Monday, May 6 | 7-8:30 p.m.
Main 201
Sam Smith ’12 (Ph.D. candidate, History, Michigan State University) will present her current research on gender, labor and the entertainment industry in mid-twentieth-century America. Smith holds an M.A. in Public History from Loyola University and is a former archivist at the Newberry Library.
Thursday, April 25 | 7-8 p.m.
Wriston Art Galleries
Poet, critic, and editor Ernest Hilbert gives a reading in the Wriston Art Galleries.
About Ernest Hilbert
Born in Philadelphia and raised in southern New Jersey, poet, critic, and editor Ernest Hilbert received a BA from Rutgers University and a PhD in English literature from St. Catherine’s College of Oxford University, where he studied with James Fenton and Jon Stallworthy.
In his debut collection, Sixty Sonnets (2009), Hilbert establishes a variation on the sonnet form, employing an intricate rhyme scheme and varied line length. A skillful practitioner of form and nuance, Hilbert shifts between delicately sonic moments and humorous narrative sequences. As poet and critic Adam Kirsch noted of the poems in Sixty Sonnets, “In these sonnets, whose dark harmonies and omnivorous intellect remind the reader of Robert Lowell’s, Hilbert is alternately fugitive and connoisseur, hard drinker and high thinker.” Hilbert’s second collection, All of You on the Good Earth (2013), returns to his idiosyncratic, highly inventive sonnet form.
Hilbert founded the Oxford Quarterly and E-Verse Radio. He has also served as editor of both the Contemporary Poetry Review and Random House’s magazine Bold Type. Hilbert’s work has been included in The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets (2009), and he has collaborated with composers such as Daniel Felsenfeld, Stella Sung, and Christopher LaRosa. His spoken word album, Elegies & Laments (2013), includes tracks of Hilbert’s poems backed by his band, Legendary Misbehavior.
Monday, April 22 | 4:30-5:30 p.m.
Steitz 102
Forest and agricultural soils are home to vast quantities of soil microbe communities, yet we have only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding these systems. Dr. Relena Ribbons’ lab blends tools and approaches from forestry, ecology, biogeochemistry, and soil microbiology to investigate these communities. She will share insights from studies she and her research students have conducted across the region: Bjorklunden’s forest of cedars and maples along the shoreline of Lake Michigan; a network of sites in the woods of Peninsula and High Cliff State Parks; and here on the Lawrence campus, using soil microbiological markers to examine polyculture practices of co-planting tomatoes with marigolds.
Thursday, April 25 | 7:30-9 p.m.
Wriston 224 – Auditorium
Humans tend to rely heavily on vision to navigate, but blind individuals must make use of other senses. In this lecture, Dr. Moss will present details on the sound features that are used for echolocation by animals and blind humans and the acoustic cues they use to localize objects in the environment. She will also discuss the contribution of spatial attention and memory to the execution of behavioral tasks without vision. By comparing echolocating animals and humans, we can identify biological specializations and general principles that operate to support spatial navigation
Learn more about the Visiting Scholars Program and Dr. Cynthia Moss.
Friday, April 26 | 3:10-4:30 p.m.
Warch 204 – Cinema
As we move through the natural environment, our distance and direction to objects continuously change. How does movement influence perception of the surroundings? Decades of research on perception has measured performance of stationary subjects viewing visual stimuli, and far less is known about perception of freely moving animals that rely on auditory information to guide their actions in the physical world. Dr. Moss’s lecture will attempt to bridge this gap by considering the behavior of animals engaged in natural tasks in complex environments. She will present a variety of examples but will focus on echolocating bats, animals that produce high frequency sounds and process auditory information carried by returning echoes to guide behavioral decisions for object localization, target discrimination, and navigation. I will present research findings that demonstrate the remarkable spatial resolution of animal sonar, which exceeds that of human vision along some dimensions.
About Dr. Moss
Dr. Cynthia Moss received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. from Brown University. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Tübingen, Germany and a Research Fellow at Brown University before joining the faculty at Harvard University in 1989. At Harvard, Moss received the Phi Beta Kappa teaching award and the NSF Young Investigator Award. In 1995, she moved to the University of Maryland, College Park, where she served as Director of the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program. In 2014, Moss joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, where she is professor of psychological and brain sciences. Her recent awards include the Hartmann Award in Auditory Neuroscience (2017), the James McKeen Cattell Award (2018), and the Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize (2019).
Wednesday, April 17 | 4:30-5:30 p.m.
Wriston 224 – Auditorium
Come hear artist Eric Garcia talk about his art practice referencing history and a graphic style to create political art that confronts our understanding of the present. Using sculpture, mixed media installations, murals, printmaking and his controversial political cartoons, he aims to challenge his viewers to question sources of power and the whitewashing of history. Eric Garcia’s visit is made possible by the Harold and Mary Donn Jordan Fund for the Arts.
This talk is free and open to the public.
Thursday, April 18 | 4:30 p.m.
Steitz 102
What does it mean to measure soil health in agricultural systems? Once we measure it, how can we translate the science into practice to support sustainable agriculture?
In this presentation, Dr. Hava Blair, LU ’13 and Dept. of Soil Science at UW-Madison, will share how she have grappled with these questions through research conducted in farm fields, at laboratory benches, and between the pages of more than 200 meta-analyses drawn from the literature.
Dr. Blair’s research journey took her into the fields of 27 commercial farms across Minnesota, where she quantified the effects of agricultural practices on the soil with a suite of commonly used soil health indicators. This on-farm research experience spurred her to think more broadly about what it takes to translate science to practice. How do we synthesize primary research into a body of evidence that might be useful for decision-making? Dr. Blair will share how she explored one facet of this question through the lens of meta-research, and how she continues to explore it through her current work as a soil scientist who develops decision support tools for agriculture in Wisconsin.
Friday, April 19 | 4:30 p.m.
Wriston Art Center
Artist Robin Jebavy will discuss her practice and the large scale paintings in her exhibition, Expanding Fields. https://robinjebavy.com/
Everyone is welcome! Reception with refreshments to follow.
Thursday, March 28 | 7 p.m.
Cloak Theatre
Staged reading of RUN WITH THE HARE, Daniel John Stapleton (1886-1968) and the Battle for Kilkenny.
Professor Troy’s new play is a result of his recent Irish Fulbright Scholar year researching the Irish War of Independence (1918-1921). This new play development presentation will showcase the contributions of four guest artists, Alan Kopischke, Olivia Gregorich, Stephen Spencer, and Jacque Troy joining forces with current Theatre Arts students. A talk-back with the playwright will follow.
Students applying to study off-campus at any point during the 2024-2025 academic year are encouraged to apply for the Off-Campus Programs Scholarship. The application is due April 5.
To apply, go to the OCP Scholarship Application on our website. For any questions, contact OffCampusPrograms@lawrence.edu.
Off-Campus Programs will be accepting applications for the Francophone Seminar in Dakar, Senegal, through April 1. For more information on how to apply, go to our Applications and Deadlines page.
The Senegal program is open to all students who will have completed French 202, or the equivalent, by the start of the program. You do not need to be a French major to apply.
On this program, students will travel to Dakar, Senegal, with Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies Sarah Gamalinda and spend the entire term immersed in French language and Senegalese culture. For more information on the program, go to the Francophone Seminar in Dakar, Senegal page.
