PROGRAMS | GAEDE INSTITUTE Archive: Fall 2017
Opening Reception for "Untold: Cardboard Box as Reliquary"
Meagan Stirling, Westmont College
Monday, September 4
5-7pm | Adams Patio
Art Department Event
Meagan Stirling is an assistant professor of art at Westmont College, specializing in printmaking, design and intermedia. Her new show is inspired by a particular cardboard box she's kept unopened, like a reliquary, for eighteen years. What untold stories does it contain? What stories do we carry around, unopened and unexamined, in our own minds and hearts?
Reel Talk: "The Interrupters"
with Meredith Whitnah, Sarah Jirek, and Angela D'Amour
Thursday, September 7
6:30pm | Adams 216
"The Interrupters" presents unforgettable profiles in courage, as three former street criminals in Chicago place themselves in the line of fire to protect their communities. The film follows the lives of these “Violence Interrupters,” who include the charismatic daughter of one of the city’s most notorious former gang leaders, the son of a murdered father, and a man haunted by a killing he committed as a teenager. As they intervene in disputes to prevent violence, they reveal their own inspired journeys of struggle and redemption. Presented in collaboration with the Westmont Summer Reads program.
Panel Discussion: Tattoos on the Heart
Charlie Farhadian, Rachel Winslow, Shawn Hill, and Anthony Martinez
Monday, September 18
7pm | Library Main Floor
Westmont Summer Reads
For twenty years, Father Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program in Los Angeles. In Tattoos on the Heart, he distills his experience working in the ghetto into a series of parables inspired by faith. Join Westmont faculty Charlie Farhadian and Rachel Winslow, SB police sargeant Shawn Hill, and City Impact Inc.'s Anthony Martinez as they discuss Boyle's bestselling book. Part of the Westmont Summer Reads program.
Teach-In on Charlottesville
Ed Song, Rachel Winslow, Sameer Yadav, Lisa DeBoer, Meredith Whitnah, and Paul Willis
Tuesday, September 19
12pm | DC Lawn
Join us for a multidiscipinary conversation about recent events in Charlottesville, VA that have raised vital questions about race, violence, and history.
The Language and Life of Being Adopted
Kelley Nikondeha, Communities of Hope
Tuesday, September 19
7pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Erasmus Society Lecture
Kelley Nikondeha is the co-director of Communities of Hope, a community development enterprise in Burundi. A graduate of Westmont College, she also serves as the theologian-in-residence for SheLovesMagazine, which takes up questions of faith, love, and justice in worldwide perspective. Her new book, Adopted: The Sacrament of Belonging in a Fractured World, explores how adoption can be "a potent metaphor for building community and repairing divisions."
Introduction to Sustainable Agriculture and Aquaponics
Clayton Garland , Eco-Conscious Aquaponics
Wednesday, September 20
3:30pm | Founders Room
Sustainability Speaker Series
Clayton Garland is the founder of Eco-Conscious Aquaponics, a Santa Barbara County company that uses aquaponic technologies to grow high-efficiency organic produce with a fraction of the water that conventional agriculture uses. A veteran of the Coast Guard, Garland developed an interest in backyard gardening that eventually evolved into drought-tolerant-tree-collection and then small farming.
Panel Discussion: "Untold: Cardboard Box as Reliquary"
with Meagan Stirling, Marianne Robins, John Blondell, Eric Nelson, and Makayla Monahan
Wednesday, September 20
7pm | Adams 217
Art Department Lecture
Meagan Stirling is an assistant professor of art at Westmont College, specializing in printmaking, design and intermedia. Her new show is inspired by a particular cardboard box she's kept unopened, like a reliquary, for eighteen years. What untold stories does it contain? What stories do we carry around, unopened and unexamined, in our own minds and hearts?
How a Man Becomes a Thing, Or, the Dangers of the Icon in U.S. Abolition
Kya Mangrum, University of Utah
Thursday, September 21
5:15 pm | Founders Room
English Department Lecture
Kya Mangrum is an American literature scholar whose research centers on what happens to U.S. narratives of slavery when written texts and visual texts converge. Drawing on her expertise in 18th- and 19th-century American culture, Mangrum will argue that abolitionists' sense of political and moral urgency led to a number of early experiments in virtual reality. By translating numbers into pictures, and pictures into immersive and interactive narratives, abolitionists offered readers and viewers the illusion of being eyewitnesses to slavery's horrors.
David Gehring, Relay Media
Tuesday, September 26
7pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Westmont in San Francisco Lecture
David Gehring is a Westmont alum and Trustee who has been instrumental in developing sustainable digital-journalism strategies at Google, The Guardian, and his own company, Relay Media. A resident of the Bay Area, Gehring is committed to developing economic models to support a free and independent press in an evolving digital economy.
A Poetry Reading by Teddy Macker
Teddy Macker, UC Santa Barbara
Thursday, September 28
7pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Westmont Reading Series
Teddy Macker is a Santa Barbara writer and poet. His work interacts deeply with Central Coast ecology, and includes entries in The Antioch Review, New Letters, The New Ohio Review, and elsewhere, as well as his newest collection of poems, This World. Macker has taught creative writing at UC Santa Barbara and Westmont College.
Sarah Jirek, Westmont College
Tuesday, October 3
7pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture
Sarah Jirek is Associate Professor of Sociology at Westmont College. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Work from the University of Michigan, an M.S.W. in Social Work from the University of Michigan, and a B.A in Sociology from her alma mater, Westmont College. Her teaching and research interests include gender, social inequalities, identity, violence, deviance, prison re-entry, meaning-making, narrative, and resilience.
Panel Discussion: Learning for Wisdom
Jim Taylor, Westmont College
Thursday, October 5
3:30pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Provost's Lecture
Jim Taylor is Professor of Philosophy and Philosophy Department Chair at Westmont College. He has a B.A from Westmont College, an M.A. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and an M.A. and P.h. D. in Philosophy from the University of Arizona. He specializes in Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, and Christian Apologetics. His newest book, Learning for Wisdom: Christian Education and the Good Life, was published by Abilene Christian University Press in 2017.
Charity is Dead: Reinventing Compassion and World Change
David Batstone, Not For Sale
Tuesday, October 17
7:00pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Westmont in San Francisco and Global Studies Lecture
David Batstone is a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose current work engages human rights activism around the globe.
He is a professor of ethics at the University of San Francisco, founder and president of Not For Sale, an organization that works to combat sexual exploitation worldwide, and founder and president of Right Reality, an international business that engages in social entrepreneurship.
Reel Talk: "Good Night, and Good Luck"
with Greg Spencer, Wayne Iba, and Kelsey Lahr
Thursday, October 19
7pm | Adams 216
In this vignette about the media's relationships to politics and business, CBS News impresario Edward R. Murrow (David Straithairn) dedicates himself to exposing the abuses of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who in the early 1950s launched a demagogic campaign against alleged communists in American government, education, and entertainment. While celebrating the convictions of principled news professionals like Murrow and his producer, Fred Friendly (George Clooney), the film unsparingly depicts the ways that our information about the world can be shaped, directed, and bounded by the corporations that foot the bill.
Why God is Watching: Supernatural Punishment and The Evolution of Cooperation
Dominic Johnson, Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Natural Governance
Monday, October 23
7:00pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Pascal Lecture
For millennia human civilizations have utilized religion to help create moral order, invoking supernatural as well as earthly punishment as a deterrent. People who commit crimes or other bad deeds have been thought to suffer retribution in this or the next life, while rewards - abstract or material - await those who do good. This simple but powerful idea has long served to help deter self-interest and achieve remarkable levels of cooperation among humans around the world and throughout history. Indeed, these beliefs are so good at promoting cooperation that they may have been favored by natural selection. Today, while secularism and unbelief are at an all-time high, the willingness to believe in some kind of payback or karma remains nearly universal. Even atheists often feel they are being vicariously monitored. Dominic Johnson explores this belief as it has developed over time and how it has shaped the course of human evolution. How did such a belief in supernatural consequences arise in human history? How did it survive in the face of atheism? Does it expand or limit the potential for local, regional and global cooperation? And what, if anything, will temper self-interest and promote cooperation if religion declines? In short, do we still need God?
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Environmental Solutions
Kristine Faloon, UCSB Bren School
Tuesday, October 24
3:30pm | Founders Room
Sustainability Speaker Series
Kristine Faloon is the Student Affairs Coordinator at Bren School. Prior to working at the Bren School, Kristine recruited and mentored students for the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University, where she also earned her undergraduate degree in biology with a concentration in marine science and a minor in environmental analysis and policy. She spent several years teaching field-based courses in ecology and marine sciences in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean and returned to the U.S. to work at the Catalina Island Marine Institute prior to enrolling at Bren.
"You Offend Me, So Shut Up:" Rethinking Free Speech in a Polarized Age
with Jesse Covington, Chandra Mallampalli, Sandra Richter, and Jeff Schloss
Monday, November 1
7:00pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Westmont Forum
Does the First Amendment allow us to say and do whatever we want, or are there limits to our freedom? A number of recent cases--e.g., NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, right-wing speakers at UC Berkeley, and the protests at Charlottesville--have sparked a national debate over free speech. Join us as we consider the state of public discourse in America.
Build It and They Will Come: Habitat Restoration as a Road to Retaining Biodiversity
Karen Flagg, Growing Solutions
Wednesday, November 8
3:30pm | Founders Room
Sustainability Speaker Series
Karen Flagg is the founder of Growing Solutions, a Santa Barbara nonprofit that works to build environmental and societal sustainability through hands-on education. Growing Solutions was founded in the late 1990s, when toxic runoff in local watersheds produced a water-quality crisis off Santa Barbara beaches. Since then, the organization has worked on hundreds of coastal projects throughout Southern California.
The Battle for Jerusalem: Does the New Testament See a Future for the Holy City?
Bruce Fisk, Westmont College
Tuesday, November 14
7pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Religious Studies and Global Studies Lecture
Bruce Fisk is Professor of New Testament at Westmont College with research interests in the Gospels, Jesus in historical context, and the interpretation of apocalyptic literature. He travels to the Middle East frequently and has led many Westmont off-campus programs to Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Turkey. Dr. Fisk holds a Ph.D. from Duke University, an M.A. in New Testament and an M. Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a B.S. from Cairn University.
500 Years Later: What Should We Do with the Reformation's Legacy?
Panel Discussion with Local Ministers
Wednesday, November 15
3:30pm | Hieronymus Lounge
Religious Studies Department Panel Discussion
The landscape that Christians take for granted is profoundly shaped by the European reformations that began 500 years ago. How should our churches manage the legacy of these events? Should we celebrate the Reformation? Mourn it? Revive it? Fulfill it? Reverse it? A panel of local pastors will discuss visions for faithful Christian life and ministry here in our setting of distinctiveness, division, and denominationalism. What now?
With Panelists Including:
Colleen Hurley Bates | Free Methodist Church, SB
Benji Bruneel | Santa Barbara Community Church
Maurice Lee | Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
Ian Noyes | Montecito Covenant Church
Lawrence Seyer | Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church
Reel Talk: "Helvetica"
with Lisa DeBoer, Rebecca McNamara, and Zac Smith
Thursday, November 16
7pm | Adams 216
Messages and meaning come to us not only—and perhaps not even primarily—through propositions and arguments, but through the invisible pressures of culture. Album covers and advertisements, subway signs and IRS forms have embedded within them powerful claims about what human life is and what it ought to be. This film explores these meanings by profiling Helvetica, perhaps the world's most popular font. How could a particular way of rendering letters mean "modern optimism" or "cold commercialism" or "the Vietnam War"? Come learn how, as one of the film's subjects puts it, designers are "putting their wires in our heads."
Santa Barbara's Next Generation of Environmental Stewards
Alex Bereda, Explore Ecology
Monday, December 4
3:30pm | Founders Room
Sustainability Speaker Series
Alex Bereda is the Education Director for Explore Ecology, a Santa Barbara environmental education and arts nonprofit. Explore Ecology works with over 30,000 children each year, inspiring them to engage with the natural world, think critically, and experience the value of environmental stewardship. Their programs include the Art From Scrap Creative ReUse Store and Gallery, the Watershed Resource Center at Hendry’s Beach, and ReUseSB.