“Sons of Toledo,” a short film created by faculty and students at The University of Toledo in collaboration with community partners, will premiere Saturday, March 26, at the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle, 2445 Monroe St.

Dr. Matt Foss, associate professor of theatre and film, co-wrote and produced the film, and more than a dozen UToledo students worked on the film as production assistants, actors and behind-the-scenes photographers.

The film, which tells the story of a Toledo barber who wakes up to an early-morning phone call giving him the news that his brother was killed, has been screened at national and international festivals, including the Mammoth Film Festival in California, the Phoenix Film Festival, FilmFest in Washington, D.C., and was a finalist at the Tokyo International Short Film Festival.

The evening kicks off with a red-carpet event from 5:30 to 6:15 p.m. Participants are encouraged to arrive at the Peristyle entrance on Art Museum Drive, near the UToledo Center for the Visual Arts.

“Since the film was made for, with and about Toledo, we’d like to celebrate any and every community member who comes to the film that night,” Foss said.

The premiere begins at 6:30 p.m. with a screening of a special prologue documentary on the work of children from the Mott Branch of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library and their commitment to peace in our community, followed by “Sons of Toledo.”

The film was produced in association with Glacity Theatre Collective and Madhouse, Inc., with support from ProMedica, the Arts Commission, Ohio Humanities, Ohio Arts Council, the city of Toledo and Turning Row LLC.The event is free and open to the public.

After a two-year hiatus, the International Dinner will return for its 44^th year 6 p.m. Saturday, March 26, in the Thompson Student Union Auditorium.

Hosted by the International Students Association, the event known as I-Dinner is a UToledo tradition spanning more than four decades featuring international culture, performances, a fashion show and food.

“The theme of this year’s event is ‘Where the Flowers Bloom’ to signify new beginnings, especially after the rough couple of years we’ve all had,” said Rachael Onuigbo, a junior from Nigeria studying nursing and president of the International Students Association. “This event gives our international students and staff an opportunity to showcase and express their different cultures and for local students to experience the wealth of diversity in the UToledo community.”

The event will feature dishes from more than eight restaurants in the Toledo area.

“We have appetizers like spring rolls, baked empanadas, plantains, tiki chaat and fatayer,” Onuigbo said. “Main dishes include jollof rice, jerk chicken, pan fried noodles and biryani. Non-alcoholic drinks like bubble tea, horchata and zobo will be available too.”

Dessert will include baklava, gulab jamun and churros.

There will be performances from several organizations, including UToledo Jalwa, Japanese Students Association, Korean Students Association, Chinese Students and Scholars Association, Persian Students Association and the Saudi Club.

“We’re excited to bring back the global cultural experience that provides students from 83 different countries around the world the opportunity to showcase their culture, traditions, cuisine and sense of community,” said Sara Clark, director of the UToledo Center for International Studies and Programs.

Tickets for the International Dinner are $15 per person in advance or $20 at the door. A table of eight can also be purchased in advance for $100. Tickets can be purchased on the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership website.

This year’s I-Dinner’s will benefit Halim Clinic, a local clinic that provides free healthcare to everyone. All profits will go towards the International Students Association’s philanthropy, and donations can be made at the event too.

The community is invited to a free lecture by an Islamic studies scholar at The University of Toledo about U.S. support for authoritarian governments in the Middle East and how it is suppressing the democratic and reformist interpretations of Islam that had taken shape in the 20th century and making the region dangerous for the world.

“My lecture will offer how the global civil society can help save not only Islam but also democracy by protecting institutions and forums of free inquiry,” said Dr. Ovamir Anjum, UToledo Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies.

Presented by the UToledo Center for Religious Understanding, the event, which is titled “America’s Meatgrinders: How Authoritarians are Reshaping Islam in the Middle East,” is 7 p.m. Monday, March 21, in the McQuade Law Auditorium.

Dr. Ovamir Anjum, UToledo Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies

“Scholars once referred to Saudi Arabia, our oldest ally in the region and the staple of our oil-addicted economy, as ‘America’s Kingdom’; today, that kingdom has become America’s ‘meatgrinder,’ and is now being used to butcher journalists, countless reformist clerics and citizens,” Anjum said. “The counter-revolution, or the long winter after the brief Arab Spring of 2011, seems to be here to stay as ruthless autocrats like the crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabi and Mohammad bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates have perfected the formula to use the War on Terror to suppress any dissent.”

Addressing how that is altering Islamic doctrine, Anjum’s talk will focus on a particular case, the governance of the Prophet Mohammad in Medina, which was once interpreted to provide justification for constitutional limits on the rulers’ power and citizens’ rights but is now employed — by the clerics authorized by the autocrats — to justify unquestionable power to the ruler.

“Whereas Muhammad had declared ‘speaking truth to power’ the highest form of religious action, even peaceful protests and moderately critical tweets are now deemed religiously prohibited and met with indefinite imprisonment and worse,” Anjum said.

The event is part of the UToledo Center for Religious Understanding’s annual lecture series. The center promotes a deeper understanding of religion on campus and throughout greater Toledo.

During Women’s History Month, a nationally acclaimed disability history scholar at The University of Toledo will lead a discussion about Dorothea Dix and her efforts on behalf of the mentally ill and prisoners.

The event is part of the 2021-22 speaker series presented by the Roger Ray Institute for the Humanities at the UToledo College of Arts and Letters in collaboration with the Toledo Lucas County Public Library.

Dr. Kim Nielsen, Distinguished University Professor and chair of disability studies, will present the free, public program titled “Dorothea Dix: A 19th Century Female Activist and Her Complex Legacies” from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, at the main branch of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, 325 Michigan St.

“Dix was an asylum and prison reformer, and later the Civil War Superintendent of Union Army Nurses, who shaped U.S. psychiatric healthcare,” Nielsen said. “Her work prompted officials to fund a vast expansion of medicalized, racially differentiated insane asylums between 1830 and 1875.”

Nielsen wrote several books about Helen Keller and is the author of “A Disability History of the United States” and co-editor of the award winning “Oxford Handbook of Disability History.” Her most recent book, “Money, Marriage, and Madness: The Life of Anna Ott,” analyzes a mid-19^th century female physician incarcerated for two decades at the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane.

This presentation about Dix is her first discussion of what she hopes will be her next book.

Alona Matchenko, a law student at The University of Toledo, is leading a demonstration on campus Thursday, March 3, to stand with Ukraine.

The Toledo Helps Ukraine rally starts at 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson Student Union Auditorium. Attendees, who are encouraged to make signs, will then march to the Law Center.

Alona Matchenko

“Many people I love are facing war and death outside their windows,” Matchenko said. “They cannot buy food or water because store shelves are empty. It’s unlikely families have supplies that can last many days or weeks.”

Matchenko was a school teacher in Kyiv, Ukraine, before she moved to the U.S. about five years ago. She lives in Toledo with her husband and daughter and owns a business. However, her mother, stepfather and two young siblings remain in Ukraine.

After Russia invaded Ukraine last week, she started a Facebook group called Toledo Helps Ukraine to organize demonstrations, raise money and gather supplies for Ukrainian citizens. She has connected with several other Ukrainian families living in Toledo to lead the support effort.

“I can’t just sit and watch the war unfold in my beloved home country,” Matchenko said. “I’m receiving text messages from my family and people I grew up with and people I worked with saying that they are scared and need to be in a bomb shelter. We have no idea what is going to happen, and we need to do something to help them. We have an opportunity here in the United States to help those who are suffering and fighting for their land and their freedom in Ukraine. Please come to the rally and stand with Ukraine.”

The group’s objectives include organizing demonstrations to raise awareness; raising funds and supplies for Ukrainian citizens; lobbying the government for strong economic sanctions or an even stronger response; relaxing and amending invitation requirements to welcome refugees; and creating resolutions and petitions.