Thursday, April 8, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Islamic Feminism on Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates: For sheer exhilaration, inspiration, and a real intellectual work-out, this program about the growing Islamic feminist global movement really stands out in our ongoing Inside Islam series. And we even got a tweet from Malaysia!



Monday: Marrying Out: Where better to test the potentials of interfaith relations than a marriage? Join us with Professor of History and Religious Studies and director of the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions, Charles Cohen, (he’s Jewish) along with his wife Christine Schindler, (she’s Christian) as they lead a conversation about the challenges and rewards of marrying out.

Tuesday: The Music of Vodou: In the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, the government has been calling back its vodou priests from the Diaspora to assist in the nation’s healing. Erol Josue is one of them. An accomplished musician whose music reflects his immersion in Haitian religious practices and beliefs, he says music is as central to vodou as the Bible is to Christianity.

Wednesday: Nick and the Candlestick: Nick Lantz’s new collection of Poetry, We Don’t Know We Don’t Know, takes its title and inspiration in part from this and other cryptic Rumsfeldisms from Bush’s former Secretary of Defense, but just to show how eclectic he is, this amazing and puzzling new poet also borrows from Pliny the Elder and has written a scalding long poem about torture, “Will There Be More Than One Questioner?” which you may remember from our program about the Guantanamo cover-up. Come help me get inside this remarkable new poet’s head.

Thursday: The Desert of Forbidden Art: How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule, artists following their own vision were persecuted. But Igor Savitzky, a passionate young art collector, tricked the Soviet rulers into giving him money to salvage 40,000 works of forbidden art and to create a unique collection of Russian Avant Garde paintings in the desert of Uzbekistan. We talk with the filmmakers of the film Desert of Forbidden Art, featured at this month’s Wisconsin Film Festival.

Friday: What We Eat When We Eat Alone: We’re resurrecting this archived program from our collection of Food Friday favorites: What do you eat when no one is watching? Fried spam with grape jelly? Left-over spaghetti sandwiches? A glass of zabaglione? Cookbook author Deborah Madison has been collecting answers to that question and the results may make your jaw drop.

Think daffodils and help me bring back the spring!

Jean