Fall 2018 Global Issues Colloquium
Thursday, September 27, 7pm
Baldwin Hall Little Theater (BH 102)
Dr. Tal Simmons, forensic anthropologist and the chair of Forensic Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Simmons has worked with identification of the dead as well as identification of trauma in human bones in situations that feature human rights abuses. She has worked for both Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross and for other international agencies in Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, and Bosnia, and as a consultant for many other national and international agencies.
Thursday, October 25, 7pm
Baldwin Hall Little Theater (BH 102)
Robert Kelly, archaeologist, University of Wyoming
The Fifth Beginning: What 6 Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us About Our Future
Kelly identifies four key pivot points in the six-million-year history of human development: the emergence of technology, culture, agriculture, and the state. In each example, he examines the long-term processes that resulted in a definitive, no-turning-back change for the organization of society. Kelly then looks ahead, giving us evidence for what he calls a fifth beginning, one that started about AD 1500. Some might call it “globalization,” but the author places it in its larger context: a five-thousand-year arms race, capitalism’s global reach, and the cultural effects of a worldwide communication network. Kelly predicts that the emergent phenomena of this fifth beginning will include the end of war as a viable way to resolve disputes, the end of capitalism as we know it, the widespread shift toward world citizenship, and the rise of forms of cooperation that will end the near-sacred status of nation-states. It’s the end of life as we have known it. However, the author is cautiously optimistic: he dwells not on the coming chaos, but on humanity’s great potential.
Thursday, November 8 7pm
MG 2001
Mike Rudy, Political Science, Truman State University
Capitalist Peace