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Past Events

Wednesday, 25 Oct 2023

The State Department: A Nexus of Diplomacy, Economics, and Food Security
5:30 PM – 2630 Memorial Union - Due to the speaker's schedule, this event has been cancelled. Ramin Toloui is the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. In this role, Toloui leads the Department’s efforts focused on expanding opportunity for American workers and businesses, deepening cooperation with other countries on shared economic challenges, and leveraging economic tools to advance U.S. national security objectives. Ramin received an A.B. summa cum laude in Economics from Harvard University and an M.Phil in International Relations from Balliol College at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Toloui is an Iowa native. This lecture will be recorded, and the recording link will be added here within 36-48 hours after the lecture has finished.

Monday, 23 Oct 2023

Removing Landmines, Supporting Farmers: Cultivating Peace Through Agriculture
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - 2023 Norman Borlaug LectureHeidi Kühn is the founder and CEO of Roots of Peace, a humanitarian nonprofit organization that replaces landmines with sustainable agricultural farmland. The organization also trains farmers in modern agricultural practices, from planting and harvesting to marketing through international exports.Kühn, the 2023 World Food Prize Laureate, will be joined in conversation by President Wendy Wintersteen for this lecture.Prior to the Borlaug Lecture, 18 undergraduate and graduate students will have posters on display related to their work/research in the area of world issues. Individuals are invited to view the students’ posters during a reception from 7-8 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. Winners of the poster competition will be announced immediately following the conclusion of the Borlaug Lecture.This lecture was recorded, and can be viewed on the Available Recordings page.

Thursday, 19 Oct 2023

CANCELLED The Live Free Tour
6:30 PM – CY Stephens Auditorium - The Live Free event with Charlie Kirk has been cancelled due to a scheduling conflict with Mr. Kirk. This event is free, open to the public, and does not require a ticket for entrance. It will not be recorded or livestreamed. Doors open at 5:30pm.The first 7 rows (300seats) will be reserved for ISU students until 6:10pm; show your ISU student ID at the SE or SW Tower doors to enter. The general public may enter through the North Doors.No bags will be permitted. Small bags for medical supplies and diaper bags will be permitted but will be searched before entry.No picket signs, banners, or other materials that could block views or be used as a weapon will be permitted. Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point, a national student movement dedicated to identifying, organizing, and empowering young people to promote the principles of free markets and limited government. The event is part of Mr. Kirk's "Live Free" college and universities tour organized by Turning Point. 

Can We Be Civil? Call-Out Culture in America
5:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Phi Beta Kappa Visiting ScholarPleas to be "civil" in our political and social dialogue in the news media are often followed by demands to call out discrimination and injustice wherever we see it. Can the two forms of interaction coexist? Or do they cancel each other out? This lecture will examine the tensions between the two types of discourse by referring back to a characteristically American form of political rhetoric: prophetic indictment, which finds its roots in Puritan Massachusetts but whose reach has extended to our own day. Cathleen Kaveny is a scholar who focuses on the relationship of law, religion, and morality. She serves as the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor at Boston College, a position that includes appointments in both the Theology Department and the Law School. Kaveny regularly teaches contract law to first-year law students. Her books include Law's Virtue: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society and A Culture of Engagement: Law, Religion, and Morality.The University Book Store will be onsite selling her book at the event.This lecture will be recorded, and the recording link will be added here within 36-48 hours after the lecture has finished.

Thursday, 12 Oct 2023

Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers
6:00 PM – Garden Room, Reiman Gardens - With their deadly plants, razor-sharp shears, shady corners, and ready-made burial sites, gardens make an ideal scene for a murder mystery. Flora and horticulture have had an outsize influence on the genre: motive, means, opportunity, victims, villains, and detectives. Join Marta McDowell, a writer, gardener, and avid mystery reader, in exploring the many ways in which writers—from Edgar Allen Poe and Wilkie Collins to Agatha Christie and some of today’s top crime fiction authors—have found inspiration in the sinister side of gardening.Friendly folks from Dog-Eared Books will also have copies of Marta’s new book, Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers for attendees to purchase. A portion of each sale will benefit Reiman Gardens.Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and consults for private clients and public gardens. Her latest book is Unearthing The Secret Garden, about the inspiration for the classic children's book. Timber Press also published Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, New York Times-bestselling All the Presidents' Gardens, and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, now in its eighth printing. Marta's new book about garden themes in murder mysteries, is due out from Timber Press in 2023. She was the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America's Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement.For more information about Marta McDowell, visit https://www.martamcdowell.comPlease note: This lecture will not be recorded.

Tuesday, 10 Oct 2023

Money Madness: The Federal Reserve is Flying Blind. Why?
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - An economist, trader, advisor to presidents, and country boy from Cass County, Iowa, Steve Hanke is a professor of applied economics and founder and co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at The Johns Hopkins University. Prof. Hanke is currently ranked as the world's third-most influential economist by FocusEconomics in Barcelona, Spain. He was one of the few who accurately predicted the recent bout of U.S. inflation and its subsequent decline.Over four decades, Hanke has advised dozens of world leaders from Ronald Reagan to Indonesia’s Suharto on currency reforms, infrastructure development, privatization and how to tame hyperinflation. He served as a Senior Economist on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers; as a Senior Advisor to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress; as a State Counselor to the Republic of Lithuania and to the Republic of Montenegro; and as an Advisor to the Presidents of Argentina, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. Prof. Hanke helped to establish new currency regimes in Argentina, Estonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ecuador, Lithuania and Montenegro. He has advised the governments of many other countries, including Albania, the United Arab Emirates and Yugoslavia.Prof. Hanke is also a well-known currency and commodity trader -- a trade introduced to him 70 years ago by his grandfather in Iowa. Among other things, Prof. Hanke was the president of Toronto Trust Argentina in Buenos Aires, the world’s best performing mutual fund in 1995. For his scholarly achievements, Prof. Hanke has been awarded seven honorary doctorate degrees and is an Honorary Professor at four foreign institutions. In 2020, Prof. Hanke was named a Knight of the Order of the Flag. Prof. Hanke's most recent book Did Lockdowns Work? The Verdict on Covid Restrictions was published in June by the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. Prof. Hanke and his wife, Liliane, reside in Baltimore and Paris. This lecture was recorded and can be viewed on the Available Recordings page by clicking here.

Thursday, 5 Oct 2023

Trice 100: The Name, The Legacy
7:30 PM – Parks Library, Reading Room 298 - Join George Trice from the Trice Legacy Foundation and Jill Wagner, ISU student government president 1975-76, to discuss how ISU students rallied support for naming Jack Trice Stadium and how the Trice family continues to grow his legacy via the Trice Legacy Foundation. Refreshments will follow.This presentation was recorded and is available to view on the Available Recordings website.  

Wednesday, 4 Oct 2023

Financial Fragility: The Future of Inflation, Interest Rates, and Banking
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - To join the livestream of this lecture, click here. This lecture will be recorded, and the recording link will be added here within 36-48 hours after the lecture has finished.Join us for a roundtable discussion about the current economic situation with three esteemed experts.James Paulsen recently retired as Chief Investment Strategist of The Leuthold Group, LLC. Paulsen has been an investment industry professional since 1983, including working as Chief Investment Strategist at Wells Capital Management where he worked for 20 years. Prior to that, Jim was the senior managing director and Chief Investment Strategist for Investors Management Group in Des Moines, Iowa. He also served as president of SCI Capital Management in Cedar Rapids. For more than 30 years, Jim has published commentary assessing economic and market trends. He is nationally recognized for his views on the economy, frequently appears on CNBC and Bloomberg TV, and is invited to speaking engagements across the country. He has been named a top economic forecaster by Business Week, and Money Magazine called his newsletter one of “101 Things Every Investor Should Know.”  Jim earned a Bachelor degree and Doctoral degree in Economics from Iowa State University.Kartik Athreya is executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Athreya's work has been published in a variety of academic journals, including the Journal of Monetary Economics, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, and International Economic Review. He is also an associate editor at the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. In recent years, Athreya has taught a doctoral course in macroeconomics at the University of Virginia and authored a book entitled Big Ideas in Macroeconomics (2013, MIT Press). He earned his doctorate from the University of Iowa and his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Iowa State. Athreya's research interests are in macroeconomics and consumer finance. His current research aims to measure and understand household financial distress and debt repayment decisions, to quantify the links between household investments in human capital and in the stock market, and to assess the importance of risks associated with college enrollment for educational attainment and inequality.Dame DeAnne Shirley Julius, Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2002) and Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (2013) is a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House, formally known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she served as chair from 2003-12. From 2014-19 she was chair of the Council of University College London. Before that, she was a founder member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, a project economist with the World Bank in Washington, and has handled extensive roles in the private sector, including service as chief economist at British Airways and Royal Dutch Shell. She earned a BSc degree in economics from Iowa State University, and an MA and PhD degree in economics from the University of California, Davis. She holds five honorary doctorates, from the University of Warwick, University of Birmingham, South Bank University, University of Bath, and Iowa State University.   

Tuesday, 3 Oct 2023

Moments of Impact: Examining the Legacy of Jack Trice
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - This lecture was recorded and can be viewed on the Available Recordings page by clicking here.Jack Trice Legacy LectureIn the first half of the twentieth century, Jack Trice, Ozzie Simmons, and Johnny Bright played college football for three Iowa institutions: Iowa State University, the University of Iowa, and Drake University, respectively. At a time when the overwhelming majority of their opponents and teammates were white, the three men, all African American, sustained serious injuries on the gridiron due to foul play, either because of their talents, their race, or, most likely, an ugly combination of the two. Moments of Impact tells their stories and examines how the local communities of which they were once a part have forgotten and remembered those assaults over time. Of particular interest are the ways those memories have been expressed in a number of commemorations, including a stadium name, a trophy, and the dedication of a football field.Dr. Jaime Schultz is the author of Moments of Impact: Injury, Racialized Memory, and Reconciliation in College Football. The book primarily focuses on Mr. Trice's life and influence on ISU through the 1990s. She also writes about the legacies of Ozzie Simmons at University of Iowa and Johnny Bright at Drake University. Dr. Schultz, who did her Ph.D at University of Iowa, is now a professor of kinesiology at Penn State.The University Book Store will be onsite selling her book at the event.

Thursday, 28 Sep 2023

Rumba: Tales of Sound & Sentiment in the Afro-Latinx Diaspora
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Berta Jottar is an independent scholar and media maker with a PhD from the Department of Performance Studies at New York University, TISCH School of the Arts. For the past 20 years, she has specialized in the research, recording, and editing of the music and dance practices of the Afro-Latinx Diaspora in the East Coast, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Her scholarly work has been published in several academic journals; and her videos have been featured at international festivals and museums. In Havana, Jottar has developed several projects related to music, performance, and film. She is documenting a group of traditional rumba dancers who live in Cuba and belong to the first generation of women who trained under the Revolutionary educational system. Combining cinema verité and experimental ethnography, her work is invested in the understanding of alternative knowledges via embodied practices such as gesture and sound. Her latest productions include, The Batista Syndrome and Notes from Nowhere, both directed by Steve Fagin. Currently, she is finalizing a multimedia archive and manuscript about the history of Central Park Rumba in New York City.