Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Science Salon & Humanities Hour

Lectures at Lunch for Staff

There is remarkable research and scholarship that surrounds us every day at Northwestern University. Weinberg College staff members host an ongoing series of faculty talks given especially for staff where there is plenty of opportunity to ask questions, discuss, and learn about what the scholars we work with do, and the new knowledge that they create.

Past Events 2023-24:

• Monday, November 6 from Noon - 1:00 PM with Professor Jim Hornsten (Department of Economics)
  • This event will be IN PERSON, in Tech L158. 
  • Gorgers at the All-You-Can-Stream Buffet: Society voraciously consumes movies, TV shows, and music via streaming services (e.g., Netflix and Spotify) that have proliferated in recent years. We ponder on-demand entertainment and its basis in the economics of recording technologies, digitization, platforms, bundling, and the long tail distribution of value across immense catalogs of copyrighted content. 

• Friday, November 30 from Noon - 1:00 PM with Professor Jeffrey Coleman (Department of Spanish & Portuguese. 
  • This event will be IN PERSON, in Kresge 1515 and requires an RSVP. 
  • Uncorking Tensions: Cava, Catalonia, and the Search for Authenticity: Cava, Spain’s response to Champagne, has largely been a global success story since its invention in 1872 in the Penedès región of Catalonia. Since 2012 the region has gone from having one sparkling wine appellation to four (Cava, Conca del Riu Anoia, Clàssic Penedès, and CORPINNAT) due to disagreements about what constitutes a high-quality, authentic sparkling wine, with each defending their philosophy as then most connected to the land. The logic that each appellation uses to define itself relies on definitions of terroir and authenticity that ultimately connote a sense of place and identity that is then exported around Catalonia, Spain, and the world. In this presentation, Dr. Coleman will examine the fracturing and restructuring of the Cava appellation as a proxy for the tensions between Catalonia and Spain as the divisions within the Catalan sparkling wine industry mirror the cultural and political divides occurring today.
  • This is event is Co-sponsored by Weinberg Mentors

• Wednesday, January 31 from Noon - 1:00 PM with Professor Deborah Cohen (Department of History)
  • This event will be IN PERSON, University Hall, Hagstrum Room
  • Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: explores the lives of four journalists who reported from Europe and Asia during the lead-up to World War II. 

• Wednesday, March 6 from Noon- 1:00 PM with Professor Katie Amato (Department of Anthropology)
  • This event will be IN PERSON in Kresge 1515. 

  • Understanding how microbes help wild primates survive: Wild primates live in environments where food availability, exposure to disease, and interactions with humans vary over time and space. Knowledge of how primates survive these challenges is critical for understanding their ecology, evolution, and conservation. The gut microbiota, the community of microbes living in the large intestine, is known to influence host nutrition, metabolism, immunity, and even stress response. Therefore, the types of gut microbes wild primates have could influence how they respond to environmental change. Here I present some of my work exploring the relationships between primates, their environments, and their gut microbiomes and their potential impact for understanding better primate survival.

• Thursday, April 18 from Noon - 1:00 PM with Professor Wendy Wall (Department of English)
  • This event will be IN PERSON in the Hagstrum Room at University Hall.
  • Pulter Project: Poet in the Making: which presents the scientific, religious, political, and personal poetry of seventeenth-century writer Hester Pulter.

Science Salon & Humanities Hour committee members:

• Amanda Bartosiak- Spanish and Portuguese
• Christy Bullion- Economics
• Beth Clifford Smith – Weinberg Administration
• Nancy Hickey – Anthropology
• Adrienne Mintz - Physics & Astronomy

For information contact: Nancy Hickey