Alicia Sams, Documentary Film Director and Producer. By the People: The Election of Barack Obama is a behind-the-scenes documentary of the Obama campaign. Director Alicia Sams will discuss the making of the film and the insights she gained from being on t

Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University. Hip-Hop culture has been a site for the promotion of black hypermasculininity. In the past decade, artist Jay Z (Shawn Cart

Terry Engelder, professor of Geosciences, Penn State University, will talk about the Marcellus gas shale that is located in Pennsylvania, the potential economic value it has for the state, and the probable ramifications it will have for political scientis

Guillermo Alonso, El Colegio de al Frontera Norte, Tijuana. The United States is building one, two, three or more walls and “other obstacles” in the southwest border. Customs and Border Protection claim, “New dangers face the borders of our nation.â

Leonard Cassuto, Professor of English, Fordham University. After exploring the origins and complexities of “bestsellers,” Cassuto applies his conclusions to the way crime novels are read and understood in the U.S.

Tom Boellstorff, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California and Editor-in-Chief, American Anthropologist. Virtual worlds represent an important new modality of human interaction. The discussion will focus on emerging forms of popular cu

William Greenlee, President and CEO of The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences. The goal of research and scholarship is the pursuit of new knowledge. That pursuit expands the intellectual endowment, but without a purpose and plan for the endowment’s u

Marilyn Wann, author, editor, and activist, offers a funny and engaging discussion of what it currently means to be fat or thin, the impact of such messages, and a revolutionary new alternative for how we should live in and think about our bodies.

Elizabeth Loftus, distinguished professor, University of California, Irvine. People have been led to remember non-existent events from the recent past as well as non-existent events from their childhood. They can be led to falsely believe that they had

Thomas Hull, Metzger-Conway Fellow, Warburg Professor International Relations, Simmons College. Africa has been afflicted with brutal, prolonged conflicts that capture our attention, but almost incomprehensibly resist negotiated resolutions. Examining com