Brown Bag Lunch Series for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work
The Brown Bag Series provides an opportunity for Butler faculty
to present their original research, scholarship, and creative work,
aimed to speak to both departmental colleagues and those in
completely different disciplines.
All presentations begin at noon unless otherwise
stated.
Spring 2013
Liliana Torres-Goens, Modern
Languages, Literatures and Cultures: Thursday, January 24, UClub
(AU111)
"Using Panopto to Strengthen Student Confidence in Oral Language
Classes"
Join us for a conversation with Liliana Torres-Goens, where she
will share her success stories using Panopto in the classroom and
beyond. Liliana has successfully been using Panopto in her Spanish
Conversation class, and has found it to be a valuable tool,
providing her students with a sense of self-confidence in the use
of their oral skills. Students are creators and viewers of their
own work. Oral presentations are done using this instructional
method which allows them to critique their own work, as well as the
work of their peers. A lot of class time is saved from doing
oral activities online and the communication process is more
productive. Self-evaluations on their performances are
encouraged.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Chad Bauman, Philosophy and
Religion: Wednesday, February 6, UClub (AU111)
"Conversion and Hindu-Christian Conflict"
Chad Bauman (Religious Studies) will present his research on
Hindu-Christian conflict and violence in contemporary India. Though
Christians have lived in India since at least the 4th
century, they have been accused by some Hindus, since the late
colonial period, of adhering to a foreign and anti-national faith,
peddled unscrupulously through the evangelical use of "force,
fraud, and allurement." The accusations fuel and are informed by a
number of intriguing and prominent public debates about the limits
and desirability (for India) of western-style governance, about
what "freedom of religion" should entail, about whether
"intolerant" (read: evangelical) religions can be tolerated, and
even about the nature of religion itself. These debates take place
not only in the press and among intellectuals and politicians, but
also increasingly, through the medium of interreligious riots.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Ulf Goebel, Honors Program:
Wednesday, February 13, UClub (AU111)
"Into That Good Night: Notes to the Enigma of
Origin"
Ulf Goebel, Honors Program, will read from "Into That Good Night:
Notes to the Enigma of Origin" (a work in progress) documenting his
experiences as a young boy who experienced the devastating bombings
in Dresden. In addition, he will recite a poem he wrote in response
to 2009-10's Sunset Project - "a celebration of the beauties of a
firestorm mimicking a spectacular sunset."
Click here to view
the poster for this session. Click here to review
Ulf's notes from this presentation.
Elizabeth Mix, Art Program: Monday,
March 4, UClub (AU111)
"Bio Art and the Cabinet of Curiosities in The Netherlands"
Contemporary Dutch artist Dolf Veenvliet is the creator
of Entoforms (future fossils based on insect forms). There are two
iterations of the work-digital video captures the generative
process of creation using two specifically Dutch computer
programs: the open-source software Blender (for 3D modeling) and
Python (a flexible scripting language). Select Entoform specimens
are printed as small sculptures via stereolithography (a process
originally developed for industrial design prototyping), and then
are pinned and placed in museum-quality archival boxes. Veenvliet's
work bridges disciplines: science and art; art and technology; art
and design; design and popular culture. Join Elizabeth Mix (Art
History) as she explains how Veenvliet's work can be categorized as
New Media, Bio Art and Generative Art, and identifies significant
connections between Veenvliet's work and the tradition of the
Cabinet of Curiosities in The Netherlands as exemplified by the
17-century collections of Rembrandt van Rijn, Levin Vincent,
Albertus Seba and Haarlem's Teylers Museum.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Mark Rademacher,
Strategic Communication: Wednesday, March 20, UClub (AU111)
"Get Rich or Die Buying: The Travails of the Working Class Auction
Bidder"
This essay examines A&E Network's popular reality TV (RTV)
program "Storage Wars," and suggests that its documentation of the
market-based social practices of a group of working class,
professional auction bidders harnesses and celebrates the dramatic
and festive aspects of a modern day treasure hunt to create an
engaging and entertaining RTV program. This mediated depiction of
auction culture, however, generates a contradictory narrative
regarding the role of working class cultural capital and
alternative marketing systems such as auctions within a consumer
culture. The essay argues "Storage Wars'" depiction of bidders'
cultural capital and consumption practices illustrates the subtle
nature in which consumption creates and legitimates social
distinctions within a neoliberal consumer culture. Specifically,
the narrative constructs working class cultural capital and
consumption practices in an alternative marketing system as
reflective of, and in contrast to, those present in more commonly
experienced marketing systems. Ultimately, this narrative framing
legitimates rather than challenges capitalist ideology and existing
class-based status hierarchies, consequently contributing to the
transformation of society's understanding of alternative marketing
systems within a neoliberal consumer culture.
Click here to
view the poster for this session.
Robin Turner, Political Science: Monday, April 8, UClub
(AU111)
"Traditional, Modern, Accountable? Navigating dual
governance in Rural South Africa"
Nearly two decades after South Africa's democratization, questions
of tradition and modernity, representation and accountability
continue to trouble rural localities. Governance remains fragmented
by place and by race despite the extension of the franchise to all
adult citizens as millions of black South Africans remain dually
subject to so-called traditional leaders-kings, queens, chiefs, and
headmen-and to "modern" government officials-municipal councilors,
provincial premiers, and national government officials. While most
citizens experience the formally democratic, supposedly modern
governance system established in the1996 Constitution, 28 percent
of South Africans lived in places with traditional leaders in
2011. In this presentation, I will discuss how rural people
have pursued community development and sought effective,
accountable governance in this context. Drawing from extensive
field research in four rural localities, this presentation will
explore the potential and limitations of local initiative by South
African citizen-subjects in the absence of radical reforms to
traditional institutions.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Gautam Rao, Visual Arts: Monday, April 22, UClub
(AU111)
"Unblocked"
A conversation about inspiration and the creative
process. Led by Gautam Rao.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Fall 2012
Kate Boyd, Music: Tuesday, September 18, Eidson-Duckwall
Recital Hall
"John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes, for prepared
piano"
To commemorate the 2012 centenary of American composer
John Cage, Kate Boyd has been performing his Sonatas and
Interludes, a 65-minute work for prepared piano. "Prepared piano"
involves placing objects between the strings of the piano, thereby
transforming its sound into one resembling a percussion
orchestra.
Join Kate Boyd as she discusses Cage's "invention" of the prepared
piano and describes the two-hour preparation process required for
Sonatas and Interludes. The talk will introduce Cage's thoughts on
silence, as well as his inspiration for this piece: the "eight
permanent emotions" of Indian philosophy. This lecture involves a
number of demonstrations from the piece and piano preparation
techniques.
Click here to view the
poster for this session.
Doug Spaniol, Music: Tuesday, October 2, UClub
(AU111)
"Bassooner or Later: 'New' Nineteenth Century Bassoon
Music"
Julius Weissenborn served as principal bassoon of the Gewandhaus
Orchestra and was the first bassoon instructor at the conservatoire
in Leipzig. He also enjoyed a multi-faceted career as composer,
conductor, and copyist. To this day, his pedagogical works are
among the most widely used by bassoon students and teachers.
However, his grand plan for a complete curriculum of study never
materialised as he intended, and several works are now lost. Doug
Spaniol will discuss his recent work restoring Weissenborn's music
in a way that will on the one hand retain his original content and
intent, and on the other hand meet the demands of today's
bassoonists (and publishers). Including in the discussion will be
how this work related to Doug's application for a Fulbright
Teaching/Research Award and how the Fulbright helped enable much of
the research.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Su-Mei Ooi, Political Science: Monday, October 22, UClub
(AU111)
"The Transnational Protection Regime and Democratization in Taiwan
and Singapore"
The Pacific Asian region has been a constant source of fascination
for political scientists. Rising from the ashes of postwar
devastation and uncertainty, the "little dragon" economies of
Taiwan and Singapore transformed themselves into economic
powerhouses within 3 decades. Until the spirit of democracy swept
through Asia in the latter part of the 1980s, promising to
transform the political landscape of the region, democratic
prospects in Taiwan and Singapore seemed uncertain however. In this
Brown Bag presentation, Su-Mei Ooi will explain the complexities of
democratic development in Taiwan and Singapore, the importance of
comprehending its international dimensions, and the significance of
these two case studies for our understanding of
democratization.
Click here to view
the poster, and to read the full abstract, for this session.
Tibi Popa, Philosophy: Wednesday, October 31, UClub
(AU111)
"Scientific Method and the Dawn of Medicine"
Hippocrates and his followers are remembered today mostly for
the famous oath and for their compassionate attitude towards the
fragility of human condition. Yet, the writings that constitute the
Hippocratic Corpus are perhaps even more remarkable for their
contribution to the emergence of science. A few wildly fanciful
assumptions notwithstanding, many of those works look surprisingly
modern in their rational approach, emphasizing careful observation
of the patients' condition, of the evolution of diseases, and the
environments that seemed to cause epidemics, among other things.
The Hippocratics also attempted to build a theoretical framework
for their practice, by relying on causal explanations and
quasi-laws governing human physiology. In this talk, Tiberiu Popa
will share a number of passages that give the measure of those
physicians' extraordinary originality.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Stacy O'Reilly, John Esteb, LuAnne
McNulty, Anne Wilson, Chemistry: Wednesday,
November 7, UClub (AU111)
"And Remind Me Again Why We Make Them Do Lab?"
Hands on laboratory work has long been incorporated into
the chemistry curriculum. These labs are often characterized by a
"cookbook" approach. Students go through the specific motions of
the laboratory procedure with little understanding of the process.
Modern pedagogical research has questioned the student learning
gains from these "cookbook" lab approaches. In 2008, faculty
members in the department of chemistry were awarded a grant from
the National Science Foundation to review the laboratory courses in
the curriculum dealing with chemical synthesis. The goal of the
work was to explore how giving meaning to the physical processes of
the laboratory would impact student learning and retention of
material.
Join John Esteb, LuAnne McNulty, Stacy O'Reilly, and Anne Wilson
from the department of chemistry as they present results from their
3-year study.
Click here to
view the poster for this session.
Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh, Journalism: Tuesday,
November 27, UClub (AU111)
"Media, Politics and Polygamy in South Africa"
In South Africa, polygamy is legal for cultural groups who have
traditionally practiced this form of marriage. It entered the
public discourse primarily through the marriages of Jacob Zuma,
president of South Africa and leader of the African National
Congress, and has drawn much attention from the local (and
international) news media since he became deputy president in June
1999. Potential contradictions between the traditional and the
modern in Zuma's life present rich material for a case study on
media, culture, politics and gender in South Africa. In this
presentation, Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh will examine the reaction
of the South African news media to Jacob Zuma's polygamy and the
implications for gender equality. Results show coverage that varied
from speculation about which wife would be considered First Lady,
to questions about the burden on taxpayers, to descriptions of
Zuma's children and wives as his "kindergarten" and "harem."
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Matt Pivec, Music: Wednesday,
December 5, LH112, 12:15-1:15 p.m.
"The Radiohead Jazz Project"
The English rock band Radiohead, which formed in 1985, has the
rare distinction of obtaining both significant commercial success
and critical acclaim. The band's sound has continually evolved
throughout the years, including at various points, folk,
electronic, minimalist, and many other influences. Consequently,
Radiohead's expressive pallet far exceeds most bands with that
degree of commercial success. In 2011, a coalition of jazz
arrangers who, like Radiohead, are recognized for their ability to
incorporate new musical styles into their voice, created the
Radiohead Jazz Project. This Brown Bag session focuses on the
realization of their efforts through four Radiohead works for jazz
ensemble. Matt Pivec will lead a discussion of the relevant
influences and features of each piece, followed by a full
performance by the Butler University Jazz Ensemble 1.
Click here to view
the poster for this session.
Interested in leading a Brown Bag Lunch presentation? Please
contact facultyaffairs@butler.edu.
2011-2012 Brown Bag Sessions
~ Show Series Archive
Jon Sorenson, Computer Science: "The Life and Work of
Alan M. Turing"
Wednesday, February 8
In the 1930s, the British mathematician Alan Turing developed a
mathematical model of computation, now called the Turing Machine,
which has encouraged many to give him credit for the invention of
the computer as we know it today. In this talk, Jon Sorenson
will look at Turing's work, and discuss some of the controversies
surrounding his life. Click here to
view a poster for this presentation.
Brian Murphy, Physics and Astronomy: "Twinkle, Twinkle
Giant Star"
Wednesday, February 22
Stars come in various colors, radii, masses, and
compositions. These properties determine how a star will live
and eventually die. Star clusters are particularly useful for
understanding the lives of stars since we can do a stellar census
of a cluster with just a few digital images. In this talk,
Brian Murphy will discuss our current understanding of the lives
and deaths of stars. He will focus on research he and his
students have been pursuing on pulsating giant stars that can
varying in brightness by 300% in just one hour.
Click here to view a
poster for this presentation.
Shannon Lieb, Chemistry: "The
Observation Problem in Quantum Mechanics"
Thursday, March 1
Quantum Mechanics is so fundamental to our understanding of all
areas of Chemistry due to its ability to relate molecular structure
at the atomic scale to function at the human scale. Despite
this fundamental role in Chemistry, Philosophers and Physicists who
insist on pre-1900 Classical Physics explanations of physical
phenomena malign Quantum Mechanics. One of the crucial
experiments that evokes this schism in science is the double slit
experiment. Shannon Lieb will explore developing an
appreciation for how the "Observation Problem" of the double slit
experiment is related to a classical, everyday "Monte Hall"
problem. Click here to view
a poster for this presentation. Click here to
view the PowerPoint from this presentation.
Kristen Hoerl & Casey Kelly, Communication: "Staging
Disingenuous Controversy at the Creation Museum"
Tuesday, March 20
This presentation analyzes the argumentative
structures that guide visitors' experiences at the "Answers in
Genesis" ministry's Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.
Kristen Hoerl and Casey Kelly will explain that the Creation Museum
stages a "disingenuous controversy" with evolutionary science to
legitimate an interpretation of the Genesis myth as an
equally-valid and more desirable explanation for the origins of
life. Further, they suggest that the
museum's technologically-advanced displays and
pseudoscientific layout articulates the Creation Museum's status as
a museum while it advances its ideological mission. They conclude
that this museum is a representative anecdote for the ways in
which contemporary fundamentalists adapt their texts to the
formal and aesthetic conventions of secular society and manufacture
controversy to delegitimize their opponents. Click here to
view a poster for this session.
Margaret Brabant, Political Science: "The Slow Pace of
Change - Citizenship and Women in the Republic of Turkey"
Thursday, March 29
In this presentation, Margaret Brabant will discuss
her field-based research that analyzes how the educational system
in Turkey reinforces a particular notion of Turkish citizenship and
perpetuates a gendered concept of the ideal Turkish citizen. It
appears as though the Turkish concept of citizenship produces
paradoxical outcomes - at once stimulating the advancement and the
erosion of women's rights. This presentation sets the historical
and political context of citizenship in the Republic of Turkey and
then focuses upon the efforts of a particular women's organization
which seeks to address the needs of women who are marginalized from
the realm of politics and precariously hold their rights as
citizens. Click here to view
the poster from this session.
Chris Bungard, Classical Studies: "Playing with the
Trickster: The Undoing of Milphio"
Tuesday, April 10
Scholars of the Roman playwright Plautus have
focused on the role of the clever slave in scripting the plots of
plays they are in. Some scholars have elevated these clever slaves
to an equal status with Plautus as a playwright of their plays, but
there is an inherent danger in doing so. Looking at Milphio in the
play Poenulus, Chris Bungard will show the limits of this equation
and the dangers Plautus warns us of believing we really are the
roles we are called to play. Please click here to view
the poster for this session.
Brooke Beloso, Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies: "Is
'Cyberprostitution' Prostitution? New Paradigm, Old Crime"
Wednesday, April 25
Brooke Beloso will examine the way in which an
ensemble of new ICT practices and possibilities that the American
legal system has recently begun to label "cyber prostitution"
disturbs the status quo of the law as privileged conservator of
sexual morality. She will map out the "early, clumsy form" of cyber
prostitution today-the practices and possibilities that threaten to
serve as "an incubus on later understanding" of these new
technologies, explore the way in which such technical laymen as
judges (and lawyers) have begun to apply familiar analogies from
the past (principally, pimping and pandering, pornography, and
prostitution) in their attempts to assimilate "cyber prostitution"
into some semblance of a structure of rights and obligations, and
will suggest that the interface produced by this analogization to
the new ICT practices and possibilities that are, in the eyes of
the law, collectively constitutive of "cyber prostitution" provides
an important and likely short-lived window of opportunity for an
honest moment of reckoning with a naked emperor previously and
pervasively dressed up and trotted out as "prostitution" by our
courts. Click here to view the
poster for this session.
2010-2011 Brown Bag Sessions
~ Show Series Archive
"Designing Novel Antibiotics in Undergraduate
Laboratories"
Jeremy Johnson, Chemistry
Wednesday, March 30, noon - 1 p.m.,
AU111
Since the discovery of penicillin in the 1920's, antibiotics
have become the standard treatment for bacterial and fungal
infections. The overuse of these antibiotics has however led to the
development of antibiotic resistance amongst bacterial populations.
The emergence of these new antibiotic resistant bacteria or
"superbugs" has created a significant human health hazard. Yet,
only three new classes of antibiotics have been developed in the
last 40 years. So how do you design a novel antibiotic? In this
presentation, Jeremy Johnson, Chemistry, will explain the basics of
drug design and describe the construction of novel antibiotics
using undergraduate laboratories at Butler.
Click here to see a pdf
version of the poster for this presentation.
"What is Transnational Literature?"
Ania Spyra, English
Wednesday, March 9, noon-1 p.m.,
University Club (AU111)
"Transnational" has become the buzzword in literary studies. It
often replaces terms such as "comparative," "international,"
"world," or "global" in describing literature influenced by
globalization. But is there really such a thing as transnational
literature? If so, how is it different from immigrant or
postcolonial literature? While questioning the ubiquity of the
term, Ania Spyra will argue that its strength resides in
de-centering the nation state as the standard unit of academic
inquiry. Used as a way to describe a collection of literary texts,
"transnational" transforms the perception of literature as
necessarily a national endeavor.
With the support of BAC Short Course Attendance Grant, Dr. Spyra
participated in Rebecca Walkowitz's Summer Seminar titled "After
the National Paradigm: Literary History, Translation, and the
Making of World Literature." Dr. Spyra would like to use this
opportunity to share with her colleagues how the readings and
discussions at the seminar influenced her research on multilingual
experiments in literature.
Click here to see a
pdf version of the poster for this session.
"Designed for
Failure: America's Alternative Energy Policies"
Peter Grossman, Clarence Efroymson
Professor of Economics
Monday, February 28, noon-1 p.m.,
University Club (AU111)
Why have U.S. government programs to create alternative energy
technologies always failed? Because they have been based on the
mistaken belief that - like the Apollo moon landing - creating a
viable alternative energy technology is only an engineering
problem. In fact, substitution of energy technologies involves
commercial and social questions that engineering alone cannot
solve. Peter Grossman contends that policymakers are confused about
the way innovation occurs and how new products succeed in the
market. Although the promise of a grand engineering feat has
political traction, U.S. energy policy with respect to alternatives
has inevitably failed, and current programs will almost surely
continue that historical record.
Click here to see a pdf
version of the poster for this session.
"Beyond Pleasure
and Pain: The Motivational Implications of Our Misguided Attempts
at Predicting Future Feelings"
Ali O'Malley, Psychology
Monday, February 14, noon-1 p.m., University Club
(AU111)
People tend to be quite bad at predicting how they will feel in
the aftermath of events. This is unfortunate, for our predictions
about our future feelings--known as affective
forecasts--play a role in the decisions we make. Although we
know that the affective forecasting process is rife with error, we
don't know much about the origins of affective forecasts or their
impact on motivation and behavior. Alison O'Malley will discuss her
work linking affective forecasts to feedback seeking and
performance in organizational and classroom contexts.
Click here to see a pdf
version of the poster for this session.
Fall 2010 Brown Bag Series:
"Tending a Difficult Hope"
Leah Gauthier, Art
Monday, December 6, noon-1 p.m.,
University Club (AU111)
The time to act is NOW. I mean RIGHT NOW. This earth we live on
has changed beyond manageable repair, and there is not another
moment to spare to prepare us for the uncertainties that lie ahead.
In this Brown Bag session, Leah Gauthier will discuss how we the
people have become a nation largely dependent on industry to care
for our needs.
"Tending a Difficult Hope" is an artistic journey towards
self-sufficiency. Throughout the duration of this work, Leah is
learning self-sustaining skills, and teaching them to others
through gallery installations, performances and workshops. Her hope
is that if we can learn together to live "lightly, carefully,
gracefully", maybe, just maybe, we'll gather through what may come,
and learn a second chance to make things right.
The Brown Bag Series provides an opportunity for Butler faculty
to present their original research, scholarship, and creative work,
aimed to speak to both departmental colleagues and those in
completely different disciplines.
Click here to see
a pdf version of the poster for this presentation.
"Tending a Difficult Hope" a poem by Larry Lad
Sustainable, useable, reusable
Pertaining to
Refraining from
Consumption presumption
Consciousness raising
Planet Earth dug up
Dirt under fingernails
Tending hope, tending garden
Digging in, reclaiming ½ acre among 20,000
Munificent planet
Reintroducing heirloom plants, learning preserving
Declaring the gallery as classroom
Repurposing discards, growing edible sculptures
It's about the beginning of change, engaged senses
Seeing broadly
Smelling, nostrils tingling
Taste buds on fire
Touch as tactile, primordial
Hearing and listening for the gold
Food emotion, food lust
Reflect on this bridge to self sufficiency
Leah's journey work, vision quest, meaning uncovered in this
rediscovery
Small is beautiful!
"More than a Writing Group: Notes from an Active
Research Group"
Terri Carney, Spanish, and guests from IUPUI
Monday, November 1, noon-1 p.m., University Club
(AU111)
Do you want to increase your scholarly output? Perhaps you would
like to develop a more concrete, organized plan to work towards
promotion and tenure? This session is for any faculty member who
would like to approach their research production in a more
organized and supported fashion. In this short session we will
address:
- Individuals' typical research trajectories
- Tools to our success; testimonies of "failures"
- Resources for forming your own research group
- The importance of peer mentoring
- Accountability systems to ensure continued production
Click here to view a pdf
version of the poster for this session.
"Banging your Head Against
Buildings: Differences in Window Strikes Between Downtown and
Suburban Birds and Prospects for Saving our Fine Feathered
Friends."
Chris Hess, Biology
Wednesday, October 20, noon-1 p.m., University Club
(AU111)
Just days after arriving on campus,
Chris Hess started to notice a high frequency of birds dying from
window collisions on campus and started collecting data on when,
where and what species were most at risk. Hess will discuss the
results of these studies as well as compare them to data gathered
by the Amos Butler Audubon Society for buildings in downtown
Indianapolis. He will end with a discussion of options aimed at
decreasing the frequency of window strikes and a possible
experiment that will begin at Butler over the next year.
Click here to view a pdf
version of the poster for this session.
"Libel, Free Speech and Shared Governance"
Bill Watts, English
Monday, October 4, noon-1 p.m.,
University Club (AU111)
The libel lawsuit Butler University v John Doe
occasioned a good deal of discussion last year about free speech
and the rights and responsibilities of students. In his paper, Bill
Watts argues that the lawsuit also raises important issues related
to shared governance, the principle that the faculty,
administration and board of trustees share responsibility for
shaping and guiding the academic mission of the university. In
particular, he attempts, through examination of the principles of
shared governance, to initiate discussion about the proper role of
the faculty in shaping the learning environment of our students.
This presentation contains the substance of a paper Bill will
deliver at the AAUP Conference on Shared Governance in
November.
Click here to view a pdf
version of the poster for this session.
"Perspectives on Microfinance:
Evolution and Revolution"
Larry Lad, Marketing, and Sheryl Ann
Stephen, Finance
Wednesday, September 22, noon-1 p.m.,
University Club, AU111
A revolution is catching on. Even during the current global
financial turmoil, microfinance and micro-lending has drawn
increased attention in both popular business press and academic
research. This Brown Bag session will trace the evolution of
microcredit, and offer a range of perspectives on its potential and
practice including both international and local examples. Where
possible, we intend to engage the group in an interdisciplinary
discussion about how we can move from "third person" observers to
"first person" doers in this movement.
Click here to
view a pdf version of the poster for this session.
Click here to
view the PowerPoint presentation from this session.
"Explaining Nature, Explaining History"
Stuart Glennan, Philosophy
Wednesday, September 8, noon-1 p.m.,
AU302
What if anything is the connection between the explanatory
methods of historians and natural scientists? Some philosophers
have argued that the nature of the subject matter in history and
the "human sciences" demands a special methodology, while others
claim that historical explanations, if they are to really explain
things, must emulate the explanatory techniques of the natural
sciences. Stuart Glennan (Philosophy) will argue that the
explanations in the natural sciences (especially biology) have more
in common with explanations in history than is commonly supposed.
Biologists (especially evolutionary biologists) are concerned with
historical questions, and like historians their explanations often
utilize narrative. Certain problems that have been raised about the
legitimacy of narrative explanation in both history and the natural
sciences can be solved if we understand narratives as descriptions
of something Stuart calls an "ephemeral mechanism."
Click here to view
a pdf version of the poster for this session.
2009-2010 Brown Bag Sessions
~ Show Series Archive
Monday, April 26
"Celebrate the Scholarship of New
Faculty"
Join us for the final Brown Bag Lunch session of the
semester, a roundtable discussion with new faculty from around the
university. Sarah Eyerly (Music), Leah Gauthier (Art Program), and
Robin Turner (Political Science) will briefly present on their
research.
Click here to
view a poster for this session.
Monday, April
5
"H1N1 Pandemic Influenza Scare: An
Example of Disease Mongering?" - Michael
Vance
Disease mongering is an increasing popular term that
refers to the marketing of a "disease" in order to sell a
treatment, usually a pharmaceutical. Disease is in quotations as it
is claimed everyday conditions are sometimes labeled diseases for
promotional purposes. I will argue that the concern over pandemic
H1N1 influenza was greatly exaggerated and this was the result of
disease mongering, though in a form not fitting the commonly
accepted model. The concept of disease mongering is important in
understanding the high costs of health care.
Click here to view a poster
for this session.
Wednesday, March 17
"The Holocaust and Me" - Hilene
Flanzbaum
The Holocaust and Me, a memoir, traces
Hilene Flanzbaum's relationship to the twentieth century's most
defining moment. From her childhood, where she met relatives that
are survivors but do not know they are, to her 49th year
when she went to France to reconfigure the stories of their
survival. This book explores the treatment and representation of
the Holocaust in American culture. It also reflects on persistent
questions that many Jewish-Americans face today: What special
connection do I have to this event Americans termed the Holocaust?
Is it different from the connection that non-Jewish Americans feel?
Have Jewish Americans, the overwhelming majority that did not
experience the Holocaust, accrued benefits for identifying with
this event? And how has that identification been culturally
constructed, packaged, and delivered to Americans, both Jewish and
not?
Click here to view a
poster for this session.
Wednesday, March 3 - Kristin
Swenson
"Drugs, Work and Capitalism: The
Governing of Affect"
Join Kristin Swenson for a discussion exploring the
intersections between lifestyle pharmaceuticals, work and affect.
Kristin examines the discourse of lifestyle medication such as
anti-depressant advertisements along the side of public policy
documents, including George W. Bush's "New Freedom Initiative on
Mental Health."
Click here to view a poster
for this session.
Tuesday, February 16 - Chris
Bungard
"Duping the Man: Rethinking the
Tradition of the Clever Slave in
Plautus"
Roman comedies generally follow an easy pattern: boy
loves girl he cannot have; clever slave concocts schemes to help
boy; boy gets girl. Since the 1980's work of Niall Slater, scholars
have typically read the clever slave as the author of the plot.
Chris Bungard's research seeks to re-understand the clever slave
not as ones who control their plots (i.e. authors as controllers of
meaning), but as characters who are constantly adapting to the
situation (i.e. a participant who must negotiate meaning). In this
Brown Bag, Chris Bungard will look at the clever slaves of Plautus'
Pseudolus and Miles Gloriosus.
Click here to view a poster
for this session.
Wednesday, February 3 - Ageeth
Sluis
"Journeys to Others and Lessons to Self:
Carlos Castaneda, Heterotopia, and Indigenous Masculinity at the
End of the Mexican Revolution"
During the 1970's, Carlos Castaneda's series on
shamanism introduced a large U.S. readership to Mexico at the end
of the Mexican Miracle, a period of rapid economic decline. Yet,
this was also a time when the country saw the growth of an
alternative tourism industry that fit Castaneda's "lessons" on the
nature of reality as representing a journey inward as a turn away
from U.S.-style consumerism. Castaneda's positioning of a "separate
reality" predicated on an indigenous worldview was geared to a
larger world, and spoke especially to a global middle-class youth
culture based on ennui with material increase. Due to their global
reach and counterculture success, Castaneda's books also became
popular in Mexico with Mexican youth. While heavily criticized by
contemporary anthropologists as pseudo-science, Castaneda's
best-selling books became instrumental in the construction of an
imagined Mexico, which-besides drawing "counterculture tourists" to
the jungles of Oaxaca in search of hallucinogens and spiritual
enlightenment-also featured a new way of conceptualizing race and
gender.
Click here to view a poster
for this session.
Tuesday, December 8 - Roundtable
Discussion
"Celebrate the Scholarship of New
Faculty"
Please join us for the final Brown Bag Lunch session
of the semester, a roundtable discussion with new faculty from
around the university. Daniel Abbott (College of Education),
Kristen Hoerl (Communication Studies), and Alex Quintanilla Aguilar
(Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures) will briefly present
on their research.
Click here to view a
poster for this session.
Monday, November 9 - Margaretha
Geertsema
"Building Global Bridges? International
News for Women"
While the right to communicate is a basic human
right, women continue to be excluded from the news media. In
response, some women's groups have created alternative media that
focus on women. This presentation by Margaretha Geertsema,
Journalism, considers the efforts of the New York based online news
service Women's eNews and in particular the creation of
its Arabic news site. Women's eNews covers international
women's issues on a regular basis through freelance correspondents
from all over the world. Results of this study are based on an
institutional analysis, in-depth interviews, and an analysis of
international stories published by Women's eNews since
2000.
Click here to view a
poster for this session.
Friday, October 23, 2009 - Priscilla
Ryder
"Inequality, Experience of
Discrimination, and Health"
Achieving and maintaining good health, especially at
the level of populations, is not as simple as making healthy
"lifestyle" choices. We know that huge disparities in health exist
between groups of people with the single largest determinant of
health status being socioeconomic position. Priscilla Ryder,
Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice, will discuss some of her
recent research involving the ways in which experience of
race-based discrimination in healthcare varies with age, gender,
race/ethnicity and education level.
Click here to view a poster
for this session.
October 3, 2009 - Jason
Goldsmith
Jason Goldsmith examines the rise of celebrity culture and the
rise of modern national consciousness in England during the early
nineteenth century.
Click here to view a
poster for this session.