Lang Center, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor. $8/students free with ID. There appears to be a dance between structural changes in the United States and the writings of social scientists and their popularizes which give us new ideas about marriage, child rearing and family life in general. We have invited a group of social thinkers, each of whom offers objective and unsentimental views of the family. Moderated by Doyle McCarthy, professor of sociology at Fordham University and author of Knowledge as Culture, panelists are: William Doherty, professor and director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program, Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota; Arlene Skolnick, visiting scholar, Department of Sociology, NYU and author of Embattled Paradise; and Andrew J. Cherlin, researcher in the sociology of families and public policy at John Hopkins University and author of Public and Private Families: An Introduction. Sponsored by the Wolfson Center on National Affairs at the New School.

Permalink | Add to Google Calendar

Dirt was the most frequently performed solo show in Austria, Germany and Switzerland in the 1990s. The play centers on a desperately alienated illegal immigrant from Iraq, who confronts xenophobia, latent racism and ethnocentrism as he sells roses on the streets to make ends meet. As he continues to talk it becomes increasingly clear that he has a love-hate relationship with himself, his heritage and the western world he currently lives in. Haunting and compelling, Dirt is a telling story about racism and the havoc it wreaks upon the human soul. Wednesdays through Fridays in April, at Under St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Place (between 1st Avenue & Avenue A. Closest subway: 6 to Astor Place). Basement theater, no wheelchair access. Tickets are $20 and $15 for students and can be purchased online or by calling 212-868-4444. For more info, visit the website.

Permalink | Add to Google Calendar