Lectures and Discussions Archive: Fall 2018

Reading: To Build a Trail: Essays on Curiosity, Love, and Wonder

Paul Willis, Westmont College
with Gabe Grabowski and Emily Mata

Tuesday, September 4
4:00 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
English Department Reading

When Paul Willis set out to build a couple miles of trail in the wilder parts of his California college campus, he had no idea that it would become a metaphor for a lifetime of teaching and learning. But curiosity, love, and wonder always take circuitous paths toward understanding. That is what he came to believe, and that is what has put him in conflict with present-day promoters of efficiency in education. This collection of essays switchbacks through moments of learning and moments of pain, pausing briefly at trail junctions of gratitude. Put on your boots, pick up a shovel, and join him in making a way. (wordfarm.net)

The Era of CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing: What We Can and Should Do

A Conversation with Professors Yi-Fan Lu, Telford Work, and Mark Nelson, Westmont College

Wednesday, September 5
7:00 PM | Winter 210
Chemistry Department and Faith and Science Club Lecture

Arcadia Through the Eyes of Literature, Art, Music, and Mathematics

Paul Delaney, Lisa DeBoer, Erin Bonski-Evans, and Russell Howell, Westmont College

Thursday, September 6
3:30 PM | Deane Chapel
Arcadia Symposium

This symposium involves a discussion of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia through the lenses of various disciplines. Steve Hodson is slated to perform Legiti's "The Devil's Staircase," which will tie in nicely with the presentations. Twelve tickets to the play will be given to students attending the symposium via a "Tom Stoppard-like" mechanism. The play will be performed in Solvang's Festival Theatre (outdoors) on Saturday, September 9, beginning at 8:00 p.m.

Film Screening: "Fractals: The Colors of Infinity"

Thursday, September 6
7:00 PM | Adams 216
Arcadia Symposium

The Mandelbrot set - someone has called it the thumb-print of God - is one of the most beautiful and remarkable discoveries in the entire history of mathematics. With Arthur C. Clarke as narrator and interviews with a number of notable mathematicians, including Benoît Mandelbrot, this program graphically illustrates how simple formulas can lead to complicated results: it explains the set, what it means, its internal consistency, and the revolutions in thought resulting from its discovery. Asked if the real universe goes on forever, Stephen Hawking defines its limit of smallness; the Mandelbrot set, on the other hand, may go on forever. (ffh.films.com)

Panel Discussion: An Unhurried Life

Alister Chapman, Scott Lisea, Shannon Balram, and Beverly Chen, Westmont College

Monday, September 10
7:00 PM | Voskuyl Library Cafe Area
Westmont Summer Reads Panel Discussion

"I am a recovering speed addict." Beginning with this confession, pastor and spiritual director Alan Fadling goes on to describe his journey out of the fast lane and into the rhythms of Jesus. Following the framework of Jesus' earthly life, Fadling shows how the work of "unhurrying" ourselves is central to our spiritual development in such pivotal areas as resisting temptation, caring for others, praying and making disciples. (ivpress.com)

Reel Talk: "Moonrise Kingdom"

Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Thursday, September 13
8:15 PM | Adams 216

In this coming-of-age comedy, director Wes Anderson movingly depicts two kids' passage out of childhood. Sam and Suzy are unusual twelve-year-olds with incandescent passions–for literature, for music, for the outdoors. As the storm of adolescence and adulthood gathers, what will become of the kingdoms they've built? 

Waste Reduction

Hillary Allen, City of Santa Barbara

Tuesday, September 18
3:30 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Sustainability Speaker Series

Recycling Specialist Hillary Allen is a Santa Barbara native who has been with the City since 2005. She started in the City Administrator’s Office but moved over to Environmental Services because she loved their mission to reduce waste in the city. Hillary does a little bit of everything in the office, from customer service to food scraps training; but whatever she is working on, her goal is to provide exemplary customer service while doing it. She earned a BA in Art History from UCSB (including schooling in Florence, Italy) and spent some time traveling before settling back in Santa Barbara. (santabarbaraca.gov)

Sexuality, Virginity, and Women in Irenaeus of Lyons: Eve, Virgin Mary, and Redemption

Helen Rhee, Westmont College

Thursday, September 20
7:00 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Gender Studies Lecture

Dr. Rhee graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in history and earned a Master of Divinity and a Doctor of Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary. Before coming to Westmont in 2004, she served as pastor of Hana Church in Buena Park, California; she is an ordained minister of Free Methodist Church Santa Barbara. She specializes in early Christian history, especially second- and third-century Christian literature and theology, focusing on diverging Christian self-identities in relation to Greco-Roman culture and society. Her books include Early Christian Literature: Christ and Culture in the Second and Third Centuries, Loving the Poor, Saving the Rich: Wealth, Poverty, and Early Christian Formation, and Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. She received Westmont's Bruce and Adaline Bare Teacher of the Year Award in Humanities in 2010 and the Faculty Researcher of the Year Award in 2014. (westmont.edu)

What Hymnals Were (and Could Be) For

Chris Phillips, Lafayette College

Thursday, October 4
4:30 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
English and History Department Lecture

Chris Phillips is a professor of English at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. His new book,The Hymnal: A Reading History, reconstructs a wide-ranging culture of reading hymnbooks between their entry into congregational services in the early 18th century and the replacement of small, words-only books with the modern music-and-words format in the later part of the 19th century. Looking at the lives these books lived with their users in spaces of worship, learning, and home, Phillips makes the case for the hymn as a major part of the literary and print culture histories that have faded from public memory, often involving women, children, slaves, and more. (jhubooks.press.jhu.edu)

The Rise of Veganism and Vegan Studies

Renan Larue, UC Santa Barbara

Tuesday, October 16
3:30 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Sustainability Speaker Series

Renan Larue is an assistant professor of French Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include Vegetarianism and Its Enemies, the first French history of vegetarianism and veganism. His current work deals with 18th-century literature (especially Voltaire and Rousseau) and “Vegan Studies,” a new field of research he is actively developing at UCSB. Since 2016, he's taught a class on the subject, adopting a highly multidisciplinary approach which includes theology, psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, economics and literature. For him, what is at stake with veganism (and carnism, its opposite) goes far beyond food choices or habits. It relates to the role we should play within the universe, to our duties towards animals, the environment, and future generations. (ucsb.edu)

Do Specialized Aid Agencies Actually Promote Development? A Comparison of Health and Education Sectors

Katherine Bryant, Westmont College

Thursday, October 18
7:00 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture

Katherine Bryant is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Westmont, where she teaches courses in international relations. She recently earned her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University; she holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California. Dr. Bryant’s research focuses on the political economy of development. In her dissertation and other research, she examines how the organizational characteristics of foreign aid agencies impact development outcomes, such as economic growth rates and health policies. She argues that agencies that are neutrally motivated, specialized, and autonomous should be more effective compared to other agencies, and uses an original dataset to test her argument. Dr. Bryant’s other research interests include international security and the role non-state actors in civil war, human rights, and international law. (westmont.edu)

Saddles and Poles: A Perspective Enlightened by Contour Diagrams

Beth Schaubroeck, US Air Force Academy

Thursday, October 25
3:30 PM | Adams 219
Mathematics Department Lecture

Dr. Beth Schaubroeck is a professor of mathematics at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. She holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of North Carolina. In this talk, we begin by defining complex numbers, and then we relate functions of complex numbers to familiar ideas from functions of real numbers. Two main topics of interest are poles and saddles.  Poles are essentially a generalization of the vertical asymptotes discussed in algebra classes, while saddles are a special case of critical points like those studied in differential calculus. We then look at how we can visualize both poles and saddles, and we ask what additional information can be learned from these visualizations. An added bonus is that the images created from these visualizations are artistic in nature, resembling things such as flowers and snowflakes. No previous experience with complex numbers is required, and only first-semester calculus is assumed.

Using π-Orbitals in Organic Molecules for Electronics and Solar Cells

Michael Chabinyc, UC Santa Barbara

Friday, October 26
3:30 PM | Winter 210
Chemistry Department Lecture

Michael Chabinyc is an Associate Professor in the Materials Department at UCSB.  He received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Dayton in 1994 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University in 1999.  He joined UCSB in 2008 after holding a postdoctoral position at Harvard University (1999-2001), and working as a staff researcher for the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) from 2005-2009.  Hi current research interests include materials for flexible electronics and energy storage and conversion, with particular emphasis is on characterization of the electrical and morphological characteristics of organic semiconductors in thin film transistors and photovoltaics. (ucsb.edu)

Reel Talk: "WALL-E"
Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Tuesday, October 30
7:00 PM | Global Leadership Center

Of all Pixar's acclaimed animated features, "WALL-E" might be the most ambitious. It's an environmental fable, a dark commentary on the costs of technological progress, and a parable of Christian redemption–all carried by the slapstick misadventures of a little trash-compacting robot. As we think during Focus Week about what it means to really be present, this film has much to say about the tragic ways we're relinquishing connection with one another, with the earth, and with God.

Westmont Reading Series: Poet Scott Cairns

Scott Cairns, Seattle Pacific University

Thursday, November 1
7:00 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Westmont Reading Series

Dr. Scott Cairns is the program director of Seattle Pacific University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. He is also a librettist, memoirist, translator, and author of eight poetry collections. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Image, Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, and others, and have been anthologized in multiple editions of Best American Spiritual Writing. His new projects include Descent to the Heart, a verse adaptation of selections from the writings of Saint Isaak of Syria. (spu.edu)

"Re-Masculinizing" Christianity: Gender and Religious Change in the Progressive Era

Aaron Sizer, Westmont College

Tuesday, November 6
7:00 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Gender Studies Lecture

Aaron Sizer holds a Ph.D. in church history and an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. Before coming to Westmont, he was an adjunct professor of religion at Villanova University; at Westmont, he has taught courses in history, writing, and education. His research focuses on the institutionalization of American mainline Protestantism in the early twentieth century, with particular emphases on war, money, and gender. Dr. Sizer is a 2001 graduate of Westmont College. (westmont.edu)

Reel Talk: "Beyond Measure"
Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Thursday, November 15
7:00 PM | Adams 216

Recent American public education reform has been all about the numbers–a highly quantified "race to the top," based in the belief that learning mostly involves the simple acquisition of discrete information and skills. "Beyond Measure" describes a growing movement to reimagine education from the ground up, to value "personal growth over test scores," "inquiry over mimicry," and "passion over rankings." What would it look like, the filmmakers ask, if our educational goal was "not the transmission of facts or formulas, but the transformation of every student?"

The Sabbath of the Wild: Tending and Releasing the Garden

Paul Willis, Westmont College

Monday, November 19
3:30 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Sustainability Speaker Series

Dr. Willis came to Westmont in 1988. After graduating from Wheaton College, he took a master’s degree and a doctorate in English at Washington State University. He has published numerous poems in journals such as Poetry, Ascent, Wilderness, and The Christian Century. His collections of poetry include Say This Prayer into the Past, Rosing from the Dead, and Visiting Home. He co-edited In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare. His two books of creative nonfiction, Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild and To Build a Trail: Essays on Curiosity, Love, and Wonder, include essays and reviews. He also published a four-part eco-fantasy novel, The Alpine Tales. He served as Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara from 2011 to 2013. (westmont.edu)

Environmentalism and the Evangelical: Just the Bible for those Justly Concerned

Sandra Richter, Westmont College

Monday, December 3
3:30 PM | Hieronymus Lounge
Sustainability Speaker Series

Internationally known for her work on Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History, Dr. Richter brings the Old Testament to life by exploring the real people and real places from which it comes. Richter is a graduate of Valley Forge University, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and earned her doctorate from the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department of Harvard University in Hebrew Bible.  A veteran of many years of leading student groups in archaeological excavation and historical geography classes in Israel, she has taught at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wesley Biblical Seminary and Wheaton College. She is recognized among the laity for her The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament and is currently working on a second in that series, The Fifth Gospel:  A Christian Entry into the Book of Isaiah (IVP Academic).  Her current research involves a forthcoming book on environmental theology (Hendrickson Publishers) and a commentary on Deuteronomy with Eerdmans.  She is also the author of several adult Bible curricula with Seedbed. (westmont.edu)