Saturday Scholars
These discussions feature Notre Dame’s most engaging faculty on some of the most pressing and fascinating issues of our times. Each lecture and Q&A is presented in the Snite Museum’s Annenberg Auditorium on a home football game Saturday.
Treasures of the Sinai Desert: The History and Marvels of the Ancient Monastery of St. Catherine
The biblical importance of Mt. Sinai led to the creation of one of the worlds oldest monasteries, St. Catherine’s in Egypt. Today, this monastery houses some of the finest...
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Signal Jammer: ‘Recent Paintings’
Featuring paintings that combine darkly comedic text with pop-culture images, Lahr forms a narrative about working-class identity and the shaping of gender norms through mass...
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The Oregon Trail and the Rise and Fall of Educational Software
Manifest destiny, hunting, and death by dysentery: The Oregon Trail hooked generations of students with the promise of action and adventure. This presentation uses this beloved...
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Optics and ‘Natural Magic’ in the Renaissance
Most people know the story of Galileo and the telescope, but his marvelous new instrument was only one of many optical oddities and inventions that delighted and puzzled the...
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Becoming Dads: How Evolution Helps Us Understand Men’s Hormones, Behavior, and Health as Fathers
Human fathers shape their children’s well-being through a range of parenting behaviors. While common for humans, this is rare for mammals. This talk will shed light on how...
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Listening to Puerto Rico: The Importance of Engaged Digital Scholarship in Times of Crisis
Listening to Puerto Rico, an engaged digital learning project launched by the Universities of Notre Dame and Michigan, has been raising awareness and promoting action in the...
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Was Women’s Suffrage a Failure?
The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 granted American women the right to vote. Critics almost immediately decried women’s suffrage as a failure. This talk...
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Why ‘Frankenstein’ Matters at 200: Rethinking the Human through the Arts and Sciences
Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Frankenstein, is the most widely taught novel at the university level around the world. Upon the novel’s bicentennial, this talk addresses the...
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Phantom of the Opera is not an Opera: What it Actually Means to be an Opera Singer
When you think of an opera singer, what comes to mind? A glass-shattering vocalist? A woman of generous proportions sporting a Viking helmet? The star of Phantom of the Opera?...
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Is Winnie the Pooh Banned in China? Internet Censorship and Online Culture
Our media are full of stories about censorship in China. Yet despite strict government regulation, China has a rich and vibrant online culture. This talk shows both sides of the...
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The Magic of the Mind: Illusion, Misdirection, and Deception in Our Everyday Lives
On stage, magicians create a fantasy of impossibility that audiences are willing to believe to be real. Using real-world examples and demonstrations, this talk explains why we are...
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The Cross: When and Why It Became the Church’s Central Symbol
Visual depictions of the cross and crucifixion are rare before the sixth century and initially refer to Christ’s triumph and glory rather than his suffering and death. This talk...
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