UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Center for Global Studies (CGS) will continue to host the Brown Bag Lecture Series this fall. The lectures will all take place on select Wednesdays in 463 Burrowes Building and will run from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.
The lectures will highlight faculty and graduate research in global fields. All are welcome to attend and enjoy light refreshments of cookies, tea and coffee. For the fall 2016 semester, the center will host the following speakers:
—Sept. 14: “Fifty Shades of Zionism: Iranian Jews and Israel” by Lior Sternfeld, assistant professor of history and Jewish studies. His talk will focus on the role of Zionism in the Iranian-Jewish society, political activism and ideologies. Zionism was a movement that established a homeland, Israel, for Jews. Sternfeld is currently researching “third-worldism” along with completing his first book about the Twentieth Century Jewish integration in Iran.
—Sept. 21: “Currents of Silver and Silk in Asia’s Stormy Seas: A Re-Mapping of the Evolution of Maritime Trade in the Western Pacific, 1673-1690” by Ryan Holroyd, doctoral candidate in dual-title Asian studies and history. His talk will focus on the transition between the Zheng family’s domination of East Asia’s trading networks prior to 1684 and the following period of “open ocean” for Chinese merchants. His dissertation is on the economic, political and technological factors that make up the East Asia trading network and its evolution.
—Sept. 28: “Phonetic Alignment in English as a lingua franca: Effects of Style, Proficiency, and Native Language Influence” by Grant Berry, doctoral student in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. His talk will focus on situations where interlocutors are non-native speakers using English as a lingua franca. His research is focused on sociodemographic and cognitive behavior factors linking individuals to their communities.
—Oct. 19: “An Algebra to Support Information Exchange between Organizations with Different Rhythms” by Carla Lage, an ABD doctoral student in the IST Department. Her talk will focus on her proposed information model that predicts the time for information exchange between two military organizations acting in disaster relief operations. Her interest stems from her military rank of being Commander in the Brazilian Navy.
—Nov. 16: “Pedagogia del estudiante: Human Rights Pedagogies and Argentine Literature” by Molly Appel, doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature. Her talk will focus on the human rights violations, their remembrance and the rhetoric around students in the time period before and during el Proceso (the Dirty War). Her talk will also feature Argentine literary and cultural views. Her interest stems from her copious years surrounded by literature in the classroom and her research.
For a complete listing of the Center for Global Studies’ events, visit their website at http://cgs.la.psu.edu.