Faculty Seminars

The Voegelin Institute hosts a series of Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminars for LSU faculty and their guests.  If you are eligible and interested, please write us at voegelin@lsu.edu

Current Seminars

Fall 2024:

  • Friday, September 27, 2024 -- Gabriella Ray, Honors College & Voegelin Institute, "'Appealing to Heaven': the Status of Conscience in Locke's Epistemology and Political Philosophy"
  • Friday, October 25, 2024 -- Michelle Zerba, English and Classics, "Mystery and Esotericism: Transversality, Pseudepigraphy, and the Closed Secret in Neoplatonism, the Chaldean Oracles, and the Corpus Hermeticum"
  • Friday, November 22, 2024 -- A collaborative reading of Shakespeare's Coriolanus
 
Previous Seminars

2023-24:

  • Friday, May 3, 2024 — Julia Irwin, History, “The Politics of Disaster, the Politics of Aid: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the 20th Century World”

  • Friday, April 5, 2024 — A collaborative reading of Oscar Wilde’s play, An Ideal Husband

  • Friday, March 1, 2024 — Asher Gelzer-Govatos, Honors, “Narrative Leaps: Kierkegaard, World War II, and the Crisis of the Novel”

  • Friday, December 1, 2023 — Mark Wagner, Arabic, “The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Community in Modern Arabia”

  • Friday, November 3, 2023 — A collaborative reading of Vince LiCata’s play, “HIYA DOLLY!”

  • Friday, September 29, 2023 — Susan Grunewald, History, “Digital Humanities and Soviet-German World War II History”

2022-23:

  • Friday, March 31, 2023 — Husain Sarkar, Philosophy, “Can Virtue Ethics Save Us from Moral Nihilism?”

  • Friday, February 24, 2023 — Rosemary Peters-Hill, French Studies, “The Empire Maps Back — Oceania at Center Stage”

  • Friday, November 4, 2022 — Michelle Zerba, English and Classics, “Lightning in the Soul: Mystery and Translation in the Eleusinian Rites, the Dialogues of Plato, and Jewish Apocalypses”

  • Friday, October 7, 2022 — Aaron Sheehan-Dean, History, “What Civil Wars Mean: Lessons from the 17th and 19th Centuries”

2022 Shakespeare (Reading) Festival

  • Friday, May 6, 2022 — Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, with Suzanne Marchand (LSU)

2021-22 theme: Danger

  • Friday. March 4, 2022 — Aaron Beek, Classics (World Languages, Literatures and Cultures), “Links between Piracy and Mercenary Service in the Ancient Mediterranean”

  • Friday, February 18, 2022 — John Pizer, German (World Languages, Literatures and Cultures), “Historical Finitude plus Divine Transcendence: Temporality and ‘Double Origin’ in Herder’s Biblical Writing”

  • Friday, November 12, 2021 — Wesley Shrum, Sociology, “The Futility of Precaution: Locative Fear in the Pandemic Age”

  • Friday, September 24, 2021 — Don Chance, Finance, “Risk: The Origin and Evolution of an Idea”

2020-21 theme: Recovery

  • Friday, February 26, 2021 — Andreas Giger, Music, “The Unknown Music of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana”

  • Friday, January 22, 2021 — Alexander Orwin, Political Science, “Three Islamic Interpretations of Plato’s Republic“

  • Friday, November 20, 2020 — Will Mari, Manship School of Mass Communications, “‘Songs of the Craft’: Newsroom Work Poetry in Twentieth-Century American Journalism”

  • Friday, October 23, 2020 — Albert Watanabe, Foreign Languages & Literatures, “Modern Stoicism: Adapting an Ancient Philosophy to the 21st Century”

2019-20 Shakespeare (Reading) Festival

  • Friday, March 13, 2020 — Shakespeare’s Henry V, with Patrick Martin, LSU Law

2019-20 theme: Ancients and Moderns

  • Friday, January 24, 2020 — Adelaide Russo, French Studies, “Minor Preoccupations, Major Endeavors: The Community of Poets and Painters”

  • Friday, November 22, 2019 — John Pizer, Foreign Languages & Literatures, “Dream and Prophetic Projection in Andreas Gryphius’s Historical Tragedies: Traces of the Symbol”

  • Friday, October 25, 2019 — Suzanne Marchand, History, “Herodotus and the Egyptian Priests: A Modern Historiographical Hotspot”

2018-19 theme: Poetry & Art

  • Friday, March 22, 2019 — Gundela Hachmann, Foreign Languages & Literatures, “The Art of Presenting the Self in Lectures on Poetics”
  • Friday, January 25, 2019 — Darius Spieth, Art & Design, “‘Art by Numbers’: Rankings of Artists, the Art Historical Canon, and the Art Market”
  • Friday, November 16, 2018 — Kevin Cope, English, “The Lens of Time and the Rhythm of Observation:  Cosmological Verse of the Enlightenment”
  • Friday, October 19, 2018 — Raymond Stock, Foreign Languages & Literatures, “Naguib Mahfouz and the Nobel Prize: A Blessing or a Curse?”

2018-19 Shakespeare (Reading) Festival

  • Wednesday, February 13, 2019 — Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with James Shapiro (Columbia University)

Previous Years

2017-18 theme: Collaborative Knowledge

  • Friday, April 27, 2018 — Paul R. Baier, LSU Law Center, “An Afternoon with Justice Holmes”
  • Thursday, March 22, 2018 — John Pojman, Professor of Chemistry, “Polimera Gratia Artis: Polymers for Art”
  • Friday, March 9, 2018 — James Stoner, Professor of Political Science, “Aristotelian Update: Inventory and Prospectus“
  • Friday, December 1, 2017 — Christopher F. D’Elia, Professor and Dean, College of the Coast and Environment, “The Landmark Symbios Expedition to Enewetak Atoll”
  • Friday, November 17, 2017 — Patrick Martin, Professor of Law, Emeritus, “Falstaff’s Ransom and the Myth of Oldcastle”
  • Friday, October 27, 2017 — Husain Sarkar, Professor of Philosophy, “What Matters Ultimately, or How Demanding Can Morality Be?”
  • Friday, September 22, 2017 — Jack Hamilton, Hopkins P. Breazeale Professor of Journalism, “A Test of Loyalty: Propaganda and World War I”

2017-18 Shakespeare (Reading) Festival

  • Friday, February 16, 2018 — Shakespeare’s Tempest, with Chris Barrett (LSU)
  • Monday, September 11, 2017 — Sophocles’ Antigone, with Simon Goldhill (Cambridge)

2017 Shakespeare (Reading) Festival

2016-17 theme: “Beyond Secularism?”

  • Friday, February 10, 2017 — Bradley Storin, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, “The AutoHagioBiography of Gregory of Nazianzus”
  • Friday, January 20, 2017 — John Henderson, William R. and Letitia Bell Endowed Professor of History, “European and Chinese World Histories of Astronomy from Newton to Einstein”
  • November 18, 2016 — Christine Kooi, Professor of History, “Calvinism and War”
  • September 23, 2016 — Sherri Johnson, Assistant Professor of History, ““Diodata Malvasia: A Renaissance Nun and the Protection of the Virgin Mary””

2015-16 theme: “Classical Reception”

  • April 29, 2016 — Mary Sirridge, Professor of Philosophy. “Seneca: Anger, Mercy, and the Social Orientation”
  • January 22, 2016 — Kristopher Fletcher, Associate Professor of Classics, “Classical Antiquity, Heavy Metal Music, and European Identity”
  • November 6, 2015 — Michelle Zerba, Maggie B. Martin Professor of Rhetoric and Classical Studies, “Homer’s Odyssey, Humanist Learning, and Renaissance Painting: Rethinking Reception”
  • September 25, 2015 — Suzanne Marchand, Boyd Professor of History, “Herodotus as Anti-Classical Toolbox”