Mems Colloquium Lecture

Harmonious Monk: Martin Luther and His Reformation Through Music

Wednesday, October 4th, 7 p.m.

Linehan Concert Hall, Performing Arts and Humanities Building

Christopher Boyd Brown, Associate Professor of Church History, Boston University

Christopher Boyd Brown and UMBC’s Camerata and Collegium Musicum will present an interdisciplinary concert-lecture on Martin Luther’s use of music and the community practice of hymn-singing in the Protestant Reformation. Dr. Brown will discuss how Lutheran hymns, sung in the streets and homes as well as in community spaces, were central to the success of the Reformation. UMBC students will provide live musical examples of plainchant, Reformation hymns, and multi-part choral works by Walter and Bach.

Sponsored by the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program, the Music Department, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, and the Religious Studies Program.

Ancient Studies Week

Life, Love, and Classical Athens

Monday, October 9th, 4 p.m

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

Victoria Wohl, Professor of Athenian Literature and Culture, University of Toronto

Pericles’ Citizenship Law defined an Athenian citizen as the child of an Athenian father and mother, but real life in classical Athens was much messier than this clear-cut definition suggests. Court cases from classical Athens are full of mistresses and prostitutes, bastard children, and secret love-affairs. Focusing on Demosthenes’ speech against Neaira and Euripides’ Medea, this lecture shows how Athenians negotiated the law in everyday life and the tragedy that ensued when they transgressed it.

Sponsored by the Ancient Studies Department, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, and the Gender + Women’s Studies Department.

Webb Lecture

The Changing Face of Modern War: Chemical Weapons and Civilian Bodies in the Aftermath of the First World War

Wednesday October 18th 4 p.m., Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

Susan R. Grayzel, Professor of History, Utah State University

Lethal chemical warfare entered the modern era in 1915. Though denounced as horrific, all sides participating in the First World War utilized chemical arms, and in 1939, the British government was testing gas masks on Indian civilian women. In this talk, Susan R. Grayzel will explore the complex legacy of World War I through a focus on the development of civil defense, especially the gas mask, designed to protect every man, woman, and child from the terrifying new weapons that this war unleashed.

Sponsored by the History Department and the Dresher Center for the Humanities.

W.E.B Du Bois Distinguished Lecture

The Contemporary African Immigrant Communities in the United States

Wednesday November 8th 7 p.m., University Center, Ballroom

Toyin Falola, Professor of History, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, and University Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Texas, Austin

Many citizens of continental Africa now live in the United States. In this talk, celebrated scholar Toyin Falola will discuss how African immigrants create a contemporary form of citizenship that links the United States and Africa. The lecture will highlight differences in trends, particularly between migration of enforced slavery and voluntary migration. It will point to patterns of cultural transformation that are emerging and the ambiguous future of transnational engagements between the United States and Africa.

Sponsored by the Office of the Dean, College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; the Africana Studies Department; the Social Science Forum; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Division of Professional Studies; the American Studies Department; the History Department; the Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication Department; the Shriver Center; and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Orientation.

Diversity Session: Supporting Our Immigrant Retrievers

Immigration Policies and Issues

Friday, November 10, 2017 · Noon - 1 PM Engineering : 023

This workshop will provide a quick overview of the national and state immigration-centered policies that may affect lives of the immigrant community at UMBC. After introducing the existing US immigration system, we will discuss pertinent immigrant issues resulting from the changing political landscape. Join us as we explore the day-to-day reality of members of this community and what resources are available; as well as unique challenges to accessing those resources.

This workshop will be co-facilitated by Michelle Massey, Assistant Director of International Student Services and Carlos Turcios, Program Associate for Diversity and Inclusion with Student Life's Mosaic Center for Culture and Diversity.

Space is limited!  Please register by November 1st.

If you register for a workshop and your attendance plans change or a workshop fills and you would like to be added to the wait list, please email us at hrtraining@umbc.edu.

Please arrive early so we can begin promptly at 12:00 p.m.

Nuclear Pain and Humanitarian Photography: Morizumi Takashi, The Gulf Wars, and Fukushima

Wednesday November 15th 4 p.m., Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

Julia Adeney Thomas, Associate Professor of History, University of Notre Dame

Can photography help us see suffering and end nuclear destruction? Linking three moments of atomic calamity—the Hiroshima atomic bombing, the uranium-tipped weapons in the First Gulf War, and the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown—photographer Morizumi Takashi’s images attempt to find aesthetic leverage against the nuclearization of war and energy. This lecture explores the ethics of sight and how humanitarian efforts are both enabled and circumscribed by the shifting situations in which a photographer works.

Sponsored by the Asian Studies Program; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the History Department; and the Center for Innovation, Research, Creativity, and the Arts. Funded by a grant from the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies.