By the time she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she had a book deal for “My Life with the Walter Boys” from Sourcebooks Fire.
Meet Grace Girard. Maybe you’ve seen her cheering on Wisconsin sports teams, posting up at Wolski’s, dining in the Third Ward — oh, or in previews for the upcoming season of “Farmer Wants a Wife.”
What does a broom from Kentucky have to do with an art gallery in Wisconsin? Plenty.
That’s one of the lessons from “Heart, Head, and Hand: Making and Remaking at Berea College Student Craft,” an exhibition at the Ruth Davis Design Gallery at UW-Madison running through March 3.
On Sunday, Feb. 18, admission to the Milwaukee Art Museum will be free in honor of Vel Phillips’ 100th birthday.
Phillips, a civil rights activist who was born and raised in Milwaukee, has a series of “firsts” to her name — including the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin law school, the first Black person and woman to be elected to the Milwaukee Common Council, the first woman judge in Milwaukee and the first Black judge in Wisconsin, and the first elected secretary of state who was a person of color.
An exhibit in the main floor of UW-Madison’s Memorial Library seeks to showcase pivotal moments in the history of experimental and electronic music. Many of those pivotal moments are available to play (and available to check out) in Memorial’s basement, amidst the vast musical collection of the Mills Music Library.
“A journey which I didn’t enjoy ultimately” is how Mari Osaka, who retired from tennis at age 24, describes her unsuccessful pursuit of what Rothenberg calls the “high-risk, high-reward dream of tennis glory.” Time will tell whether it’s a sentiment that Naomi will apply to her own career.
-Ashley Brown is the Allan H. Selig chair in the history of sport and society and an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is the author of “Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson.”
Born in Kenosha, Don Ameche went to Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin before getting into acting. He received his star in 1960, part of the initial 1,500-plus awarded when the Walk of Fame formally opened. A quarter-century later, Ameche won an even bigger honor — an Oscar for best supporting actor for the 1986 movie “Cocoon.”
A new book explores the life and career of Wisconsin Badgers hockey legend Blake Geoffrion, including his decision to retire from the NHL.
FacebookTwitterEmailPrintCopy article linkWith the fall semester drawn to a close and a new year underway, University of Wisconsin-Madison professors in departments ranging from math to English are reflecting on their favorite reads of the year.
More than 100 people escaped Saturday’s gray drizzle in favor of the cozy fires of the UW-Madison Glass Lab for the annual Blow Your Own Glass event. The spectacle has become so popular with the community that the Mad Gaffers, the glass lab student organization, sold out all the time slots for not only Saturday but also last week’s edition of the event.
Author Beth Nguyen is a Madisonian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in creative writing. “Owner of a Lonely Heart” isn’t her first published book, but it’s different because of the way it’s written as a memoir in essays.
That story tells of a woman who, as a child, escaped Vietnam with her father. He didn’t tell the young girl’s mother where they were going, leaving her behind. The mother eventually escaped to the Boston area, and 20 years later, mother and daughter reconnected.
A Broadway-caliber entertainment group is getting ready to tour Wisconsin and the Midwest. The Wisconsin Singers is a decades-old tradition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nearly every person involved in the production is a student, and not all of them are arts, music or theater majors.
Graduate photography students gave gallery-goers a glimpse into their own personal stories in an exhibition titled “Take My Word For It.”
Their winning entry highlighted the life of acclaimed Ho-Chunk artist and teacher Truman Lowe. Lowe, who died in 2019, was well known in the art world for a sculptural technique that blended traditional woodworking with modern materials. The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Arts building was also renamed in his honor.
“In India, there is an emphasis on ‘Who is your cook?’ ‘Who occupies your kitchen?’” said Vamsi, who is living in Madison for the 2023-’24 school year as the artist-in-residence for the UW-Madison Division of the Arts’ Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program. “People put out (help wanted) ads saying they want somebody from a certain caste. That I would go out and occupy these spaces was an important part of designing the performance.”
Awarded to young alumni within 15 years of graduation, the Forward Award is a recognition of exceptional early-career achievement of those who embody the Wisconsin Idea: a passion to take learning beyond the classroom, according to the University of Wisconsin website.
Sonically, as with polka, this band’s music needs the tuba section as its foundation, said Corey Pompey, UW Marching Band director and associate director of bands at UW-Madison.
It’s just an important sound, an important voice in the band, that we just have to have“When we talk about the roots of the chords, we’re talking about basslines,” Corey said. “If we’re playing jazz, or if we’re playing some more contemporary music, for that matter, the bass is important — and rock music, too. It’s just an important sound, an important voice in the band, that we just have to have.”
Oates’s first book, “By the North Gate,” a collection of short stories, was accepted for publication in 1962, when she was twenty-three. She had just finished a master’s in English, at the University of Wisconsin.
What unfolds is UW-Madison alumna and guest arist Taryn Vander Hoop’s “Fever Pitch,” a masterful work that interrogates the uniquely modern tension between homogeneity and freedom. The piece is reason enough to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Dance Department’s Faculty Concert Fall 2023 at Lathrop Hall.
UW student, artist asks students about life plans with art project on Library Mall.
From mix tapes and CDs to music apps like Apple and Spotify, people have been making playlists for decades. Jeremy Morris, an assistant professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, gives pointers for making a playlist for any occasion, and listeners weigh in with their own philosophies of what makes a great mix.
When Terry Zwigoff was last on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus over a half-century ago, becoming a filmmaker was far from his mind. Zwigoff, who was born in Appleton and moved to Chicago when he was 5, was too busy enjoying the freedom of being away from home and being a college student in Madison in the 1960s.
Madison’s festive Tudor Dinner Holiday Concerts — a nearly century-old tradition of music and food at Memorial Union — are giving way to a different sort of holiday show this year, and both performers and audience members have mixed emotions about the change.
Upon graduation, Ihim attended the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison. She “loved being a Badger,” from football games to Friday fish frys at the former Madhatter.
One of those First Wave students throughout its history who might not have come to UW-Madison if it weren’t for the program is Ajanaé Dawkins, who earned her bachelor’s degree in English in 2018 and was part of First Wave’s 7th cohort.
Long before lines like “Don’t call me Shirley” became part of classic film culture’s lexicon, the men behind the movie “Airplane!” were busy hammering and nailing a stage together for their opening performance of Kentucky Fried Theater at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Written by Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker — the three guys known as ZAZ at their Hollywood height — the memoir covers the early years of the friends, who grew up together in Wisconsin and founded a theater troupe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Kentucky Fried Theater, that later led to 1977’s “The Kentucky Fried Movie.”
Hannah Morrissey just released “When I’m Dead,” a book thatfollows the gripping story of a murder case, the third installment of the Black Harbor books. Having studied English and creative writing at University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has grown to know the ins and outs of every cold winter, meaning each and every detail added draws the reader deeper into the story.
Tucked away in a building on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison is a vast collection of preserved animals, bugs and species that roamed our earth hundreds of years ago. It’s UW’s Zoological Museum.
Students, researchers and instructors use it for learning and teaching.
Dorothea Salo, an instructor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Information School, said the bill goes against “really bedrock, standard library ethics about letting people read what they want without interference, and without sharing that information.”
The third year of the festival brought filmmakers and poets together to showcase artwork.
Susan Lederer, professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin’s medical school, said that as the number of medical schools increased in the 19th century and dissection became an essential part of training, schools needed to find more cadavers.
States passed laws making unclaimed bodies, mostly of very poor people, available to medical schools.
“It reflects longstanding assumptions about the differences between middle-class and either working-class or underclass people” that it was deemed acceptable to turn certain bodies over but not others, she said.
Gordon then attended the University of Wisconsin where he made campus news reels, using university equipment, that ran in Madison’s downtown theaters. He left college early to join the Army Air Corps. After his military service, he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he filmed commercials and documentaries.
The 17th annual Passing the Mic Intergenerational Hip Hop Festival will be taking place this weekend with the Day One Showcase tonight from 7-9 p.m. at MYArts on E. Mifflin St. and the Day Two Showcase on Saturday, Oct. 21, 7-9:30 p.m. at the Union Playcircle Theatre in UW-Madison’s Memorial Union.
Not a moment too soon, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has chosen a paradigm-shifting book on truth, persuasion and social change for its 2023-2024 Go Big Read common reading program.
“How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion” by David McRaney (Penguin Random House 2022) tackles the psychology that drives our bitterly divided, tribal politics, and sheds light on the path to a more civil, democratic and constructive future.
Indigenous art professors from UW explore realities of life, natural world in Washington D.C. exhibit.
Gary Lupyan, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, says that words can organize the way we think about the world and shape the way we perceive it. In a recent experiment, he and his colleagues measured how hard it was for English speakers to assign circles colored in diverse ways to a random category (such as “A” or “B”) if the colors were easy to name (for instance, “red” or “blue”) or hard to name (“slightly neutral lavender” or “light dusty rose”). All the colors, regardless of how nameable they were in English, were equally easy to discriminate visually from one another. Even so, Lupyan and his colleagues found strong differences in participants’ ability to learn which circles went into the different categories based on how easily nameable the colors were.
If you’re a science educator, professional development sessions and lectures on timely topics are often included in science festivals to enrich your curriculum. Take the Badger Talks series from University of Wisconsin-Madison for example, where professors will speak on topics like sustainability, psychedelics research and weather monitoring.
Organizers say 50 artist studios will be open for people to view student artwork and see inside classrooms and studios.
Jeremy Morris is a professor in media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies how digital technologies are affecting the music industry. He said concert films are neither better nor worse than live performances, but rather different.
“I think there is that kind of gut reaction to sort of look down on these other ways of presenting concerts,” Morris said. “But it provides a different experience that some people can really enjoy and latch onto.”
University of Wisconsin-–Madison alumna and award-winning poet, actor and artist Shasparay founded the BAM Festival in 2019 while earning her undergraduate degree in theatre from UW–Madison, and continues to serve as its artistic director. She co-produces and co-presents the BAM Festival with the Wisconsin Union Theater (WUT).
As an English major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she spent her first fieldwork internship at the Shorewood Library in 1982, where she’s worked ever since.
UW-Madison is home to the first collegiate glass program in the U.S. It turned 60 in 2022, and the glass program is kicking off a year-long celebration called Glass Madison, starting this month. October features six gallery shows on campus, all open to the public.
PBS Wisconsin Education, along with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Act 31 Coalition provide accurate and authentic educational resources for educators, learners and anyone looking to learn more about the histories, cultures and tribal sovereignty of Wisconsin’s First Nations through the Wisconsin First Nations website.
Created by the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives in partnership with the Division of Arts, the fellowship program’s goal is to recruit diverse and accomplished artists from many different disciplines, giving them an opportunity to further their creative work.
Philip Salamone is a classical portrait artist, learning the craft at both UW-Madison and Grand Central Atelier in New York City. In 2010 he returned to Madison, and in an effort to cultivate a community, to teach classes and workshops, and to learn from others, he founded the Atwood Atelier—an institution devoted to teaching traditional drawing and painting from life.
UW associate professor of glassworking Helen Lee discussed the Glass Lab’s celebration of this milestone throughout the 2023-24 academic year. Events will include open houses where the Glass Lab will provide demonstrations, as well as interactive events where individuals can create their own glass artworks with assistance from the lab’s staff.
“Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection” is a collection of many stories told through three fascinating lenses.
Cinemadison, a University of Wisconsin-Madison film group, put on a student film festival in the Marquee Cinema at Union South last week that was a celebration of what it means to be an artist burdened by the role of being a student.
The films are produced by Cinemadison, a local, University of Wisconsin based, Registered Student Organization. One film named “St. Abby” is a collaboration with DePaul University’s film students.
A 2022 production of “Sweeney Todd” by University Opera has won two major awards for directing and overall performance, the American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts announced Thursday. David Ronis, associate professor and director of University Opera at UW-Madison, received the 2023 American Prize-Charles Nelson Reilly Prize in Directing.
To much of the world, Richard Davis — whose versatility and mastery of the bass is legendary on recordings such as Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” and Eric Dolphy’s “Out to Lunch” — was a jazz great. To Madison, he was much more.
Richard Davis, an esteemed bassist who played not just with some of the biggest names in jazz but also with major figures in the classical, pop and rock worlds, died on Wednesday in Madison, Wis. He was 93.
When Ken Fitzsimmons remembers Davis’s bass-playing, he can see how “he would just sing under his, you know, under his hands.” Davis played music soft as his heart, but his former students like Fitzsimmons say he was as tough as the blisters on his hands. “Warm and tough.”
Richard Davis, the legendary jazz bassist and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus who lived here since 1977, died Wednesday at 93, according to media reports.
As a bassist, Richard Davis enriched the sound not only of jazz recordings by Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones and Sarah Vaughan, but also of rock and pop albums by Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, to name a few.
As a professor for nearly four decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he shaped many young musicians, sharing Black history and cultural experience while teaching the finer points of improvising music.
During the first week of classes for UW Students, the Chazen Museum of Art opened a new exhibit using pieces from its established collection. This exhibit, entitled “Insistence and Persistence,” collects contemporary African Art from the Chazen permanent collection that focuses on experience throughout the African Diaspora.
The large skull sculpture that had been in front of the Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus for nine years was moved inside the museum Thursday because of concerns for its preservation.
The large skull sculpture that had been in front of The Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus for nine years was moved inside the museum Thursday because of concerns for its preservation. Kirstin Pires, the museum’s spokesperson, said there were many reasons behind the move, including the wishes of the artist, 88-year-old Jim Dine.
Indian Dalit theater practitioner Sri Vamsi Matta will be the inaugural academic year-long Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence for 2023-24 in exciting news announced by the University of Wisconsin Madison. UW-Madison Division of the Arts along with the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures will also welcome Vamsi as an educator and visual artist coming from Bengaluru, India.
