University Forum Lecture Series and Events
Fall 2009
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The Supernatural as Natural: An Evolutionary Approach to Religiosity
Thursday, August 27, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Michael Winkelman, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University
Certain features common to religious belief seem basic to human nature. Are these shared features part of human psychology, or the product of natural selection? An evolutionary approach suggests that many features of religiosity are bio-social adaptations with a deep ancestry in ritualized behavior. Our speaker this evening argues that evolutionary theory provides a biological framework for understanding how religious practices and beliefs gave our prehistoric ancestors adaptive advantages that may well persist today. Co-sponsored by the UNLV Department of Anthropology, and the UNLV Anthropology Society.Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. George Rhee, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UNLV
What is the universe made of? Only one percent of the mass in the universe is visible in the form of stars. The remaining mass takes the form of hot gas, dark matter, and a mysterious dark energy. How do we know that this dark matter exists, if it is not directly visible? Our speaker shows how astronomers use telescopic observation to reveal the presence of dark matter, and also to study the key role that it plays in our understanding of the structure of the universe. Dark matter, he explains, is quite different from the atomic matter found on earth.Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Profs. Louis Kavouras, Margot Mink Colbert, and Roberta Sabbath, Department
Our panel discussion tonight brings together two choreographers and a cultural critic to discuss two original works: Louis Kavouras’ “Snowflakes” and Margot Mink Colbert's “Transit(ion) I, II, III.” Prof. Kavouras, chair in Dance, will show how Eric Hawkins’s study of the body, its rhythms, and its links to nature influenced his own choreography. Prof. Colbert shows how a multi-media approach to ballet, using historical costumes, folk dance, photography, and period music, enlivens an immigrant narrative of Russian Jews in NYC. Prof. Sabbath in turn brings literary and cultural theory to bear on a celebration of the ability of the body-in-motion to bequeath meaning to life. Co-Sponsored by UNLV Department of Dance.
Do Children Have Constitutional Rights?
Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. David S. Tanenhaus, Department of History, UNLV
The Constitution Day Public Lectureship for 2009 focuses on minors’ rights in the United States. Prof. Tanenhaus will draw upon his forthcoming book, “In re Gault: Children, Crime, and the Pursuit of Justice,” to examine the history of children’s rights in the United States since the nineteenth century. He will pay special attention to the enduring issue of how the law should treat adolescents accused of committing serious and violent crimes, including the role that the United States Supreme Court now plays in answering this question.
Polish Heroes: Those Who Saved Jews
Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 7:30pm - Greenspun Hall Auditorium
Ms. Kate Craddy, Director, Galicia Jewish Museum, Krakow, Poland
Of the nationalities honored at Yad Vashem in Israel with the designation “Righteous among the Nations,” Poles comprise the largest category with about 6,000 honorees, members of a larger group whose true numbers we will never know. Tonight the Consul General discusses a moving exhibition that commemorates some of these courageous men and women. Photographer Chris Schwartz tells the story of twenty-one Polish citizens who rescued Jews during the German occupation of WWII. The touring exhibition is a tribute to the “Polish Righteous Among Nations” project created by the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oswiecim, the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, and the Polish-American Jewish Alliance for Youth Action. Co-Sponsored by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, the Governor's Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust, the World Affairs Counsel, the Anti-Defamation League, and Congregation Ner Tamid.
http://www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/polish-heroes-in-las-vegas.htm
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Paul Schollmeier, Department of Philosophy, UNLV
Aristotle’s “Poetics” originally contained two books. One book treats famously of the various kinds of tragic form and their effects, primarily catharsis or the purging of emotion. The other book discussed comedy. The book on tragedy has been highly influential over the centuries (Racine and Corneille took it for a bible). Sadly, the book on comedy was lost. (Umberto Eco made its medieval rediscovery the fictive basis for “The Name of the Rose.”) This loss has prompted thinkers to reconstruct Aristotle’s concept of comic action and its catharsis along the lines of what he said about tragedy. Tonight our speaker discusses the ethical premises of the “Poetics” in order to offer an original and plausible account of what Aristotle might well have said about comedy.
Graffiti Photos: Self-Photography in Japanese Girl Culture
Thursday, October 01, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Laura Miller, Department of Anthropology, Loyola University of Chicago
The presentation this evening will explore how tiny photographs supplemented with written words, icons, and other markings allow a unique point of entry into understanding the concerns of contemporary Japanese girlhood. The frequently odd, grotesque, or naughty “graffiti photos” (purikura) are circulated among friends, plastered on cell phones and notebooks, and collected in thick albums. These photographs are important not only to Japanese girlhood, but also to highlight how girls are not simply consumers of mass-cultural forms, but assume creative control through their individual appropriations and modifications. Co sponsored by UNLV Department of Anthropology, and the UNLV Anthropology Society.
Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry
Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Profs. Stephen Burt, Department of English, Harvard University, and Donald Revell, Department of English, UNLV
Prof. Stephen Burt is the author or editor of two recent books, “Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry” and “Something Understood: Essays and Poetry for Helen Vendler,” and also of the collections “Popular Music” and “Parallel Play.” Among the most intelligent and enthusiastic poet-critics to come along in a generation, Stephen Burt is also noted for his ability to make postmodern verse approachable. This evening he joins Don Revell in a brief reading from their own and others’ work before discussing relevant issues of form, content, and difficulty in American poetry now. Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Department of English.Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Claudia Keelan, Department of English, UNLV
Poet Claudia Keelan reads this evening from her new book “Missing Her.” Speaking of the central long poem, “Everybody’s Autobiography,” Cole Swenson has said that it “achieves a masterful fusion of political history, personal responsibility, and communal grief,” and of the book as a whole that it is a “deep-feeling collection not afraid to look loss in the face.” Prof. Keelan has been the recipient of the Cleveland State Poetry Prize, the Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books, and the Jerome Shestack Award from the “American Poetry Review,” among other honors.
Green Our Vaccines! Mercury Moms, Autism, and the Immunization Wars
Wednesday, November 04, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Danielle Roth-Johnson, Department of Women’s Studies, UNLV
Several experts in the understanding and treatment of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) have expressed surprise at the lack of research into whether pollutants have contributed to the dramatic rise in diagnosis. Other groups have been unwilling to let the topic be marginalized. The “Mercury Moms” spotlighted in David Kirby’s book, “Evidence of Harm,” have gained wide media coverage of the potential danger that exposure to mercury poses. Our speaker tonight explores the histories of groups such as SafeMinds, Generation Rescue, and Moms against Mercury to analyze the response of media and health professionals to demands for reform in vaccines and immunization schedules.
Galileo’s Telescopic Discoveries, 1609-2009: Repercussions and Lessons
Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Maurice Finocchiaro, Department of Philosophy (Emeritus), UNLV
To commemorate the quatercentenary of Galileo’s astronomical discoveries, UNESCO has designated 2009 the International Year of Astronomy. On improving the telescope in 1609, Galileo began making startling new observations: lunar mountains, Jupiter’s satellites, Venus’s phases, and sunspots. Such discoveries undermined the traditional belief that the earth stands still at the center of the universe, confirming instead Copernicus’s view that the earth rotates daily on its axis and revolves yearly around the sun. The controversy over whether the earth’s motion is compatible with Scripture climaxed in 1633 when the Inquisition condemned Galileo as a heretic. A new controversy, over whether Galileo was justly condemned, shows no signs of abating. Tonight our speaker offers a resolution stressing the lessons to be learned from Galileo.
“No Dreaming, No Story”: Baz Luhrman’s “Australia”
Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Patrick McGee, Department of English, Louisana State University
Our speaker this evening, McElveen Professor at LSU, argues that Baz Luhrman’s “Australia” incorporates and produces what cultural theorist Antonio Negri has called “the common,” meaning the globalized existence humanity now shares. The film, he suggests, can be read in three ways: it reconfigures elements from the traditional Hollywood Western; it embodies and complicates the imperialist romance; and it imitates the sensibility of cinematic fantasies like the Wizard of Oz in order to express, rather than to represent, the historical real – the collision of several forms of racism in the Pacific at the beginning of WWII. Such a reading implies a critical view of some positions currently fashionable in postcolonial discourse. Co-sponsored by the UNLV departments of English and Film Studies.
The Millennium Villages Project
Thursday, December 03, 2009 - 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
Prof. Yesim Tozan, School of Public Health, Boston University
In 2000 the United Nations established eight Millennium Development Goals, the first being to eliminate extreme poverty and hunger worldwide. A critical part of the goal was the creation of the Millennium Villages Project, which put key recommendations into practice at the village level, working to benefit 400,000 people at twelve hunger hot-spots in sub-Saharan Africa. Tonight’s speaker, an expert on development issues in Africa, will provide an overview of the Millennium Project. Taking for her test case the first MVP site, a Sauri village in western Kenya with a population of 55,000, she will show how reducing extreme poverty requires the integration of social, economic, environmental and public health policy decisions. Co-sponsored by UNLV Department of Environmental Studies.University Forum wishes to thank Nevada Public Radio for assistance with publicity.