Swarthmore College - Faculty Lecture News: Recent Episodes
Swarthmore College
In the fall, Associate Professor of Biology Eva-Maria Collins delivered “The Serpent’s Maw: A Physics Perspective on Mouth Function and the Dynamics of Hydra Regeneration,” a lecture in the physics colloquium series.
In the fall, James Porter '77, professor and the Irving Stone chair in literature, rhetoric and classics program in critical theory at the University of California Berkeley, delivered the eighth annual Martin Ostwald le
Math is tied to what it means to be human. In the first part of his Dresden Memorial lecture, Su describes how math connects to basic human desires, like beauty, freedom, and justice, and how it builds virtues that contribute to a life well-lived.
Su believes math has interesting things to say about how people relate to one another. When mathematical objects have a social interpretation, the associated results have social applications.
As part of the Second Tuesday Café Series sponsored by the Aydelotte Foundation, Professor of Dance Pallabi Chakravorty discussed her current research on yoga, dance, healing, and the hybrid intercultural body that is both artistic and scientific in contemporary culture.
Smith examines a collection that is the earliest example of Arabic fiction and features a cast of Syrian émigrés living in America and transitioning to life in the diaspora.
Eldridge examines Austen's work in hopes of finding a way between triumphalist hero worship and skepticism about the possibility of self-understanding.
Tierney urges professors to go out and speak intelligently about politics and global issues and take advantage of the knowledge that they possess.
Padilioni highlights San Martín de Porres as a threshold figure who stands at the door and holds open the potential for spiritual transformation to his devotees within the traditions of African-American Hoodoo/Rootwork/Conjure, Puerto Rican espiritismo, and Mexican curanderismo.
Brody discusses his research in communication complexity and makes the argument that computational thinking and theory belong in a liberal arts curriculum.
This fall, Assistant Professor of Educational Studies Edwin Mayorga gave a faculty lecture, “Conocimiento y curación: Latinx youth understanding and combating their own trauma through PAR entremundos”. He explains how his Barrio Education Project manifested and how it relates to his participator
The surface of your favorite Pixar character’s face is made up of a collection of polynomials that fit together smoothly called a spline - algebraic objects that can be added and multiplied.
In her faculty lecture, Norris explores how ambivalence can both be an unpleasant, conflicted state and a catalyst for changing behavior.
"As chemists, we take these building blocks and we transform them," Graves says, "so we can also make beautiful structural motifs that have a very specific purpose."
In this Aydelotte Foundation talk, Christie argues that failure can be a logical necessity in psychology.