Carleton College will host a celebration of the Hmong New Year in the Severance Great Hall on Saturday, Nov. 3, featuring performances of traditional and contemporary Hmong song and dance. The celebration will be hosted by the Coalition of Hmong Students, which promotes awareness of Hmong culture at Carleton, and sponsored by Hmong Culture Outreach at St. Olaf College. Festivities begin at 5:00 p.m.; the event is free and open to the public, and Hmong appetizers will be served.

Carleton College will host a service and celebration on Friday, Nov. 2 in the Severance Great Hall beginning at 6 p.m. to commemorate the ‘Day of the Dead.’ Besides a religious ceremony, the event will feature food and dancing, and members of the community are invited to bring objects symbolizing remembrance of departed loved ones for a special alter display. This annual event is free and open to the public.

Carleton College is very pleased to present author Peter Geye on Thursday, Nov. 1 at 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum. Currently touring the nation in support of his highly anticipated and already critically acclaimed second novel, “The Lighthouse Road,” Geye’s appearance is free and open to the public. Copies of Geye’s work will be available for purchase at the event and also in advance at the Carleton Bookstore.

Two small exhibitions currently on display at the Carleton College Perlman Teaching Museum in the Weitz Center for Creativity connect curricular work in history and French to art objects from around the globe. Both exhibits are on display in the Kaemmer Family Gallery of the Perlman Teaching Museum through November 14, 2012.

“Visualizing Friends and Enemies in the Socialist World” is an extension of a seminar led by David Tompkins, assistant professor of history and director of European studies. The exhibit analyzes socialist propaganda from Russia, China, Cuba, and elsewhere. And under the guidance of Christine Lac, senior lecturer in French, “People, Places, Things: La culture en deçà des clichés” explores the cultural significance of people, places, and things as represented by French and Francophile artists.

Both exhibits will be discussed by student experts in an art talk on Thursday, Nov. 1, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity Commons.

Leslie Harper, a Native American educator and director of a language immersion program for Ojibwe children, will present the Native American Heritage Convocation on Friday, Nov. 2. Harper will discuss her work helping to preserve the Ojibwe language, which she considers integral to her people’s culture. Convocation is held from 10:50-11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel, and it is free and open to the public. Convocations are also streamed live and archived and can be viewed online at go.carleton.edu/convo.

The Department of Political Science will present Nicol Rae, a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University, on Tuesday, Oct. 30, a week before Election Day. Rae’s lecture is entitled “Winning Ugly? The 2012 Election and its Consequences for American Government,” and it will explore what the nature of the 2012 campaign, which has been widely derided for its negativity, says about the state of our politics. The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Room 305 of Leighton Hall, and it is free and open to the public.

The Carleton College Symphony Band will present “Of Sailors and Whales,” a performance designed to pay tribute to ships and those who sail them, on Friday, Oct. 26 at 8 p.m. in the Concert Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

Licensed clinical psychologist and MIT professor of social science Sherry Turkle will present the weekly Carleton convocation on Friday, Oct. 26 at 10:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. Turkle’s talk, “Necessary Conversations: Technology as an Evocative Object,” will look at the “subjective” side of people’s relationships with technology, in particular computers. This event is free and open to the public and will also be streamed live; view online at http://apps.carleton.edu/events/convocations/.

The Carleton College athletic department, coaches, and varsity student-athletes are pleased to announce the 14th Annual "Halloween 'KNIGHT'" Carnival to be held Sunday, Oct. 28 from 3 to 5 p.m. This year’s event will once again be held at Carleton’s Recreation Center.

The Carleton Players, Carleton’s leading student theater group, will present “Split Seconds,” a new play by Michael Elyanow about the 2008 election in California and the battle over gay rights, at 7:30 nightly on Oct. 25, 26 and 27, along with a 2 p.m. matinee performance on Oct. 28. Performances take place in the Weitz Center for Creativity Theater. The event is free but reservations are recommended; tickets can be reserved at https://carleton.tixato.com/buy/.

Stephen W. Pacala, Director of the Princeton Environmental Institute and the Frederick D. Petrie Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, will present Carleton College’s 27^th Annual Frank G. & Jean M. Chesley Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Boliou Hall, room 104. Entitled “Global Warming and the Fate of the Land Carbon Sink,” Pacala’s presentation is free and open to the public.

The Carleton College community lost one of its most cherished members, former political science professor and U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, in a plane crash ten years ago. Carleton will host a series of events on Oct. 25, the tenth anniversary of Wellstone’s death, to commemorate his life, honor his tenure as a Carleton professor, and celebrate his legacy of civic engagement that continues with today’s Carleton students. The main event, “Celebrating the Legacy of Paul Wellstone” begins at 12 p.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel and will be streamed live via Carleton's website or available for on-demand viewing.