Lecture Series

In addition to providing financial support for various on-campus performances, panels, and other cultural events, the Paideia Endowment sponsers an annual lecture series. Topics and speakers are chosen by the Paideia Endowment Governing Board. The series is coordinated by the Paideia II Coordinator.

Paideia Lectures and Issues Titles 1983-1984 to 2008-2009

Texts and Issues: Going Green: Sustaining A Just and Healthy Society

September 23, 2008 - "Green Chemistry: Novel Chemical Reactions and Processes for Pollution Prevention"
(Claude Mertzenich, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Luther College)
October 28, 2008 - "Have We Reached the End of the Amazon?"
(Mark London, author of The Last Forest: The Amazon in the Age of Globalization)
February 10, 2009 - "Greening Our Cities: Health and Environmental Justice in the South Bronx"
(Majora Carter [invited Distinguished Lecturer], founder, Sustainable South Bronx)
March 3, 2009 - "The Power to Change: U.S. Energy Policy and Global Warming"
(Jim Martin-Schramm, Professor of Religion, Research Chair in Ethics and Public Life, Luther College)

Texts and Issues: Got Texts? 2007-2008

September 27, 2007 - "Baghdad Burning: The Girl Blog from Iraq...Let's Talk War, Politics, and Occupation"
(Teresa Pierce, Assistant Professor of Communications Studies)
October 30, 2007 - "If the world's a stage and a million monkeys enter with typewriters....Shakespeare's Works"
(Mark Z. Muggli, Professor of English)
February 21, 2008 - "You Never Read the Same Text Twice: Borges's Views on Writing and Reading"
(Alfredo Alonzo Estenoz, Assistant Professor of Spanish)
April 3, 2008 - "Got Texts--Or--Texts Got You: An Examination of Martin Luther's The Freedom of A Christian"
(Douglas Knick, Assistant Professor of Education)

Texts and Issues: Rights in Passage: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? 2006-2007

"Workers or Enemies? American Conservatives Look at the New American Immigration"
(Michael Engelhardt, Professor of Political Science)
"Who am I? Who are You? Privacy Rights in the Digital Age"
(Brad Miller, Assistant Professor of Computer Science)
"Who Owns You? Intellectual Property Rights and the Patenting of the Human Genome"
(Jayme Nelson, Assistant Professor of Nursing)
"Rights in Passage: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?
(Panel Discussion)

Texts and Issues: Advocacy and the Classroom 2005-2006

"Rules of Engagement: Academic Freedom and Student Learning"
(Sheila Radford-Hill, Executive Director of Luther Diversity Center and
Charlotte Kunkel, Associate Professor of Sociology)
“History, Terrorism, and the Wartime Classroom”
(Brian Caton, Assistant Professor of History)
“Advocacy in the Classroom: Cultural Differences and Professional Challenges”
(Soeren Steding, Assistant Professor of German and
Patty Stoddard, Assistant Professor of Social Work)
“One Teacher’s Beginnings: Inside the Nickel and Dimed Controversy”
(Amy Weldon, Assistant Professor of English)
“Helping Women Find a Voice”
(Sandra Peter, Instructor in Music)
“One or All? How to Teach World Religions at a College of the Church”
(Gereon Kopf, Assistant Professor of Religion)

Texts and Issues: Health and Well Being 2004-2005

“Healing the World and Mending the Soul: Understanding Tikkun Olam"
(Karla Soumala, Assistant Professor of Religion)
"Revising the Body: Inside the Cancer Classroom"
(Nancy K. Barry, Professor of English)
"Breathing Space: Health, Transfiguration and Ministry"
(Heidi Neumark, Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church)
"Challenging the Dominant Paradigm: Deconstructing Medical Hegemony"
(Jayme Nelson, Assistant Professor of Nursing)

Texts and Issues: The United States in the World 2003-2004

“For the Powerless and the Different: A Case for the Universality of Liberal Democracy"
(Paul Gardner, Professor of Political Science)
"Are We at War with Islam? Conservative Muslim Resistance to the American Democratic Ideal"
(Robert Shedinger, Assistant Professor of Religion)
"New Jerusalem or Whore of Babylon? Reading American Empire with the Book of Revelation"
(Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Assistant Professor of Religion)
"The Wretched of the Earth: Frantz Fanon and Political Violence"
(Nick Gomersall, Associate Professor of Economics)
"Citizens as Sojourners: Student Reflections on Study Abroad"
(Student Panel: Suzanne Crumley, Kelley Johnson, Jody Myers, Michael Toso; Moderator: Mark Lund)

Texts and Issues: Environmental Stewardship 2002-2003

“Appreciaton as Prelude to Action”
(Richard Simon Hanson, Professor Emeritus of Religion”
“Linking Ecology and History”
(Beth Lynch, Assistant Professor of Biology)
“Consumer Culture and Global Responsibility”
(David Reed-Maxfield, Adjunct Faculty in Women’s Studies)
“Last Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie?”
(Kirk Larsen, Associate Professor of Biology)
“Respecting Our Place: People in Nature”
(David Faldet, Associate Professor of English)
“Citizens, Stewards, or Warriors? Human Roles in an Age of Environmental Crisis”
(Jon Jensen)

Texts and Issues: Identity and Community 2001-2002

“Virtual, Mediated, and Actualized Communities: How Will the Media of Mass Communications Define Community in the Digital Age?”
(Mark Johns, Assistant Professor of Communication/Linguistics)
“Scripture, Identity, and Community: The Human Side of Divine Revelation”
(Robert Shedinger, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion)
“’A Woman of Ready Wit and Bold Spirit’: The Trial of Anne Hutchinson Tests Puritan Massachusetts”
(Diane Scholl, Professor of English)
“Life Among the Nacirema: Selling Soap To Children”
(Jackie Wilkie, Professor of History)
“Do Lutherans Have an Identity to Lose?”
(Lori Pearson, Instructor in Religion)
“Sex, Manners, and the Power of Houses: Jane Austen’s Guide to Who We Are”
(Nick Preus, Associate Professor of English and Education) (cancelled) replaced with “A Paideia Capstone Experience: Race, The American Dilemma” Lori Pearson (Religion), Novian Whitsitt (Africana Studies and English), Martin Klammer (English and Africana Studies)

Texts and Issues: Puzzles & Paradoxes 2000-2001

“Paradoxes in the World of Mathematics”
(Joyce Becker, Assistant Professor of Mathematics)
“How Good Can Bad Art Be?” Puzzles and Paradoxes in Aesthetics”
(Christine Weigel, Assistant Professor of Philosophy)
“Spooky Action at a Distance: The Puzzle of Entanglement in Quantum Theory”
(Alan Macdonald, Professor of Mathematics)
“The Miraculous and Paradoxical Mysteries of Modern Economic Growth”
(Wade Shilts, Assistant Professor of Economics)
“Koans and Thought Experiments: Do Paradoxes Make Sense?”
(Gereon Kopf, Assistant Professor of Religion)
“Reading and Writing in Your (M)other Tongue”
(Ruth Caldwell, Professor of French and Natalia Sucre, Assistant Professor of Spanish)

Texts and Issues: What Does it Mean to Be Human? 1999-2000

“Homo Sapiens: A Biological Perspective”
(Jim Eckblad, Professor of Biology; Respondent, Bruce Wrightsman, Professor of Religion)
“Did Shakespeare Invent the Human?”
(Mary Hull Mohr, Professor of English)
“The Humanity of Computational Intelligence”
(David Ranum, Associate Professor of Computer Science)
“Historicizing the Question: What Does It Mean To Be Human”
(Ed Tebbenhoff, Associate Professor of History)
“Humanity as Artistic Expression”
(Sandra Peter, Instructor in Music)
“Expanding the Universe”
(Jeffrey Wilkerson, Assistant Professor of Physics)

Texts and Issues: The Mission of Luther College Fall 1998

“The Curriculum and Mission of Luther College”
(Dale Nimrod, Professor of Chemistry; Respondents: Daniel Rabuzzi, Assistant Professor of History and David Anderson, Dean of the College)
“Staffing Decisions and the Mission of Luther College”
(Bradley Hanson, Professor of Religion; Respondents: Judith Nye, Professor of Education and Jeffrey Baker, President of the College)
“Community Life and the Mission of Luther College”
(Lise Kildegaard, Assistant Professor of English; Respondents: Michael Blair, Campus Pastor and Ann Highum, Dean of Student Life)
“Exploring Models for Christian Higher Education”
(Richard T. Hughes, Professor of Religion, Pepperdine University; Respondent: April Ulring Larson, Bishop, ELCA LaCrosse Area Synod, Luther College Regent)

Texts and Issues: Interdisciplinary Exhibits Fall 1997

International Studies: “From the Edge of an Empire: Spanish Voices in the Mississippi Valley, 1790-1802)
(Virginia Gibbs, Associate Professor of Spanish)
Africana Studies: “Langston Hughes Writes the Blues: The Interplay of African-American Music and Poetry”
(Martin Klammer, Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies)
Economic Life: Symposium on “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread: Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All”
(Michael Blair, Campus Pastor; Karen Bloomquist, Division for Church in Society, ELCA; Mark Lund, Professor of Economics; James Martin-Schramm, Assistant Professor of Religion; Kenneth Root, Professor Emeritus of Sociology)
Environmental Studies: “Environmental Sociology: Interdisciplinary Challenges and Constraints”
(Ishmail Said, Assistant Professor of Sociology)
Women’s Studies: “Learning What Everything Costs: A Women’s Studies Perspective on Middlemarch”
(Lise Kildegaard, Assistant Professor of English)

Texts and Issues: The Future of Liberal Arts Education at Luther College Fall 1996

“The Past and Future of Liberal Arts Education at Luther College”
(The First Century: 1861 to 1961 - Wilfred F. Bunge, Professor of Religion and Classics)
(1961 to Present - Mary Hull Mohr, Professor of English)
(A Vision for the Future - Paul Gardner, Associate Professor of Political Science)
“Goals for Student Achievement: Knowledge”
(Marian Kaehler, Professor of Biology; C. Nicholas Gomersall, Assistant Professor of Economics; Loyal Rue, Professor of Religion and Philosophy)
“Goals for Student Achievement: Abilities”
(Nancy Barry, Associate Professor of English; David Ranum, Associate Professor of Computer Science; Sally Oakes Edman, Assistant Professor of Psychology)
“Goals for Student Achievement: Values”
(James Martin-Schramm, Assistant Professor of Religion; Donna Kubesh, Associate Professor of Nursing; Lawrence Williams, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History)

Texts and Issues: Global Perspectives on Multiculturalism Fall 1995

“Reversing Hadrian: Cultural Clash, Ancient and Modern”
(Wilfred F. Bunge, Professor of Religion and Classics; Respondent – James Rhodes, Professor of Political Science)
“Diversity French Style: Citizenship and Culture”
(Ruth Caldwell, Professor of French; Respondent – Norma Hervey, Head Librarian)
“Japan: Traditional Values and Open Markets”
(Uwe Rudolf, Professor of Accounting and Management)
“The United States: Model for a Multicultural/Global World?”
(Mary Hull Mohr, Professor of English; Respondent – Lawrence Williams, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History)

Texts and Issues: The Good Society 1994-1995

Symposium: “Citizenship in American Pluralism”
(James Rhodes, Professor of Political Science, Moderator; Janet Gillespie, Assistant Professor of Theatre/Dance, Robert Larson, Professor of Theatre/Dance, John Moeller, Professor of Political Science)
“Libraries in the Good Society”
(Rebecca T. Lenzini, President, CARL Corporation)
“The Good Society as Civic Vision: Antecedents and Prospects”
(William M. Sullivan, Professor of Philosophy, La Salle University)
Symposium: “The Economy and the Goal of Justice in American Society”
(Edward Kaschins, Professor of Economics; Mark Lund, Professor of Economics; James Martin-Schramm, Instructor in Religion)
“The ‘Pernicious Effects’ of Religion in America: A Dissenting View of ‘The Good Society’ from the 1820s”
(Terry Sparkes, Assistant Professor of Religion)
“Democracy in Africa: A View from the United States”
(Lawrence Mbogoni, Assistant Professor of History)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1993-1994

Panel Discussion: “China Today”
(Peter A. Scholl, Professor of English, Moderator; Carol A. Gilbertson, Professor of English; Mark Z. Muggli, Associate Professor English; Uwe J. Rudolf, Associate Professor of Accounting & Management; Jacqueline S. Wilkie, Associate Professor of History)
“The World of Homer from a Woman’s Perspective”
(Peter W. Liermann, Assistant Professor of German)
“Victorian Vienna, Dreams, and Freud’s Unconscious”
(William H. Moorcroft, Professor of Psychology)
“Christian Faith and Environmental Ethics”
(Marcia Bunge, Assistant Professor of Religion)
“Personal/Private Faith in American Culture”
(Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1992-1993

“Down and Out in America: Antipoverty Strategies for the 90’s”
(Paul J. Gardner, Assistant Professor of Political Science)
Panel Discussion: “The Role of Character in American Politics, with Special Reference to Presidential Elections”
(Richard S. Ylvisaker, Professor of Philosophy, Moderator; Nancy K. Barry, Assistant Professor of English; Michael J. Englehardt, Assistant Professor of Political Science; C. Nicholas Gomersall, Assistant Professor of Economics; Terry Sparkes, Instructor in Religion)
“The American Vision for the Future Against a Painful Background”
(Brahmjyot “Jyoti” K. Grewal, Assistant Professor of History)
“Flight from the Holocaust to the American Renaissance in Applied Mathematics”
(George N. Trytten, Professor of Mathematics)
“A Crucifixion in Mississippi: Faulkner’s Light in August”
(Peter A. Scholl, Professor of English)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1991-1992

“A Different Seed: The Search for Style and Power in Student Writing”
(Nancy K. Barry, Assistant Professor of English)
“The Second Law: If You Think Things are Mixed Up Now. . .”
(Dale Nimrod, Director, Computer Center)
“Herodotus, Thucydides and History”
(James C. Hippen, Professor of History)
“Tragedy and Self Suffering: Plato and Aristotle on Fear and Pity”
(Martha Craven Nussbaum, University Professor and Professor of Philosophy and Classics, Brown University)
“A Perpetual Text for One of The Two Cultures”
(Dennis Barnaal, Professor of Physics)
“Peacemaking in Our Day”
(John H. Sieber, Professor of Religion)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1990-1991

“Scandinavians in America: Recapturing a 350 Year Heritage”
(J. R. Christianson, Professor of History)
“Is There More to the Self than Mead’s the ‘I’”
(Glenn I. Nelson, Professor of Sociology)
“The Burning Heart: Story and Argument in Luke-Acts”
(Wilfred F. Bunge, Professor of Religion and Classics)
“The Mystery of Mozart’s Requiem”
(Susan Treacy, Assistant Professor of Music)
“Civil Rights and Liberties in a Democratic Society: Two Hundred Years”
(Henry J. Abraham, James Hart Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia)
“On Monsters and Morality: Frankenstein and His Children”
(Linda Schearing, Instructor in Religion)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1989-1990

A Reading from his new work of poetry, Omeros
(Derek Walcott, Poet, Dramatist, Professor of Creative Writing at Boston University)
“Art History and the Education of the American Eye”
(John C. Whelan, Associate Professor of Art)
“Generation Messes and Unmingled Love: Senescence in King Lear”
(John C. Bale, Professor of English)
“The Epidemiologist Looks at History: Hans Zinsser and Rene Dubos on Humans and Disease in the Past”
(Jacqueline S. Wilkie, Assistant Professor of History)
“Theatrical Truth: Playing with Permanent Impermanence”
(Robert Larson, Professor of Theatre/Dance)
“Common Grace and Grace Under Pressure”
(Leigh D. Jordahl, Professor of Religion and Classics)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1988-1989

“Antigone under Canon Fire”
(Martin Mohr, Professor of English)
“The Unexamined Life . . . Socrates or Huck Finn?”
(Richard Ylvisaker, Professor of Philosophy)
“Love and Honor in Epic Tension”
(Carol Gilbertson, Associate Professor of English)
“Complexity and Diversity Alone”
(Marian Kaehler, Associate Professor of Biology)
“Gerhard Marcks and the Greeks”
(Peter Guenther, Professor of Art History, University of Houston, Texas)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1987-1988

“The Place of the Humanistic Tradition in Today’s World”
(Thomas H. Greer, Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Michigan State University)
“Masterpiece of Ethnicity or Great American Novel?”
(Dennis Jones, Professor of English)
“Causes of Wealth and Poverty”
(Mark Lund, Associate Professor of Economics)
“Professional Ethics in the Cuckoo’s Nest”
(Lee Zook, Assistant Professor of Social Work)
“Henry, Cato, and the Sovereignty of Good”
(Ann Loades, Senior Lecturer in Theology, University of Durham, England)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1986-1987

“Out of the House and Into the World”
(John E. Moeller, Associate Professor of Political Science)
“Philosophy and the Natural History of Culture”
(Loyal D. Rue, Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy)
“Bronowski’s Baby: Science and Values for the Twenty-First Century”
(Roger M. Knutson, Professor of Biology)
“Becoming a Woman”
(Ruth L. Caldwell, Professor of French)
“Language and Responsibility”
(Patrick J. FitzPatrick, Reader in Philosophy; Chairman, Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, England)

Text as Paideia: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1985-1986

Wilson, On Human Nature: "Sociobiology: The Biology of Politics, Religion, and the New Conservatism"
(Phillip J. Reitan, Professor of Biology)
Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: "Social Morality in Modern Culture"
(Bradley Hanson, Professor of Religion)
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath: "Going it Alone in The Grapes of Wrath"
(Harland S. Nelson, Professor of English)
Greene, The Power and The Glory: "'To be a Saint': The Power and the Glory as a Spiritual Paideia"
(Diane Scholl, Assistant Professor of English)
Special NEH Lecturer and Consultant. Text: Invisible Man
(Darwin T. Turner, Head, Afro-American Studies, University of Iowa)
St. Augustine's On the City of God: "On Reading and Misreading a Classic"
(Michael Hollerich, Instructor in Religion)

In Quest of the Good Society: A Dialog on Seminal Texts 1984-1985

Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class
(James A. Rhodes, Professor of Political Science)
Solzhenytsyn, Cancer Ward
(Bruce Wrightsman, Professor of Religion)
Shakespeare's The Winter Tale
(Mark Z. Muggli, Assistant Professor of English)
Significant Texts from the Classical World: Virgil, The Aeneid and Lucretius, On the Nature of Things
(Panel Discussion of students led by Professors Bunge and Bale)
"Fantastic Reality: Gabrial Gracia Marquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude"
(Robert H. Davis, Professor of History)
More's Utopia
(Jack H. Hexter, Distinguished Historian in Residence at St. Louis University)

In Quest of Modern Classics: A Dialog on Seminal Texts Written Since 1750 1983-1984

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(Conrad Simonson, Professor of Religion)
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
(Edgar Epperly, [shared with AAUP] Professor of Education)
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution
(Richard Cole, Professor of History)
Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler
Mary Hull Mohr, Professor of English
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
(James E. Miller Jr. Chairman, English Department, University of Chicago)
"The Lima Document As Church History"
(H. George Anderson, President, Luther College)