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Past Events

Wednesday, 7 Mar 2007

Life in the Savanna - Jill Pruetz
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Dr. Jill Pruetz is an assistant professor of anthropology at Iowa State specializing in biological anthropology. As a primatologist, Pruetz has studied the behavior of nonhuman primates, such as chimpanzees, spider monkeys, howling monkeys, tamarins, patas monkeys, and vervets. She has conducted fieldwork in Peru, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Kenya, and Senegal. Pruetz is especially interested in the influence of ecology on primate and early human feeding, ranging, and social behavior. She currently has a research project in southeastern Senegal that has been funded by National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation. The goal of this ongoing project is to study chimps in a habitat similar to that of early hominids. The Spring 2007 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Lecture.

Tuesday, 6 Mar 2007

An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warming Update - Tony Thompson
7:00 PM – 1148 Gerdin Auditorium - Tony Thompson is a trained presenter for The Climate Project, a movement to educate and challenge citizens and governments into action against the growing crisis of global warming. The project is a follow-up to Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Thompson was born and raised on a small farm in central Iowa. He has been a full-time volunteer for and staff member of Habitat for Humanity at its headquarters in Americus, Georgia, and director of the Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity ReStore. He also served on the board of directors of the Iowa Environmental Council. Thompson is currently pursuing a master's degree in Strategic Leadership toward Sustainability at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden.

Monday, 5 Mar 2007

American Foreign Policy toward the Middle East in the 21st Century - Ken Stein
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Kenneth W. Stein is the William E. Schatten Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Political Science and Israeli Studies at Emory University and director of Emory's Middle East Research Program and the Institute for the Study of Modern Israel. He is the author of four books, including Hebrew and English editions of Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace (1999), Making Peace Among Arabs and Israelis: Lessons from Fifty Years of Negotiating Experience (1991), and The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 (1984/2003).

Friday, 2 Mar 2007

ISCORE Keynote Address on Race and Ethnicity - Evelyn Hu-DeHart
12:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Evelyn Hu-DeHart is a professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. Previously, she was chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies and director of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Hu-DeHart was born in China and immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was twelve. She speaks several languages and describes herself as a multicultural person who moves easily among several cultures. She has written two books on the Yaqui Indians, and is now engaged in a large research project on the Asian diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Thursday, 1 Mar 2007

Electronic Literature: Playing, Interpreting, Teaching - N. Katherine Hayles
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - N. Katherine Hayles, a professor of English at UCLA, is the author of many books, the most recent being My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. Her book How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Infomatics won the Rene Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association for the best book in literary theory for 1998-99. Her other distinctions include two NEH Fellowships, a Rockefeller Residential Fellowship at Bellagio, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Presidential Research Fellowship from the University of California, and the Medal of Honor from the University of Helskini. She is the former president of the Society for Literature and Science. The 2007 Goldtrap Lecture.

Wednesday, 28 Feb 2007

Climate Change & Agriculture: Learning Lessons & Proposing Solutions - Cynthia Rosenzweig
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Cynthia Rosenzweig is a research agronomist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and leader of its Climate Impacts Group. She recently led an international, interdisciplinary project to study the potential impacts of climate change on world food supply, trade, and risk of hunger. She is coauthor, with Daniel Hillel, of Climate Change and the Global Harvest: Potential Impacts of the Greenhouse Effect on Agriculture (1998). The John Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture.

Tuesday, 27 Feb 2007

Christianity and Climate Change: Understanding the Range of Responses - Janel Curry
8:00 PM – Pioneer Room, Memorial Union - Janel Curry is Dean for Research and Scholarship and Professor of Geography at Calvin College. She has held numerous leadership positions in the area of rural geography, including chair of the board of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and chair of the Rural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. In her talk, Curry will go beyond the stereotypes of the relationship between Christians and the environment. She presents a framework for comparing the attitudes of different Christian traditions toward environmental issues and policies and the implications for climate change policy. Since Lynn White's famous article on the relationship between Christianity and ecological destruction, many environmental activists have accused this faith community of inaction or actions that are ecologically destructive when it comes to environmental protection and health. However, recent concerns over climate change have led several scientific and environmental organizations to begin building bridges with the range of Christian traditions, recognizing that all must be part of the solution to global climate change.

The Looting of the Iraq Museum and Cultural Property at War - Cori Wegener
7:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Cori Wegener is an assistant curator in Architecture, Design, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Sculpture at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and a retired major in the U.S. Army Reserve. Her last military assignment was in Baghdad, Iraq, as the Arts, Monuments and Archives Officer for the 352nd Civil Affairs Command. She assisted staff at the Iraq National Museum after the looting that took place during the U.S. invasion and acted as military liaison to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture. Wegener will give a slide lecture discussing the looting and subsequent reconstruction of the museum as well her efforts to establish the United States Committee of the Blue Shield, a non-governmental organization dedicated to the protection of cultural property during armed conflict. Part of the World Affairs Series.

Monday, 26 Feb 2007

The Threat of Bioterrorism: A "One-Medicine" Perspective - Col. Donald L. Noah
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Colonel Don Noah currently serves as the Deputy Command Surgeon at the United States Southern Command in Miami, Florida. Dr. Noah received hisbachelor's and veterinary medical degrees from The Ohio State University and a Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota. He is also a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine. His military assignments include a base-level assignment in Japan; instructor at the US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio; infectious disease outbreak investigation fellowship at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; infectious disease analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency at Ft Detrick, Maryland; liaison officer between the US Air Force Surgeon General and the Central Intelligence Agency; medical epidemiologist at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID); special assistant for biological defense at the Pentagon's Office of the Secretary of Defense; and the Department of Defense Liaison to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a USDA-certified Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostician. In addition to his academic and military experiences, Dr. Noah also practiced in a large animal (predominantly dairy and swine) private practice in Ohio with his father for three years. His significant awards include the 2005 Distinguished Alumnus Award from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine,1996 Dr. Daniel E. Salmon Federal Veterinarian of the Year Award, the 1996 US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service, and the 1995 Republic of Zaire's Brevet de Participation for his efforts in the control of the Ebola outbreak. Dr. John H. Greve Lecture Series, Omega Tau Sigma, College of Veterinary Medicine. Part of the National Affairs series.

Thursday, 22 Feb 2007

Racing in Place: A Reading - Michael Martone
8:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Michael Martone, professor of English and director of the creative writing program at the University of Alabama, is a short story author, essayist, and poet. Martone's 2000 book, The Flatness and Other Landscapes, won the Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction. Part of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities series on Places, Peoples, and Spatial Practices.