UNE's Center for Global Humanities has announced speakers for 2013-2014, its fifth year of programming. The Center is a public forum designed to introduce students and members of the public to the exploration of the great issues facing humanity today.
"UNE's Center for Global Humanities has filled a much needed gap in the cultural life of the greater Portland area as well as the whole state of Maine," says Anouar Majid, UNE's founding director of the Center for Global Humanities and vice president for Global Affairs."The issues we highlight are of crucial importance to the health of our planet - that's why our videos are watched nationally and globally. I invite all to be part of this unique experience."
Portland and Houlton
Events are held on UNE's Portland Campus, and many are also broadcast live at the Cary Library in Houlton, with a discussion by a panel of experts. They are free and open to the public.
Year's First Lecture
The first of this year's lecture series begins on Monday, September 16, 2013 at 6 p.m. when the Center hosts Jacqueline Vanacek, vice president and cloud computing evangelist with SAP, the largest enterprise software provider in the world.
The event will be held on UNE's Portland Campus in the WCHP Lecture Hall in Parker Pavilion. A reception will be held at 5 p.m. prior to the lecture in the UNE Art Gallery.
Vanacek's lecture will focus on, "Will Cloud Computing Really Be Bigger than the Internet?" She will share what "the cloud" is and explore real stories of how it's bringing the world together in ways not possible before. The ways we create business, predict natural disasters, reinvent transportation, promote democracy, expand the Genome and deliver higher education are all being reinvented by the cloud. Vanacek serves as U.S. Commissioner on the federal and state-local Cloud Commissions to transform government. She blogs regularly on Forbes and contributes to the U.S. High Tech Lobby policy blog.
Other lectures planned for the upcoming year:
September 30, 2013: The 2013 Crosley Lecture will feature Sherwin Nuland, M.D., retired clinical professor of Surgery, Yale School of Medicine on, "How We Die."
October 14, 2013: Neal Barnard, M.D., president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, adjunct associate professor of medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine on, "Power Foods for the Brain."
October 28, 2013: Joseph Dumit, director of Science and Technology Studies, professor of Anthropology, University of California Davis, on, "Maximum Prescriptions: Growing Health and Happiness through Facts and Pharmaceuticals."
November 22, 2013: Jeremy Gunn, associate professor of International Relations, Al Akhawayn University, Morocco on, "Seeking the Truth in the Kennedy Assassination."
November 25, 2013: Jeffrey Wasserstrom, chancellor’s professor of History, University of California at Irvine on, "Making Sense of a Fast-Changing China."
December 9, 2013: Sohail Daulatzai, author on, "To the East, Blackwards: Islam and Muslims in the Black Radical Imagination."
January 27, 2014: Laura Browder, author, professor of English, Virginia Commonwealth University on, "Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism," or the “Odyssey of Earl Browder."
February 24, 2014: Greg Woolf, professor of Ancient History, University of St Andrews, Scotland on, "Values and Culture in the Roman World."
March 31, 2014: Jacques Berlinerblau, associate professor and director of the Program for Jewish Civilization, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, on "What Is Secularism?"
April 28, 2014: Angus Trumble, senior curator of paintings and sculpture, Yale Center for British Art on, "The 'Gospel of Fun' and smiling in Edwardian Britain."
