Franklin Environmental Center, The Orchard-Hillcrest 103

Poetry and Logocentrism: Reading Octavio Paz from Jacques Derrida’s Perspective Professor Mario Higa, Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Octavio Paz’s poetry is built upon tensions. However, one of these tensions becomes an impasse when viewed from a Derridean perspective. In my lecture, I will point out and analyze this impasse, which involves both the notion of logos and the concept of Nietzschean affirmation as defined by Jacques Derrida in his critique of logocentrism. Ultimately, the unresolved impasse in Octavio Paz’s poetic works finds an outlet in his political thought.

Digital Readings and “Ferny, Mossy Discoveries”: Visualizing the Natural Worlds of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth. Lecture by Alicia Peaker, Center for Teaching, Learning & Research. How might the ecosystems and biospheres of novels be represented digitally? Can we develop useful digital models for contextualizing human characters within the fictional natural worlds they inhabit? And what impacts might such models have on the ways we read and understand literatures of the environment?

Professor of Spanish, Patricia Saldarriaga will give a lecture, “Spheres of God and Knowledge: Geometrizing Power in Hispanic Visual Culture”

In Science We Trust! — Or Not? Developing a situated account of responsible trust in scientific experts From claims of climate change, to the safety of vaccines, to genetic research on particular populations, to sex differences research, scientists are often confused and surprised when their work is met with distrust from members of the public. Though many instances of distrust in science lack warrant, failures in the trustworthiness of scientific communities can at times justify such distrust.

Pieter Broucke, Department of the History of Art and Architecture; Director of Arts, will give a lecture as part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series titled, “A Cliffhanger from the Twilight of the Ptolemies:The Enigmatic West Building at Yeronisos, Cyprus””.

Kemi Fuentes-George, Department of Political Science, “Local Culture, International Treaties: The Effect of Norms on Global Environmental Governance”

Claire de Dobay Rifelj, Independent Art Historian, Writer, and Curator, “Artist-Run Spaces in Los Angeles: Tradition or Trend?” Artist-run exhibition spaces—alternative venues for the presentation of contemporary art—are not a new phenomenon, nor are they indigenous only to Los Angeles. Yet due to several factors, including urban sprawl, comparatively low costs, prominent art schools, and a shifting art market, artist-initiated spaces have mushroomed in several pockets of the city in the past two years, filling an evident need.

“Wild Sun! A Drama in Three Acts” - Lecture by Rich Wolfson, Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics

The Challenges of “Traditional” Healing in South Africa’s Colonial Moment Since the ending of apartheid in 1994, intense public debates have erupted over the role of “traditional” healing in contemporary South African society. Despite the broadly accepted goals of undoing inherited state policies of the colonial and apartheid past that discriminated against Africans’ diverse healing systems and practices, there are still many unresolved questions regarding how to formally define, regulate, and incorporate “traditional” healing systems into the country’s existing health care framework.