Faculty Great Lecture Series

Download the Spring 2013 Great Lectures now!

Click on the linked title to view the lecture. 

 

9:00 AM    Dr. Robert Donaldson "Tulsa and the New Russia: Past, Present, and Prospects" Presenter Robert Donaldson

Individuals and organizations from Tulsa played a creative role in the early 1990s in assisting the newly-formed Russian Federation to a market economy and a more democratic polity—and extensive ties between Russia and Tulsa still exist today.  The lecture will go beyond the past and present of Tulsan and American relationships with Russia to assess the record of Russia’s transition after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the role of the U.S. in that process.  The lecture will also suggest alternative scenarios both for Russia’s future evolution and for future Russian-American relations.

 

10:00 AM    Dr. John Henshaw “A Short, Spirited Account of Nearly Everything about Energy"

John Henshaw--Faculty Great LecturerJust what is energy?  Energy is both a surprisingly modern and a dauntingly subtle concept.  This lecture introduces us, gently, to the basic science and technology of energy by exploring its role in some of the major issues of our time, such as global climate change, the obesity epidemic, and sustainability.    

 

 

 

11:00 AM    Dr. Machele Miller Dill “Theatre at the Local Level: Can Tulsa Impact Globally?”

Presenter Machele Miller DillWhy don’t Tulsans attend live, local theatre?  Broadway style touring shows, based primarily out of New York City, attract ten times the patrons that Tulsa-based companies do.  This would indicate that local theatre in Tulsa is more derivative of a New York ideal, rather than representative of Tulsa.  By nurturing our own, unique voice here in our city, the theatrical community can produce impactful, insightful plays and musicals that can serve as ambassadors globally and locally.  

 

12:00 PM Lunch Recess

  

 

1:00 PM    Dr. Mark Brewin “The City: Past, Present and Future”

Participants are invited to travel through time and space to three different cities: Athens, during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E., the city variously called Byzantium, Constantinople, or Istanbul, whose evolution we trace over the period of several thousand years; and the city of Tulsa today.  Our trip to the past is intended to help us think about our public lives, as citizens of this  city, at this  point in history: how we create a sense of vibrant and dynamic public existence, and how we might do a better job of that.  

 

2:00 PM    Dr. Andrew Wood “’Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States’: Drugs, Death, and Danger in the Americas”

Andrew Wood BioThe lecture will consider the economic, political and social importance of the drug trade in contemporary America, arguing that the extensive trade in narcotics is not simply a "Latin American" concern, but represents throughout all the Americas one of the most critical social concerns of our time.  Perhaps most controversially, the lecture will also contend that until widespread drug consumption here in the United States is significantly reduced, related crime, violence, and widespread social instability will escalate.  The unfortunate prognosis, in other words, is that expanding drug culture will surely spread death, danger and destruction to areas not just "south of the border," but throughout the hemisphere.     

 

 

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to contact:                                                                                                          

Courtney Handy

Division of Lifelong Learning

(918)631-2958

morgan-handy@utulsa.edu