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SUU Convocations
Spring 2017
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SUU Convocations
Leaders. Thinkers. Innovators.
Southern Utah University’s Premiere Lecture Series
Inspiring you to grow and discover.
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Spring 2017 Convocations
A Message from Dr. Lynn Vartan
It is an absolute pleasure to announce the 2017
From there we move through topics involving
Spring Convocations speaker line-up! I am
race and border stories involving colonial dance,
honored to be the new Director of the Series, and
the development and rediscovery of heirloom
look forward to carrying on all the dedication and
foods, our elite Tanner and Driggs Lecture Series
hard work that Danielle Dubravsky put into to this
installments, happiness, neuroscience, creativity
series during her tenure as Director.
and poetry. Wow! It promises to be a mind-
The series is filled with variety and passion, and
this Spring there is even a little happiness thrown
Finally, as you probably know, the power of the
in there, too! I know I for one can’t wait to hear
Convocations Series depends on the community
about how Roku Belic changed his own life in his
of campus to make it vibrant. Please join us as
pursuit across the globe for happiness! Join me on
much as possible and encourage your classes to
March 30th to hear more about that!
attend these special events. I welcome any
The season begins with our own Dr Andrew
Marvick as our Distinguished Lecturer for 2017,
and he will be exploring the “selfie” world that we
feedback or speaker recommendations that you
may have – this is a series for ALL OF US!!! See
you all there!
live in. But even more interestingly he will be
Dr. Lynn Vartan
showing us how the “selfie” has existed in art for
[email protected]
decades before what we now think of as the
ubiquitous photos we snap of ourselves.
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enriching and thought provoking series yet again!
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February 2017
Selfies, Dancing at the Border, & Rediscovering “Lost” Foods
February 16, 11:30 am
The Great Hall
Gary Nabhan
Eccles Visiting Scholar Series
"Conservation You Can Taste:
Restoring Biodiversity to the Farm
In this talk Dr Marvick will be tracing the
development of the “un-selfie” – the
oxymoron of the faceless portrait – in modern
and post-modern art, from its beginnings at
the end of the 19th century to its current
appearance in the “selfie culture” of our time,
where it acts less within the public sector of
social media and popular entertainment, and
more in the context of the contemporary art
scene. The talk will follow the curious
incidence of the unidentifiable face in modern
western art from its early manifestation in
French post-impressionist painting and
continuing across multiple phases of
modernism including fauvism, expressionism,
cubism, dada, surrealism, abstract
expressionism and conceptual art, as well as
the process-painting, conceptual digitalimage and expressionist-realist trends of our
time. Artists to be considered include
Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian,
Duchamp, Kooning, Rauschenberg, as well as
favorites of the current art scene. Dr Marvick
hopes to isolate two possible rationales for the
continuing trend – one pessimistic, the other
perhaps more reassuring – as extracted from
statements by the artists themselves.
Growing up on the border, my identity was
formed by this third space that straddles two
cultures and yet remains by-and-large outside
of both the American and Mexican mainstream.
My childhood playgrounds were my father’s
junkyards, or yonkes, on both sides of the
US/Mexico border. Transforming mismatched
truck carcasses and metal parts into dollhouses
or pirate ships gave me more than scraped
knees and dusty jeans. I also experienced how
my makeshift toys could convert a sick vehicle
into a functional road warrior. In other words, it
gave me something even more valuable — the
power of metaphor, the aesthetics of recycling,
and the will to dream. In short, a language of
my own, that would lead me to filmmaking.
I am constantly searching for ways to come
home, looking for meaning in my culture
clashed memories. I have since learned to
embrace this yonke approach in all my work –
recycling, blending and modifying meaning
and cultural symbols associated with both
Mexico and the United States. Because that’s
my identity; I am Spanglish, most comfortable
on the border, mixing up Spanish and English,
melodrama and realism, tradition and
assimilation, narrative and documentary, to
create my own vehicle of culture. As my work
evolves, I continue to use both humor and
drama, and to reference “high” culture and
“low,” I combine the dramatic, documentary
and spectacle, in order to examine culture
through a new lens.
and Table"
Over the last three decades, more than
one-hundred thousand plant and animal
varieties and species have become
endangered around the planet, many of
which formerly provided humankind
with food or beverages. At the same
time, a remarkable counter trend has
occurred in America’s gardens and
orchards, and on its farms and ranch
pastures.
The market recovery of what are
popularly known as heritage foods—
including heirloom vegetables, grains
and fruit trees as well as historic breeds
of livestock and flocks of so-called
poultry antiquities— has been nothing
short of miraculous. As you will see in
this talk, varieties and breeds thought to
be close to extinction a half century ago
are once again being grown by
thousands of small scale farmers, and
are back on the tables of fine
restaurants, brew pubs and home
kitchens in every state in the union.
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+March & April, 2017
Human Values, History, Happiness, Poetry, and Emotion and Neuroscience
Join SUU as we continue to be a part of the elite Grace Adams Tanner Lecture in Human
Values, Funded by the Tanner Trust for Utah Universities. The Tanner Center seeks to
promote access to scholarly and scientific learning in all areas of human values which
embrace moral, artistic, intellectual, and spiritual concepts.
SUU continues to be proud to host the historic Howard R. Driggs Lecture Series. The Howard R.
Driggs Collection includes manuscripts, research notes, correspondence, photographs, and
memorabilia from his work with the American Pioneer Trails Association, Oregon Trail Memorial
Association, historical and creative writings, personal and family records, and his profession as a
teacher. The collection covers a time span from 1880 to 1965.
For the past six years Roko Belic has been making a documentary film called
HA PPY, exploring the true sources and causes of happiness. He and his crew
traveled to 14 countries and talked to people from many different cultures. Old and
young, rich and poor, they taught us about happiness. He also spoke with many of
the leaders in the field of positive psychology, the scientific study of happiness.
What are feelings, and how does the brain support them? What role do feelings play in the
brain's learning process? With her signature talent for explaining and interpreting
neuroscientific findings in practical, teacher-relevant terms, Immordino-Yang offers two simple
but profound ideas: first, that emotions are such powerful motivators of learning because they
activate brain mechanisms that originally evolved to manage our basic survival; and second,
that meaningful thinking and learning are inherently emotional, because we only think deeply
about things we care about.
Having garnered an Emmy, five Cine Golden Eagle Awards, and other honors,
Jeffrey Brown is a author, producer and journalist known for his work on
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. His book of poetry, The News, brings “a remarkable,
fresh kind of attention to questions of identity and presence, delusion and
awareness...The News is more than a venture into art by someone prominent in
another field. In these poems, an unconventional subject for poetry is dealt with
from within, by a real poet." (as quoted by Robert Pinskey)
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