The Googlization of everything
Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the new book The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry), will speak on campus Feb. 24 at 4:30 p.m. in Cushing 001. Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar at the University of Virginia. His other works include Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity and The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System. He has contributed to periodicals, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Magazine, Salon.com, and The Nation, as well as to National Public Radio and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Sponsor: American Studies Program.
James Joyce and cinema
The Boston Joyce Forum will present “Joyce, Cinema, and History,” a lecture by John McCourt of Università Roma Tre. Director of the Trieste Joyce School, McCourt is the editor of Roll Away the Reel World: James Joyce and the Cinema Volta, a book about Joyce and cinema. His other works include James Joyce: A Passionate Exile and The Years of Bloom: James Joyce in Trieste, 1904-1920.
The event will be held at the Institute for the Liberal Arts, 10 Stone Avenue, at 6.30 p.m. on February 16. Sponsor: Irish Studies Program.
“BC grad” Jack Ryan returns
Best-selling author Tom Clancy didn’t attend Boston College, but Jack Ryan, the central character in many of Clancy’s novels, did. Ryan, a CIA operative who ascended to the presidency of the United States over a two decades-long series of Tom Clancy techno-action novels, returns in Clancy’s latest work, Dead or Alive.
Clancy is believed to have modeled his Jack Ryan character after a real-life high school friend who went on to attend Boston College in the mid-1960s and then became a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
Readers first met Ryan in 1984 in Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. In Dead or Alive, Ryan is mulling a campaign to return to the White House, while at the same heading up a covert effort to find the world’s most wanted terrorist.
As is the case in almost all of his works, Clancy includes a reference to Boston College, Ryan’s alma mater, in the text. Midway through Dead or Alive, Ryan savors BC’s recent football successes against Notre Dame.
Event rescheduled
Notice: Tonight’s appearance by author Mikey Weinstein has been rescheduled to Tuesday, Feb. 15 at 7:00 p.m. in Devlin Hall, room 101.
Irish writer Anne Enright coming to campus
Novelist Anne Enright, winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize for The Gathering, will speak on Feb. 9 in Devlin Hall, room 008 at 7 p.m. Enright also has received the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, and The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction. She is also the author of Yesterday’s Weather (short stories), The Pleasures of Eliza Lynch, What Are You Like? The Wig My Father Wore and The Portable Virgin (short stories). Her talk is part of the Irish Studies program’s Irish Writers Series.
Breaking News: Skloot event postponed
Rebecca Skloot’s reading scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 8 has been postponed. According to a Winston Center email: A medical emergency has forced Rebecca Skloot to postpone several events this week, including her visit to Boston College. Ms. Skloot says she is very much looking forward to speaking at BC, and we’re working to reschedule the event. We apologize for any inconvenience, and we hope to announce a new date soon.
BC Bookmarks 