Ian Urbina, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist and author of Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier, will deliver the Abel Lecture on April 26, 2022, at 7:00 PM, on the topic of “Migrants and Mercenaries on the Outlaw Ocean: A Discussion of EU Efforts to Build a Virtual Wall Across the Mediterranean.” The talk will be followed by a panel discussion and ample time for audience questions.

This presentation is sponsored by the Dr. Harold Abel Endowed Lecture Series in the Study of Dictatorship, Democracy and Genocide and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Central Michigan University. A registration link and other details will be available soon.

This presentation examines causes of the crisis, real as well as imagined, in the Horn of Africa. The region, which includes Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia, had been sizzling and continues to do so due to multitudes of problems: boundary conflict, ethnonationalist aspirations, Nile water politics, piracy, cold war, and post-cold war developments.

The region's strategic location along the Red Sea littoral and the Indian Ocean compounds its problem. Consequently, any difficulty in one of the countries in the region, besides engulfing the neighboring countries, often attracts the big powers. The latter: USA, France, Russia, China, Japan had already established their military and naval bases in Djibouti. As if this is not enough, Middle Eastern countries such as Quatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are clamoring to join the skirmish.

This public event will be streamed live via Webex. Registration is not required.

Award-winning children’s author Carole Lindstrom will discuss her career and her 2021 Caldecott Medal-winning book We Are Water Protectors. Lindstrom, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, wrote the book in response to the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She will talk about the book’s intent to be “an urgent rallying cry to safeguarding the Earth’s water from harm and corruption.”

Clarke Historical Library Speaker Series

Register for this online event

Jim Diana, retired director of the Michigan Sea Grant Program and a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, officially opens the Clarke Historical Library’s “Abundant Waters” exhibit with a discussion about the effectiveness of Great Lakes environmental regulations in protecting this incredible ecosystem.

Register for this online event

Abundant Waters: Our Relationship with Michigan’s Most Abundant Resource

Exhibit at the Clarke Historical Library, opening Feburary 2022

CMU International Film Festival, Opperman Auditorium, Park Library, 6:30 PM

Water Justice With Dr. Mona: The Frontlines of the Flint Water Crisis, the Effects of Mistrust in Government on Vaccine Hesitancy, and the Importance of Being Civically Engaged

RSVP today to join the Mary Ellen Brandell Volunteer Center for a cross-campus collaboration to bring CMU students the story of Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician, professor, and public health advocate whose research exposed the Flint water crisis.

Dr. Mona will join the CMU community on February 16th in Plachta Auditorium, Warriner Hall at 5:30 p.m. for a moderated conversation and Q&A to discuss water justice in Michigan, how mistrust in government has lead to vaccine hesitency, and the importance of being active members of your community.

All attendees will receive a FREE copy of Dr. Mona's best selling medical thriller, What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistence, and Hope in an American City, while supplies last.

This event is sponsored by Central Michigan University, the Office of Residence Life, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Eta Sigma Gamma Public Health Honorary, and Program Board. This event is supported by the Honors Program, the Sarah R. Opperman Leadership Institute, the College of Medicine, and Residence Housing Association.

All water is connected. Join us for an evening of dialogs giving thanks and celebrating water as well as a showing a series of short films amplifying the importance of water. Artists: Sharon Day, Ty Defoe, and Kate Freer share their dedication to the vital life force of water. Moderated by English faculty member Ari Berk.

We encourage you to register your attendance in advance. Live transcription will be available. This event is sponsored by the Olga J. and G. Roland Denison Visiting Professorship of Native American Studies and the Critical Engagements initiative.

Join us for a book discussion with Angeline Boulley, author of Firekeeper's Daughter. For more information, email Christi Brookes or call 989-774-3341. Sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, the Critical Engagements initiative, and the Olga J. and G. Roland Denison Visiting Professorship of Native American Studies. Seating is limited in French Auditorium. Registration is required only for the WebEx event.

Film showing and panel discussion with Cedric Taylor, Itzel Marquez, and Cathy Willermet

During Spring of 2020, the village of Sanford, Michigan was impacted by catastrophic flooding caused by two mid-Michigan dam failures.

In partnership with the Central Michigan University College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, “The Sanford Voices Project” documents the personal histories of those affected by the disaster, and how they are recovering from it. When disaster struck this village, the community’s strength and resilience demonstrated that Sanford is Strong.

Sanford Village President, Dolores Porte; homeowner Glenn Moots; and Connie Methner, business owner, will discuss the experiences they had during the flood and the recovery process. Join us in the CMU Park Library Auditorium at 7 p.m. on September 16th for an evening of conversations and an exclusive advance screening of "The Sanford Voices Project" film.

This in-person event will be following CMU's COVID and masking guidelines. Please refer to the CMU Health & Wellness page for more details.

A virtual exhibition of stories, art, and research about how big water events have impacted people in Michigan.

Opening September 2021: View the virtual exhibition

This exhibition is co-sponsored by Central Michigan University Libraries and the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries, and is made possible by a grant from the American Library Association.

Join us for a virtual conversation with author and illustrator Art Spiegelman, who created the Pulitzer Prize winning Holocaust narrative Maus, portraying Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. The book weaves Spiegelman's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into a retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. The book offers an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma. 

Art Spiegelman will share images from Maus and discuss how they relate to today’s context at home and around the world. Following the presentation, audience members are invited to participate in a Q&A session with the author. 

Sponsored by the Dr. Harold Abel Endowed Lecture Series in the Study of Dictatorship, Democracy and Genocide and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Critical Engagements initiative.

About Art Spiegelman

Having rejected his parents’ aspirations for him to become a dentist, Art Spiegelman studied cartooning in high school and began drawing professionally at age 16. He went on to study art and philosophy at Harpur College. As creative consultant for Topps Bubble Gum Co. from 1965-1987, Spiegelman created Wacky Packages, Garbage Pail Kids and other novelty items. He taught history and aesthetics of comics at the School for Visual Arts in New York from 1979-1986. In 2007 he was a Heyman Fellow of the Humanities at Columbia University where he taught a Masters of the Comics seminar. In 1980, Spiegelman founded RAW, the acclaimed avant-garde comics magazine, with his wife, Françoise Mouly. Maus was originally serialized in the pages of RAW. He and Mouly more recently co-edited Little Lit, a series of three comics anthologies for children, and publish a series of early readers called Toon Books—picture books in comics format. In 2011, Spiegelman won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, marking only the third time an American has received the honor. In 2018 he received the Edward MacDowell Medal, the first-ever Edward MacDowell Medal given in comic art. 

Autism is an extraordinarily contested condition. To some, it is a devastating disease; to others, it is a valued aspect of identity. Young people growing up with an autism spectrum diagnosis face the task of reconciling these two seemingly incompatible understandings of their condition, in the context of their own developing identities. How do they do it, and what can we learn from their creativity and wisdom?

Based on several years of ethnographic fieldwork with youth on the autism spectrum, their families, and the professionals who work with them, this talk will explore the way people affected by autism spectrum conditions negotiate the meanings of these diagnoses in the spaces where they live, work, play, and love in their everyday lives. Medicalized understandings of autism as damaging disease or as hardwired neurogenetic identity are insufficient to capture the full meanings of autism as it is lived – the way it brings both vulnerability and strength, creates both alienation and community, and constitutes the self while also profoundly disrupting it. Instead, youth on the spectrum draw on an alternative shared mythology out of fantasy literature, video games and other speculative fictions to conceptualize their condition, re-envisioning themselves as mutant, hybrid, permeable creatures. In doing so, they invite us to transcend the limitations of our bounded bodies, imagining a broader and more inclusive conception of what it means to be ourselves. 

Elizabeth Fein is an assistant professor of psychology at Duquesne University and author of Living on the Spectrum: Autism and Youth in Community (NYU Press, 2020). A licensed clinical psychologist and psychological anthropologist, she is the co-editor of Autism in Translation: An Intercultural Conversation on Autism Spectrum Conditions (Palgrave, 2018). Her presentation is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Critical Engagements initiative.

Faculty from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration discuss the historic events of the past week and take questions from the audience on topics covering constitutional law, rebellions, and the 25th amendment. Our panel of experts include former state representative David Rutledge, CMU's Robert and Marjorie Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government, department chairperson David Jesuit, and faculty member Kyla Stepp, J.D.

This panel discussion is presented as part of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Critical Engagements initiative, which strives to bring difficult topics forward for community education and discussion, including this year's theme, "What Does It Mean to Be Human?"

• Join the virtual discussion on Webex

• Open event flyer - Capitol Discussion

Our first featured event for Critical Engagements is the virtual opening of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls exhibition at the Ziibiwing Center on September 25, 2020. Information is below.

Recent name-calling features angry disputes about what is factual and what is fake. Making sense of these claims and counterclaims requires us to think about the social processes by which truth and fakery are determined. Joel Best is a Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He is a former editor of the journal Social Problems and a past-president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. He has published more than 25 books and received the American Sociological Association’s Public Understanding of Sociology Award in 2016 

Sponsored by Critical Engagements, the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, the Department of Journalism, and the Department of Psychology.

→ Open event flier

Please join us on Tuesday, February 18 for “Climate Denial Isn’t About Science: Like Fake News It’s a Symptom, Not a Cause,” a presentation by Dr. Alan Rudy.

For all those whose boats were floated—and for many more who aspired to rise—during the post-war period from 1945 to 1985, free inquiry, free elections and free markets were each understood as positive forces and each was seen as checking and balancing the negative tendencies of the others. Science wars, culture wars, and comments pages are manifestations of a perfectly reasonable loss of faith in the social foundations of those individual freedoms. Without a shared effort to re-establish trust in scientific experts, political representatives and economic elites, explaining science and facts to denialists and those committed to fake news will get us nowhere.

Alan Rudy is associate professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Central Michigan University. His research interests include the areas of hybrid environmental social theory, the overlapping politics of nature, labor and community and regional agricultural studies. 

Sponsored by the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work and Critical Engagements.

Wes Lowery is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist for The Washington Post, a CNN political contributor, the author of They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement (2016), which describes his experiences while reporting on the 2016 Ferguson unrest and also chronicles the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

This event is free and open to the public and will also be available on our livestream starting a few minutes before 7:00 PM. Sponsored by the Department of Journalism, the College of Arts and Media, and Critical Engagements.

→ Open event flyer

The placebo effect has long been seen as a kind of “fake news” of the medical world: intentionally deceptive medicine that happens somehow to have real results. But could placebos in fact be a sort of fake news patients tell themselves?

Recent research on the placebo effect shows that there can be a positive therapeutic result even when the patient is fully informed of the placebo’s inert content. The medical literature refers to such placebos as “open-label placebos.” Traditionally, objections to placebo use center on the apparent requirement of some degree of deception in their application, which violates requirements on respect for patient autonomy. But do open-label placebos involve some form of deception? The question this paper pursues is whether open-label placebos imply self-deception. If so, is this ethically problematic? The paper concludes by speculating about the implications of the relation between self-deception and autonomy for clinical medicine in general.

 Free and open to the public.  Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religion.

Please join us on November 20 to learn more about the role of social media in spreading “fake news” and the psychology behind why we believe untrue messages. After a screening of the PBS special The Facebook Dilemma, CMU psychology faculty members Sarah Domoff, Kimberly O'Brien, Kyle Scherr, and experimental psychology graduate student Brian Kissell will lead a panel discussion. November 20, 6:00–8:00 PM, Anspach 162.

Sponsored by the Department of Psychology and Critical Engagements. For more information, contact Christi Brookes at 989-774-3341 or brook1nc@cmich.edu.

Please join us on November 14 for a presentation by Tom Henry, former student reporter for CM Life and now an award-winning environmental-energy writer and reporter for the Toledo Blade, on “The Intersection of Environmental Reporting and Fake News.” Thursday, November 14, 7:00 PM, Baber Room, Park Library, Central Michigan University.

Sponsored by the Clarke Historical Library and Critical Engagements.

Join us for a discussion on how CMU faculty are researching what happens in the public sphere, how consumers react to digital advertising, the impact of presidential rhetoric, Fake News and conspiracy on YouTube, and other matters. Panelists include:

• Dr. Edward Hinck

• Dr. Jinhee Lee

• Dr. Shelly Hinck

• Dr. Zulfia Zaher

Contact: Dr. Ed Simpson, simps1e@cmich.edu, (989) 774-3196

Visiting professor of history Lutz Budrass (University of Bochum) reviews the whitewashing of national histories, including a discussion about how the history of the German aircraft industry has been manipulated to conceal the participation of aircraft industrialists in Nazi crimes. Dr. Budrass is a Senior Lecturer in Social, Economic, and Technological History at the Ruhr-University of Bochum who has published widely in the military, industrial, and business history of modern Germany and Europe. He is teaching in the Department of History as an Erasmus exchange professor in fall 2019, and was also a visiting exchange professor at CMU in 2010.

Sponsored by the CMU Department of History and Critical Engagements.

→ Open event flier (PDF)

Join the CLASS Excellence in Teaching and Learning Committee (ETLC) for an interactive workshop. This year, the ETLC is considering the president’s call for programs that display “rigor, relevance, and excellence,” particularly in light of this year’s Critical Engagements theme of “Fake News: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?”

Our first workshop describes an assignment in Dr. Rachael Barron-Duncan’s African Art course which tackles a common internet conundrum: the most “relevant” and popular sources often lack rigor and excellence. Looking at the misinformation or complete dearth of information on English-language Wikipedia regarding African visual culture, Dr. Barron-Duncan’s students have set about to supply the expertise needed to curate those pages in an academically responsible way.

Join us to discuss an example of how discipline-based content assignments can build source-analysis and critical-thinking skills. Refreshments will be served. 

Join Central Michigan University faculty members for a seminar-style discussion about the impeachment inquiry into President Trump and whether it’s a real possibility. Department of Political Science and Public Administration faculty members Kyla Stepp and Jeremy Castle will facilitate the discussion. Coffee and cookies will be provided.

Contact: David Jesuit, (989) 774-2795 or david.jesuit@cmich.edu

Please join us on October 8 for a presentation by Andrew Wehrman (Department of History, CMU), entitled “D’oh! Pioneers: Unraveling Founding Myths with a Twitter Thread.” With only a little help from Lisa Simpson, Dr. Wehrman will offer a historian’s perspective on truth, fiction, and the stories we tell about who we are and where we came from. Sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and the Isabella County Historical Society.

This event will be held on October 8, 2019, at 7:00 PM in Anspach Hall 162.

→ Open event flier (PDF)

• Dr. Wehrman’s Twitter thread

• David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019)

• The Simpsons, season 7, episode 16, “Lisa the Iconoclast”