Assembly Series sponsors Simon, hooks, Asmis

The University's Assembly Series will sponsor three speakers next week: former Sen. Paul Simon, author bell hooks and author and professor of classics Elizabeth Asmis.

Simon, former senior senator from Illinois, will deliver the Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman and the Thomas C. Hennings Memorial lectures at 4 p.m. Monday in Graham Chapel.

hooks will deliver the annual Women's Week Keynote Lecture at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Graham Chapel.

Asmis will give the annual John and Penelope Biggs Residency in the Classics at 4 p.m. Thursday in Graham Chapel.

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Federal Reserve Gov. Larry Meyer, former WU economist, to speak

By Gerry Everding

Laurence H. Meyer, former University faculty member and current member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, will present the 2001 Homer Jones Memorial Lecture, "Does Money Matter?" at 4 p.m. Wednesday in Simon Hall's May Auditorium.

Before his June 1996 appointment to the Federal Reserve's influential Board of Governors, Meyer served more than 25 years as a member of the University's economics faculty in Arts & Sciences. During his tenure here, he served for a period as chair of economics and as a longtime research associate of the University's Center for the Study of American Business, now known as the Weidenbaum Center for the Economy, Government and Public Policy.

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Jewish historian Jeffrey Gurock to deliver Cherrick Lecture in Jewish Studies

Noted Jewish historian and scholar Jeffrey S. Gurock will speak on "American Orthodoxy's Era of Non-Observance" as he presents the 2001 Adam Cherrick Lecture in Jewish Studies at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Women's Building Formal Lounge.

Gurock is the Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, where he is also academic assistant to the president. Gurock is the author or editor of 11 books, including "When Harlem was Jewish, 1870-1930," "American Jewish Orthodoxy in Historical Perspective" and "A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy and American Judaism," which he co-authored with Jacob J. Schacter. This last work won the 1999 Saul Viener Award from the American Jewish Historical Society for the best book in the field of American Jewish history. He is working on a new book titled "Clash and Clamor: Judaism's Encounter with American Sports."

Pianist Marks to introduce, perform new score for silent film classic

By Liam Otten

Pianist Martin Marks, author of 1997's "Music and the Silent Film: Contexts and Case Studies, 1895-1924," will introduce and accompany a special screening of the silent film "His People" (1925). It is one of the earliest depictions of Jewish life to be produced by a major Hollywood studio. The screening begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Steinberg Auditorium.

Marks has arranged piano accompaniments for more than 100 silent films, including such cinema landmarks as "Broken Blossoms," "The General," "The Gold Rush," "Metropolis" and "The Thief of Bagdad." He compiled, composed and recorded accompaniments for all the silent films in the acclaimed DVD boxed set "Treasures From American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films" and has performed his work for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Library of Congress and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, among others.

He currently teaches music and film studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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