Lyon lectures, maternal health documentary on calendar
Elsewhere in entertainment, events and the arts:
LECTURES Lyon lectures
Lyon College assistant history professor Alexis Baldacci will give a lecture titled “Anti-Racism: Cuba, the United States and the Pursuit of Racial Equality,” 7 p.m. Thursday in the Nucor Auditorium, Lyon Business and Economics Building, Lyon College, 2300 Highland Road, Batesville.
And Lyon College faculty member Scott Roulier will lecture on “Contemporary India: A View from the Backseat of an Auto-rickshaw,” 4 p.m. Thursday in the Nucor Auditorium. It’s part of the college’s spring 2023 convocation series.
Admission to both lectures is free. Email Michael.Oriatti@lyon.edu.
HEALTH ‘Aftershock’ screening
A group of nonprofit and health organizations will host a screening of the award-winning documentary “Aftershock,” which follows two Black families galvanizing activists, birth workers and physicians after the preventable deaths of their loved ones due to childbirth complications, 6 p.m. Thursday at the Harry R. Kendall Center, Philander Smith College, 900 W. Daisy L Gatson Bates Drive, Little Rock.
A 5:30 p.m. reception will precede the screening and a discussion on the Black maternal health crisis in Arkansas and ways to advocate for change will follow. Admission its free.
The hosts: Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Beta Pi Omega Chapter; Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families; Arkansas Birthing Project; Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Arkansas Minority Health Commission; Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement; Arkansas Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical Association; Arkansas State Independent Living Council; Little Rock Branch of NAACP-Women in NAACP; Little Rock Area Metro Branch of National Association of University Women; Philander Smith College Social Justice Institute; University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences department of Obstetrics & Gynecology; Ujima Maternity Network; and the Urban League of the State of Arkansas. Visit aftershockdocumentary.com.
LITERATURE ‘Sassafras Award’
The Ozark Society Foundation has chosen “Letters to Dan: A Philosophical Guide to the Ozarks”EH by Fayetteville-based writer and photographer Don House for its Sassafras Award for Excellence in Environmental Writing. The award includes a $3,000 prize and publication of the book, which includes “personal essays and photographs that reflect the Ozark region’s heritage and modern culture,” according to a news release. Finalist judge for the award Davis McCombs is director of the program in creative writing and translation at the University of Arkansas and a former park ranger at Mammoth Cave National Park. House’s book is the first to receive the prize, which the foundation established to encourage innovative writing and new perspectives of nature and conservation as well as new voices and the expression of contemporary environmental experiences, according to the release. Visit ozarksociety.net.
TICKETS Musical ‘Blonde’
The 2022-23 National Tour production of “Legally Blonde — The Musical” (music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, book by Heather Hach, based on the movie) is onstage 7:30 p.m. April 21, 2 and 7:30 p.m. April 22 and 1 p.m. April 23 at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. Tickets — $31-$89 — are now on sale. Call (501) 244-8800 or visit CelebrityAttractions. com or Ticketmaster.com.