Professors from St. Olaf College’s five academic faculties will lead a series of discussions to stimulate deep-level thinking and intellectual conversations.

"...In the spirit of free inquiry and free expression, St. Olaf offers a distinctive environment
that integrates teaching, scholarship, creative activity…"

Speakers are scheduled for the following dates:
(bios listed below)

• Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009 - Phyllis Larson '69, professor of Japanese and Asian Studies; associate dean for interdisciplinary and general studies
• Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 - Alice Hanson, professor of music history and literature
• Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010 - Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion and department chair
• Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - Thomas Williamson '86, associate professor of anthropology
• Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - Charles Taliaferro, professor of philosophy
• Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - Donna McMillan, associate professor and department chair of psychology

6:30-8 p.m.
The Loft Literary Center, Suite 200, Open Book
1011 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55415

A short text or art medium will be assigned prior to the event. Faculty members will offer a brief overview of the text followed by a large group discussion. Complimentary desserts and beverages will be served. There is no cost for these events. RSVPs are appreciated, but walk-in registrants are always welcome.

• Register online or call 507-786-8047

Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009
Phyllis Larson '69, professor of Japanese and Asian Studies; associate dean for interdisciplinary and general studies
Perceiving Asia / Learning Asia

Public perceptions of Asia shaped by the media can be distorted by the fact that many readers do not have a framework for interpreting the articles they read; but many St. Olaf alumni, parents and current students develop a firsthand experience of Asia through travel, work or study that gives them a deeper understanding of the region. Phyllis will talk about how Asian Studies has developed out of that tradition of travel and study at St. Olaf over the last 30 years in response to trends outside the college and within, especially the current interest in experiential learning.  She will also invite the audience to contribute from their experiences with Asia as students and alums.

Phyllis Larson spent her childhood in Japan as the child of Lutheran missionaries, including the first two years of her college education. After her graduation from St. Olaf in 1969, she completed her Ph.D. in Japanese literature at the University of Minnesota in 1985. Along the way, she completed an M.A. in English literature at the University, and an M.A.T. at the University of St. Thomas. She has taught at St. Olaf College since 1993. Phyllis teaches Japanese language courses, modern Japanese literature, Japanese film, and various Asian Studies courses.

She publishes in the areas of language pedagogy, modern Japanese literary studies, and area studies.  On sabbatical in 2005-06, she studied Chinese language and researched writings by Japanese, such as Nogami Yaeko, Tamura Toshiko, and Uchiyama Kanzo, on the topic “China in the Japanese Imagination.” In September, 2009, she gave a presentation entitled “As We Saw Them: Japanese Writers’ Views of the West and China at the Turn of the 19th Century” to faculty at the University of Wisconsin River Falls. She also presented a paper entitled "A Sino-Japanese Friendship in Wartime Shanghai: The Case of Lu Xun and Uchiyama Kanzo" at a conference at Lawrence University in October, 2006. This work built on her sabbatical in 1999-2000, when she won a Fulbright Research Award for Japan. In 2006 she co-authored an article, “Asian Conversations: Establishing an Integrated, Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Asia” in the International Journal of the Humanities. She also published "The Return of the 'Text': A Welcome Challenge for LCTs" in Modern Language Journal, Summer, 2006. She frequently makes conference presentations on language pedagogy, cultural immersion and study abroad.

Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009
Alice Hanson, professor of music history and literature
The Implications of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (IV)

Alice Hanson is known throughout campus as the fount of music history knowledge. For this Forum, Dr. Hanson has agreed to speak on Beethoven and the implications of his Ninth Symphony -- one of the (many) subjects that has made Hanson distinguished on the Hill.

Hanson hails from Crystal, MN. She received a B.A. in music from Wells College, Aurora, NY and master’s and Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Illinois, Champaign, IL. She studied at Universität der Stadt Wien at Vienna, Austria, under a Fulbright-Hayes grant. Her specialty is the music of Vienna during the 18-20th centuries, but she also has interests in opera and American music. Her publications include a monograph on Music in Biedermeier Vienna (Cambridge University Press) and articles for Music and Letters, Anterem, and in the Oxford Biographical Dictionary of Music. From 1977-82, Hanson taught at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Houston, Tex., and then 1982-present at St. Olaf.

Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010
Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion and department chair
Inter-religious Relations and Dialog

The United States is today the world's most religiously diverse nation. This diversity presents us with theological, social and political challenges and opportunities. This presentation explores the insights and limits of the significant theological responses to our religious diversity while presenting a case for the necessity of interreligious dialog and relationships.

Professor Rambachan is the author of several books, book-chapters and articles in scholarly journals. Among his books are, Accomplishing the Accomplished, The Limits of Scripture, The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity. The British Broadcasting Corporation transmitted a series of 25 lectures by Professor Rambachan around the world.

Professor Rambachan has been involved in the field of interreligious relations and dialogue for over twenty-five years, as a Hindu participant and analyst.  He is very active in the dialogue programs of the World Council of Churches, and was a Hindu guest and participant in the last four General Assemblies of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver, Canada, Canberra, Australia, Harare, Zimbabwe and Puerto Alegre, Brazil He is also a regular participant in the consultations of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican and an educator on interfaith issues in Minnesota.

He is currently an advisor to the Pluralism Project (Harvard University), a member of the International Advisory Council for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and a member of the Theological Education Committee of the American Academy of Religion.  In April 2008, Professor Rambachan, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the distinguished Lambeth Lecture at Lambeth Palace, London.  He has also contributed as a Hindu scholar to the joint United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) - Global Network of Religions for Children project (GNRC) “Children in World Religions.” 

Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thomas Williamson '86, associate professor of anthropology
Medical Anthropology and the Culture of Health

Medical anthropology explores the diverse ways that human beings
experience illness, practice curing, and define health.  Some
societies focus on health in the individual, while others have a more
social conception of illness.  The healing we pursue hinges on such
understandings.  Medical systems emphasizing the individual body
usually perform treatments in extreme privacy, while those with a more
social conception often cure through public rituals.  Such differences
shape how we define health, whether we locate it in the physical body
or the social body, and whether being healthy means having a long life
or a good life. This seminar will explore some of these insights from
medical anthropology and help us examine our health care practices and
understandings through a cross-cultural perspective.

Tom Williamson has taught in the department of sociology/anthropology
at St. Olaf since 2001.  His anthropological work specializes on
Southeast Asia, a region he has been visiting for the past 25 years.
He has published articles and done public presentations on different
aspects of life in Malaysia, including Malaysian politics, history,
and health care.  He graduated from St. Olaf in 1986 and earned his
Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Michigan.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Charles Taliaferro, professor of philosophy
The Philosophical Encounter between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism Today

Professor Taliaferro is part of a team of four American philosophers who will meet with ten Iranian philosophers in the city of Quom, Iran, a trip sponsored by the Iranian Academy of Sciences and Art in March 2010.  He will speak about some of the themes of this meeting (belief in God, the afterlife, human nature) and the prospects for a fruitful encounter between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish philosophers today, as well as address the three great monotheistic traditions in light of the New Atheists.

Charles Taliaferro (Ph.D. Brown, MTS Harvard) has been part of the Department of Philosophy at St. Olaf College since 1985.  He is the author or editor of ten books, including Evidence and Faith: Philosophy and religion since the seventeenth century and a book of essays on love entitled: Love. Love. Love. And Other Essays (Rowman and Littlefield) which includes essays on professor-student interaction at St. Olaf.  Taliaferro has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, the University of St. Andrews (Scotland), Yale, Princeton, NYU, University of Chicago, the Gregorian (Rome), Beijing University (China), and elsewhere. He is on the editorial boards of American Philosophical Quarterly, Religious Studies, Philosophy Compass, Sophia, Religious Studies Review, Ars Disputandi, Continuum Studies, and currently serves on the American Philosophical Association committee on lectures and publications.  Taliaferro has been on 12 episodes of the public television show Mental Engineering
(go to: http://www.mentalengineering.com/video.asp  and look at the show on the commercial Channel #5), he has been invited to give "the Last Lecture" to five graduating classes at St. Olaf (most recently 2009, visit http://www.stolaf.edu/multimedia/streams/special/celebration09.cfm ), and he loves contributing to books that combine philosophy and popular culture, most recently writing on the Olympics, Harry Potter, and Superheroes.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Donna McMillan, associate professor and department chair of psychology
Psychological Perspectives on Happiness and Well-Being

To what degree do we have control over happiness? Why are some people happy and others are not? Which qualities of well-being are innate and which are not? These questions, and more, are up for discussion with Donna McMillan, professor of psychology and beloved faculty member at the final installment of the 2009-2010 Faculty Forum from the Hill series.

Donna McMillan is a clinical psychologist who received her Ph.D and M.A. in clinical psychology from Duke University and her B.A. from the University of Virginia (having double majored in psychology and biology). Donna’s work focuses on the study of the person. She seeks a rich understanding of human beings as we really are, from the best of times to the worst of times. She teaches courses in Personality, Psychopathology, Positive Psychology, Environmental Psychology, Sleep and Dreaming, and Culture and the Self, and she received the Minnesota Psychological Association’s Award for Outstanding Teacher of Undergraduate Psychology and St. Olaf College’s Gertrude Hilleboe Award for Faculty Involvement in Student Life. Her research focuses on the psychological significance of the natural world and factors involved in psychological well-being.

Donna has led campus Interims to the Rocky Mountains and has been the field supervisor for the Global Semester. She lives in Northfield.