HASS hour provides Timepiece for students
The College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) is taking community social events to a new level.
As part of an event known as the HASS Hour, Dean Gary Kiger invites a different HASS faculty member to give a 10-minute talk, called the “Timepiece,” every third Thursday of the month while a dinner is served.
“The only assignment I give them is it needs to be a 10-minute, edgy, provocative talk,” Kiger said. “Things that get people talking, things that get them thinking.”
Otherwise, the speaker may speak on whatever he or she likes, as long as it’s accessible to a broad audience. Students, faculty and members of the community are all invited to attend.
The HASS Hour was started in February of 2004 by Kiger, Julie Pitcher, the assistant dean of development at the time, and staff at the college office as a fundraising tool and, a way to build a sense of community and to showcase the faculty.
“By inviting a different faculty member to speak each month, you really get a sense of the breadth of talent at this college,” Kiger said.
According to a publicity pamphlet, “The HASS Hour is designed to foster camaraderie among the College of HASS, USU and the Cache Valley community.”
But what makes it unique are the ideas presented there.
“The HASS Hour achieves both goals,” Kiger said. “It’s a social event, a community builder and it’s intellectually engaging … I’ll see people two weeks, three weeks later, that will grab me in town or here at the university and say, ‘Boy that HASS Hour last month was fantastic – we’ve really been talking a lot about it since then.’ It stays with them long after the talk is over.”
Eric Smigel of the department of music will be speaking this month on the use of quotations in contemporary music.
“The use of pre-existing music in new compositions has been in practice since the medieval period,” Smigel said. “What makes it particularly provocative in contemporary culture is that the resources are so much more vast then they were. Deciding what you’re going to draw from is daunting.”
Smigel said composers specifically draw from something familiar for a surrealistic effect. “The juxtaposition of disparate ideas” creates a musical collage that “makes your toenails twinkle “- a phrase poet Dylan Thomas used to describe the effects of poetry.
For example, Alban Berg, a contemporary composer, wrote a violin concerto in 1935 containing a chorale that was quoted by Bach, but originally written by Martin Luther.
Smigel said Bach quoted the chorale in order to engage the congregation, but that the use of the beautiful chorale in the atonal contemporary piece is striking.
Now, said Smigel, with the sheer amount of stuff we have recorded and readily available, we also have something that author Herald Bloom described as “the anxiety of influence,” where writers (and composers) are forced to “forge a place,” not just among his or her contemporary peers, but also among the greats of history.
Smigel currently has an exhibition on display at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art on the historical and stylistic relationship between painting and music.
It’s called “Sight and Sight: A Visual Metaphor” and Smigel refers to it as “just a big piece of candy.”
The museum has mounted CD players and headphones next to specific pieces of art and Smigel has selected music that struck him as having a parallel to the artwork.
Now people can witness firsthand what Smigel explains as the “synesthetic relationship” between art and music.
This month’s HASS Hour begins at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 21, at The Italian Place, a local restaurant on 48 Federal Avenue, across from Caffé Ibis. It’s normally held at the Logan Golf and Country Club, but because of construction, it will be held at The Italian Place until around May, Kiger said. The Timepiece begins at 6 p.m.
The cost to attend is $10 per individual and $18 per couple. Annual memberships are also offered at $100 per individual and $180 per couple. One-time tickets can be bought at the door and annual memberships can be purchased by contacting Sally Okelberry at sally.okelberry@usu.edu.