2024
Spring 2024 Lecture Series
Presented in Otsego Grille, Morris Conference Center, at noon
(unless otherwise noted)
Hans Christian Andersen and the Pythagorean Theorem
Most people will know at least some of the fairy tales by the renowned Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75). Andersen’s fairy tales have been translated into some 160 languages and include The Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling, and The Emperor’s New Clothes. Little known is the poem written by Andersen in 1831, entitled Formens evige Magie (The Eternal Magic of Form), which presents the Pythagorean theorem and its mathematical proof in poetic form. Polemic in nature, the poem engages with the question of form and substance in poetry—the Pythagorean theorem and its proof are used by Andersen to represent strict structural form. The talk will explore Andersen’s recollections of school mathematics, his mathematics exams, and the literary context for the poem about the Pythagorean theorem, as well as presenting an English translation of the poem with commentary.
Vignettes of Memoria, Verdad y Justicia (Memory, Truth & Justice)
Examines the linguistic landscapes and literacy practices of a public commemoration marking the 40th anniversary of the March 24, 1976, coup in Argentina. Drawing on a three-year, grant-funded research conducted across three distinct sites in Buenos Aires — a public university, the hub of a city center, and a former naval base and clandestine detention center transformed into an educational space for memory and justice, this talk illuminates the ways in which critical and multimodal literacies function spatially to evoke memories of the past while addressing contemporary justice concerns. Attendees are invited to engage with social justice issues in the United States and beyond, fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion through the advocacy of inclusive pedagogies.
2023
Fall 2023 Lecture Series
Presented in Otsego Grille, Morris Conference Center, at noon
(unless otherwise noted)
Wednesday, November 15th
Alissa Walls (Art History) Space Dust:
Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels
My talk “Space Dust,” explores the relationship between the Great Salt Lake and two works of land art: Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (April 1970) and Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973-76). Taken together, Spiral Jetty and Sun Tunnels serve as touchstones for notions of being and doing as artistically investigated through space and time, light and scale. Given their geographic and geologic connections to the Great Salt Lake, in imminent danger of total extinction, these earthworks also spur us to contemplate just what constitutes sustainable living in the contemporary era.
My research is both art historical and rooted in my own artistic practice, the Spiral having driven work that I have made since 2020. An art memoir in-progress entitled Running the Entire Length: On Running, Breath, Art, and Life explores themes from this more focused study and, more broadly, states of being and doing. In the Spring I will present the exhibition Space Dust at the Open Space Gallery at SUNY-Oneonta, which will encompass the third movement in my Space Trilogy.
Thursday, October 5th
Valerie Rapson (Physics and Astronomy)
Studying Alien Worlds from the College Camp Observatory
In the last 30 years, over 5000 planets have been discovered orbiting other stars in our galaxy. Most of these exoplanets are discovered when they transit their host star, briefly causing the star to dim once per planet orbit. While large space-based telescopes make the bulk of the initial detections, small ground-based telescopes play a crucial role in confirmation and follow-up observations of known systems. Using telescopes at the College Camp Observatory, we can determine the size of the exoplanet, the orbital distance from the star, and potentially detect the presence of additional planets in the system. In this talk, I will share the work that SUNY Oneonta students and I have done to explore known exoplanet systems, and our attempts to detect candidate exoplanets identified by the TESS Observatory. I’ll also discuss my efforts to inspire the general public to get involved in these, and other astronomy-based Citizen Science projects, through public outreach events and planetarium shows.
Spring 2023 Lecture Series
Presented in Otsego Grille, Morris Conference Center, at noon
(unless otherwise noted)
Wednesday, April 5th
Chloe Diamond-Lenow (Women’s and Gender Studies)
"Race, Gender, Sex, and Species in the 'War on Terror'”
Cairo, a U.S. military working dog, was part of the SEAL Team 6 mission that captured and killed Osama bin Laden on May 1st, 2011. Cairo was rendered a public hero after the mission. Dogs like Cairo have figured centrally in the U.S. “war on terror” and in articulations of U.S. nationalism. The dogs are deployed as tools of intimidation, equipment to be cared for, pets to be loved, and heroes to be honored. In this talk, I analyze the politics of race, gender, sexuality, and species in discourses about, and practices surrounding, U.S. military working dogs and the dogs that Americans “rescue” from Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001-2021. I consider how dogs are deployed in this war to mediate representations of racialized masculinities and femininities within frameworks of U.S. nationalism and imperialism. This research extends transnational feminist and postcolonial literature on militarism and racialization through an analysis of how frames of species and tropes of animality inform racialized and gendered nationalisms in U.S. militarism and imperialism.
"Why it Makes Sense: Understanding Teacher Candidates' Attention to Mathematical Practices"
Elyssa Stoddard
Secondary Education & Educational Technology
February 15, 2023
K-12 standards are often viewed as a driver for change in K-12 and higher education. One recent example is the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMPs), which describe ways of thinking mathematically that students should develop. To date, however, little research has examined how future teachers learn about the SMPs. Since teachers’ understanding of the SMPs will influence the opportunities they provide students, it is essential to understand how they learn about them, as this has implications for educators, policy makers, and other stakeholders. In this talk, hear about a qualitative study which examined the cases of two teacher candidates, and the opportunities they had to learn about SMPs during their student teaching experience.