Friday Forums Fall 2025
Lunch will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
September 5, 2025 (CUB 260)
Aaron Lacayo
A Haunting Legacy of Insults in Jayro Bustamante’s Guatemalan Film Trilogy: Ixcanul, Temblores & La Llorona
La Llorona (The Weeping Woman, 2019) completes Jayro Bustamante’s film trilogy on contemporary Guatemala, following Ixcanul (2015) and Temblores (Tremors, 2019). This talk considers the ways in which the three films epitomize what Bustamante calls “the three biggest insults” in Guatemalan society. These insults, related to Indigenous heritage, sexuality and political ideology, form part of the legacies of the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-96). The last film in the trilogy (La Llorona) also illustrates the enriching challenges of adapting the well-known Latin American folklore of La Llorona (“The Weeping Woman”) into a specific Guatemalan scenario: the search for justice in a nation haunted by silence, complicity, and impunity.
September 19, 2025 (CUB 260)
Rebecca He
Employee Wrongdoing and Moral Repair
Workplace wrongdoing represents a pervasive and costly challenge faced by managers and organizations. In addition to traditional punishment, management research has begun to explore other alternative ways (such as moral repair and restorative justice) to address employee wrongdoing. This presentation will talk about what moral repair is, and how and why managers attempt to facilitate the moral repair of offenders in the aftermath of workplace wrongdoing, as well as the beneficial (i.e., “bright side”) and negative or harmful (i.e., “dark side”) outcomes for the offender and the broader organization after managers engage in moral repair
October 3, 2025 (CUB 260)
Jennifer Dumont
Educator's Resources from the Council on Foreign Relations
In this talk, I will familiarize faculty and staff about the educator's resources produced by the Council on Foreign Relations and help them make cross-discriplinary connections in order to appeal to faculty from different divisions. This is a follow up to my attendance at the CFR Educator's Workshop in April 2025
October 17, 2025 (CUB260)
Alvaro Kaempfer
Why Languages?
Looking back at the role of college level language instruction and its place as a core component of higher education moving forward..
October 31, 2025 (CUB260)
Junjie Luo
Humanities Teaching and Artificial Intelligence
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools have become impossible to ignore in the teaching and learning of the humanities. Drawing on my own experience designing courses and crafting assignments around GenAI, I reflect on the opportunities and challenges these tools present. I explore how my students and I work to cultivate a deeper understanding of AI and to develop thoughtful approaches to collaborating with these technologies in the context of humanistic inquiry.to develop thoughtful approaches to collaborating with these technologies in the context of humanistic inquiry.
November 14, 2025 (CUB 260)
James Day
Meet Me in Soulsville
This forum will share the adventures and outcomes of the 2025 Inside Civil Rights trip, a collaboration between James Day, Traci Potts, Eisenhower Institute staff, and a group of eight students. The forum will focus primarily on exploration of two sites: Stax Records in Memphis, TN and Dreamland Ballroom in Little Rock, AR. At the time of its founding in 1960, Stax Records was among the few truly integrated spaces in Memphis and much of the South. Stax served as a nexus for community collaboration and expression that fostered the talents and careers of artists such as Rufus and Carla Thomas, Booker T. & the MG’s, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Isaac Hayes, thus earning the moniker “Soulsville, USA.” Dreamland Ballroom is in a once-thriving African American business district of West Ninth Street in Little Rock referred to as “The Line.” In its heyday, the Ballroom was an important space for religious, cultural, and artistic expression, and a source of economic growth until the district was destroyed by a misguided urban renewal program. Together these sites offer fascinating case studies in inclusive spaces and the importance of preserving them, thereby yielding lessons we can apply to our home communities now and for generations to come.
December 5, 2025 (CUB 260)
TBD