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Bison Hide, Elephant Tusk, and Sperm Whale Oil: The Industrial Revolution and the 'Late Holocene Depletions' ca. 1800-1920

Part of the larger theme of Global Environmental History of the Industrial Revolution, this lecture concerns the ecological implications of ramping up the supply of fibers, minerals, lubricants, dyestuffs, and several other ingredients of industrialization, mainly in the 19th century.  British and American industrialization required cotton, wool, lead, copper, whale oil, palm oil, bison hide, elephant ivory, gutta percha among other items, most of which came from afar.  Cheap coal-fired transport made it feasible to harvest, hunt, gather, collect these ingredients, and ship them to industrial centers. This focuses on the impacts on three megafauna species of industrial demand for leather belting, ivory keyboards, and sperm whale oil for machine lubrication and illumination.  Bison, elephants, and sperm whales as keystone species had for millennia helped to regulate ecology on large grasslands or in the deep oceans, but in the 19th century their populations fell sharply, reducing their effectiveness. 

J.R. McNeil, Ph.D., American environmental historian, author, and professor at Georgetown University

October 12 • LSC 133 • 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Author Patricia Leavy - Lecture and Book Signing 

Hollyland follows the love story between Dee Schwartz, a writer and arts researcher, and Ryder Field, a famous actor descended from Hollywood royalty. Bonded by the loss of their mothers and their passion for the arts, the two embark on a love story that explores their search for magic—or “gold dust”—in their lives. Patricia Leavy wove her 20 years of experience as an arts researcher into the novel. Hollyland is a celebration of the arts, with a strong arts narrative explicitly interwoven throughout, and it raises vital questions about the arts in our lives: art in education, distinctions between art and entertainment, whether artists must compromise to be successful, the nature of controversial art, the pleasure and connection to be found making or experiencing art, and who the real movie stars are in our lives. 

Patricia Leavy, Ph.D., best-selling, award-winning novelist, arts advocate, and internationally recognized leader in research design and arts-based research

October 19 • Brennan Hall, Rose Room, 509 • 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Explaining the Cosmos:  Can the Philosopher Help? 

Why is there anything at all, and why a cosmos even remotely like ours?  Grand questions like these never cease to generate wonder — and, sometimes, confusion.  Answers to them offered by popular science and popular religion generally prove to be a mixed bag.  Recently, scientists and popularizers of science have drawn our attention to wondrous discoveries about the shape of the cosmos, and suggestive new theories about the universe’s origins; while religious apologists have revived some ancient but still appealing arguments for the existence of God.  But these attempts to address the big questions of “life, the universe, and everything” often gloss over subtleties that turn out to be important.  Sometimes they dress up a philosophical confusion in flashy rhetoric.  Philosophers can help uncover these subtleties and confusions, even if we can do no better in providing universally satisfying answers to these questions. 

Dean Zimmerman, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University

November 2 • Brennan Hall, Pearn Auditorium • 4 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

The Habit of Poetry: The Literary Lives of Nuns in Mid-century America

The Habit of Poetry: The Literary Lives of Nuns in Mid-century America, is a work of literary recovery, revisiting the lives of nuns whose poetry was published and acclaimed in secular venues in the twentieth century, though they’re far less well-known than the work of priests. As Ripatrazone says, “[t]he literary creations of poetic priests like Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., and Robert Southwell, S.J. have been both a blessing and a burden—creating the sense that male clergy alone have written substantial work.” The Habit of Poetry traces a “mid-20^th century renaissance by nun poets,” which, as Ripatrazone argues, is “more than a literary footnote; it is a case study in how women negotiate tradition and individual creativity.”  

Nick Ripatrazone, culture editor for Image Journal, a contributing editor at The Millions, and a columnist for Literary Hub

November 10 • Brennan Hall, Rose Room 509 • 12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.