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�԰����� is excited to present the 2024 Stieren Arts Enrichment Series, which brings to campus a distinguished array of leaders in the fields of art, music, drama, communication, literature, art history, and aesthetics. All events are free and open to the public. The Stieren Arts Enrichment Series is made possible by an endowment gift from Jane and the late Arthur Stieren of San Antonio.

Meet �԰�����’s 2024 Stieren guest artists.  

Lampo Leong, “Bridging Time and Space with Art”

Monday, February 5, 2024, 7-9 p.m., Chapman Center Auditorium

, Ph.D., is an internationally acclaimed painter, calligrapher, photographer, digital artist, and designer. He is known for his postmodern approach to art creation that blends Asian and Western art traditions and aesthetics, as well as conventional techniques and advanced digital technologies. Leong is a distinguished professor, doctoral adviser, and director of the Centre for Arts and Design at the University of Macau. He is also a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a former art department chair. 

In his distinguished career that spans more than 30 years, Leong has presented his work in 70 solo and more than 415 group exhibitions worldwide; received more than 100 awards, grants, and extensive recognitions; and published eight monographs and more than 50 essays. His work can be found in more than 10 museums and hundreds of notable corporate and private collections worldwide. 

Chris Taylor, “Pedagogy of Weather”

Thursday, February 29, 2024, 6-7 p.m., Mabee Auditorium (Dicke Hall 104)

Followed by a reception in Dicke Hall Foyer

Chris Taylor was born in West Germany, raised in Southwest Florida waters, and now lives in the arid American Southwest. An architect, educator, and director of at Texas Tech University, Taylor is deeply committed to the intersection of human construction and the evolving nature of the planet. , created with support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, continues to facilitate visual and performative research within under-examined basins and internal aquatic fringes. Taylor studied architecture at the University of Florida and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard and is a member of the Lubbock Scapes Collective.

In his lecture “Pedagogy of Weather,” Taylor will present Land Arts of the American West, the transdisciplinary field program dedicated to expanding awareness of intersections between human construction and the evolving nature of the planet, and the solar-powered Terminal Lake Exploration Platform as an example of visual and performative research operating within vastly under-examined endorheic conditions.

An Evening with Eliza McCracken and Deb Olin Unferth: A Conversation and Reading

Thursday, February 29, 2024, 8-9 p.m., Mabee Auditorium (Dicke Hall 104)

Followed by a book signing and reception in the Dicke Hall Brazil Commons

Elizabeth McCracken is the James A. Michener Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of eight books, including The Giant’s House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her short story collection Thunderstruck & Other Stories won the 2015 Story Prize, and her work has been published in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Prize, The New York Times Magazine, and many others. She’s received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Liguria Study Center, the American Academy in Berlin, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Deb Olin Unferth is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center for Writers and the New Writers Project. She is the author of six fiction and nonfiction books, and her works appeared in �Ჹ������’s, The Paris Review, Granta, Vice, Tin House, NOON, the New York Times, and �ѳ����ɱ��Ա��’s. Her most recent book, Barn 8, was named a best book of 2020 by NPR, Slate, Austin Chronicle, and Literary Hub. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes. An advocate of prison reform, Unferth founded and runs the Pen City Writers, a creative writing certificate program at a maximum security prison in Southern Texas. She won the 2017 Texas Governor's Criminal Justice Service Award and the 2017 American Short Fiction Community Star Award for this work.

These two award-winning authors will give a reading and have a conversation about their work. The event will be followed by a book signing and reception sponsored by the Stieren Arts and Enrichment Series and hosted by the Department of English.

Bread and Puppet Theater, Residency with �԰����� Theatre - Canceled 

February 19 Update: This event has been canceled.

Sunday, March 3, 2024, 2:30 p.m., Stieren Theater

The �԰����� Theatre program is excited to announce an upcoming creative residency with , one of the oldest nonprofit political theatre companies in the U.S.

Founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City’s Lower East Side, Bread and Puppet’s work features diverse puppetry and street theater performance styles to tell vital stories of the moment. Starting with rod-puppet and hand-puppet shows for children, as the company grew, their shows expanded to include sculpture, music, dance, and language. Now, Bread and Puppet tours new and old productions both on the American continent and abroad, with shows ranging from tightly composed theatre pieces presented by members of the company to extensive outdoor pageants that require the participation of many volunteers.

During their residency at �԰����� (March 1-3), Bread and Puppet Theater artists will work alongside �԰����� students to craft and rehearse a brand new performance piece utilizing the styles and methods developed by Bread and Puppet Theater. Their work will be presented to the public at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 3, in the Stieren Theater. 

C. Thi Nguyen, “Games and the Meaning of Life”

Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 7:30 p.m., Mabee Auditorium (Dicke Hall 104)

A former food writer for the Los Angeles Times, C. Thi Nguyen, Ph.D., is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah. He writes about trust, art, games, and communities and is interested in the ways that our social structures and technologies shape how we think and what we value. Nguyen’s first book, , awarded the American Philosophical Association’s 2021 Book Prize, explores how games are the art form that works in the medium of agency. A game designer doesn’t just create a world—they create who we are in that world. Games shape temporary agencies for artistic purposes, and they turn out to be our way of writing down and communicating modes of agency. By playing games, we can try out different forms of agency.

In his lecture, Nguyen will discuss his thoughts on games and agency and compare and contrast being obsessed with winning in games and in real life, arguing that obsessing over rankings and metrics can rob our lives of vivid meaning.

Jasper String Quartet, Masterclass and Performance

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

2 p.m., Jasper Violin/Viola/Cello/Chamber Masterclass, Ruth Taylor Recital Hall

7:30 p.m., Jasper Quartet Performance, Ruth Taylor Recital Hall

Celebrating its 17th anniversary in 2023, the Jasper String Quartet is recognized as one of the leading American string quartets on the performance stage today. A recipient of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, the Quartet has been hailed as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” (The Strad) and described by Gramophone as “flawless in ensemble and intonation, expressively assured and beautifully balanced.” The New York Times named their album Unbound one of the 25 Best Classical Recordings of 2017.  

The Jasper String Quartet is the Professional Quartet-in-Residence at Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians, and it is the founder and artistic director of Jasper Chamber Concerts. The Quartet is committed to celebrating the diverse array of compositional voices writing for string quartet in every program.

While at �԰�����, the Quartet will host a violin, viola, cello, and chamber masterclass followed by a quartet performance.