"Humanity in Crisis" Is Theme of Honors Conference
At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus on April 7

Brooklyn, N.Y. — Strife, war, and tragedy seem to define our times, and every crisis has global resonance these days. Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus will host a conference, "Humanity in Crisis," reflecting on these issues from a number of perspectives.

Free and open to the public, the conference will take place on Wednesday, April 7, from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in Library Learning Center, Room 116. It will feature a keynote address on art, trauma and place, a panel discussion, workshops, an art exhibit, dance and music performances and a student poster session.

In the morning, Matthew Biro, associate professor of art at the University of Michigan, will present the keynote talk on how the loss of one’s place in the world can be given a home in art. His address will be followed by six workshops, on the power of art to transform crisis, lead by Long Island University professors and Elise Ann Risher of the Center for Preventive Psychiatry.

Roxane D’Orleans Juste, a member of the Jose Limon Dance Company, will perform at the Triangle Theater at noon. Afternoon events will include a student poster session on power, gender and authority in Weimar Germany. Ilana Abramovitch of the Museum of Jewish Heritage and Zambian Ambassador to the United Nations Mwelwa C. Musambachime are the featured panelists in a discussion on responses to the increasingly common displacement, dislocation and forced migration of human communities.

A musical performance, "Singing the Blues," will be followed by an art exhibit and reception in the Salena Gallery. The exhibition displays the works of the late Hungarian artist Ivan Biro, who underwent the horrors of a labor camp in WWII.

The conference is supported by the John P. McGrath and Andrew Mellon Funds, the University Honors Program and the art and dance departments. For more information, call (718) 488-1657 or e-mail james.clarke@liu.edu.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Some 30,000 students currently are enrolled at the university’s three residential and three regional campuses, including more than 11,000 at the Brooklyn Campus. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.