Westmont Downtown Schedule: 2022-2023
Spring 2023:
Rebecca McNamara, Westmont assistant professor of English, spoke about "Care in Times of Crisis: Suicide and Emotions in Medieval England" on April 13.
“I use examples from medieval English historical and legal records as well as literary narratives about suicide to think about the cultures of care around them,” she says.
McNamara, who has taught at Westmont since 2017, specializes in medieval literature, the history of emotions, death studies, law and politics in Middle English literature, and sociolinguistic approaches to literature. She graduated from Baylor University before earning a master’s and doctorate from the University of Oxford. Prior to coming to Westmont, she taught at UCLA and Oxford, and previously held a postdoctoral fellowship with the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for the History of Emotions at the University of Sydney.
John Blondell, Westmont professor of theater arts and global ambassador in the performing arts, spoke about "The Film Within a Play: Celebrating Santa Barbara's Flying A Studios on Stage" on February 16.
At the Westmont Downtown Lecture, he was joined with select members of the cast and production team of "Diamond to Dust: a Flying A Fantasy," a world-premiere play written by Santa Barbara actor, playwright and educator Michael Bernard about the early film industry in Santa Barbara.
“The talk is a wide-ranging discussion about an important story in Santa Barbara’s history, the ins and outs of theatrical performance, sneak peeks into theatrical process, and how all these impact our students in the show, and ultimately our audience,” Blondell says.
Santa Barbara was one of the centers of American film from 1912-21 with the American Film Manufacturing Company, known as the Flying A, which made more than 1,000 films.
Fall 2022:
Mental Training: Magic or Physiologic Reality
Tim Van Haitsma, Westmont associate professor and chair of the kinesiology department, is a lifelong runner who will speak about mental strength training on Thursday, Oct. 13, at 5:30 p.m. in the Community Arts Workshop (CAW), 631 Garden Street, in downtown Santa Barbara.
The Westmont Downtown Lecture, “Mental Training: Magic or Physiologic Reality,” is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are required. Free parking is available on the streets surrounding CAW or in nearby city parking lots. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.
“I’ll examine the role of mental training within sport performance, and how mental training may elicit these changes physiologically,” he says. “I will then expand the talk to performance outside the microcosm of sport to general performance within life, giving a brief overview of how to incorporate these mental skills into day-to-day life.”
Van Haitsma, a graduate of Calvin College, earned a Master of Science at Indiana University and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Utah. He has taught at Westmont since 2014.
He has conducted private research for HOKA shoes, was quoted in Outside Magazine this summer, and recently published a study, “A Comparison of Two Methods for Analyzing Time Trials to Exhaustion Following Mental Training.”
Van Haitsma's research focuses on the sensation of perception of effort, pain and fatigue in athletes and how mental training might alter the body and/or mind. “I'm trying to understand why mental training works in athletes,” he says. “What unlocks this improvement in performance with mental training? Why are athletes able to run faster or cycle longer with no improvement in physical fitness? There is a large community of athletes here who may be interested in and could benefit from these findings.”
Down to Earth: A Biblical Perspective on Environmentalism
Sandra Richter, Westmont's Robert H. Gundry professor of biblical studies, speaks about “Down to Earth: A Biblical Perspective on Environmentalism” in a Westmont Downtown Lecture.
Environmental stewardship, and the personal and public conservation efforts it encompasses, has found itself center stage in our current historical moment. “Terms like ‘sustainable agriculture,’ ‘species extinction rate’ and the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ — almost unknown 20 years ago — have become regular parlance for this generation,” says Richter, who earned a doctorate in Hebrew Bible from Harvard University. “But this topic is also controversial, particularly within the faith community. I’ll offer a biblical perspective on environmental stewardship and how it is that this contemporary concern, is also an ancient one.”
Richter, who has taught at Westmont since 2017, serves on the New International Version Committee for Bible Translation. Her book “Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says about the Environment and Why It Matters” has won numerous awards from Christian publishers and organizations.
Most recently, she has written several essays, including “Environmental Approaches in Old Testament Studies” in the forthcoming “The State of Old Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research” and “The Biblical Mandate for Creation Care” in Evangelicals Magazine. She has led numerous student groups in archaeological excavation and historical geography classes in Israel.