2015 Schedule

Welcome

Red Power: How the Occupation of Wounded Knee Shaped Conservative Politics in Rural America

How the white community in South Dakota responded politically to the American Indian Movement’s (AIM) occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. Dr. Stock will discuss her recent work on far right politics in rural America and the political effects of the occupation of Wounded Knee. 

Dr. Catherine M. Stock, ’72 Professor of History and Director of American Studies Program at Connecticut College, received her BA, MA and PhD in History from Yale University. She is the recipient of the College’s 2009 John S. Kind Memorial Teaching Award, established to recognize teacher-­scholars with high standards of teaching excellence and concern for students. Her specializations include rural radicalism, domestic terrorism; social, cultural and political history of the United States, 1877 to present, including the American West; rural America; and the Great Depression and New Deal. A member of various scholarly associations and author of Rural Radicals: Righteous Indignation in the American Grain and Main Street Crisis: The Great Depression and the OM Middle Class on the Western Plains and the introduction to Howard Roberts Lamar’s Dakota Territory, 1861- 1889: a Study of Frontier Politics, she also has written numerous sections in The Readers Encyclopedia of the American West and book reviews for history journals. 

The Challenges in Responding to Ebola

Why have West African governments and the international community struggled in responding to Ebola? Dr. Dionne will review the outbreak to date, the responses and the obstacles faced when trying to contain an epidemic.

Dr. Kim Yi Dionne, Five College Assistant Professor of Government, received her BA in political science and PhD from the University of California Los Angeles. She teaches courses on African politics, ethnic politics and field research methods. The substantive focus of her work is on the opinions of ordinary Africans toward interventions aimed at improving their condition and the relative success of such interventions. Her work has been published in African Affairs, Comparative Political Studies, and World Development. She was previously a Fulbright Scholar in Malawi (2008-2009) and an assistant professor of political science at Texas A&M University (2010-13).

Box Luncheon Served

Sharks are People Too!

The common knowledge about sharks is wrong! Dr. Morrissey’s lecture summarizes the biology of sharks, with particular emphasis on their diversity, anatomy and sensory systems, reproduction, feeding behavior, attacks on humans and conservation; and he demonstrates that most beliefs about sharks are quite incorrect.

Dr. John F. Morrissey, Associate Professor of Biology, earned his BA and MA at Hofstra University and his PhD in Marine Biology and Fisheries from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. After teaching in the Hofstra Biology Department for sixteen years, he moved to Sweet Briar in 2007. He has been named “Teacher of the Year” at both Hofstra and Sweet Briar. His research interests concern the natural history of deep-sea elasmobranchs (the sharks, skates, and rays), including description of new species, as well as their reproduction, feeding ecology, age and growth, visual adaptations and more. Specifically, he and his students study a new species of gulper shark from the Cayman Trench between Jamaica and Cuba. Professor and students maintain a reproducing colony of chain catsharks in the lab. He is co-author with Jim Sumich of Introduction to the Biology of Marine Life; and he is on the Board of Directors of the American Elasmobranch Society, the world’s largest scientific society of professional ichthyologists who specialize in the biology of sharks, skates and rays.