Intriguing Speakers Continue 2004-05 Open Visions Series

FAIRFIELD — The eighth season of Open Visions Forum, an outreach program of Fairfield University’s University College, will continue when Daniel Libeskind, the lead architect in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, speaks on Sunday, January 23, at 3 pm. Born in Poland, Mr Libeskind became an American citizen in 1965 and began his career as a professional musician.

All lectures take place in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University. Tickets are $25 for each lecture, with discounts available for senior citizens and students.

Mr Libeskind left music to study architecture at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and has developed an international reputation for designs for the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Maurice Wohl Convention Centre in Tel Aviv, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and many other sites. He is the first architect to win the Hiroshima Art Prize, which is given to an artist whose work promotes international understanding and peace.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN’s Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent, will be the featured speaker on Wednesday, February 23, at 8 pm. Ms Hunter-Gault joined CNN in 1999, after spending two years as National Public Radio’s chief correspondent in Africa. Prior to that she had a 20-year career with PBS, where she was a national correspondent for “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” She is also the author of In My Place, a memoir of her role in the Civil Rights Movement as the first black woman admitted to the University of Georgia.

One of America’s most respected novelists, John Irvingwill take the Quick Center stage on Sunday, March 20, at 3 pm. Beginning with Setting Free the Bears in 1969, Irving spent more than three decades writing some of the country’s best-loved books, including The Hotel New Hampshire, The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany and A Widow for One Year.

In addition to writing, Mr Irving has a passion for wrestling and has coached at several private preparatory schools. He was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1992.

The season concludes with Helen Prejean, CSJ, a nun whose work counseling death row inmates led to her best-selling book Dead Man Walking and the Academy Award-winning movie of the same title. Sister Helen will deliver the third annual Ignatian Residential College lecture, funded in part by the Lilly Endowment, on Wednesday, April 6, at 8 pm.

Open Visions Forum is an art, culture, and public affairs lecture series designed to challenge “the life of the mind.” Since its founding in 1997, the series has attracted a range of notable speakers, including actress Mia Farrow, former Presidential candidate Steve Forbes, PBS filmmaker Ken Burns, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and acclaimed author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Philip Eliasoph, PhD, professor of visual and performing arts, is director and moderator of the series.

For tickets or subscriptions, call the box office at 203-254-4010 or 877-ARTS-396. For more information visit www.QuickCenter.com.