
Polish Film Festival explores universal themes of struggle, hope
This year’s Polish Film Festival, put on by the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies, features stories of elusive happiness, personal struggles, history, and murder.

Data mining Instagram feeds can point to teenage drinking patterns
By extracting information from Instagram images and hashtags, computer science researchers have shown they can expose patterns of underage drinking more cheaply and faster than conventional surveys.

Can we unconsciously ‘hear’ distance?
Because sound travels much more slowly than light, we can often see distant events before we hear them. That is why we can count the seconds between a lightning flash and its accompanying thunder. Now researchers in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have shown that our brains can also detect and process sound delays that are too short to be noticed consciously, and that we use that information to fine tune what our eyes see when estimating distance.

The Sundance Kid Is Beautiful
Multidisciplinary artist Christopher Knowles rehearses in Todd Theatre. The Sundance Kid is Beautiful presents Knowles’s work in a staged performance environment that incorporates many of his diverse approaches, including dance, sculpture, music, and poetry.

A Halloween dance/theater event: When the Souls Rise
University of Rochester’s Program of Dance and Movement’s presents When the Souls Rise, an original production that celebrates Halloween through dance, music, and drama. This is the first time the show will be performed at a university.

New book novelizes rise and fall of Rochester’s infamous mediums
Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters, a new book published by the University’s Open Letter Press, details the rise and fall of the infamous 12 and 15-year-old mediums who convinced the world they could communicate with dead.

Author Jacinda Townsend to receive 2015 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction
The award is being given for Townsend’s debut novel Saint Monkey, which was named by The Root as one of the 15 best works published by black authors in 2014.

Visual artist Christopher Knowles to give solo performance
The University’s Humanities Project will present a solo performance of The Sundance Kid is Beautiful, a rarely shown work by visual artist Christopher Knowles. Knowles is often regarded as being an outsider whose work is explained through his autism.

Institute for Popular Music pays tribute to American rock
To mark the 50th anniversary of what many rock historians consider to be one of the most progressive years in the history of rock music, the institute’s “In Performance” series kicks off with a tribute concert to American rock.

From behind the microphone and onto the stage: International Theatre Program presents Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
The International Theatre Program kicks off its 26th season on Thursday, Oct. 8 with a rare stage production of Dylan Thomas’ play, Under Milk Wood. Originally written for radio in the 1950s as a “play for voices,” Under Milk Wood was the only play Thomas ever completed.