Faculty Research Forums
Faculty Research Forum is a forum for talks by our faculty and the occasional guest on humanities and social science topics of interest to interdisciplinary audiences. These forums are sponsored by the Commonwealth Center with assistance from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Faculty Research Forums are held in the Bingham Humanities Building, Room 300 and begin at 3:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
Upcoming Faculty Research Forums for Fall 2009
November 6
Lee Dugatkin, Biology Department
"Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose"
Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose is a tale of both natural history and American history. What started out in the Revolutionary War era as an international dispute over natural history quickly took on important political overtones. The story revolves around three fascinating individuals. One of these characters -- Thomas Jefferson -- is known to every schoolchild. The other two characters -- 1) the French Count and world-renowned naturalist, George-Louis Leclerc Buffon, who claimed that all life in America was "degenerate," weak and feeble, and 2) a very large, dead moose -- are less well known, but equally important to the story. Their interactions lay at the heart of an amazing tale in which Jefferson obsessed over a very large, very dead moose that he believed could help quash early French arrogance toward a fledgling republic in America, and demonstrate that a young America was every bit the equal of a well-established Europe. Despite Jefferson's passionate refutation, the theory of degeneracy far outlived Buffon and Jefferson; indeed, it seemed to have had a life of its own. It continued to have scientific, economic and political implications for 100 years, and also began to works its way into the literature of the day, with folks like Henry David Thoreau, Washington Irving, Immanuel Kant, and John Keats entering the fray. Eventually the degeneracy argument died; but it did not die an easy death.
This is event is open to Faculty, Students, Staff, and the Public.
Click here to see a flyer for this event
November 20
Joy Carew, Pan African Studies
" 'There's No Jim Crow on the Trains of the Soviet Union:' Black Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise"
In 1934, following a year spent in the U.S.S.R., African American poet and playwright, Langston Hughes published an article in which he wrote: In the [US] South, there are Jim Crow cars and Negroes must ride separate from the whites, usually in a filthy antiquated coach next to the engine . . . . Now, I am riding South from Moscow and am not Jim-Crowed, and none of the darker people on the train with me are Jim-Crowed, so I make a happy mental note . . . to write home to the Negro papers--There is no Jim Crow on the trains of the Soviet Union.
One of the most compelling, yet little known stories of race relations in the twentieth century is the account of blacks who chose to leave the United States to be involved in the Soviet Experiment in the 1920s and 1930s. Frustrated by the limitations imposed by racism in their home country, African Americans were lured by the promise of opportunity abroad. Some of these sojourners stayed a year or less, others found ways to extend their stay beyond the original terms. A number of them became expatriates, settling there, raising families, and becoming integrated into the society. The Soviet economy likewise reaped enormous benefits from the talent and expertise that these individuals brought, and the all around success story became a platform for political leaders to boast their party goals of creating a society where all members were equal.
Join us for a discussion of some of the personal and political strategies that underlay these relationships between African Americans and other Blacks and the Soviets.
