2024 Lecture Schedule
Week 1 Schedule – october 1
Memory and Imagination
LECTURE 1: 10:15 AM - 11:10 AM
Venice Unveiled: Tracing the History and Myth of the Serene City
The city of Venice has long impacted the imagination of artists and intellectuals for its uniqueness: the watery setting, as well as its history, traditions, and sense of cultural identity, have set the city apart from Italy and Europe almost since its origins. Its uniqueness has contributed to creating mythical visions of the city that have evolved through the centuries. During the Renaissance and the Modern Era, Venice was seen as a city founded on liberty with a tolerant and just government and a loyal and content population. Through Europe, it was considered an economic and maritime superpower, the undisputed queen of the eastern Mediterranean trades and the relationship with the East. As its power decreased, Venice reinvented itself as the playground of Europe, providing endless sources of entertainment for the Grand Tourists and the international aristocracy. When the Republic of Venice, independent for almost a thousand years, collapsed in the face of Napoleon’s armies in 1797, it created a shock that reverberated for decades and initiated the romantic myth of a dying beauty. For many, Venice became the symbol of a foregone era, a museum to preserve its glorious past, a monument to loss and decline. However, Hollywood’s “discovery” of Venice in the mid-20th century resuscitated the city from its demise. It made it the glorious setting for touristic delights: strolling, shopping, fine dining, and, of course, romance.
Barbara Garbin, Teaching Professor of World Languages and Literatures
As a Teaching Professor of Italian Language and Literature, Barbara Garbin brings a wealth of experience and expertise to her role. She is appreciated for her dynamic and engaging teaching style, which emphasizes active learning, interdisciplinary perspectives, and real-world applications. Barbara is committed to creating inclusive and supportive learning environments where students can thrive academically and personally. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Barbara is actively involved in scholarly research and professional development initiatives. Her research interests span a wide range of topics, including modern Italian women writers, Italian Diaspora in the Americas, and the history and culture of Venice. She has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Forum Italicum and Italian Culture, and has presented her work at MLA and AAIS conferences. Barbara holds a doctorate from Yale University and a Master's degree from the University of Venice.
LECTURE 2: 11:25 AM – 12:20 PM
Memory in Healthy Aging
Decades of research suggests that our capacity to recall information shifts as we age. In this talk, we'll discuss the various shifts that occur (and why), what shifts are and are not diagnostic of pathology, and what you can do to buffer against age-related declines.
Daniel Peterson, Associate Professor of Psychology
Daniel Peterson is a cognitive psychologist who earned his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2011. His area of expertise relates to human memory where he focuses on both theoretical (e.g., what happens during memory retrieval?) and applied (e.g., what factors impact the likelihood that an eyewitness makes a successful identification?) topics. He has been at Skidmore College since 2016 teaching courses such as Human Memory, Cognition, and Statistics.
Week 2 Schedule – October 8
Social Experiments
LECTURE 1: 10:15 AM - 11:10 AM
Boys Town: A Social Experiment that Changed America
You may have seen the 1938 movie about a Catholic priest who believed there was no such thing as a bad boy and built a whole town to prove it - a town governed by wayward and orphaned boys of all races and creeds, some convicted criminals, who went on to become productive citizens. But did they? What is the backstory here? Who funded this operation? How did it become so prominent in the American imagination? And how did it end up with a scandalously large endowment?
Jennifer Delton, Professor of History
Jennifer Delton is Professor of History at Skidmore College who teaches and writes about US politics, race, and business in the 20th century. Her father was at Boys Town from 1940-45 and she is currently writing a book about the organization.
LECTURE 2: 11:25 AM – 12:20 PM
The Jonestown Transcription Project
The socialist religio-political movement Peoples Temple (1956-1978) was predicated on a progressive vision for American society that addressed the rampant racism and class inequality of the latter half of the 20th century. Central to this vision was a particular ethic regarding child rearing and education. This presentation explores the experiences of children and teens within Peoples Temple during the pre-Jonestown era. Further attention will be given to the work undertaken at Skidmore College as part of the Jonestown Transcription Project.
Alexandra Prince, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Alexandra Leah Prince is a historian of American religions and Assistant Professor of Religion in the Religious Studies Department at Skidmore College. Their teaching and research focuses on the cultural history of minority American and Indigenous religions and the social study of insanity from a mad studies perspective. Currently, they are completing their first book project, which explores how bio-psychiatric interpretations of religion came to dominate popular understandings of new religious movements over the long 19th century.
Week 3 Schedule – October 15
Cultural Artifacts
LECTURE 1: 10:15 AM - 11:10 AM
Profane Pictures, Sacred Texts: Navigating the World of Medieval Manuscripts
Medieval manuscripts are full of the unexpected. Hybrid creatures, killer bunnies, dance parties, and bawdy bishops all grace the margins of our earliest books. This presentation explores the symbiotic relationship between text and image in a selection of vibrant medieval manuscripts. We will ultimately investigate what the interplay of text, illumination, and marginalia can tell us about medieval creativity, politics, and readership practices.
Kaylin O'Dell, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Kaylin O’Dell is a Visiting Assistant Professor in English, with a specialization in medieval literature, the history of reading, and performance studies. Her research investigates how medieval readers brought the concept of public performance into the private sphere as they read, and in turn navigated things like interiority, devotion, and social play. As an instructor, she loves to find ways to draw connections for students between the 'distant' literature of the Middle Ages and their own present.
LECTURE 2: 11:25 AM – 12:20 PM
When Literature Becomes Art: Exploring the Artist’s Book
What makes a book a book? While we often think of the book as an object that can be easily defined, artists and authors have posed this provocative question for over a century through the genre of the artist’s book. Artist’s books play with words, images, and materials to envision new creative possibilities and new artistic and cultural questions within a centuries-old form.
This talk will explore the artist’s book as an experimental artistic form that expands the boundaries of what a book can be. After tracing the emergence of the artist’s book across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we’ll turn to a range of contemporary artists who use the book as a form to explore new ways of telling stories, imagining identity, and remembering the past. Attendees will also have the opportunity to examine and discuss several artist’s books in person.
Paul Benzon, Associate Professor of English
Paul Benzon is an Associate Professor of English at Skidmore College, where he also teaches courses in the Media and Film Studies Program. His research and teaching explore experimental literature and new media forms, and he is the author of Archival Fictions: Materiality, Form, and Media History in Contemporary Literature (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021).
Week 4 Schedule – October 22
Surviving War
LECTURE 1: 10:15 AM - 11:10 AM
Afghan Refugees after US Withdrawal
What were the human costs of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan? How do Afghan refugees survive in a hostile world, and contribute to their own communities? This talk discusses the means through which Afghans abroad work, travel, and send resources to their loved ones back home – resources that are crucial for their survival under the new Taliban regime. Examples are drawn from Afghan refugee communities in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and the US.
Feryaz Ocakli, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs
Feryaz Ocakli is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs. He teaches and conducts research on comparative politics, political economy, and food security. He just completed a year abroad in Turkey and Singapore as a Fulbright Scholar, researching the global politics of food insecurity.
LECTURE 2: 11:25 AM – 12:20 PM
K-pop in the DMZ, and Other Transborder Crossings
The Korean DMZ (demilitarized zone) is considered one of the most hazardous and militarized spaces in the world. Originally established to divide the Korean peninsula into a Soviet-backed North and the US-backed South in the aftermath of World War II, this space is littered with active landmines, razor wires, tank traps, and ossified human remains from the Korean War (1950-53). Furthermore, it is securitized to prevent human crossings. However, what non-human encounters across the DMZ make this a space of fluidity and passage that facilitate human interaction? Park examines in this lecture both the material and nonmaterial entanglements across the DMZ in the form of sounds (such as K-pop), propaganda leaflets, and hydrogen-filled balloons. How do these sonic and aerial crossings exist in relation to the terrestrial division, and what do these reveal about an ongoing Cold War?
Joowon Park, Director of Asian Studies
Joowon Park is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Asian Studies Program. He is the author of Belonging in a House Divided: The Violence of the North Korean Resettlement Process (University of California Press, 2023), and at Skidmore, he teaches courses such as Power and Violence, and Migration and Diaspora. He serves as a board member of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology.
Week 5 Schedule – October 29
Archives and Museums
LECTURE 1: 10:15 AM - 11:10 AM
Queer Contact Across Archives
How do our daily lives' banal aspects impact our futures? In this lecture visual artist Ruben Castillo will present his creative practice exploring domesticity, queer history, and print media stemming from research at a local LGBT archive. The work engages with Phyllis Shafer, the mother of gay rights activist Drew Shafer, who systematically collected any and every newspaper headline referring to LGBT life in Kansas City, MO. He will explore how matriarchal acts of care and creative recording inform and shape his practice of documenting everyday aspects of life in visual art to meditate on one's hopes for a better future.
Ruben Castillo, Assistant Professor, Printmaking
Ruben Castillo is a visual artist and educator investigating themes of intimacy, queerness, archival history, and the body using a range of media including print, drawing, installation, sculpture, and video. His most recent imagery draws from photographs and documents, seeing the ordinary as a site for transformative potential and feeling. Castillo’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and has been collected widely, both publicly and privately, as well as being the recipient of multiple awards. Ruben was born in Dallas, TX, and received his MFA in Visual Art from the University of Kansas and a BFA in Printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute.
LECTURE 2: 11:25 AM – 12:20 PM
Math in the Museum
What do math and museums have in common? Both mathematicians and artists have long
looked to understand the physical world and abstract concepts through the visualization
of ideas and relationships. Numerous mathematical ideas are embodied in the visual
arts, architecture, and design, and the arts have helped shaped advances in math and
computer science
in important ways.
Rachel Roe-Dale, Professor of Mathematics and Director of First-Year Experience and Rachel Seligman, Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Malloy Curator
Rachel Roe-Dale is Professor of Mathematics and is the Director of the First-Year Experience at Skidmore College. Her research interests include mathematical biology and medicine, modeling physical systems, and exploring the connections between mathematics and art. Rachel teaches math courses across the curriculum but focus on applied mathematics. She completed her Ph.D. in mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Rachel Seligman is the Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Malloy Curator at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College. She has taught art history at SUNY Adirondack, Skidmore College, and the College of St. Rose. Her curatorial practice incudes interdisciplinary collaborative projects with faculty colleagues focusing on activism, civil rights, and the connections between art and science. Rachel has a B.A. from Skidmore College and a M.A. from George Washington University.
Rachel and Rachel co-curated the exhibition Sixfold Symmetry: Pattern in Art and Science in 2016, and they developed and teach the course Math in the Museum.
Week 6 Schedule – November 5
For the Common Good
LECTURE 1: 10:15 AM - 11:10 AM
Founding Edits: Revising the Declaration and Creating a Legacy Problem
Thomas Jefferson didn’t put up a fight. The principal author of the Declaration of
Independence was miffed at the edits proposed by the Second Continental Congress.
But he did not protest.
It was July of 1776. The Congress had formally received Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration
of Independence on June 28th. The full legislature would begin the copyediting process
on the first of July, spending parts of the next several days altering words, modifying
passages, and, in some cases, removing entire sections. Jefferson’s preference for
men being endowed by their creator with “inherent and inalienable rights” was amended
to “certain unalienable Rights.” His belief that these “truths” are “sacred and undeniable”
was changed to “self-evident.”
One redaction felt personal, though. It involved the very last grievance, in a long list of grievances, levelled at King George III: slavery. Jefferson had gone to great lengths in his first draft to place blame for the slave trade on the British King.
The problem was that other delegates to the Continental Congress were not similarly persuaded. Jefferson himself recounts the pressure to eliminate the slavery passage in his Autobiography: “the clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it.” Jefferson faced a paradox. He could fight for a moral cause against an army of landowners, merchants and entrepreneurs who preferred not to dismantle the very source of their wealth. Or he could remain silent, live to fight another day, and avoid, at least in that particular company, the scarlet letter of hypocrisy. He chose not to fight.
But what if he had? What if Jefferson had faced his own moral hypocrisy and contested the edit? How might his profound legacy have changed? Would he be seen as less of a hypocrite? Would the document itself be seen as more consistent, more holistic, even more sacred?
The story of the edited slave clause is, I argue, part of a broader American narrative that has not yet been told. The redaction of some messages in America's Founding documents is as crucial as is the addition of others. Had the slavery clause stayed in the Declaration, might the country’s long and troubling history of racial discrimination have unfolded differently? Similarly, if John Dickinson’s progressive defense of religious freedom in an early draft of the Articles of Confederation—a defense that included liberal protections for women as well as men—had not been removed, might notions of individual freedom, or gender equality, have matured differently? The story of these (and other) edits will be explored in the lecture.
Beau Breslin, Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government
Beau Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of specialization are the U.S. Constitution, comparative constitutionalism, civil liberties, and the death penalty. He has published three books and many articles. His most recent book is A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law (Stanford University Press, 2021). You can find his more popular prose at "The Fulcrum," where he writes a weekly column entitled, "A Republic, if we can keep it."
LECTURE 2: 11:25 AM – 12:20 PM
Free to All
With over 16,000 buildings in the United States, the public library is an institution that feels ubiquitous in society, and yet, its creation began in the mid-to-late 19th century. In this talk we'll look at the origins of public libraries from those precursors that served a growing population of readers for a cost to the societal impetuses that spurred the creation of this radical, free institution. We'll also discuss some of the contenders to claim the title of "First" public library in the United States.
Johanna MacKay, Associate Librarian
Johanna MacKay is the Instructional Design Librarian at Scribner Library. She teaches a course in the history and contemporary issues of public libraries. She earned her Master's degree in Library Science from SUNY Buffalo.
Week 7 Schedule – November 12
The Times They Are A-Changin': Blockchains, Cryptocurrencies, and AI-Enabled Biotechnology
LECTURE 1: 10:15 AM - 11:10 AM
Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies: An Intersection of Anonymous Money and
Public Transactions
Cryptocurrencies and blockchains continue to attract attention from diverse constituencies. Privacy advocates champion cryptocurrency platforms for transacting online business, providing the same anonymity as in-person cash transactions. Other constituents, including data security and environmental proponents, believe these blockchain-based ecosystems, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and non-fungible tokens (NFT), accelerates computer malware distribution and climate change. Governments disagree on the place of cryptocurrencies in their economies, with some working to expand and others focused on limiting the use of cryptocurrencies by their citizens. This presentation will discuss the history, design, and possible futures of blockchains and cryptocurrencies as tools for local and global commerce.
David Read, Senior Lecturer of Computer Science
Dave began his undergraduate studies pursuing a degree in music education. After his junior year and some soul-searching, he chose to seek a degree in computer science instead. Before coming to Skidmore, his career centered on enterprise software development and system integration. His research interests focus on semantics, machine learning, and data security. Dave's initial curiosity about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology stems from their intersection with data security. He holds a Blockchain Developer Certification for Ethereum from the Blockchain Training Alliance and has developed Solidity smart contracts for logistics and manufacturing companies.
LECTURE 2: 11:25 AM – 12:20 PM
Cold War II? US-China Rivalry in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and
Biotechnology
Global security is entering a new era with the development of weaponizable genetically-engineered biotechnologies (“genetic weapons”). Artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled breakthroughs in genetic technologies raise hopes for better understanding our heritage, curing diseases, and inventing rapid response agents to epidemics. They also challenge the moral foundations of what it means to be human and raise serious national and global security concerns. I present my book project with a focus on the following question: How will AI-enabled biotechnology shape US-China relations over the next decade?
Yelena Biberman, Associate Professor of Political Science
Professor Yelena Biberman is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Skidmore College, Wilson China Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center, and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Her book, Gambling with Violence, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019, and her scholarship has appeared in numerous academic journals, such as Journal of Peace Research, Asian Security, and Strategic Studies Quarterly. Her work has been supported by multiple institutions, including the United States Institute of Peace, Fulbright Program, and Smith Richardson Foundation. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College, Master’s from Harvard University, and a second Master’s and Ph.D. from Brown University, and has worked as a journalist in Moscow, Russia.