The 2009 - 2010 Rider University Faculty Lecture Series
The Rider University Faculty Lecture Series Committee is pleased to announce the faculty lectures for the 2008–2009 academic year. All faculty are invited to attend to hear the work of your colleagues.
The Rider University Faculty Lecture Series is a forum for faculty to share high-quality research primarily with other faculty and administrators. The content of each presentation depends on the faculty member’s current research or artistic interests. The faculty member also considers the diversity of the audience members in his or her presentation. Each presentation is approximately forty minutes, followed by a question and answer period, and a wine and cheese reception.
Monday, September 21, 2009
4.30 - 6 p.m., Sweigart 117
Sustainability, an Ethical Dilemma
Dr. Patricia Mosto, Dean, College of Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences
Respondents: Dr. Brooke Hunter, Department of History; Dr. Laura Hyatt, Department of Biology
This conversation will focus on our ethical responsibilities as citizens of the world to maintain a sustainable earth for other creatures, future generations, and us. It will discuss some of the main environmental challenges we are facing and how humans have impacted earth’s resources. It will conclude with possible solutions through changes in the way we live and the way we conduct business to engineer a more sustainable world, and how a new environmental agenda based on valid compromises among scientific facts, moral principles, and global economic policies can lead to a sustainable world.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
4.30 - 6 p.m., Sweigart 115
This Island Earth: Insularity in Ancient and Medieval Literature, Science, and Maps
Dr. Matthew Goldie, Department of English
We tend to think of an island as a paradise or a hell of solitude, a jail or a fortress, an ideal isolated site for observation, a fragile ecology, and as cut off from progress, modernity, even time itself. These ways of thinking about islands have a history that begins in the Early Modern period with works such as Thomas More’s Utopia. But how else might we consider islands? Recent island theory by Pacific Island writers, scientists, and others challenges preconceptions about insular space and time. However, even these reconsiderations overlook an older history in Greek, Roman, and medieval writings and maps that can help us to think through what constitutes an island.
Monday, November 16, 2009
4.30 - 6 p.m., Sweigart 115
Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician
Dr. Barry Seldes, Department of Political Science
Respondent: Dr. Jack Sullivan, Department of English
I will discuss my recently published book, Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician. I was inspired to begin my book in 1995 when the hundreds of pages of the FBI’s dossier on Bernstein became accessible under the Freedom of Information Act. What I discovered from this archive and the Bernstein archive in the Library of Congress was revelatory about Bernstein’s life and career, including his tribulations during the late-1940s and 1950s blacklist era; his political rehabilitation during the so-called cultural cold war; and his repertoire and his compositions as expressions of his political-cultural philosophy.
Monday, February 8, 2010
4.30 - 6 p.m., Sweigart 115
The Impacts of Terrorism on Higher Education: Threats and Opportunities
Dr. James Castagnera, Associate Provost and Associate Counsel for Academic Affairs
Respondents: Dr. Jonathan Karp, Department of Biology; Dr. William J. Amadio, Department of Computer Information Systems
Drawn from his newest book, Al-Qaeda Goes to College (Praeger, 2009), Jim Castagnera’s talk focuses on two significant aspects of terrorism as they affect colleges and universities. Under the heading of threats, he will discuss a variety of violent actors, including the disgruntled scientist who perpetrated the 2002 anthrax attacks; mentally disturbed campus killers, including Whitman (the UT-Austin tower massacre, 1966), and Cho (the VTU massacre, 2007); and radical animal rights activists. Dr. Jonathan Karp will comment on this aspect of the talk, expanding on the threat posed by animal rights radicals to scientific research. With regard to opportunities, Dr. Castagnera will provide an overview of various curricular programs, research projects, and other opportunities that the so-called “war on terror” has afforded higher education. Dr. Bill Amadio will enlarge upon the work he has been doing as part of a multi-university consortium in the areas of data mining and computer forensics.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
4.30 - 6 p.m., Sweigart 115
Ratnakãrti’s Proof of Momentariness
Dr. Joel Feldman, Department of Philosophy
The Kùaõabhaïgasiddhi is a masterpiece of skillful reasoning by the eleventh-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Ratnakãrti. The text attempts to provide a rigorous proof for the doctrine of momentariness, a theory advanced by a long tradition of Buddhist thought holding that everything that exists endures for only a single moment before being destroyed by its own nature. In this talk, I will discuss my translation of the text, emphasizing how Ratnakãrti's argument relies crucially upon his conception of causality. I will also explain how this vision of a radically ephemeral universe coheres with the Buddhist diagnosis of and prescription for the pervasive suffering of the human condition.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
5 - 6 p.m., Sweigart 115
Lost in the Spider Web: Citizen Powerlessness in the New Media Information Era
Dr. Yun Xia, Department of Communication and Journalism, and Dr. Frank Rusciano, Department of Political Science
Respondents: Dr. Jonathan Mendilow, Department of Political Science; Dr. Jonathan Millen, Department of Communication and Journalism
The fundamental shift caused by the manner in which we store and retrieve information on the Web has caused a corresponding shift in our manner of thinking. The unintended consequences of relying upon Web tools may have transformed our abilities to think in a traditional manner. It is a truism in the participation literature that information is a critical resource affecting an individual’s political efficacy; a similar truism is that in the information society that presently characterizes the United States, knowledge is power. Hence, the paradox: why, in an age when the Web provides easy (and arguably, more equitable) access to information than ever before, do citizens feel more powerless than they did previously?
The Rider University Faculty Lecture Series is a forum for faculty to share high-quality research primarily with other faculty and administrators. The content of each presentation depends on the faculty member’s current research or artistic interests. The faculty member also considers the diversity of the audience members in his or her presentation. Each presentation is approximately forty minutes, followed by a question and answer period, and a wine and cheese reception.
The Rider University Faculty Lecture Series is supported by the Offices of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs; the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences; and the Assistant Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences.
Committee:
Dr. Richard Butsch, Department of Sociology
Dr. Joel S. Feldman, Department of Philosophy
Dr. Sharon A. Mirchandani, Department of Music Composition, History, and Theory
Dr. Kelly Noonan, Department of Economics
Dr. Joanne P. Vesay, Department of Teacher Education
Dr. Edward Todd Weber, Department of Biology
Dr. Jonathon Yavelow, Department of Biology; Assistant Dean, College of Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences
Dr. Matthew Boyd Goldie (Coordinator), Department of English
If you are interested in presenting at, or would like more information about, The Rider University Faculty Lecture Series, please contact Dr. Matthew Boyd Goldie at mgoldie@rider.edu.
