Arts and Culture

For nearly four decades, UNC Charlotte has held the region’s largest, most culturally diverse festival. Now entering its 39th year, the annual International Festival provides a unique opportunity for attendees to experience the world in a day. With more than 50 nations represented, this colorful festival lets individuals engage in a vast array of activities including art, costumes, games, music, dance, and of course, food.

The College of Arts + Architecture, in partnership with the UNC Charlotte Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies, will present “Stories and Music from the Violins of Hope” at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 11, in the Belk Theater of the Robinson Hall for the Performing Arts.
James Grymes, interim chair of the UNC Charlotte Department of Music, will read from his new book “Violins of Hope: Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind’s Darkest Hour.” There will be performances of related music throughout the evening, and a book signing and reception will follow.

The Faculty Biennial 2014, an exhibition of exemplary works by 25 faculty members from the Department of Art & Art History, is being displayed in Rowe Galleries through Wednesday, Sept. 24. The wide-ranging exhibit features mediums that include ceramic sculpture, painting, digital drawing, video, photography and more that address concepts pertaining to loss, commercialism, violence, memory, history and perception.

Comedian Byron Bowers kicks off the Campus Activities Board’s monthly Friday Night Live series at 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 5, in the Cone University Center’s After Hours Lounge.
Bowers uses his own experiences to create a comedy routine that crisscrosses a multicultural socioeconomic landscape. Raised in a lower-middle class black community in Atlanta, Bowers was bused into a more affluent, predominantly white school as a child. The comic uses these experiences as a launching point for his routines.

Amber Carpenter, music alumna and harpist, won first prize in the Rosen-Schaffel Competition for Young and Emerging Artists presented by the Appalachian Summer Festival and Appalachian State University. 
Carpenter graduated from the UNC Charlotte Department of Music in 2013 with a Bachelor of Music in Music Performance (harp) and a minor in voice. She completed a graduate certificate in vocal pedagogy in May 2014.

Works by three artists comprise “CHROMA: lyrical lines and compulsive color,” which opens Saturday, July 12, at the Projective Eye Gallery in UNC Charlotte Center City.
The display will feature color-soaked abstraction in oil paintings by Linda Luise Brown, acrylics and collage works by Marge Loudon Moody and the intricate surface design on ceramic objects and installations by Greg Scott. One of the highest-selling genres, abstract art is often one of the most misunderstood, too.

David Goldfield, the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History, will participate in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s “Lunch at the Library” speaker series. His talk is scheduled for noon, Thursday, June 19, at the main library (310 N. Tryon St.).
Goldfield has written 16 books on the history of the American South, including “America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation.” Two of his works have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in history, and he serves as a consultant to museums and the U.S. Department of State on the social and political history of the South.

Oscar de la Torre, an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies, has received a 2015 fellowship from the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University.

In May, David Goldfield, the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History, delivered lectures at three East China universities, drawing connections between 19th and 20th century economic and social developments and contemporary U.S. society. Goldfield is an academic specialist for the U.S. State Department; he leads seminars and workshops abroad on various aspects of American political culture.

The film “The House I Live In” will be shown at 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 25, in the Student Union, Room 340. A panel discussion will follow.
According to event sponsors, the documentary explores America’s “War on Drugs” and the profound human rights implications of this “war.”  The film outlines the seriousness of mass incarcerations and drug abuse as a public health concern. It also investigates the errors and shortcomings of this “war” and the harm on America’s poor, especially minority communities.