburn.edu.