Campus event highlights: Oct. 30 to Nov. 8, 2009

Campus event highlights: Oct. 30 to Nov. 8, 2009

(All events are free unless otherwise noted.)

Tuesday, Nov. 3: “A Cultural Theory of International Relations and War”
Wednesday, Nov. 4: “Inexact Newton Methods”
Wednesday, Nov. 4: “The Suffering of Abraham Lincoln”
Thursday, Nov. 5: Race, Poverty and Education
Thursday, Nov. 5: “Mechanical Experiments on Single Molecules”
Friday, Nov. 6: Faculty Lunch and Workshop with Paul Gorski
Friday, Nov. 6: “Reconstructing the Climate of the Last Millennium”

Tuesday, Nov. 3: “A Cultural Theory of International Relations and War”

Richard Ned Lebow, the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and the Centennial Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, will give a presentation titled “A Cultural Theory of International Relations and War” at 4:10 p.m. in Room 102 of Maginnes Hall.

The event is part of the Samuel Efron Lecture Series of the department of international relations. Lebow is author of The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders, which won the Alexander L. George Award for the best book in political psychology.

Wednesday, Nov. 4: “Inexact Newton methods”

Frank E. Curtis, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering, will give a presentation titled “Inexact Newton methods for nonlinear constrained optimization.” The event is part of the colloquium series of the mathematics department. It will begin at 4 p.m. in Room 201 of Christmas-Saucon Hall.

Wednesday, Nov. 4: “The Suffering of Abraham Lincoln”

Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, will give a talk titled “The Suffering of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Mental Anguish and Depression on an Extraordinary Individual’s Journey to Wisdom.” Shenk is director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College.

The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Packard Auditorium. It is sponsored by the Visiting Lecturers Committee and cosponsored by the Chaplain’s Office and Dialogue Center; the Counseling Center; the American Studies program; the history, psychology and religion studies departments; the counseling psychology program; and the Health, Medicine and Society Program.

Thursday, Nov. 5: Race, Poverty and Education

Paul Gorski, assistant professor of integrative studies at George Mason University, will lead a discussion about the practice implications of race, poverty and education. The event will run from 4 to 7 p.m. For more information contact the College of Education’s Multicultural Resource Center.

Thursday, Nov. 5: “Mechanical Experiments on Single Molecules”

Dmitri Vezenov, assistant professor of chemistry, will deliver a presentation titled “Mechanical Experiments on Single Molecules: Force Spectroscopy for Genome Sequencing.” Vezenov has proposed a genome sequencing method that discriminates between single- and double-stranded DNA. He will discuss his efforts to develop new techniques for the direct manipulation of single molecules in order to study the fundamentals of bimolecular interactions and to design new platforms for detecting and analyzing these interactions.

The event, part of the colloquium series of the physics department, will begin at 4:10 p.m. in Room 316 of Lewis Lab.

Friday, Nov. 6: “Reconstructing the Climate of the Last Millennium”

Jason E. Smerdon, the Storke-Doherty Lecturer in Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and an adjunct assistant professor in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, will give a talk titled “Spaghetti plots, hockey sticks, pseudo-realities and congressional oversight: A decade of attempts to reconstruct the climate of the last millennium and where we stand now.”

The event is part of the seminar series of the earth and environmental sciences department. It will begin at noon in Room 100 of Williams Hall.

Friday, Nov. 6: COE Faculty Lunch and Workshop with Paul Gorski

Paul Gorski, assistant professor of integrative studies at George Mason University, will lead a discussion about the efforts by the College of Education to promote equity and social justice. The event will run from noon to 2:30 p.m. in the Wood Dining Room of Iacocca Hall. For more information contact the college’s Multicultural Resource Center.