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St. Olaf History Professor James Farrell to discuss malling of the world in annual Mellby Lecture

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April 4, 2001

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ? St. Olaf College history faculty member James Farrell will discuss "It?s a Mall World, After All" on Tuesday, April 17, as part of the college?s Mellby Lecture series.

Farrell?s lecture, at 7 p.m. in the Viking Theater of Buntrock Commons, is free and open to the public.

Farrell will discuss the world in a shopping mall and the mall in the world, addressing effects of "cosmallogy" on the trading culture of the United States, as well as concerns about "Americanization" in malls throughout the world.

Farrell earned a bachelor?s degree in political science from Loyola University, and a master?s degree in history and a Ph.D. in American culture from the University of Illinois-Urbana. He joined the St. Olaf College faculty in 1977, where he has taught, among other things, "Nuclear Weapons and American Culture," "The Moral Ecology of Everyday Life" and "Slicing American Culture." He also is director of the American Studies and American Racial and Multicultural Studies program at the college.

Farrell has published several books, including The Nuclear Devil?s Dictionary, Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920, and, most recently, The Spirit of the Sixties: Making Postwar Radicalism. In 1989 he won second place for his Journal of American Culture essay "The Crossroads of Bikini," and in 1996 he won the Stone-Suderman Prize for best article with "Making (Common) Sense of the Bomb in the First Nuclear War," published in the journal American Studies.

Farrell can be heard on WCAL-FM (89.3) as "Dr. America," the curator of the magnificent (and wholly imaginary) American Studies Museum at St. Olaf College. Each week as Dr. America, Farrell leads listeners on a tour of the museum?s collection, probing the deeper layers of American culture.

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The annual Mellby Memorial Lectures are named after Carl A. Mellby and were established to let St. Olaf faculty members share their research with others. Mellby, known as the "father of social sciences" at St. Olaf, started the college?s first courses in economics, sociology, political science and history of art. He also taught Greek, German, French, religion and philosophy, and is credited with creating the college?s honor system.

St. Olaf College prepares students to become responsible citizens of the world, fostering development of mind, body and spirit. A four-year, coeducational liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), St. Olaf has a student enrollment of 2,950 and a full-time faculty complement of approximately 300. It is one of Money Guide?s top 100 "elite values in college education today," and it leads the nation?s colleges in percentage of students who study abroad.

Contact Michael Cooper at 507-786-3315 or cooperm@stolaf.edu.