Faculty Speaker Program

Dedicated to bringing the best of Smith College to your hometown, the AASC Faculty Speakers Program is one of our most popular outreach programs. It has enabled Smith clubs and groups all over the United States and abroad to engage with outstanding faculty, administrators, alumnae, and students on a broad range of topics in a wide selection of disciplines.

 

Questions, ideas, or comments about the Faculty Speaker Program? Contact Annie Croteau, program coordinator for alumnae engagement, at 800-526-2023, ext. 4 or acroteau@smith.edu.

 

Some guidelines to keep in mind when you are requesting a speaker:

  • Speaker availability varies depending upon prior commitments and other
     factors. Requests are filled accordingly.
     
  • If you are interested in a speaker or topic not listed, please inquire so that
    we can help.
     
  • Please contact the Alumnae Association—not the speaker—so arrangements and
    expenses are accounted for.
     
  • All arrangements after initial contact are to be made between the speaker and the
    club/group. It is the responsibility of the club/group to keep the speaker and the
    Alumnae Association informed about program plans.
     
  • The Alumnae Association would like to receive feedback on your program. We will
    contact you directly after the event.
     
  • The Alumnae Association provides for round-trip air travel, ground transportation,
    meal expenses, and overnight accommodations for speakers.
 
 

Request a Speaker

barrier
 
To request a speaker please use this speaker request form.
 
 

Find a Speaker

barrier

 
Browse by subject
 
 
Browse by speaker
 
 
Faculty members: If you would like to be listed in our Faculty Speaker Online Brochure or wish to update your current listing, please fill out the Faculty Speaker and Travel Form.
Note: Smith College alumnae and students are also available as speakers.
 
 

Admission

barrier

 
Audrey Smith
Dean of Enrollment
Admissions and/or financial aid; college selection or future demographics
of the college going population; overview of the current Smith student population
 
 

Afro-American Studies

barrier

 
Andrea Hairston '74
L. Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and professor of Afro-American studies
How Do We Conjure the Wondrous World We Believe In? Researching and
Writing Redwood and Wildfire, an Historical Novel; The Magic If: Speculative
Theatre and Film from RUR to Avatar; Minstrel Shows from Daddy Rice to
Big Momma's House: American Popular Culture's Long Running Hits; Realist
Historical Novel about Turn of the 20th Century Theatre and Film Artists
in Georgia and Chicago
 
Louis Wilson
Professor of Afro-American studies
Issues Facing Modern South Africa
 
 

American Studies

barrier
 
Daniel Horowitz
Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of American Studies
Betty Friedan ’42 and Smith College; The Anxieties of Affluence
in Recent U.S. History
 
Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
Sydenham Clark Parsons Professor Emerita of American Studies
Rereading Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Censorship in 19th-Century
America; Why Do We Feel Good? Why Do We Feel Bad? Understanding Illness
and Emotion from a 19th-Century Perspective; Book discussion:
Wild Unrest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Making of "The Yellow Wall-Paper,"
by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
 
Richard H. Millington
Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor of American Studies, professor
of English language and literature

American Literature, the Liberal Arts College, and the Invention of Leisure
 

Donald Leonard Robinson
Charles N. Clark Professor Emeritus of Government and American
Studies

Obama's Predicament; Exporting Constitutional Democracy: Why Were Japan
and Iraq So Different? What Chance Does Egypt Have?; Town Meeting
Democracy: How Did It Develop in New England? Does It Still Work?
Would It Work Elsewhere?

 
 

Anthropology

barrier
 
Donald Joralemon
Professor of anthropology
Native South Americans; Shamanism; Medical Anthropology (Ethnomedicine);
Medical Ethics
 
 

Art

barrier
 
John Davis
Associate provost and dean for academic development, Alice Pratt
Brown Professor of Art

American Art at Smith College
 
Craig M. Felton
Professor of art

Will tailor topic to suit audience
 
Caroline M. Houser
Professor emeritus of art
New Discoveries: Revisions in the Art of Ancient Greece; Originals,
Copies, and Fakes; Did He Strip the Virgin Bare? A Mystery about the
Athena Statue in the Parthenon
 
Linda Kim
Visiting assistant professor of American art
American Women Artists; American Sculpture; Race in American and
European Modern Art; History of Museums; Art and Anthropology
 
Chester Michalik
Professor emeritus of art
Contemporary Urban Japan: A Visual Presentation
 
 

Biological Sciences

barrier
 
Margaret E. Anderson
Professor of biological sciences
Neuroscience Flourishes at Smith College; Preparing for a
Career in the Health Profession
 
Michael J.F. Barresi
Assistant professor of biological sciences
Stem Cells and Their Amazing "Potential"; Environment and Embryos:
Assessing the Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Fish Embryonic
Development
 
C. John Burk
Elsie Damon Simonds Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences
Victorian Gardens Lost and Found; Evolution in a Landscape: Smith
College Botanic Garden; The Botanic Garden: A Peculiar Institution;
Audubon's Garden: Botanical Illustration in
The Birds of America
 
Robert Dorit
Associate professor of biological sciences
Breast Cancer; Growing Problem of Antibiotic Resistance; Bioterrorism;
Women and Science: What is Smith’s Role; Human Genome Project
 
Adam Charles Hall
Associate professor of biological sciences
Molecular Bases of Neurological Disorders; Molecular Bases of General
Anesthesia: The Highs and the Lows
 
Virginia Hayssen
Professor of biological sciences
Why White Cats are Often Deaf and Other Oddities of Coat Color
 
Laura A. Katz
Elsie Damon Simonds Professor of Biological Sciences
The AEMES Program at Smith College: Opening Doors to Women of Promise;
Microbes Shake The Tree of Life and Alter Our View on Genome Evolution
 
Robert B. Merritt
Professor of biological sciences
Alfred Blakeslee and the Genetics of Taste
 
Richard F. Olivo
Professor of biological sciences and neuroscience (Smith College);
associate director, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning
(Harvard University)

Teaching with the Web: From E-mail to Digital Video; Emotion in the Classroom:
Making Connections with Students
 

Paulette Peckol

Louise C. Harrington Professor of Biological Sciences
Finding Nemo: Ecology and Conservation of Coral Reef Fish; Hurricanes
and Global Warming: Now the Corals Really Are in Hot Water

 
Stylanos P. Scordilis
Professor of biological sciences, special assistant to the president for Ford Hall  
Ford Hall Centers and Interdisciplinarity: A New Concept for the Liberal Arts;
Exercise and Gender: Are Male and Female Skeletal Muscles the Same?
 
L. David Smith
Professor of biological sciences
Biological Invasions, Particularly in Marine Ecosystems
 
Stephen G. Tilley
Myra M. Sampson Professor of Biological Sciences
Mountains, Molecules, and Salamanders: Discovering Biological
Diversity in the Appalachians
 
Steven Williams
Gates Professor of Biological Sciences
Book discussion: Tears of the Cheetah and Other Tales from the Genetic Frontier, by J. O'Brien
 
 

Botanic Garden

barrier
 
Michael Marcotrigiano
Director of the Botanic Garden, professor of biological sciences
Botanic Garden of Smith College: Past, Present, and Future; Shaping Plants
That Shape the Landscape; Perceiving a Colored Landscape
 
Tracey A. Putnam
Chief gardener
Woody Plant Evaluation for the Home Landscape; Too Much of a Good
Thing is Wonderful: Growing Peonies, Roses, and Clematis
 
Madelaine Zadik
Manager of education and outreach, Botanic Garden
Botanic Garden of Smith College: Past, Present, and Future; Planting Seeds and
Ideas: Education at the Botanic Garden of Smith College; Book discussion –
Virginia Woolf: A Botanical Perspective.
 
 

Chemistry

barrier
 
Katherine Queeney
Associate professor of chemistry
How to See on the Nanoscale
 
Kevin M. Shea
Associate professor of chemistry
From the Moonstone to Organic Chemistry: Crystals in Detective Stories
 
 

Comparative Literature

barrier
 
Margaret Bruzelius
Dean of the senior class and second-semester juniors
Can Girls Have Adventures? What Does it Mean to be a Hero in Young Adult
Fiction; Ursula Le Guin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Frances Hodgson
Burnett, Philip Pullman
 
Sabina Knight
Associate professor of Chinese and comparative literature
What Americans See: Chinese Fiction in Translation; Chinese Literature:
A Very Short Introduction; Changing Responses to Aging in Fiction from China,
Taiwan, and Tibet; Book discussion:
Summer of Betrayal, by Hong Ying; Balzac
and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie; The Heart of Time: Moral Agency
in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction, by Sabina Knight; Chinese Literature: A
Very Short Introduction (forthcoming),by Sabina Knight
 
Katwiwa Mule
Associate professor of comparative literature, director of
African studies

Women's Spaces, Women's Visions: Politics, Poetics, and Resistance in
African Women's Drama
 
 

Computer Science

barrier
 
Nicholas R. Howe
Associate professor of computer science
Machine Vision: How Computers Can Understand the World Through
Images; Handwriting Recognition: From the Bodleian Library through
George Washington’s Letters
 
 

East Asian Languages and Literatures

barrier
 
Jina Kim
Assistant professor of East Asian studies
Korea in the 21st  Century: A Return to History?; Representation of North
Korea in South Korean Cinema; How Modern were Modern Girls?: Colonialism,
Gender, and Consumerism in Early 20th Century East Asia
 
Sabina Knight
Associate professor of Chinese and comparative literature
What Americans See: Chinese Fiction in Translation; Chinese Literature:
A Very Short Introduction; Changing Responses to Aging in Fiction from
China, Taiwan, and Tibet; Book discussion:
Summer of Betrayal, by Hong
Ying;
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie; The Heart of
Time: Moral Agency in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction, by Sabina Knight;
Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction (forthcoming),by Sabina Knight
 
Thomas H. Rohlich
Professor of Japanese
Taking the First-Year Seminar Abroad: The Kyoto Interterm Trip
 
Sujane Wu
Assistant professor of Chinese
Tea and Food Culture; Chinese Poetry and Painting and their Relationship;
Chinese Films and Taiwanese Films
 

Economics

barrier
 
Robert K. Buchele
Professor of economics
The Mondragon Cooperatives: A Sabbatical Reseach Report;
The Mondragon Cooperatives are a network of approximately 120
worker-owned enterprises employing around 47,000 worker-owners in
the Basque region of Spain. They are a Mecca of the cooperative movement
and researchers interested in viability of producer cooperatives in a highly
competitive globalized capitalist system.
 
Deborah Haas-Wilson
Marilyn Carlson Nelson Professor of Economics
The Affordable Care Act: Our Changing Health Care System
 
Thomas A. Riddell
Associate professor of economics

 A Year Away From Smith: In Search of the Perfect Image (photographs
from a year on sabbatical in the U.K. and elsewhere; Book discussion:
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, by Alexandra Fuller
 
Andrew S. Zimbalist
Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics          
Economics of Sports, including College Sports and Title IX; Labor Relations
in Sports; Franchise Valuation and Strategies; League Governance; Baseball,
Football, Basketball, Nascar, Tennis; Book discussion:
Equal Play: Title IX and
Social Change
; The Bottom Line: Observations and Arguments on the Sports
Business;
In the Best Interests of Baseball: The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig;
National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays
Soccer
; May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy
 
 

Education and Child Study

barrier
 
Sue J. M. Freeman
Professor of education and child study, psychologist
Women and Leadership; Women and Money; Women’s Transitions
 
Alan L. Marvelli
Professor and Director Emeritus of the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech
The Impact of Cochlear Implants on the Lives of Profoundly Deaf Children
and Their Families
 
Richard F. Olivo
Professor of biological sciences and neuroscience (Smith College);
associate director, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and
Learning (Harvard University)

Teaching with the Web: From E-Mail to Digital Video; Emotion in the
Classroom: Making Connections with Students
 
Cathy Weisman Topal
Lecturer in visual arts education
Children, Clay, and Sculpture: The Power and Potential of Clay in the
Classroom; Thinking With a Line: A New Art and Literacy CD-ROM for Early
Childhood Educators
 
 

Engineering

barrier
 
Andrew J. Guswa
Associate professor of engineering; director, Center for the
Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability (CEEDS)

Smithies in Action: Environment, Engineering, and Liberal Education;
Quenching Our Thirst: Water for a Changing World; Forests in the Mist:
Water Resources of Monteverde, Costa Rica; The Art of Engineering:
Robert Maillart’s Bridges
 
Susannah Howe
Design clinic director
Smith Pioneers: The Picker Engineering Program; Engineering Design
Clinic: The Capstone Project Experience for Engineering Students
 
Borjana Mikic
Rosemary Bradford Hewlett 1940 Professor; director of the
Picker Engineering Program; advisory board member and past director,
Sherrerd Center for Teaching and Learning

Smithies in Action: Ten Years of Engineering at Smith; New Frontiers in
Teaching and Learning at Smith
 
 

English Language and Literature

barrier
 
Ann Boutelle
Senior lecturer of English language and literature, founder of The
Poetry Center, Grace Hazard Conkling Poet in Residence

Creating a Poetry Center at Smith; Emily Dickinson's Manipulation of Space in
Her Poems
 
Dean Flower
Professor of English language and literature
Landscape, Ecology, and the Necessity of Poetry; Lolita and Censorship;
Inscribing the Oxbow: Local Landscape as Text
 
Jefferson Hunter
Helen and Laura Shedd professor of English language and literature,
professor of film studies

From Brighton Rock to The Singing Detective: British Crime Films
 
Gillian Murray Kendall
Associate professor of English language and literature
The Shakespeare Project; Popular Shakespeare; Queen Elizabeth I
and Self-Fashioning
 
Naomi Miller
Professor of English and the Study of Women and Gender
Representing Women in the Renaissance; Reimagining Shakespeare for
Children and Young Adults; Mother and Others in Early Modern; Lady
Mary Wroth. Book discussion:
An Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett,
The Creation of Eve, by Lynn Cullen; Renaissance historical fiction
novels of Sarah Dunant.
 
Richard H. Millington
Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman professor of American studies, professor
of English

American Literature, the Liberal Arts College, and the Invention of Leisure
 
William Allan Oram
Helen Means Professor of English language and literature
Developments in English at Smith; The Utopias of Ursula K. LeGuin;
Teaching Science Fiction at Smith; Teaching Shakespeare
 
Douglas Lane Patey
Sophia Smith Professor of English, member of Smith's program in
the history of science and technology

Where Our Punctuation Came from (And Where It's Going); Historical
Reflections on How Authors Make Their Money; Book discussion:
Pride
and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, by Jane Austen;
Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies,
by Evelyn Waugh
 
Cornelia Pearsall
Associate professor of English language and literature
Sylvia Plath ’55 at war in the Smith Archive; Book discussion: Victorian
Sexuality, by Oscar Wilde; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , by Lewis
Carroll;
A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf; Wuthering Heights,
by
Emily Brontë
 

Charles Eric Reeves
Professor of English language and literature
Genocide by Attrition in Darfur; Sudan at Its Moment of Historical Truth;
Book discussion:
A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur
Genocide, by Charles Eric Reeves

 
Sharon Cadman Seelig
Roe/Straut Professor in the Humanities, English language and literature
Noticing: Or What You Can Do with an English Major; Reading the Earth:
Venturing Beyond the Classroom; Missing, Marginal, Mutilated: Tracing
the Lives of Early Modern Women
 
Patricia Lyn Skarda
Professor of English language and literature
Smith in Literature and Popular Culture; Telling and Retelling: Modern
Novels and their Literary Antecedents; The Enduring Legacy of The
Biblical Book of Job; Book discussion:
Little Women, by Louisa May
Alcott
; March, by Geraldine Brooks; The Little Women, by Katherine
Weber;
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Double Bind,
by
Chris Bohjalian
 
Michael T. Thurston
Professor of English language and literature
To Live Deliberately: The Function of Poetry at the Present Time; Book
discussion: Voigt Kyrie, by Ellen Bryant;
The Dead, by James Joyce;
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi
 
Ellen Doré Watson
Director of The Poetry Center, lecturer in English language and
literature

The Poetry Center at Smith: A Sampler of Poets and Programs; How
Do Poems Mean? Trends in Contemporary Poetry;
Dogged Hearts
(poetry reading and discussion: establishing voice in persona poems);
Shaking Loose/Shaping Up: A Poetry Workshop (making poems happen);
Translator as Actress: Becoming Adélia (translating Brazilian poet
Adélia Prado) 
 
 

Environmental Science & Policy

barrier
 
Andrew J. Guswa
Associate professor of engineering; director, Center for the
Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability (CEEDS)

Smithies in Action: Environment, Engineering, and Liberal Education;
Quenching Our Thirst: Water for a Changing World; Forests in the Mist:
Water Resources of Monteverde, Costa Rica; The Art of Engineering:
Robert Maillart's Bridges
 
 

Executive Education

barrier
 
Iris Newalu
Director of Smith College Executive Education
Women's Leadership Programs; Corporate Women's Leadership Initiatives;
Smith's Involvement in Executive Leadership Development
 
 

Exercise and Sport Studies

barrier
 
Christine J. Davis
Senior coach, tennis
Tennis: A Lifetime Sport
 
James H. Johnson
Professor of exercise and sport studies
Analyzing Your Lifestyle: Fear or Fun; The Ancient Olympics’ In?uence on
the Modern Games; From the 776 B.C. Greek Palestra to the Modern
Fitness Gym
 
Christine M. Shelton
Professor of exercise and sport studies, co-chair for the Project on Women and
Social Change

Women's Education Worldwide: Why Educate Women? Women and Sport;
International Sport Issues for Women; Coaching Education; Title IX; Women
and Leadership
 
Donald Siegel
Professor of exercise and sport studies
Project Coach: Youth Development Through an Innovative Urban Sports
Program
 
 

French Studies

barrier
 
Anouk Alquier
Lecturer
French Popular Culture, France in the 21st Century; The French Identity;
Fact or Myth?; Teaching and Learning French at Smith
 
Martine Gantrel
Professor of French studies
Edith Wharton and Marcel Proust: Why They Never Met
 
Jonathan Gosnell
Associate professor of French studies
France in America; America in France; French Empire and its Aftermath
 
Ann Leone '71
Professor of French studies and landscape studies
Reading Literary Gardens in French: French Studies and the Study of
Cultural Landscapes at Smith
 
Hélène Visentin
Associate professor of French studies
Art and Politics in the French Renaissance: The King and the City; Court
Performances in the Age of Louis XIV; Baroque French Theater
 
 

Geology

barrier
 
John Brady
Mary E. Moses professor of geology
Geology of the Smith College Campus; Precambrian Geology of the
Tobacco Root Mountains in Southwest Montana; Topics related to geology,
landscape, resources, climate, and energy. Will tailor topic to suit audience.
 
Robert Burger
Achilles Professor of Geology
What Does the Future Hold? An Overview of Natural Hazard Risk,
Including Rapid Climate Change; Global Warming: Using the Past to
Understand What the Future Holds;
Book discussion: Surviving Armageddon:
Solutions for a Threatened Planet, by Bill McGuire
 
 

German Studies

barrier
 
Hans R. Vaget
Helen and Laura Shedd Professor Emeritus, professor emeritus of
comparative literature

Fateful Attraction: Hitler and Wagner; What is German About German Music?;
Anti-Semitism, Memory, and the Construction of German Culture in America;
The Operas of Wagner in Gilded-Age America; The Last Emperor of
Classical Music: Richard Strauss
 
Joseph George McVeigh
Professor of German studies
From Weimar to War: Popular Education and Propaganda in Germany 1928–1941.
This lecture is based on an exhibition McVeigh curated for the Rare Book Room
in the Neilson Library in spring 2009. It examines one of the most widespread
forms of popular education in Germany during the late Weimar period—cigarette card albums—and how they evolved into a popular propaganda medium during the Third Reich; How Ozzie and Harriet Saved Europe After World War II
 
 

Government

barrier
 
Martha A. Ackelsberg
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government, professor of the study
of women and gender

Who's Political? Whose Politics? Reflections on Contemporary Democracy;
Who Votes? Who Cares?; Globalization Comes Home: Community Activism
at the U.S.-Mexico Border; Making Democracy Work: Women's Community
Activism and the Reconceptualization of Democratic Theory; Teaching
about the Politics of Wealth and Poverty
 
Mlada Bukovansky
Associate professor of government
The United Nations in World Politics; Perspectives on U.S. Hegemony in
World Politics; U.S./European Relations
 
Donna Robinson Divine
Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies, professor
of government

Any topic related to the Middle East; Middle East Conflict, Iran, Iraq;
Book discussion:
Exiled in the Homeland: Zionism and the Return to
Mandate Palestine, by Donna Robinson Divine
 
Alice L. Hearst
Associate professor of government
The State, the Law, and the Family; Children’s Rights in Domestic
and International Law; Children, Adoption, and the Politics of Belonging:
Transnational/Transracial Adoption and Identity; The Boundaries of
Multiculturalism
 
Donald Leonard Robinson
Charles N. Clark Professor Emeritus of Government and American
studies

Obama's Predicament; Exporting Constitutional Democracy: Why
Were Japan and Iraq So Different? What Chance Does Egypt Have?;
Town Meeting Democracy: How Did It Develop in New England? Does
It Still Work? Would It Work Elsewhere?
 
 

History

barrier
 
Lester K. Little
Dwight W. Morrow Professor Emeritus of History
The Three Pandemics of Plague in History (So Far); The Middle
Ages Aren’t What They Used to Be
Douglas Lane Patey
Sophia Smith Professor of English, member of Smith's program in
the history of science and technology

The Emergence of the Modern Division between the Arts and the Sciences;
The Secret Life of Isaac Newton, Alchemist
Howard Allen Nenner
Roe/Straut Professor Emeritus in the Humanities
Future of the British Monarchy; Elizabeth I’s Refusal to Marry; Regicide and
Memory;
The Execution of Charles I
 
 

Italian Language and Literature

barrier
 
Giovanna Bellesia
Professor of Italian language and literature
Italian Women Writers; Immigrant Women Writers in Italy Today;
Translation Theory and Practice
 
 

Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature

barrier
 
Justin Cammy
Assistant professor of Jewish studies, comparative literature,
Middle East studies; director, program in Jewish studies

Israel at 60: Zionism Then and Now; The New Anti-Semitism; Report from
the Cultural Frontier: Yiddish in America; Book discussion:
The Yiddish
Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon
 
 

Landscape Studies

barrier
 
Ann Leone '71
Professor of French studies and landscape studies
Reading Literary Gardens; Every Fourth Household: Vernacular Gardens
in Northampton; From Jane Austen to Engineering: Landscape Studies
at Smith
 
 

Latin American and Latina/o Studies

barrier
 
Ginetta E.B. Candelario
Associate professor of sociology and Latin American studies
Not Just Pin Curls and Perms: The American Beauty Shop and Women’s
Community
 
 

Libraries

barrier
 
Martin Antonetti
Curator of rare books
Collecting Rare Books; New Acquisitions to the Mortimer Rare Book Room;
Book Arts at Smith; History of Printing, Bookbinding, and Papermaking; Using
Rare Books in the Curriculum at Smith
 
Christopher B. Loring
Director of libraries
With the Internet, Why Libraries?; From Books to Bytes
 
Sherrill Redmon
Head of the Sophia Smith Collection, coordinator of special collections
Creating Women’s History, a video about the origins and mission of the Sophia
Smith Collection of Women’s History, Manuscripts and Archives;
Voices of
Feminism, oral history project
 
Nanci A. Young
College archivist
History of the College; Women of Color at Smith; Photography on Campus
 
 

Mathematics & Statistics

barrier
 
Pau Atela
Professor of mathematics and statistics
Art and Mathematics: The Case for MathStudio, An Ongoing Creative Studio
Space Focusing On Process and Dialog About Art and Mathematic
 
David Warren Cohen
Professor of mathematics and statistics
Teaching Mathematics as a Language; Current Reforms in Math Education
at the College Level; Mathematics as the Language of Nature
 
Katherine Taylor Halvorsen
Professor of mathematics and statistics
Consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act: Nationwide Standards
for the Kindergarten to Twelfth-Grade Mathematics Curriculum
 
Nicholas Jon Horton
Associate professor of mathematics and statistics

What Your Physician Should Know About Statistics (But Perhaps Doesn’t);
Maternal In?uenza and Schizophrenia: Teasing Out Interacting Causes;
Quantitative Literacy: What Every Smith Alumna Should Know
 
 

Music

barrier
 
Judith Gordon
Assistant professor of music
Informal performance and lively conversation; solo piano and/or duo
programs with members of the Smith Chamber Ensemble; wide range
of repertoire available (grand piano needed)
 
Jonathan Hirsh
Senior lecturer, director of orchestral and choral activities
All groups available to perform (certain conditions apply)
 
Monica Jakuc
Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor Emerita of Music
Women Composers Then and Now; Lecture recital of solo piano music
(grand piano needed)
 

Joel Pitchon
Associate professor of music
Robert and Clara Schumann: Music, Romance, and Marriage: A Revealing
Look at
Their Letters; performances of piano; string trios; the “Kreutzer”
Sonata for Violin and Piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, includes a lecture
and a performance of the piece (a piano is required); the third and last
sonata for violin and piano by Robert Schumann

 
William Petrie Wittig
Professor emeritus of music
American Music and Art (20th Century); What’s New (and Not!) about Pop Music
 
 

Philosophy

barrier
 
Jay L. Garfield
Doris Silbert Professor of Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy, Cross-Cultural Interpretation: Smith’s Exchange Program
with the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies; The Role of Pretense in
Children’s Cognitive Development
 
Albert Mosley
Professor of philosophy
African Philosophy; African American Philosophy; Animal Rights; Philosophy
of Technology
 
 

Physics

barrier
 
Piotr Decowski
Professor of physics
Big Bang – The Beginning of Everything
 
Nalini Easwar
Professor of physics
The Physics of Sand: Your Visit to the Beach Will Never Be the Same
 
Gary Felder
Associate professor of physics
Einstein’s Legacy: A New Vision of Space and Time; The Big Bang and
the Expanding Universe; Beyond the Big Bang: What We Know About the
Early Universe; If Only I Had a Brane: Life in More Than Three Dimensions
 
Malgorzata Z. Pfabé
Sophia Smith Professor of Physics
Nuclear Physics: Its History, Major Players, and Nuclear Power
 
 

Psychology

barrier
 
Peter A. de Villiers
Sophia and Austin Smith Professor of Psychology
Autism Spectrum Disorders: Myths and Mysteries (And a Few Answers
From Recent Research)
 
Randy O. Frost
Harold Edward and Elsa Siipola Israel Professor of Psychology
Book discussion: Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things,
by
Randy Frost and Gail Steketee; Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive
Saving, Acquiring, and Hoarding, by Randy Frost, Gail Steketee and David Tolin
 
Maureen Mahoney
Dean of the college, adjunct professor of psychology
Book discussion: The Spiral Staircase, by Karen Armstrong
 
Philip K. Peake
Professor of psychology
Longitudinal Consequences of Preschool Self-Control, 30-Year Study
 
 

Religion / Biblical Literature

barrier
 
Joel S. Kaminsky
Professor of religion, co-director of Jewish studies
Humor in the Bible; Narrative Art in the Bible; Divine Favoritism in the
Bible; The Rabbinic View of Immortality; Early Jewish Biblical
Interpretation; Jewish-Christian Dialogue; The Treatment of the Other
in the Bible and Early Rabbinic Literature; Sibling Rivalry in the Bible;
Book discussion:
Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept
of Election, by Joel S. Kaminsky
 
Suleiman Ali Mourad
Professor of religion, faculty director of the Global Studies Center
Islamic and Middle East History, Religion, and Culture; Muhammad;
the Qur’an; Jesus in the Qur’an and Islamic Thought; Jerusalem in Islam;
Symbolism of Jerusalem in Islam; Muslim Reactions to the Crusades;
Islam and Modernity
; Jihad; Global Studies at Smith
 
Andy Rotman
Associate professor of religion
Can talk about religion, culture, politics, and film of the region (India specialist);
Book discussion: Thus Have I Seen: Visualizing Faith in Early Indian Buddhism;
Divine Stories, Translations from the Divyavadana, Part 1, by Andy Rotman
 
Jennifer Walters
Dean of religious life
Book discussion: The Ten-Year Nap, by Meg Wolitzer; The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard
 
 

School of Social Work

barrier
 
Mary F. Hall
Professor and licensed independent clinical social worker
The Legacy of Slavery; Ending Racism: The Work Ahead; Substance
Abuse in Women
 
Carolyn Jacobs
Dean of the School for Social Work, Elizabeth Marting Treuhaft
Professor

Spirituality: Transformative Moments in Life Stories; Finding Hope:  The Role
of
Spirituality in Responding to Trauma
 
 

Sciences

barrier
 
Thomas S. Litwin
Director of the Clark Science Center
1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced; Science in the Liberal Arts:
Curriculum and Construction for the 21st Century; Women in Science: Much
Accomplished, Much to Do
 
 

Sociology

barrier
 
Rick Fantasia
Director of the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute, Barbara Richmond
1940 Professor in the Social Sciences

Alchemy for the Intellect: The Transformative Powers of the Kahn Institute;
War of the Worlds: Fast Food Meets Haute Cuisine in France; The Moral Basis
of a Predatory Society or Social Inequality for Fun and Profit: New Forms of
Exploitation for a New Century
 
Peter Isaac Rose
Sophia Smith Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology;
senior fellow, Kahn Institute

Smith Clones in the Netherlands: The College as a Model for Reforming
Higher Education in Europe;
Making a Difference: William Allan Neilson
and the Rescue of Refugee Intellectuals; With Few Reservations: Readings
from Guest Appearances and Other Travels in Time and Space
; Is
Anti-Immigration the New Racism? Notes from the U.S. and Europe
 
 

Spanish and Portuguese

barrier
 
Maria Estela Harretche
Professor of Spanish and Portuguese
Spanish Poetry in Exile: Power of the Memory; Magic Realism: From Page
to Stage; Federico Garcia Lorca, Playwright: Hidden and Revealed
 
Reyes Lázaro
Associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese
The "Caricatsculpture" of Captain Dreyfus in Paris
 
 

Theatre

barrier
 
Andrea Hairston '74
L. Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and professor of
Afro-American studies

How Do We Conjure the Wondrous World We Believe In? Researching
and Writing
Redwood and Wildfire, An Historical Novel; The Magic If:
Speculative Theatre and Film from
RUR to Avatar; Minstrel Shows from
Daddy Rice to Big Momma’s House-American Popular Culture’s Long
Running Hits; Realist Historical Novel about Turn of the 20th Century
Theatre and Film Artists in Georgia and Chicago
 
Ellen W. Kaplan
Professor, theatre chair, director of Jewish studies
Crossing Borders: Making Theatre in China; Under the Gun: Dramatic
Narrative in Zones of Conflict; Theatre in Israel
 
Daniel Elihu Kramer
Assistant professor of theatre
Updating the Classics; Theatre and the Liberal Arts; Shakespeare on Film
 
 

Women's Studies

barrier
 
Martha A. Ackelsberg
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government, professor of the study
of women and gender

Who's Political? Whose Politics? Reflections on Contemporary Democracy;
Who Votes? Who Cares?; Globalization Comes Home: Community Activism
at the U.S.-Mexico Border; Making Democracy Work: Women's Community A
ctivism and the Reconceptualization of Democratic Theory; Teaching about the
Politics of Wealth and Poverty
 
Marilyn R. Schuster
Provost and dean of the faculty, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in
the Humanities

Women Writers: Portraits and Self-Portraits (Writers such as Colette, Marguerite
Duras, Jane Rule, and Margaret Atwood); Rethinking Sexuality: Lesbian and
Gay Rights Movements before 1960 (De Martin and Phyllis Lyon The Daughters
of Bilitis and The Ladder; Resistance in an Age of Repression)
 
Susan R. Van Dyne
Chair, program for the study of women and gender
Sylvia Plath ’55 and Ted Hughes; Contemporary American Women Poets;
Telling Stories, Reading Lives; Women’s Studies and Citizenship in a Global
World; Memoirs of Difference: Claiming the Right to Write;
Book discussion:
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood; The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields;
The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters