The Phi Beta Kappa Society
DELAWARE VALLEY ASSOCIATION
PHI BETA KAPPA DELAWARE VALLEY ASSOCIATION
Upcoming Events
Nature Walk - Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust, Huntingdon, PA - Sat. May 4, 10:30 am; in-person; no charge.
Movie Club - "Maestro" - Thu. May 9, 7:00 pm; virtual; no charge.
Barnes Foundation Museum "First Friday" - Evening of Art, Music, Food & Drink, Philadelphia, PA - Fri. June 7, 6:00 - 9:00 pm; in-person; fee.
Book Club - "The Island of Missing Trees" - Thu. June 13, 7:00 pm; virtual; no charge.
Mural Arts Private Guided Walk - Murals of Center City West, Philadelphia, PA - Sat. June 29, 10:30 am - 12:00 noon; in-person; fee. Optional post-tour lunch.
Movie Club - "Past Lives" - Thu. July 11, 7:00 pm; virtual; no charge.
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Private Guided Tour of "Mary Cassatt at Work", Philadelphia, PA - Sat. July 20, 10:30 am; in-person; fee. Optional post-tour lunch.
News Briefs
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Public Lecture at Swarthmore College
On April 11-12, 2024, the Epsilon of Pennsylvania Chapter at Swarthmore College hosted Professor Julia Bryan-Wilson, on April 11-12, 2024. Professor Bryan-Wilson is Professor of Art History and core faculty at the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University. She is the award-winning author of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (2009), Fray: Art and Textile Politics (2027), and Louise Nevelson's Sculpture: Drag, Color, Join, Face (2023). Professor Bryan-Wilson is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Andy Warhol foundation, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian, and the Terra Foundation, among others. She is a widely published critic and adjunct curator at the Meseu de Arte de Sao Paulo. Professor Bryan-Wilson's public lecture on April 11th, was entitled, "Stitching Protest".
PBK's Saw Traditional Tile-Making Techniques & Toured an Eclectic Early 20th Century "Castle" in Doylestown, PA
On February 24, 2024, PBK's met in Doylestown, PA, to enjoy successive private guided tours of the adjacent locations of the Moravian Pottery Tile Works Museum and eclectic Fonthill Castle. Fonthill Castle was designed and built between 1908-1912 by Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930), archaeologist, anthropologist, ceramicist, scholar and antiquarian, as both his home and a showplace for his collection of tiles and prints. Containing 44 rooms + 18 fireplaces, and mixing Medieval, Gothic, and Byzantine styles, it has a very convoluted floor plan with unique construction techniques and custom built-in features. Mercer's famed Moravian tiles were produced during the American Arts & Crafts Movement at the adjacent tile works, the exterior of which mimics in part a California mission.
PBK's Toured Delaware Art Museum Special Rossetti Exhibition plus Contemporary Art & Illustrations Galleries
On January 27, 2024, PBK's, family, and friends enjoyed two tours at the Delaware Art Museum with good conversation over lunch from the museum's Kaffeina Cafe in between the tours. The first tour was of an exceptional visiting exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite artists & intellectuals assembled by the Tate Britain, which covered the work of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founder Dante Gabriel Rossetti, alongside that of his wife, artist Elizabeth Siddal, and his siblings, writers Christina and William Michael Rossetti, which complemented the museum's own strong pre-Raphaelite collection on view in the regular galleries. The second tour consisted of "slow tours" combining audience participation in analyzing pieces of art from the Museum's excellent collections of Contemporary Art and American Illustration.
PBK's Enjoyed Philadelphia Chamber Music Concert by the Dover Quartet
On January 14, 2024, PBK's and friends attended a wonderful matinee performance by the eminent Dover Quartet, acclaimed Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music and world-wide performers, featuring Joel Link, violin; Bryan Lee, violin; Julianne Lee, viola; and Camden Shaw, cello. The ensemble performed Haydn's Quartet in G Minor, Op.74, No.3, Rider; Price's Quartet No 1 in G Major; and Shostakovich's Quartet No. 9, Op 117, at the Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center. The group enjoyed a pre-concert group lunch at nearby Jasmine Rice Rittenhouse Thai restaurant.
PBK's Tour Historic Laurel Hill East Cemetery
On November 18, 2023, PBK's had a private guided tour of historic Laurel Hill East Cemetery, which was established in 1836 as a garden-designed, non-sectarian cemetery (in a time when cemeteries were usually affiliated with a specific house of worship) to serve as a "school of instruction" in architecture, culture, landscape gardening, and arboriculture. It was not only a burial place, but a scenic riverside sanctuary for the living, away from the noise and grime of crowded city life, to which Philadelphians regularly came out from the city to enjoy an afternoon relaxing and socializing with friends & family. The tour covered the resting places of numerous notable men and women, some with quite creative memorials, including political, military, commerce, cultural and social leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries, leading to a lively interactive discussion with the very knowledgeable guide. An optional group lunch took place afterward at LeBus restaurant in nearby East Falls.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Public Lecture at St. Joseph's University
On October 23 -24, 2023, the St. Joseph's University Phi of Pennsylvania Phi Beta Kappa Chapter hosted one of PBK's 2023 Visiting Scholars, Trevon Logan, the Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Professor of Economics and Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, The Ohio State University. On Monday, October 23rd, from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m., Professor Logan delivered a public lecture entitled, “All We Have Is The Truth: Burdened Individuality, Abstract Equality, and Economic Interference” in the Teletorium in Mandeville Hall, to which PBK DV members were welcome to attend. The lecture asked if we are interpreting racial economic and social disparities appropriately.
PBK's Attended Philadelphia Chamber Music Society Bespoke Ensemble Concert
On October 22, 2023, PBK's and friends attended a wonderful matinee performance featuring Philadelphia Orchestra principal clarinet Ricardo Morales, violist and President of the Curtis Institute of Music Roberto Díaz, Seattle Symphony Principal Cello Efe Balticigil, and pianist and Artistic Director of the Kingston Chamber Music Festival Natalie Zhu. The ensemble performed Beethoven's Clarinet Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11; selections from Bruch's Eight Pieces, Op. 83; Husa's "Evocations of Slovakia"; and Brahms' Clarinet Trio in A Minor, Op. 114, at the American Philosophical Society's Benjamin Franklin Hall. A subset of the group enjoyed a pre-concert group lunch at nearby "Franklin Social" restaurant.
