James A. Joseph, U.S. ambassador to South Africa from 1995 to 1999, will speak at the UGA Chapel May 16 at 4 p.m. in a special installment of the Willson Center’s Global Georgia Initiative. The event is in partnership with the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, which has organized the ambassador’s visit to UGA. Joseph’s talk is entitled “Leadership as a Way of Being: Reflections on Nelson Mandela, Servant Leadership and Personal Renewal.”

Brian Croxall, emerging technologies librarian and CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow in the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University, will deliver a plenary talk titled ”Harder Better Faster Stronger: Books from the Future.”

Acclaimed author and journalist Melissa Fay Greene will deliver the 20th Ferdinand Phinizy Lecture April 19 at 1:30 p.m. in the University of Georgia Chapel.

Scott Russell Sanders, a respected author and environmental activist, will give a lecture entitled “Near and Distant Bears” at 7 p.m. April 22 in the Day Chapel at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. The lecture is part of The Georgia Review’s Earth Day celebration, co-sponsored by the Willson Center, the Botanical Garden, and the UGA Environmental Ethics Certificate Program.

The renowned Cuban-American author Achy Obejas will lecture and read from her work Monday, April 22 at 11 a.m. in the UGA Chapel.

A Willson Center-organized performance by Athens songwriters at local nonprofit cinema and arts venue Ciné will feature a rare solo appearance by Mike Mills, formerly of the Grammy Award-winning rock band R.E.M.

The Atlantic Archipelagos Research Project (AARP) is a forum to think about identities, cartographies and cultural ecologies. First conceived of in context of the islands of Britain and Ireland, this conference offers the first opportunity to expand the idea into North America.

Peter Murray, the Founding Director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, will speak at the Georgia Museum of Art March 20 at 5:30 p.m. The Yorkshire Sculpture Park is an 18th-century estate transformed into a major international center of contemporary sculpture.

The Willson Center and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences will co-sponsor a workshop on research communication on Monday, April 8 for faculty in the humanities and arts. The deadline for applications to participate in the workshop is February 21.

Beginning Spring semester 2013, the Willson Center will introduce the Global Georgia Initiative, a new series that brings world-class thinkers to Georgia. It presents global problems in local context by addressing pressing contemporary questions, including the economy, society, and the environment, with a focus on how the arts and humanities can intervene.

The Willson Center is initiating a major new grants mechanism in support of collaborative research by faculty to address large-scale questions in the humanities and arts.

Each academic year at the University of Georgia, the Willson Center sponsors numerous events, projects, and initiatives whose impacts reverberate well beyond campus. The 2012 fall semester has been particularly auspicious in that regard.

William Kretzschmar, Harry and Jane Willson Professor in the Humanities, will be awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oulu in Finland. The honor will be conferred in May 2013.

The UGA professor of English has two volumes moving toward publication, and the selection of each distinguishes him highly among a different set of peers.

The upcoming inaugural Spotlight on the Arts Festival at UGA (November 3 – 11) is a great example of what we can achieve collectively to foreground the arts.