February 2017
Southern Culture and Memory
**Please note: This event will be held outside of Chapel Hill at the Archie K. Davis Conference Center. See below for more information** Southern American culture has sometimes been portrayed as exceptionally coherent and enduring, but like all other societies, the South is constantly changing. This interdisciplinary seminar will look at the ways in in which Southern American identities and memories have been evolving and the ways that the heritages of the South are translated and transmitted through the arts,…
Find out more »September 2017
NC Politics and Policies: Then and Now – A Dialogues Seminar
North Carolina's political culture has changed dramatically over the last 60 years as different leaders and legislative practices have reshaped the Old North State. Jim Leloudis will offer historical perspectives on the key people and ideas that transformed North Carolina after 1955, and veteran legislator Verla Insko will draw on her own experiences to discuss recent upheavals in our state's politics and legislative system. This dialogue will examine how North Carolina's modern political culture has changed and how certain cultural…
Find out more »October 2017
Scientific Revolutions and Changing Human Values
Revolutions in scientific knowledge and technologies have profoundly influenced modern human lives, ideas, and ethical values. This seminar will examine how scientific revolutions have transformed human identities and traditional beliefs. Philosopher Marc Lange will introduce the general concept of scientific revolutions, drawing on the important work of the scientific theorist Thomas Kuhn. Three talented scientists who will then explore the impact of changing scientific knowledge. Professors Christopher Clemens, Karen Pfennig, and Tessa Joseph-Nicholas will examine the far-reaching cultural effects of…
Find out more »November 2017
Women in Fiction and Film
This seminar will investigate the shifting roles that female characters have played in theatre, literature and film over the millennia. Al Duncan will discuss Aristophanes’ “sex-strike play,” Lysistrata, which was both of, and ahead of, its time, and highlight the caprices of literary reception and the play’s continuing cultural role if (when), indeed, “the future is female.” Inger Brodey will look at the tendency to depict women in distress as erotically exciting in the eighteenth-century novel (including Richardson, Radcliffe, and…
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