Featured St. Norbert’s College Lecturer: Dr. Ozum Yesiltas
Date: Saturday, January 17, 2015

Eleven years after the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iraq is in chaos. The spectacular capture of Mosul by the jihadist militant group known as the Islamic State (ISIS) on June 9, 2014 and its striking military progression towards Bagdad have greatly contributed to the destabilization of fragile order in Iraq as well as the disintegration of Iraq-Syria border. The situation in Iraq and Syria not only presents a continuing humanitarian crisis and a threat to the Middle East stability but also raises important questions about the decade-long occupation of Iraq and the US strategy of “nation-building” abroad as part of the war on terrorism. While the fragmentation of Iraq and Syria is worsening, the ISIS invasion fundamentally impacts wider issues such as a far more autonomous Kurdistan, the challenges posed by porous borders in the Middle East and the deepening ethnic and sectarian divides in the region.

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Featured St. Norbert’s College Lecturer: Dr. Jamie O’Brien
Date: Saturday, February 22, 2014

In the era of globalization competitive advantage is at a premium, and how we manage our people remains a differentiating factor. Understanding how national culture affects management style can be a key strategy for organizations in the United States, especially if expansion overseas is being considered. This lecture explores five dimensions of national culture that have an impact on how organizations might manage most effectively across countries: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long- versus short-term focus. Dr. O’Brien is an Assistant Professor of Management on the St. Norbert College Business Administration faculty.

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Featured St. Norbert’s College Lecturer: Dr. Deirdre Egan-Ryan
Date: Saturday, February 15, 2014

Our journeying through space is deeply embedded in our national identity. The American appetite for travel and expanded horizons is explored by looking to our literature, maps, advertisements, and art. Dr. Egan-Ryan is an Assistant Professor of English and Director of American Studies at St. Norbert College. Her scholarly work investigates the ways that our relationship to space and place influence our modern and American identities. She is fascinated especially by the ways that women writing during the first few decades of the 20th century found themselves negotiating gender identities through the shifting cultural spaces of American modernity: urban and rural, private and public.

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Lodging Provided by: AppleCreek Resort
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Featured St. Norbert’s College Lecturer: Dr. Rebecca McKean
Date: Saturday, February 8, 2014

Within the desert landscapes of southern Utah, some surprising fossils have been found – fossils of fish, turtles, sharks, and large marine reptiles called plesiosaurs! Parts of Utah were covered by a vast ocean about 90 million years ago, creating the perfect environment for marine life. So just how big was this ocean? What kinds of fossils are found in Utah and just how were they preserved? And what does a paleontologist do with these fossils? We will address all of these questions as we explore this ancient ocean. Dr. McKean is Assistant Professor of Geology at St. Norbert College. She recently gained notoriety in scientific circles for her identification of a previously unknown plesiosaur that lived some 90 million years ago.

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Featured St. Norbert’s College Lecturer: Dr. Mark Glantz
Date: Saturday, January 25, 2014

How do political television commercials inform and persuade citizens? Political television ads that accuse rival candidates of flip-flopping will be analyzed using Kenneth Burke’s theory of form. Romantic comedy films will be used as the example to explain how the theory operates. Examples from popular music (Katy Perry) and professional sports (Brett Favre) will be provided to further probe the content of flip-flop messages. Dr. Glantz is an Assistant Professor of Communications and Media Studies. His primary research and teaching interests are media studies and political rhetoric.

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Featured St. Norbert’s College Lecturer: Dr. David Hunnicutt
Date: Saturday, January 18, 2014

We usually associate bacteria with disease or contamination, but the average healthy person is composed of roughly 1 trillion human cells and 10 trillion bacterial cells. Recent advances in genomics and microbiology allow a glimpse into who these “commensals” are, how they function, and how they interact with us, their hosts. Some researchers are beginning to talk about these commensals as an additional organ. This lecture will focus on recent studies describing the “human microbiome” and how such discoveries open up new ways of thinking about health, disease, and what it means to be human. Dr. Hunnicutt is a microbiologist and Associate Professor of Biology at St. Norbert College.

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Lecture Series Sponsored by: Dahl Law Firm and Ross Estate Planning
Lodging Provided by: AppleCreek Resort
Coffee Service Provided by: Ecology Sports Base Camp