KU events this week: Korean War survivor, forbidden Soviet art and Eisenhower’s legacy
Thanks in equal part to an upper-respiratory infection for a certain reporter and a lack of event announcements sent his way this week, our weekly KU events roundup is a bit late and a bit brief. But it’s still here, for your planning purposes:
• First up, later today: At 4 p.m. in the Pine Room at the Kansas Union, author Maija Rhee Devine will read excerpts from a new book of hers set in Korea during the Korean War, “The Voices of Heaven.” And she writes from experience: She grew up in Korea while the war was going on, and she even had to flee the city of Seoul while it was under siege. This is being put on by the Center for East Asian Studies, and program assistant Susan Henderson says Devine is the only woman from that generation in Korea to have written an English-language novel about the war.
• Later this week: A bunch of KU offices are collaborating to screen a documentary called “The Desert of Forbidden Art,” 5 p.m. Thursday at the Spencer Museum of Art. It’s about how a painter in the Soviet Union collected thousands of pieces of banned art and stashed them in a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, even tricking Soviet authorities into giving him funding by pretending he was buying state-approved works. The filmmaker, Tchavdar Georgiev, will speak and answer questions afterward.
• And later on Thursday is the annual Dole Lecture at the Dole Institute of Politics, to be given by retired Brig. Gen. Carl Reddel. Set for 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the institute, the talk will be about the legacy of President Eisenhower and the controversial effort to build an Eisenhower memorial in Washington, D.C. Reddell is the executive director of the group charged with that effort, the Eisenhower Memorial Commission.
No doubt there are many more happenings than these three going on this week, and if there’s one you think should be noted, add it right in below in the comments. And get those KU news tips to merickson@ljworld.com.