Speaker series at CNU to focus
on cultural interaction in age of exploration
News Release - August 29, 2006
Public's contact for publication:
Professor Roberta Rosenberg
Department of English
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Media contact:
Karen L. Gill
Office of University Relations
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 Mike D'Orso will read from his book "Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School," on Sept. 13 at Christopher Newport University. |
(NEWPORT NEWS, Va.) — The 2006-2007 Dean William Parks Colloquium at Christopher Newport University will contribute to the University's commemoration of Jamestown 2007 with the theme "Exploration and Discovery: Crossing Cultures." Speakers will discuss the interaction of Native American and African-American cultures with Euro-American cultures from the 17th to the 21st centuries. D'Orso will read from his book, "Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School," and show slides about his experience living with the community members in Arctic, Alaska. |
More about D'Orso
D'Orso is a former staff writer for Commonwealth magazine and the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, where his writing won numerous national honors, including a National Headliner Award commendation and the Penney-Missouri Prize for general feature writing. His work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Reader's Digest, The Oxford American, People magazine, and The Washington Post, and has been included three times in “Best Sports Stories,” published annually by Sporting News.
A chapter he wrote on journalistic research methods was included in “The Complete Book of Feature Writing” (Writer's Digest Books, 1991), and his writing on author Jack Kerouac has been included in “Studies in American Fiction” and the “QPB Literary Review.” He has taught narrative nonfiction writing at the College of William and Mary and at Old Dominion University. He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a master's degree in English, both from the College of William and Mary.
Other events in the 2006-2007 Dean William Parks Colloquium
- Virginia Indians of the Chesapeake Region: Historians Discussion
7 p.m., Oct. 4, Ferguson Center for the Arts Music and Theatre Hall
Co-sponsored with the Jamestown 2007 committee
Three historians of 16th- and 17th-century America – Karen Ordahl Kupperman of New York University, Helen Rountree of Old Dominion University and James Horn of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation – will explore the contributions of the Virginia Indian tribes to the colonization efforts of English settlers in the early 1600s. They will debate the cultural interactions and misunderstandings between the races and offer the key question for audience participants to consider: Was racial co-existence possible or were conflicts and violence inevitable?
The three panelists also will discuss some of the most prominent figures of Jamestown's history, including Powhatan, Pocahontas, and Captain John Smith, as real people – products of their age and societies – and not simply one-dimensional and stereotypical figures.
- Jamaica Kincaid, Presentation on "Growing Up in A Small Place "
Screening of a documentary film by Kincaid, "Life & Debt" based on her book, “A Small Place.”
7 p.m., Feb. 1, 2007, Ferguson Center for the Arts Music and Theatre Hall
The author, who grew up on the island of Antigua, will speak of growing up female in a colonial society and how these two conditions, one natural, the other its opposite, formed her. With her books and novels, including "Annie John," "Lucy," "At the Bottom of the River" and the controversial "A Small Place," Kincaid has carved out a unique and cherished place in the American literary landscape. Strikingly honest — and with what Susan Sontag praised as “an emotional truthfulness” — she vividly describes the difficult coming-of-age of strong-minded girls who, very much like herself, were born into tropical poverty.
- Pauline Strong, "Hollywood Plays Indian"
Analysis of how Hollywood has viewed Native Americans and screening of film clips from recent and historic films, including Disney's “Pocahontas” and other depictions of Native Americans in cinema.
1 p.m., March 31, 2007, Student Union Ballroom
Christopher Newport University is a four-year public university in Newport News, Virginia. CNU enrolls 4,800 students in programs through its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Luter School of Business and offers great teaching, small classes and an emphasis on leadership, civic engagement and honor. Visit us at www.cnu.edu.