Posts tagged show
Flagler’s Eaton in spotlight after interview with former Cuban spy
Oct 10th
“I was back in Havana in 2010 and 2011 working on a book about Harley-Davidson riders in Cuba,” said Eaton, an assistant professor of Communication at Flagler College. “One day I was talking with one of the riders and he told me he knew Roque and asked if I was still interested in interviewing him. Sure, I said.”
Roque, a former fighter pilot, swam to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in 1992 and declared opposition to Fidel Castro. While in South Florida, he became a pilot for Brothers to the Rescue, a group dedicated to searching for rafters in the Florida Straits.
In 1996, Roque slipped back into Cuba the day before Cuban MiGs shot down two civilian aircraft flown by members of the Brothers group, who were accused of dropping political leaflets onto Havana. The attack killed four civilians and outed Roque as a spy, surprising not only the Cuban-American woman Roque had married as part of his cover, but also the FBI who had been paying him as an informant.
Eaton’s interview was Roque’s first in 16 years and was featured on Miami’s Spanish-language cable TV station, América TeVe, for four nights on a show called, “A Mano Limpia,” hosted by journalist Oscar Haza.
In the interview, Roque, who now lives in a cramped apartment and claims he is broke, said he wishes he had done more to stop the shoot-down.
“Perhaps now … I’d try to play a much stronger role in the things that happened,” he said. “I’d try to play a better role. If I played it bad or good, let the people decide. Let those who want to judge me, judge me.”
Eaton’s interview even produced an apology from the former spy.
“If I could travel in a time machine,” he said. “I’d get those boys off the planes that were shot down.”
In addition to the video interview, Eaton wrote two stories on Roque for the non-profit Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, which distributed them to a network of news outlet, including the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. The stories generated more than 1,100 comments and were picked up by dozens of websites.
Source: Flagler College
Voguit to Examine Two-Party System During Community Lecture Series Event
Oct 9th
“I have looked at presidential elections, congressional elections and gubernatorial elections between 1865 and 1900 and clearly America was voting for Democrats or Republicans,” said Flagler College assistant professor Steve Voguit. “I am intrigued by this tradition since the constitution does not require political parties at all.”
Voguit will address this topic as he continues the 2012 Community Lecture Series on Oct. 23 with a talk on “United Nation, Divided Nation: Patterns in American Politics after the Civil War.”
“I’ll be attempting to show the solidifying of the two-party tradition and the domination of the Democrats and Republicans at the national level,” said Voguit, who was recently included in the Princeton Review’s latest book, “The Best 300 Professors.” “I will also talk briefly about the political conditions of that time like high voter turnout and very close elections for instance as well as the establishment of tradition in our society in general and in this case politically.”
Professor Voguit earned his M.Ed. and B.S. degrees from Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He also completed graduate coursework at the University of Florida, the University of South Florida and Texas State University.
Voguit’s lecture is the second in this year’s lecture series entitled “Reconstruction & Gild: Wealth, Innovation and the Pursuit of Status in Late 19th Century America” which focuses on defining moments in American history during the mid to late 1800s. Speakers will discuss the topic through the lens of their particular discipline.
Tickets are $5 per person for a single lecture, or $15 for four lectures. Active military personnel may attend at no charge. Lectures begin at 10 a.m. in the Flagler Room at Flagler College, 74 King St. Reservations are required, but space is limited. The lecture will last approximately one hour and will be followed by a coffee and pastry reception.
For reservations or more information, call Holly Hill, Assistant Director of College Relations at (904) 819-6282. To watch a live stream of these lectures, visit ustream.tv/channel/community-lecture-series.
Flagler College is an independent, four-year, comprehensive baccalaureate college located in St. Augustine, Fla. The college offers 24 majors, 29 minors and two pre-professional programs, the largest majors being business, education and communication. Small by intent, Flagler College has an enrollment of about 2,500 students, as well as a satellite campus at Tallahassee Community College in Tallahassee, Fla. U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review regularly feature Flagler as a college that offers quality education at a relatively low cost; tuition is $23,690, including room and board. A relatively young institution (founded in 1968), Flagler College is also noted for the historic beauty of its campus. The main building is Ponce de Leon Hall, built in 1887 as a luxury resort by Henry Flagler, who co-founded the Standard Oil Company with John D. Rockefeller. For more on Flagler College, visit www.flagler.edu.
Source: Flagler College
Constantine Santas to examine the films of David Lean
Sep 27th
On Wednesday, October 17 at 7 p.m. Dr. Constantine Santas will discuss his latest book “The Epics of David Lean” in the Gamache-Koger Theater in the Ringhaver Student Center at Flagler College. Santas is professor emeritus and former chair in the Flagler Department of English. He is also the author of “Responding to Film” and “The Epic in Film: from Myth to Blockbuster.”
Santas has long been fascinated with the epic film and with Lean’s work in particular. And with good reason: widely regarded as one of cinema’s most accomplished directors, David Lean twice received the Academy Award for best director, and two of his films, “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Lawrence of Arabia” won the Oscar for best picture. Both are featured on the American Film Institute’s Top 100.
But despite the awards and accolades for these motion pictures, many critics often look more favorably upon the smaller films that Lean produced earlier in his career, and in recent years his reputation as a director has diminished. In his newest book, Santas seeks to restore these now undervalued epics to the elevated esteem they once held. He argues that the epics show a progression and refinement of Lean’s work and that they are thematically broader and feature more complex characterization than his earlier films. In his talk at Flagler, he will provide background material on the production of each epic; examine insights into structure, characters, techniques, and themes; and look into the relationship between the films and their literary sources.
“The idea for this book started back in the 1990s, when I read a paper on ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai,’ at a Flagler Colloquium, sponsored by the English Department, under Professor Carl Horner,” remembers Santas. “I was drawn by the artistic values of the epics of David Lean, several of which I taught in my film classes regularly. One particular aspect of the epics that gave me food for thought was that all of them were derived from literary sources. That fact motivated me to connect literature, T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” for instance, which became the basis for “Lawrence of Arabia,” with film studies.”
Santas credits an ongoing fascination with the epics, as well as the assistance of the Flagler community, with helping him to write the book. “I believed that there were universal values in all the epics, and I was more convinced that this was so as I progressed in my research, considerably aided by the librarians at Flagler College,” he says. “I express my gratitude to them, to my colleagues, and especially to my students at Flagler over the years for keeping the flame alive.”
The reading and discussion will be held in the Gamache-Koger Theater at the Ringhaver Student Center at 50 Sevilla Street. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis. If you are a person with a disability and need reasonable accommodations, please contact Lynn Francisco at 904-819-6460. Sign Language Interpreters are available upon request with a minimum of three days’ notice. Call (904) 819-6339 or visit www.flagler.edu/our-community/events/writers-in-residence for more information.
Source: Flagler College