Briefly Noted

Transportation Survey Posted At New URL

Pitt officials are encouraging faculty and staff members to complete an online Oakland transportation survey. Survey responses will be used to develop a comprehensive model of the transportation system in Oakland.

A Sept. 12 letter to the University community stated that the survey could be accessed through the my.pitt.edu Web portal. Quicker access is now available: Simply visit www.pitt.edu/trafficsurvey.

Pitt is facilitating the survey on behalf of the Allegheny Conference’s Oakland investment committee, made up of representatives of Pitt, Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, UPMC, the Heinz Endowments, and the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The survey, being conducted by Trans Associates in cooperation with the Allegheny Conference, is part of a series of surveys designed to create new transit options based on existing traffic patterns and the projected growth of Oakland’s economy.

Poet Gabeba Baderoon To Give Reading Here

Poet Gabeba Baderoon will give a free public reading as part of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 4 in 501 Cathedral of Learning.

An internationally renowned poet, Baderoon grew up in Crawford and Athlone, South Africa. She earned the Ph.D. degree in English at the University of Cape Town; her thesis was on the images of Islam in South African media, literature, and art. Baderoon’s work has been published in two anthologies—Worldscapes (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Ten Hallam Poets (Mews Press, 2005)—and her own collections are The Dream in the Next Body (Kwela/Snailpress, 2005), The Museum of Ordinary Life (DaimlerChrysler, 2005), and most recently, A Hundred Silences (Kwela/Snailpress, 2006).

Baderoon has received numerous honors and awards, including the 2005 DaimlerChrysler Award for South African poetry. She has held fellowships at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, Pennsylvania State University, and the Oxford Institute for Islamic Studies.

The Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series, which runs through April 4, is cosponsored by the Wyndham Garden Hotel-University Place and Pitt’s Book Center, University of Pittsburgh Press, and Creative Nonfiction and Film Studies Programs. For more information, call 412-624-6505 or visit www.english.pitt.edu.
—Audra Sorman

Nocturnal Wanderer to Open Pitt Rep Season

Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian’s haunting tale, Nocturnal Wanderer, will open the University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre’s 2006-07 season with a preview performance at 8 p.m. Oct. 4 in the Studio Theater, located in the basement (B-72) of the Cathedral of Learning. The production will continue through Oct. 15.

In the play, a man wandering the streets of urban China in the middle of the night is confronted by a prostitute, a homeless man, and a thief. When the prostitute is found murdered, the blame shifts to the wanderer.

“Nocturnal Wanderer is not a story, but a dream. It is a dream about restlessness, isolation, brutality, and blame,” said director Paul “Spike” Wilson. “Simple in plot but powerful in meaning, Xingjian’s play encourages human detachment from violence as an acceptable reality, as a regularity in life. Once that detachment is achieved, a dream state, in which reality fluctuates, becomes a powerful exploratory tool. As perceptions shift, we can see the mechanisms, the source, the root of human violence, and come a step closer to ending it.”

For ticket information, call 412-624-PLAY (7529) or visit www.play.pitt.edu.
—Yvonne Hudson

UCLA Professor to Give Lecture on “The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture”

Aamir Mufti, an associate professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, will deliver a free public lecture titled “The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture” at 4 p.m. Oct. 5 in 501 Cathedral of Learning. Pitt Distinguished Professor Paul A. Bové, editor of the Pitt literary journal boundary 2, is coordinating this event.

Mufti specializes in colonial and postcolonial literature, with a primary focus on India and Britain and 20th-century Urdu literature. His scholastic interests lie in Marxism and aesthetics, genre theory, canonization, minority cultures, exile and displacement, the cultural politics of Jewish identity in Western Europe, human rights, refugees and the right to asylum, modernism and fascism, language conflicts, and the history of anthropology.

Published by Duke University Press, boundary 2 is an international journal of literature and culture, available in print or online. Primary funding of its Pitt-based editorial office comes from Pitt School of Arts and Sciences’ Dean N. John Cooper.
—Audra Sorman