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Past Events

Thursday, 12 Apr 2012

Is the Bible the Source of Absolute Moral Rules for Today? A Debate - Hector Avalos and Keith Darrell
7:00 PM – 2055 Hoover Hall - Hector Avalos is a professor of religious studies at Iowa State. He is the author or editor of nine books, including The End of Biblical Studies and, most recently, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship. He received a Master of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School and a doctorate in biblical studies from Harvard University. Keith Darrell is founder and an evangelist with the Whitefield Fellowship. Mr. Darrell earned a Master's of Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

Is Religion Compatible with Science? Sabeel Ahmed
7:00 PM – Pioneer Room, Memorial Union - Dr. Sabeel Ahmed is the director of the GainPeace Project, an outreach project of Islamic Circle of North America. GainPeace.com conducts outreach projects in Chicago and other cities to educate people about misconceptions regarding the teachings of Islam. He travels across the United States giving lectures and workshops about various topics related to Islam. After completing his medical education, Dr. Sabeel worked in the medical field until 2008 when he became a full-time daee.

Influential Landscapes: An Artist's Evolution - Katy Stone
7:00 PM – Kocimski Auditorium, College of Design - Studio artist Katy Stone, an Iowa native and Iowa State alum, has a unique visual voice that is heavily influenced by the natural environment and a connection to landscape. She paints on a nontraditional artistic material, archival plastic film, as well as on paper and metal. The accumulated mass of gestures are then cut, combined and layered into three-dimensional assemblages. Katy Stone has exhibited her artwork in over forty solo and group exhibitions and completed ten art commissions. Her work is also featured in the U.S. Art in Embassies Collection in Mumbai, India, and Baghdad, Iraq. Stone grew up in Iowa and received her BFA in painting and drawing from Iowa State in 1992. She has been living in the Pacific Northwest since receiving her MFA from the University of Washington. No audio recording available for download or podcasting.

Wednesday, 11 Apr 2012

Egypt: One Year after the Revolution - Consul General Maged Refaat
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Maged Refaat is the Consul General of Egypt, Chicago. He has been a diplomat with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry since 1988 and held positions in Belgium, Bahrain, Russia, and Nigeria as well as with the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations. His other special assignments and UN related experience includes serving as an alternate representative to the UN Security Council and as an observer with the United Nations Observer Mission in South Africa. He has Bachelor of Arts in English translation, Faculty of Languages and Translation, Alazhar University, Cairo. Part of the World Affairs Series.

Re-booting America: News for a New Generation - Ken Paulson
7:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Ken Paulson, former editor and senior vice president of USA Today, is the president and CEO of the First Amendment Center. For more than three decades, he has drawn on his background as both a journalist and lawyer to promote First Amendment issues. He has served as the editor or managing editor of newspapers in five different states, host of the Emmy-honored television program "Speaking Freely," and was an early advocate of making newspaper content available online. Paulson is also the current president of the American Society of News Editors. He will discuss how a generational shift in news and information consumption - along with a digitally driven society - will reshape journalism, free expression and democracy. Part of the 10th-Anniversary First Amendment Day Celebration.

Tuesday, 10 Apr 2012

Africa's Second Struggle for Independence: What's Modernity Got to Do with It? - Olúfémi Táíwó
8:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Olúfémi Táíwó is the director of the Global African Studies Program and a professor of philosophy at Seattle University, Seattle, Washington. He has held visiting appointments at institutions in the United States, Germany, South Korea and Jamaica. He is the author of Africa Must Be Modern: a Manifesto, How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa, and Legal Naturalism: A Marxist Theory of Law.

The Caucus Cup: ISU College Republicans v. ISU Democrats - A Debate
7:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - The ISU Democrats will debate the College Republicans on an issue of the day for the chance at the Caucus Cup. The winner claims the trophy for a year and will defend the Cup at the 2013 First Amendment Day celebration. This year's issue is whether individuals making over $200,000 should continue to receive tax breaks. The College Republicans will be led by president Stephen Quist. The ISU Democrats will be led by president Abhishek Vemuri. Part of the Tenth-Anniversary First Amendment Day Celebration.

Thinking Indian: The Urgency of Native Stories in the New Century - Susan Power
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Author, poet and short story writer Susan Power is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux. A Harvard-trained lawyer, she abandoned a career in law to pursue her interest in creative writing, earning an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her 1995 novel, The Grass Dancer, features a complex plot about four generations of Native Americans. The work received the 1995 PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Fiction. Power is the author of several other books, including the forthcoming Our Lady of a New World. She lives and teaches in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Richard Thompson Memorial Lecture.

Monday, 9 Apr 2012

A Decade in Pursuit of Kony: The Unorthodox Ways of Building a Movement - Bobby Bailey
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Bobby Bailey is cofounder of Invisible Children. He and two friends established the organization in 2005 after a life-changing trip to Africa, where they discovered the story of the children in Northern Uganda who were being abducted from their homes and forced to fight as child soldiers by the rebel group the Lords Resistance Army. After returning home they made the documentary Invisible Children: Rough Cut and began screening it at high schools, colleges and churches. The organization now engages youth around the world, using the power of film, social media and storytelling to connect them in a very personal way to sustainable development programs in Uganda. Its recent video "Kony 2012" went viral, helping to make the LRA and Joseph Kony's alleged crimes more widely known and prompting the African Union to deploy troops to capture the rebel leader. Part of the World Affairs Series.

Thursday, 5 Apr 2012

Beating Mindless Eating - Brian Wansink
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, is internationally recognized for his research on food psychology and its implications for consumer marketing, medicine and human nutrition. His work has contributed to the introduction of "100 calorie" packages to prevent overeating and the use of taller glasses in some bars to prevent the overpouring of alcohol. From 2007 to 2009 he served as executive director of USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, the Federal agency in charge of developing 2010 dietary guidelines and promoting the Food Guide Pyramid. He is the John Dyson Professor of Consumer Behavior at Cornell University, where he directs the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.