2023 Schedule

January 9, 2023

“Vortices of Global Civilization: Modes of Production, Governance, and Discourse”

The talk offers a metaphor by which non-specialists can understand the complexities of global civilization. This understanding might help us answer such questions as: what are the main moving parts that make up and change complex human systems, how are the key challenges of climate change, inequality, and shared governance related, and what in human thinking or institutions might allow change for the better?

Michael H. Allen

Professor of Political Science

Bryn Mawr College

“Hostesses, Circumnavigators, Watercolorists, and Exotic Dancers:

How Nineteenth-Century Women’s Culture Made John Singer Sargent”

Earlier generations of art historians noticed how complex and remarkable John Singer Sargent’s portraits of women tend to be. But are these “Sargent’s women,” or do the women in the portraits actually manifest the momentous changes in women’s roles that took place during Sargent’s lifetime? This talk explores Sargent’s rich depictions of women and the many ways in which his work owes a great debt to nineteenth-century women’s culture.

Paul Fisher

Professor of American Studies

Wellesley College

Sarah Swope

Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology

Mills College at Northeastern University

Dr. Swope is a plant ecologist and conservation biologist who is interested in understanding how small populations of rare plants persist despite the enormous challenges they face, especially in an era of rapid climate change.