Peterson and Shashank in Concert As part of the Asian Dance and Music Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Indira Peterson, professor and chair of Asian studies, will deliver a preconcert talk titled “Understanding South Indian Classical Music” September 24, at 7:30 pm at the university’s Bowker Auditorium. Her talk will precede a concert by internationally renowned musician Shashank, who will perform South Indian flute music at 8 pm. WMUA radio interviewed Peterson about South Indian music last week, and the piece aired on the station September 20.

Poetry in Commotion The September 21 New York Review of Books features a review by Brad Leithauser, MHC Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities, of the Library of America’s two-volume survey, American Poetry in the Twentieth Century. According to Leithauser, a highly regarded essayist, novelist, and poet, the combined 2,000 pages of poems first published within the past one hundred years and penned by 200 poets born between 1838 (Henry Adams) and 1913 ( May Swenson) “evoke the turbulent pluralism of American poetry in the first half of the twentieth century.” According to Leithauser, the collection presents “in addition to some great poets, like Frost and Eliot and Stevens, scores of good ones … Even so, the conscientious reader who intends to give due regard to each of its poems will probably come away feeling that there are long gray stretches: too many poems whose modest goals are attained only modestly.” The two volumes come on the heels of the Library of America’s two-volume survey of nineteenth-century American poetry, which Leithauser also reviewed for the New York Review of Books.

The Pied Piper of Violent Media An op-ed titled “The Pied Piper of Violent Media Has a Hold on Our Children” by Patricia Ramsey, professor of psychology and education and director of the Gorse Child Study Center at MHC, appeared in the Los Angeles Times September 15. In the piece, Ramsey, a noted early childhood expert, comments on the recent Federal Trade Commission report on efforts by the entertainment industry to sell violent and sexually explicit videos, movies, games, and recordings to youngsters. Read all about it online.