Events
Each academic year the Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty offers a variety of lectures, luncheons and faculty development sessions that feature Smith faculty and visiting professors.
Liberal Arts Luncheons
Liberal Arts Luncheons are sponsored by the Provost and Dean of the Faculty. LALs will be held on Thursdays in the Neilson Browsing Room, unless otherwise noted. Talks begin at approximately 12:10 p.m., and a complimentary lunch is offered for the first 40 attendees (first come, first served).
Date |
Talk |
Presenter |
|---|---|---|
September 18 |
Crisis Pregnancy Centers Post-Dobbs |
Carrie Baker, Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Chair of American Studies and Professor of the Study of Women and Gender Studies |
September 25 |
Truth for the Rest of Us |
Chris Rahlwes, Lecturer of Philosophy |
October 2 |
What Is Going on in Paradise Pond and How it Impacts Macroinvertebrates in the Mill River |
Marney Pratt, Senior Laboratory Instructor of Biological Sciences |
October 9 |
Early Steps in Climate Science: the Forgotten Feat of Eunice Newton Foote |
Nat Fortune, Professor of Physics |
October 16 |
Arts Afield Faculty Fellows: Summer 2025 |
Michele Wick, Lecturer of Psychology; Joanne Benkley, Associate Director of CEEDS |
October 23 |
The Oxford Roots of the American Renaissance |
Michael Thurston, Helen Means Professor of English Language & Literature |
November 13 |
Koreatown, NYC: The Consumption of a Transnational Brand |
Jinwon Kim, Assistant Professor of Sociology |
November 20 |
Design a Team-taught Learning Community in an Hour |
Ileana Vasu, Senior Lecturer of Mathematical Sciences |
Sigma Xi Luncheons
Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, meets regularly for talks and a complimentary lunch throughout the year. Talks are open to all faculty, staff and students.
Talks begin at approximately 12:10 p.m. in McConnell Auditorium. A complimentary lunch is offered in McConnell Foyer. Please visit the Sigma Xi website for the schedule.
Faculty Development Events
The Office of the Provost offers a variety of faculty development workshops and events throughout the year. Please visit the office’s Faculty Development webpage for the schedule.
Lectures
Charles Walker
Neilson Professorship
The Neilson Professorship was established in honor of the college’s third president to enable the college to have eminent scholars or artists whose work has broad intellectual appeal visit the community and share their current research with faculty and students.
Valerie Traub
Ruth and Clarence Kennedy Visiting Professor
Spring 2025
Valerie Traub is the Adrienne Rich Distinguished University Professor Emerita of English and women’s and gender studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns (2015), The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England (2002), and Desire & Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama (1992, reissued 2014). Both Thinking Sex and The Renaissance of Lesbianism won the Best Book award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women. In addition, she has edited several collections, including The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment (2016), which received the Ronald H. Bainton Prize for Best Reference Work in 2016. Her latest co-edited collection is Ovidian Transversions: Iphis and Ianthe, 1350–1650, while forthcoming is another co-edited collection, Reproductive Justice After Roe: Lessons from the Premodern Classroom. Her current project is Mapping Humanity in the Early Modern West: Classification, Norms, Biopolitics, which examines how gender, race, and sexuality in cartographic and anatomical illustration comprise a prehistory of the concept of the normal.
The Engel Lectureship is granted annually to a Smith faculty member who has made a significant contribution to his or her field. The lecture was established in 1958 by the National Council of Jewish women in honor of Engel, its onetime president and a 1920 Smith graduate. The 2025 Engel Lecturer will be Mary Harrington.
