Library Director Receives Award

Karen Wielhorski, executive director of Alfred R. Neumann Library, received an award from UHCL for bringing in grant money totaling over $1 million. She was given a plaque that commemorates her entry into the "Million Dollar Club". Some university faculty also received this award.

Multicultural Films at the Neumann: Thirteenth in an Ongoing Series

In the last two decades, the Israeli film industry has risen to the highest level in its history. In four of the last six years, Israel has had a film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Its films shine lights on life in Israel, its position in the Middle East, and how its citizens react to it. In the last 20 years, filmmakers such as Amos Gitai, Joseph Cedar, and Ari Folman have made insightful, searing films on the Israeli experience.

Ajami is a crime drama set in an Arab neighborhood in Jaffa. It consists of five different stories that consist of Arabs, Christians, and Jews interacting. Corruption, extortion, and murder rule the roost. The film was made with a nonprofessional cast, and it was shot in Ajami. Ajami shows a different view of life in Israel than audiences are used to seeing, one for which it received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2010.

The Band’s Visit is a comedy about an Egyptian police band that goes to Israel to perform at the Arab Cultural Center. The band takes the wrong bus and arrives in a small Israeli town that lacks a hotel. The owner of a small restaurant put the bandsmen up in her apartment, in friends’ apartments, and in the restaurant. The interactions between visitors and visited prove transformative. The Band’s Visit was Israel’s original selection for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 80^th Academy Awards on February 24, 2008, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected the film because it has more than 50 percent English dialogue.

Beaufort is the film that Israel submitted after The Band’s Visit was rejected. The film is set in Beaufort Castle, the crusader stronghold in Lebanon, and deals with a group of Israeli soldiers who receive orders to destroy the bunkers in which they have holed up, abandon the fortress, and return to Israel. The film was shot at Nimrod Fortress, a crusader castle in Israel, and Joseph Cedar, the film’s director and an Israeli army veteran, sought to show war’s futility. Beaufort received sterling reviews as well as Ophirs—the most important Israeli film awards—for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Artistic Design, and Best Sound—and a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination. In addition, Cedar received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival.

Waltz with Bashir is another Israeli antiwar film. Ari Folman, the film’s director and a veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War, broke new artistic ground by making the first animated documentary. Folman, who was a 19-year-old conscript in 1982, meets an army buddy in 2006. The friend tells Folman of his war-related nightmares. Folman cannot remember any of his army service. He reconnects with other former soldiers and realizes that he was one of the soldiers who provided security for the Christian Phalangist massacres of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Waltz with Bashir received many international honors, including six Ophirs, a Cesar (France) for Best Foreign Film, the Best Film Award from the National Society of Film Critics (United States), and a Golden Globe (United States) for Best Foreign Language Film. In addition, the film was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Syrian Bride is a film about the effects of the Arab-Israeli conflict on individuals and families. Mona is a young Druze woman who lives in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. She will cross into Syria to marry a Syrian actor, after which she will not be allowed to return to her family and village. Mona’s father Hammed is a pro-Syrian activist whom the Israelis have placed on probation. Hammed’s son Hattem is a Druze who has broken with tradition and married a Russian doctor and therefore been forbidden by the village elders to attend the wedding. Mona’s sister Amal, who is unhappily married, attempts to teach her nearly grown daughters to maintain their identity while she attempts to maintain hers. Hammed’s other son, Marwan, lives in Italy, engaging in illegal business transactions and womanizing. The Syrian Bride, which addresses the mental and physical barriers erected by the Syrian-Israeli conflict, won prizes at the Ghent, Locarno, and Kerala International Film Festivals, as well as the Montreal World Film Festival.

Check ‘em out of the Neumann Library.

Free Coffee in the Library!!

Neumann Library is offering students free coffee on Wednesday, May 1 to help you study for finals. Come to the coffee bar in the Library Laptop Use area straight back from the entrance on the library first level (Bayou Building 2nd floor) for fresh, hot coffee from 10:00am until 6:00pm.

Chinua Achebe

 

Chinua Achebe, one of the greatest African writers, died on March 21, 2013. Achebe’s works focus on the traditional African values, Western influences, and the conflict between the two. Among the works by Achebe that the Neumann Library has is Things Fall Apart. This novel, which was published in 1958, is the story of Okonkwo, a leader and wrestling champion in Umuofia, one of nine villages in Nigeria inhabited by the Ibo people. Gradually, Okonkwo falls from grace among his people. Then, Western missionaries arrive, and their values conflict with tribal traditions. Things Fall Apart, which was Achebe’s first novel, fascinated critics and has influenced and inspired two generations of African writers.

No Longer at Ease, Achebe’s second novel, deals with Obi Okonkwo, a young man who leaves his village to study in England. After four years, Okonkwo returns to Nigeria and takes a civil service job. His education, however, has alienated him from the traditional values that he grew up with and made him part of a corrupt elite. While not as popular as Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease cogently states some of the problems confronting modern Africa.

In Arrow of God, Achebe again spotlights the encroachment of Western values and beliefs on African traditions. Ezeulu is the chief priest of Ulu, whom the six villages of Umuaro worship. Ezeulu’s world, and that of his followers, begins to collapse when John Goodcountry, a British missionary, who arrives in the area to convert the villagers to Christianity. The novel won the first Jock Campbell/New Statesman Prize for African writing.

Achebe is most famous for his novels, but he wrote in other genres. Morning Yet on Creation Day is a collection of 15 essays that Achebe wrote. The book is divided into two sections. The first section, which is the longer of the two, deals with African writers’ attempts to create literature that is free from European influences. The second concerns Achebe’s dual background as a Christian in an Igbo community and his work as an ambassador for Biafra who attempted to preserve the Igbo community as a people and as a culture. Morning Yet on Creation Day received positive reviews when it was published in 1975, with one reviewer saying, “This collection of essays will contribute much not only to our understanding of ‘where the rain began to beat,’ but also to the building of a sturdier and roomier shelter.”

Home and Exile is a collection of three essays that was based on the McMillan-Stuart Lectures that Achebe gave at Harvard University in December 1998. The first, which is entitled My Home Under Imperial Fire, is autobiographical. The second, The Empire Fights Back, examined African literature written by non-Africans and the development of African literature written by native Africans. The third, Today, the Balance of Stories, looks at the exile’s reaction to being an exile and the state of African literature. Home and Exile is viewed as a worthwhile but perhaps superficial introduction to African literature.

Another collection of essays that Achebe wrote is The Education of a British-Protected Child. The collection deals with Achebe’s history and with that of Africa, as well as African politics and the African-American diaspora. The Education of a British-Protected Child is a combination of contemporary analysis and a look back by a man who was closer to the end than the beginning.

Check ‘em out of the Neumann Library.

UHCL Hawk visits Neumann Library!!

The new UHCL mascot, the Hawk, came to Neumann library last week. We were delighted to see the Hawk make use of some library resources to further his education. Library Executive Director Karen Wielhorski and AD for Library Digital Services Karen Berrish met the Hawk during the annual awards ceremony. They thanked him for his visit and invited him to come back to the library often.

Multicultural Films at the Neumann: Twelfth in an Ongoing Series

Iran has had a film industry since 1930. By the 1970s, Iran was producing 90 feature films a year. The Islamic revolution halted film production for several years, but since 1983, when the Iranian government founded the Farabi Cinema Foundation to develop a national cinema, Iranian film has appeared on the world stage, and many of its films and filmmakers have contended for global cinematic honors. The Neumann Library has a number of Iranian films. One such film is Children of Heaven. Made by the distinguished director Majid Majidi, Children of Heaven is about Ali, a young boy in a poor Tehran neighborhood who loses his sister Zahra’s shoes. The pair decide to keep the loss a secret from their parents by sharing his shoes. Ali learns of a footrace for which the one of the prizes is a pair of sneakers. This film won no fewer than 10 international film awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Color of Paradise is another Iranian film that made a global splash. This film, which was also written and directed by Majid Majidi, deals with Mohammad, a blind boy who returns to his village from the Institute for the Blind. However, his widowed father has always regarded Mohammad as a burden and a source of shame. He attempts to apprentice his son to a blind carpenter. He intends to disown Mohammad to remarry and obtain a dowry from his fiancée. The Color of Paradise was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won seven international film awards.

Currently, A Separation is Iran’s most celebrated film. This story of the separation and divorce of a couple won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Simin wants to leave Iran with her daughter so that the latter might have a better life. Simin’s husband Nader, however, will not leave Iran without his father, who has Alzheimer’s disease. He hires a maid to care for the father when he is away, but the maid is unsatisfactory. Moreover, she has a secret. In addition to winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, A Separation won 59 awards worldwide, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, the National Board of Review’s Best Foreign Film Award, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Check ‘em out of the Neumann Library.

New library resources search bookmarklet

Ever visited a web page and wanted to find more scholarly information on the same subject? After you add this bookmarklet to your browser, clicking it will automatically search UHCL OneSearch for the title of the page you are visiting. (You can edit the query if you like, to remove or add other keywords.)

Instructions

• Firefox users: right click the OneSearch Quick link below and then select "Bookmark this Link"
• Internet Explorer users: right click the OneSearch Quick link below and then select "Add to Favorites"
• Safari and Chrome users: draft the OneSearch Quick link below to your bookmarks bar

OneSearch Quick

iPhone, iPad, and iPod users can see special instructions for installing this bookmarklet on our Library Widgets & Plug-ins guide.

Try it and let us know what you think about it!