Staging The Winter’s Tale

All members of the campus and community are invited to take part in Oberlin’s annual celebration of the academic and artistic accomplishments of members of the graduating class. The 2013 Senior Symposium takes place today—Friday, April 26—from 1 to 5 p.m. in the Science Center.

Oberlin OnCampus has been offering sneak peeks at the presentations that will be made during the symposium. Today’s pick:

Staging The Winter’s Tale

With combined interests in theater and history, a fully staged version of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale was right up Carter Sligh’s alley. “My goal was to create a historically relevant version of the play, one that strengthened Shakespeare’s language and made clear the themes of the play for a modern audience,” says Sligh. Set in the 1950s and ’60s, Sligh’s production had five performances in late February and proved to be a great box office success. Through the Oberlin Musical Theater Association and the theater program, Sligh has participated in more than a dozen theatrical performances during his time at Oberlin. After graduation, he hopes to take his love of theater and history into an educational setting.

Sligh will make his presentation during the symposium’s third session (4 to 5 p.m.), “Rewrites, Replays, and Remixes: Reflections on Shakespeare, The Ramayana, Music Technology, and Chile,” moderated by Jeff Pence, associate professor of cinema studies and English. Download the full 2013 Senior Symposium Schedule.

Doing What Academics and Artists Do

This year, 50 students will present their independent and collaborative work to the Oberlin community. Topics range from the reproductive rights movement at Oberlin in the 1960s to groundwater storage in China and Tibet; the effect of heavy metal ions in Huntington’s Disease to themes of obsessions and incest in Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Participating student majors and concentrations run the gamut from archaeology and geology to ethnomusicology and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies.

Opening remarks by Associate Dean of the College Arts and Sciences Joyce Babyak will take place at 1 p.m., with panels beginning at 1:30, 2:45, and 4 p.m. The symposium is divided into three section, each section consisting of five to six panels. The panels feature three students offering 12-minute presentations, with 15 minutes reserved at the end of each panel for questions. The reception for the event will begin at 5 p.m. in the academic commons of the Science Center.

Babyak sees the senior symposium as an opportunity for graduating students to share their work with their peers, the faculty, and staff who have supported their educations aspirations, and the broader Oberlin community.

“It is a culminating experience in which students do just what academics and artists do:  present their work, whether in the form of a research presentation or a creative performance or show, and engage in open conversation about that work,” says Babyak.