Hilldale Lectures Explore Art and Culture, Chemistry and Education

Guillermo Gomez-Pena has made his multidisciplinary mark through the mediums of performance art, video, audio, poetry, criticism, installations, journalism and cultural analysis. Drawing on his own Mexican heritage and his observations of contemporary America, old European and indigenous North American cultures, Gomez-Pena explores cross-cultural issues and North-South relations.

Gomez-Pena has said he sees the U.S.-Mexico border as a strategic meeting place for various races, new ideas and communication. He has presented his explorations of these ideas in venues around the world, and his awards include a MacArthur Fellowship and the Prix de la Parole at the 1989 International Theatre Festival of the Americas.

Gomez-Pena’s Hilldale lecture, Oct. 14, 7:30 p.m., in Vilas Hall’s Mitchell Theatre, will investigate “Mexican Cyborgs and Artificial Savages.” In addition to his lecture, Gomez-Pena will demonstrate his art in action at a performance Oct. 17, 7:30 p.m., in Mitchell Theatre. Tickets to “Borderscape 2000: Kitsch, Violence, Cyborgs and Shamanism at the End of the Century” are available for $5 at the Vilas Hall Box Office, 262-1500. Gomez-Pena also will meet with students during this visit to Madison, and will deliver another public lecture Oct. 15 at 5:30 p.m. in 160 Elvehjem.

The Hilldale series will continue Oct. 23 with an appearance by Yuan T. Lee, 1986 Nobel laureate in chemistry. Lee, currently the president of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, will discuss “Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century.” His lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the State Historical Society auditorium, 816 State St.

Lee won a Nobel Prize for developing a universal machine that was able to follow the course of a chemical reaction in the gas phase. His studies have revealed crucial insights into such processes as combustion, explosions, and atmospheric and interstellar chemistry. More recently, he completed a three-year report that proposes sweeping education reforms in Taiwanese education from kindergarten through graduate school.

All lectures will be free and open to the public. No tickets will be required. For more information on Guillermo Gomez-Pena, contact Laurie Beth Clark at 262-0611. For more information on Juan T. Lee, contact Gil Nathanson at 262-8098.