Campus calendar

"Live Action Anime 2007: Madness at Mokuba" The MIT Dance Theater Ensemble brings Japanese anime to life in the story, in which Mokuba Institute of Technology is set for the finals of the giant robot contest, but a strange disease breaks out at the school. To kick off the live-action event this afternoon, Professor Ian Condry will give a lecture titled "Explaining Anime's Global Power." Even if live anime doesn’t have quite the polish of film anime, it's bound to be a blast watching the troupe bring giant robots (Kristof Erkiletian sports one of the 50-pound suits, above) to life onstage. Thu.-Sun. 8 p.m.; Lecture: Thu. 4:30-6 p.m. Free. M.I.T., Kresge Little Theater, Cambridge. LiveActionAnime2007.com

"Stump Your Lawyer" at Harvard Coop Searching for a stocking stuffer for your favorite lawyer-in-training? Swing by the Harvard Coop tonight to get Howard G. Zaharoff to sign a copy of his book, "Stump Your Lawyer! A Quiz to Challenge the Legal Mind." The format mocks the bar exam, and the content can best be described as a tour through tort absurdity, from a play-by-play about your legal right to recoup damages after King Kong wreaks havoc in a Manhattan rampage to the four states that have passed laws limiting a ballpark owner's liability to a fan hit by a foul ball (Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, and New Jersey). 7 p.m. Free. Harvard Coop, 1400 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. 617-499-2012. harvard.bkstore.com

Marta Gómez concert to benefit Safe Passage Marta Gómez and her ensemble will perform their hauntingly beautiful melodies infused with Latin rhythms at Wheelock College on Saturday. "I like to tell the story of the simple people in my country," Gómez says in a video biography on her website, "those who have learned to smile without having much." The concert will benefit Safe Passage, a nonprofit group dedicated to providing educational resources to children living and working in the community of Guatemala City garbage dump. 7 p.m. $100 producers, $35 supporters, $10 students. Wheelock College, Wheelock Family Theatre, 200 The Riverway, Boston. 617-879-2300. wheelock. edu

"Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens" Under the direction of Kyle Hemingway, SiouxSanna Ramirez-Cruz, and musical director Julia Scott Carey, Suffolk University's Office of Diversity Services presents a show that celebrates lives lost to AIDS through free-verse monologues set to a blues, jazz, and rock score. All profits of this one-night-only production benefit the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group fighting AIDS by preventing new infections and helping those already affected access care. 7 p.m. $5, $3, students. C. Walsh Theatre, Suffolk University, 55 Temple St., Boston. 617-557-4875. suffolk.edu/diversity

Boston University Faculty Reading The lineup for BU's annual faculty event reads like a who's who of the Boston literary community: former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky, Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, National Book Award winner Ha Jin, poet David Ferry, novelist Allegra Goodman, poet and translator Rosanna Warren, writing program alum Tom Yuill, and novelist and program director Leslie Epstein. 7:30 p.m. Free. Boston University, School of Management Auditorium, 595 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. 617-353-2510. bu.edu/writing

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