From fossil birds to judicial dilemmas:
Faculty Research Lectures hit 100
BY AJAY SINGH
Today Staff Writer
In 1941, Arnold Schoenberg, then a professor of musicology at UCLA, delivered the 17th Faculty Research Lecture on a topic that changed the nature of 20th-century music composition. Titled “The Composition with Twelve Tones,” Schoenberg’s lecture was a prescient attempt to anticipate how his research would influence the music of the future.
So when Musicology Professor Susan McClary heard three years ago that she had been chosen to deliver the 92nd lecture in this historic series, her mind kept going back to Schoenberg. “Universities in the United States and Europe had taken twelve-tone music and made it dogma for 30 years,” recalled McClary. “I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to say against something like that?’ ”
Fortunately, McClary had nothing to worry about. “We didn’t have a single person who heard both lectures,” she said. Her 2002 lecture, “Evidence of Things Not Seen: History, Subjectivities, and Music,” began with a Schubert quartet and ended with a song from Madonna. The lecture clearly didn’t make the same impact as Schoenberg’s, but “it was a lot more fun,” McClary quipped.
Since 1925, when Biology Professor Loye H. Miller delivered the first such lecture — his was on California’s fossil birds — the Faculty Research Lecture has been a prestigious forum for celebrating the intellectual, artistic and scientific talents of UCLA’s faculty, selected by an Academic Senate committee made up of past honorees.
With the 100th lecture coming up on May 11, organizers have put together a retrospective program to remember all those who bravely stepped up to the podium to share their life’s work with the entire UCLA community, including many distinguished colleagues. The program starts at 3 p.m. in the Freud Playhouse.
Held twice annually — in the spring and fall — the event has featured such renowned figures as History Professor Eugen Weber (1987), Computer Science Professor Leonard Kleinrock (1994) and Geography Professor Jared Diamond (1996).
Following the presentation, Political Science Professor Karen Orren will deliver the 100th lecture, “A Single French Fry: The Supreme Court and the Depletion of Constitutional Law.”
In her talk, Orren will present some of the doctrinal dilemmas that U.S. Supreme Court justices face today in light of the nation’s rich constitutional history.
Orren is daunted by the task because, she explained, “the list of people before me is extremely distinguished.” But what exactly is a “single French fry”? She’s not saying — the curious will have to attend her lecture to find out. |
