Events Archive

The postmodern movement and the new schools of cultural criticism have developed a consensus stance toward the nature of truth and its know ability–one that differs sharply from the consensus of the sciences. This simmering conflict erupted recently when physicist Alan Sokal succeeded in having his…

Historian Rickie Solinger discusses the consequences of selecting the most consumerist term of our times–CHOICE–as women's special guarantee. She considers how embracing choice has promoted a system of thinking and responding to reproductive issues that selectively protects women or exposes them to…

Professor Jack Spector will present a psychoanalytically oriented examination of the "objective histories" of art historians, the eyewitness anecdotes of artists, and implications for understanding the role of subjectivity in other fields of research.   In conjunction with: College of…

Blues music meshes the alleged opposites of sacred and profane, good and evil to present a wholistic African American ethic that permits Blacks to be the human beings that they are. Cosponsored by: Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Office of…

Many large public universities no longer give a majority of their undergraduates a meaningful education. Instead, they allow a party scene that surrounds college sports to play an increasingly important role on their campuses, a role that distracts undergraduates from the institutions' academic…

Spiderwoman Theater, consisting of three Kuna/Rappahannock sisters, Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel, is the oldest running women's theater company in North America. They take their name from the Hopi goddess of creation, Spiderwoman, who taught the people to weave and said, "You must…

Carol Stack, prize-winning author of Call to Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South, has been following for more than twenty years the 5000,000-person-strong return migration of African Americans to the rural South. In this MillerComm lecture, she examines the efforts of returning migrants…

Organ Works by Christian Wolff, Frank Abbinanti, John Cage, J. S. Bach & Gerhard Staebler Gerhard Staebler currently lives and works in Essen, West Germany. Of the presentations he will make as part of the MillerComm89 series, he says, "To be silent, to be still has great significance with…

A Four-Part Series Is Obesity a Disease of Inactivity? Some people have considered obesity to be the leading form of malnutrition because of its link with diseases such as heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. Many obese individuals are inactive and this inactivity seems to perpetuate…

Stoler argues that the management and re-channeling of sentiments and affect lay at the core of late colonial racial discourses, challenging the assumption that the mastery of reason and Enlightenment principles has been at the political foundation of nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial…

What can computers reveal about images that even the best-trained connoisseurs, art historians and artists cannot?  How do these computer methods work?  How much more powerful and revealing will these methods become?  In short, how is computer image analysis changing our understanding of art?  This…

Eating Poetry Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad and she walks with her hands in her dress. The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs and…

In 2008 the Dallas Symphony premiered "August 4, 1964," an oratorio by composer Steven Stucky in honor of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The work follows events of that day in the LBJ White House, a pivotal day that both shaped the civil rights movement in American and led to the tragic escalation of…

PanAfricanism is a set of ideologies linking African people of the continent and those of the African diaspora.  The movement's focus is liberation and development, and it has had a complex history in this century, characterized by both successes and failures, and powerful commitments, connections…

Thomas Sugrue will reflect on the broader battle for open housing in the postwar years in the United States by focusing on one famous American suburb, Levittown, Pennsylvania. Hosted by: Department of Landscape Architecture In conjunction with: Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, College…

Asian writers have migrated all over the world, enriching the cultural environment wherever they settled. Stephen Sumida explores these varying experience while focusing on the place of Asian American writing and drama within U.S. immigrant literature. Cosponsored by: Office of the Chancellor,…

Professor Supple, one of Britain's leading economic historians, will give an overview of Britain's economic and social performance in the Twentieth Century.   In conjunction with: Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics,…

Major advances crossing the boundaries of computational science, nanotechnology, genomics, imaging, and big data have provided new tools and approaches to examining human health and diseases.  This presentation will provide specific examples of some cross-disciplinary developments in our…

Erik Swyngedouw reflects on the uncanny choreographic affinity between recent urban protests in the Middle East and eruptions of discontent and urban protests in Athens, Berlin, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Paris and Rome among many other cities.  Drawing on these recent urban insurgencies he…

Midwest premier. A coming -of-age- story for Asian Americas, in an intoxicating and irreverent documentary.  A must-see film about immigration, race, multiculturalism, and the American Road. A leading chronicler of the Asian-American scene, acclaimed filmmaker Renee Tajima-Penã will share her…

Revisiting the Academy-Award-nominated investigation Who Killer Vincent Chin? fifteen years after the brutal murder of a young Chinese-American engineer by two unemployed Detroit auto workers. A leading chronicler of the Asian-American scene, acclaimed filmmaker Renee Tajima-Penã will share her…

Could George Bush have made a mistake when he didn't eat his vegetables? In bypassing broccoli, a member of the Brassica family of vegetables, President Bush was missing sulforaphane, which, like many chemicals from plants, has demonstrable anti-cancer properties. Paul Talalay, founder of the…

John Terborgh, an eminent tropical econologist who has been extremely influential in the establishment of Peru's National Park System, stresses that the acquisition of land is only a first step in the establishment of nature reserves. He notes that "many reserves are woefully understaffed and…

Popular views of Islam in the US and Europe often are distorted into caricatures in which Islamist beliefs determine popular actions and threaten the West. The extreme manifestations of these ideas are exploited by religious and political leaders and are rarely challenged by the media. Opinion…

In chemical science, as well as in most branches of natural philosophy, expert practitioners of their subject—judging by past experience—are no better than members of the general public in foreseeing the scientific and technological future. Sir John, knighted in recognition of his research career…