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from Montana. A lifelong
pacifist, a strong advocate of
women’s and children’s rights,
and one of the founders of the
ACLU, she was the first recipient
of the National Organization
for Women’s Susan B. Anthony
Award.
Fourteen student actors
portrayed 50
characters in the
Vanderbilt
University
Theatre production
of
“Handing
“Handing
Down the
Down the
Names” in April. Names”
Written by Steven
Dietz to pay homage to the
immigrant experience, the play
is based in part on stories
passed down in Dietz’s family.
The play spans two centuries
and several continents, and follows
a German family over
seven generations as they seek
to set down permanent roots.
BOOKS AND
WRITERS:
Peter Guralnick—biographer,
music writer, and visiting professor
of creative nonfiction
writing—hosted “Talking
Lives,” the 2005 Vanderbilt
Visiting Writers Series
Spring Symposium, in
March. Joining Guralnick was
filmmaker and biographer
Robert Gordon, and biographer
and Washington Post staff
writer Wil Haygood.
Guralnick is widely considered
to be one of the leading
authorities on American blues,
roots and vernacular music.
Gordon’s books include Can’t
DANIEL DUBOIS
Be Satisfied: The Life and Times
of Muddy Waters, and his documentary
about Muddy Waters,
“Can’t Be Satisfied,” was nominated
for a Grammy Award.
Haygood is the author of four
books, including In Black and
White: The Life of Sammy
Davis Jr., which won an
ASCAP Deems-Taylor-
Timothy White
Award for
“Outstanding
Music Biography”
and the Zora
Neale Hurston-
Richard Wright
Legacy Award,
and was named
the “Literary
Nonfiction Book of the Year”
by the Black Caucus of the
American Library Foundation.
Tom Wolfe, author of critically
acclaimed works The Bonfire of
the Vanities and The Right Stuff,
spoke in early April at Langford
Auditorium. Wolfe is considered
the father of “New Journalism,”
a type of nonfiction writing
that incorporates fictional or
dramatic elements into the
reporting. Wolfe’s latest novel,
I Am Charlotte Simmons, was
published in November and
details the initiation of a
female college freshman into
Wil Haygood, Peter Guralnick
and Robert Gordon
“roll-run-hit-run-roll-tick”
by Jin Soo Kim
the fierce social atmosphere of
a fictional university.
UPCOMING
With Wonderdog
(St. Martin’s Press),
Inman Majors,
BA’86, brings us the
unlikely Dev Degraw,
son of the iconoclastic
governor of the
state and former child
actor on the historically
bad television
drama “Bayou Dog.”
As the story unfolds,
VISUAL ART
An installation titled
“roll–run–hit–run–roll–
tick” by Chicago-based
artist Jin Soo Kim explores
travel, experience and
memory through sculptural
objects and various
sound elements from Aug.
25 through Oct. 13 at the
Vanderbilt Fine Arts
Gallery.
THEATRE
Vanderbilt University Theatre’s first production of
the academic year will be “The Man Who Came to
Dinner” by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, running
Sept. 30, Oct. 1–2
and Oct. 6–8 at Neely
Auditorium.
MUSIC
The Blair School’s new
Monday “Nightcap”
Series will feature Blair
faculty members Jane
Kirchner (flute) and
Frank Kirchner (saxophone)
Sept. 19.
DANIEL DUBOIS
Dev is trying his underachieving
best to stay out of his
father’s heated bid for reelection,
as well as a co-star’s
incomprehensible plans to
organize a “Bayou Dog” cast
reunion. Fortunately, his
efforts to remain uninvolved in
the political fray and as far
away as possible from his TV
alter ego are foiled by one
comic entanglement after
another. As he tries to rectify
past glories with more recent
foibles, Dev knowingly or
V a n d e r b i l t M a g a z i n e 63