The cold weather has shaken up the schedule for the first Chadron State College Galaxy Series presentations in two years.
Distinguished historian, National Press Club member, and independent filmmaker Dr James Le Sueur was scheduled for appearances Tuesday and Wednesday, but those are now Wednesday and Thursday – and in reverse order.
Wednesday night at 7:00 downtown at the Eagle Theater, Dr Le Sueur will show his first documentary, The Art of DIssent, followed by a question-and-answer session. It’s free and open to everyone.
Then on Thursday, Le Sueur will talk about his latest documentary film, Seasons of COVID, at 7:00 in the Mari Sandoz Center. Both are free and open to the public.
Dr Le Sueur is chair of the History department at Nebraska-Lincoln and the school’s Samuel Clark Waugh Distinguished Professor of International Relations. His Chadron visit includes discussion with CSC students in 4 different classes.
Wednesday’s film at the Eagle Theater, Art of Dissent, winner of 5 awards at international film festivals, tells the history of Czechoslovakia from short-lived post-WWII to Communist satellite to modern democracy.
It looks at the 1968 Prague Spring attempt to break through the Iron Curtain and how the dissidents and ideals behind it survived the ensuing Russian military crackdown to re-emerge in 1989 to overthrow communism in the country as the Velvet Revolution
Le Sueur calls the film “a collective portrait of a tightly-bound dissident network” that functioned as a parallel civil society after the crackdown despite repeated attempts to crush it.
Seasons of COVID, set for release in the spring of next year, tells the story of the pandemic in Nebraska..
Chadron State Professor and visit coordinator Dr Tom Smith says Le Sueur is considered one of the preeminent authorities on European colonialism and decolonization, especially France and Algeria, and how both are impacted by ideas.
Smith says Le Sueur works outside traditional academic boundaries and has “provocatively pushed the boundaries of artistic and public engagement with his documentaries.