Dominican University Announces Spring Arts Season

Dominican University is presenting a wide range of performances, concerts and lectures for the Spring 2021 semester. All programs will be presented virtually. More information about all programming can be found at https://www.dom.edu/arts-minds

Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and Up First, will discuss her wide-ranging career in a lecture on Tuesday, February 9 at 7 p.m. Garcia-Navarro is an award-winning former foreign correspondent who has covered conflict in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel. One of the first reporters to enter Libya after the start of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, she remained in the country for months, often at great personal risk. She also has reported on migration in Mexico and the Amazon in Brazil and received a Gracie Award for her coverage of the #MeToo movement. 

Joy Harjo, the first Native American to be appointed a U.S. Poet Laureate, will deliver the Eighth Annual Caesar and Patricia Tabet Poetry Reading on Thursday, February 18 at 7 p.m. A member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation, Harjo is the author of nine books of poetry as well as a performer and saxophone player.

George “Tink” Tinker, a member of the Osage Nation, will explore how American Indian culture and values can contribute to the sustainability of Earth in a lecture titled “Cosmic Balance Versus Individual Salvation” on Thursday, February 25 at 6 p.m.  Tinker is a professor emeritus at ILIFF School of Theology in Denver, CO and the author of American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty.

World-renowned economist and a global leader in sustainable development Jeffrey Sachs will discuss “The Ages of Globalization” on Wednesday, March 3 at 5 p.m.  Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, Sachs has tackled in numerous books and articles complex issues such as the debt crisis, extreme poverty, climate change and the control of AIDS, malaria and other diseases. He is co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global award for environmental leadership and was twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential World Leaders.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Renée Watson will present, in conversation, the Follett-Butler Lecture on Wednesday, March 29 at 6 p.m. In a program titled “Fantastic Black Girlhoods,” they will discuss literature for Black youth and how it fits into the larger body of youth literature. Thomas, Dominican’s Follett Chair, is the author of, most recently, The Dark Fantastic: Race and Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games. Watson is the founder of the “I, Too, Arts Collective” and an author whose young adult book Piecing Me Together received a 2017 Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor.

The Theatre Arts Lab Series will present She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms on April 15 – 18 at 7 p.m. The play involves a young woman’s discovery of her dead sister’s creation, a Dungeon & Dragons-like fantasy game that had been her sister’s private refuge. The discovery leads her to a better understanding of the sister she never really knew.

The spring season also includes the university’s participation in the One Earth Film Festival from March 5 to 14 and an outdoor presentation of the annual student fashion show on April 24 and 25.

About Dominican University

Founded in 1901, Dominican University is a comprehensive, coeducational Catholic institution offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees through the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences, the Borra College of Health Sciences, the Brennan School of Business and the College of Applied Social Sciences. The university also offers a doctoral degree in information studies. U.S. News & World Report ranks Dominican University #10 of all Midwest regional master’s level universities, the best value in the Chicago area and #1 in Illinois for ensuring the social mobility of its graduates.