Talk to Me
The public is welcome at many lectures and talks on campus
Brenda Neece has big plans for the coming year — and you're invited.
Neece, the curator for the Duke University Musical Instrument Collection, has organized a series of Friday afternoon programs featuring artists who will perform on rare or early instruments.
Over at the John Hope Franklin Center, Christina Chia has plans, too. She's organizing Wednesdays at the Center — a series of lunchtime talks that brings in scholars from around the world to chat about contemporary issues.
A selected list of ongoing lecture series at Duke
• ‑Corporate leaders give talks on select Tuesdays, 10:30-11:30 a.m., Fuqua's Geneen Auditorium The Dean's Office of the Fuqua School of Business
Faculty Lives in Public Service
• ‑Usually one lunchtime meeting per semester. School of Law, Public Interest Program
• ‑Meet artists and hear gallery talks. Cash bar. Nasher Museumof Art
• Presentations engaging diverse perspectives on the genome revolution. Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy
• ‑Innovative social science research, Mondays, 6 p.m., Erwin Mill. Light supper served, RSVP required. Social Science Research Institute
• ‑Examining our changing notion of what it means to be human. Frans B. M. de Waal, Emory University, will speak on Thursday, Nov. 8, at 4 p.m. The Office of the Provost
• ‑Student-sponsored series, one or two lectures per semester. The Office of the Provost
• ‑Once a month beginning Sept. 14 in Perkins Library's Rare Book Room. Duke Musical Instrument Collections and Duke University Libraries
• ‑Examining race, ethnicity and gender. Third Thursday of the month, noon, Erwin Mill, RSVP required. Center for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Gender in the Social Sciences (REGSS)
• ‑Generally held Fridays at lunchtime at the Levine Science Research Center building. Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions
• ‑Begins Sept. 12. Lunch provided; parking vouchers for Medical Center parking deck. John Hope Franklin Center
The Nasher Museum of Art opens its galleries the first Thursday evening of each month and invites the public to sip wine and meet with artists and local luminaries.
At a campus where the daily calendar is filled with scholarly talks, Duke has always made room for lectures and programs that reach out to a broader audience. From talks on art and film to environmental policy and genomics to this year's Provost's Lecture Series "On Being Human," there are many programs of interest to people in the community. (See accompanying article for a selected list.)
Each Duke lecture series has a feel of its own. The music talks, for example, give visitors a chance to hear instruments rarely played and the musicians who play them. The venue is Perkins Library's Rare Book Room, one of the campus' most charming sites.
Wednesdays at the Center, on the other hand, is known for its catered lunches and provocative discussions in the center's main seminar room. During the Nasher events, participants mingle, socialize and hear about art against the backdrop of the museum's popular collections. And the Provost's Lecture Series is noted for talks from nationally known scholars who explain for a public audience the latest research on important social topics.
Neece says she expects her lecture series, which is co-sponsored by Duke University Libraries, to draw interest from the community.
"The programs are designed to have much more interaction than a regular concert," Neece says. "[The series] isn't geared just for students or just for faculty or just for the public — we try to make it accessible for everyone."
One highlight will be in November, when the music series will host Mamadou Diabate, a griot (musician and storyteller) from Mali who lives in Durham. He will demonstrate how to play a kora, a traditional stringed instrument made from a gourd. He will be joined by his 9-year-old son. "The griot tradition is passed down from father to son," Neece says, "and the son is going to bring the little kora he's made and play it."
The Provost's Lecture Series — which is in its third year — this year explores how advances in neuroscience, genomics, robotics and artificial intelligence are changing our notion of "human nature."
In November, the series will host Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal, who studies how chimpanzees and monkeys resolve conflicts and the origin of morality and justice among humans.
Like Neece, Chia says her series, Wednesdays at the Center, is meant to draw a mix of people to the center to engage in its mission of addressing important contemporary issues.
"It's a series that really casts a wide net and attracts different kinds of people to the center," says Chia, who is assistant director of programs and communications at the Franklin Humanities Institute. She co-coordinates the lecture series with Pamela Gutlon, director of operations at the John Hope Franklin Center.
Chia says topics often relate to the arts or humanities, but not always. In September, Yvette Christiansë, a scholar and novelist, will discuss the work of Toni Morrison and the treatment of slavery in American literature.
Like the other talks, this lecture offers a chance to hear experts on an engaging topic. And sometimes there's even a free lunch.