Arts & Ideas

Introduction

Framingham State University is excited to present Arts & Ideas 2018-19: a year-long series of engaging speakers, performances, exhibitions and films, organized as both stand-alone events and a themed series. Come enjoy “Salsa Under the Stars,” the provocative painting of Michael Dixon, Pride Week, Poetry Week, the Latin/x characters of playwright Melinda Lopez, our annual Children’s Literature Festival, and so much more!

Our themed series, “Moon Landing in Context,” represents a collaboration between Dr. Irene Porro, director of the McAuliffe Center for Integrated Science Learning, and Arts & Ideas. The series aims to contextualize the moon landing within the historical, social and cultural framework of the Sixties, specifically the period from 1962, with President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University, to 1972, the year of the last Apollo Mission. Kennedy’s famous invocation, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” continues to challenge us, as a nation and as a globe, to garner the political will to solve big problems. That being the case, the idealism generated by the moon landing might lead us to underestimate the ways in which this major human accomplishment was co-opted by Cold War politics and other complex forces. In a similar fashion, a nostalgic reading of the social change movements of the Sixties might lead us to predict that fifty years later, our society would be more equitable and inclusive than it is. In response, the series offers a sequence of then/now/and beyond comparisons around timely issues of race, gender, sexuality, environmentalism and more. How far have we come from Stonewall? From the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike? From the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy? From the liberating influence of Our Bodies, Ourselves? From the contributions of women in the Black Power Movement, or from the radicalizing influence of the overview effect? Come be part of the conversation! Arts & Ideas Series events are free and open to the public.