Search For Lectures

America at the Crossroads - Francis Fukuyama
8:00 PM – Sun Room/South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Francis Fukuyama is the Bernard Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and director of its International Development Program. He is the author of seven books, including The End of History and the Last Man. His most recent book, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (2006), is a critique of the neoconservatism that has shaped current American foreign policy. Additional meetings with Francis Fukuyama: A Conversation on the Consequences of an Information Society April 2, 4 p.m., Sun Room, Memorial Union The 12:00 p.m. seminar, "A Conversation on the Neoconservative Legacy," has been CANCELED due to changes in the speaker's itinerary.

Prion Biology and Diseases - Stanley Prusiner, M.D.
4:15 PM – 1210 LeBaron Hall - Stanley Prusiner was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1997 for his discovery of prions, a class of infectious self-reproducing agents composed of protein believed to cause such brain diseases as Mad Cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Prusiner, who was born and spent much of his childhood in Des Moines, is a professor of neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He received both his degree in Chemistry and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Prusiner worked for several years at the National Institutes of Health before completing his residency and joining the faculty at UCSF. His many awards and honors include the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and prizes from the American Academy of Neurology, the NIH, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Fairdner Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Medical Science.

The Illustrated Moth: Natural Science through Watercolors
8:00 PM – Hughes Auditorium, Reiman Gardens - Dr. John Cody, revered as "The Audubon of Moths," began sketching scenes from nature when he was eight years old and later had a professional art career as a medical illustrator. He went on to medical school and became a renowned psychiatrist, practicing for more than twenty-five years. Cody will describe his world travels to photograph and paint the Saturnid moth.

On John Muir's Trail: Nature in an Age of Liberal Principles - Donald Worster
4:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Donald Worster is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas and a trailblazer in the field of environmental history. He has been president of the American Society for Environmental History and is general editor of the Cambridge University monograph series Studies in Environment and History. His most recent book, A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (2001), won the Byron Caldwell Smith Award. His other books include Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (1985), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; the Bancroft prize-winning Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (1979); and Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (1985). In his talk, Worster will argue that the conservation of nature owes much to the rise of the liberal democratic society, with examples from John Muir and others.

In Need of a Favorable Product Evaluation: The Role of Goal-Motivated Reasoning in Consumer Judgment and Evaluations - David Stewart
1:00 PM – 2117 Gerdin - David Stewart is the Robert E. Brooker Professor of Marketing in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He is a past editor of the Journal of Marketing and is the current editor of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Stewart's research has examined a wide range of issues including marketing strategy, the analysis of markets, consumer information search and decision making, effectiveness of marketing communications, public policy issues related to marketing, and methodological approaches to the analysis of marketing data. He s a past-president of the Academic Council of the American Marketing Association, a past chairman of the Section on Statistics in Marketing of the American Statistical Association, a past president of the Society for Consumer Psychology, and a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. Stewart holds a PhD in psychology from Baylor University.

Feminism and Social Justice - Nancy A. Naples
12:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Nancy A. Naples is a professor of sociology and women's studies at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches courses on the sociology of gender; gender, politics, and the state; women's activism and globalization; and feminist theory. She is also the current president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her research has included studies of the historical construction and implementation of welfare, immigration, rural economic development, and community-control policies. She has also examined how members of low-income and working-class urban and rural communities respond to externally imposed policies and state-sponsored programs. Nancy Naples is currently working on a book that investigates the link between global economic change, social policy, and community-based social restructuring in the rural United States as well as conducting research on sexual citizenship in a comparative perspective.

Urban Operations - M. Christine Boyer
7:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - M. Christine Boyer is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the School of Architecture, Princeton University. She is the author of CyberCities: Visual Perception in the Age of Electronic Communication, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments, and Dreaming the Rational City: The Myth of City Planning, 1890-1945. Boyer received her doctorate and Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also holds a Masters of Science in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of Electrical Engineering. Part of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities series on Places, Peoples, and Spatial Practices.

Porn Nation: The Naked Truth - Michael Leahy
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Michael Leahy is an author, speaker and the executive director of BraveHearts, LLC, an organization he founded whose goal is to increase the public's awareness of the hidden dangers and long-term consequences of exposure to pornography from the porn industry and mainstream media. A recovering sex addict himself, Leahy shares his story in a multimedia presentation that includes video segments and interviews with experts and everyday people. He also shares his faith journey and how that helped him through his sexual addiction. Leahy has appeared on ABC News' "20/20", "The View" and numerous NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox News local affiliate programs.

Gender and Science Where Science is on the Margins - Ann Koblitz
12:00 PM – Cardinal Room, Memorial Union - Ann Koblitz, Professor of Women & Gender Studies at Arizona State University, will explore some of the factors that influence women's participation in the sciences in less-studied parts of the world. Among the topics addressed will be different impacts of motherhood, science as "cultural capital," and immigration. Please join us for her presentation and discussion of these important topics.

Penelope's Tools: Clay as a Memory Vessel - Lia Bagrationi
7:30 PM – Kocimski Auditorium, College of Design - Lia Bagrationi is a ceramicist and will be speaking about her ceramic sculpture and on the Republic of Georgia where she lives and works. Bagrationi graduated from the State Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi, Georgia. She has held artist residencies at the International Ceramic Research Center, Denmark, in 2006; AIR Vallauris, France, in 2005; and Lakeside Studio, Lakeside, Michigan, in 2001. In 2000 she was awarded the Grand Prix at the First Symposium of Georgian Ceramists. Bagrationi's works have been included in many local and international exhibitions since 1980 and are on public display in the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi and the History Museum in Carvasla. Her work deals with myth and cultural attitudes toward money and wealth.