The College of Arts and Sciences and the Liberal Studies Project offer the monthly Meet the Professor series to highlight the college’s research and cultural offerings.ĚýThe Thursday luncheon talks begin at noon in the University Club.Ěý

Here are the spring 2017 semester talks:

January 12 – “Why is the Muslim Brotherhood So Good at Winning Elections in the Middle East?” by Steven Brooke, political science professor. He will discuss why Islamist parties so consistently outperformed opponents in elections since Arab Spring and will draw on his fieldwork in Egypt, original surveys of Egyptians and new internet-based geographic data.

February 2 – “Art and ‘Terrible Truth’,” by John Gibson, philosophy professor and Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society director. He will highlight ways in which literature, painting and music make life tolerable while revealing it at its worst, as people delight in viewing the tragic and horrible from an aesthetic viewpoint.

March 2 – “Harold Pinter, Robin Williams, Somnabulants and Galloping Horses,” by Ann Hall, chair of comparative humanities. She will examine time and gender as she discusses the 1982 Harold Pinter play “A Kind of Alaska” and the 1990 Robin Williams film “Awakenings,” both based on neurologist Oliver Sacks’ work with catatonic patients.

April 13 – “From People to Pixels: Mapping Global Population Patterns with the WorldPop Project,” by Andrea Gaughan and Forrest Stevens, geography and geosciences professors. They will talk about their work to generate human population maps that are easily accessible so international and government agencies can use them for work such as hazards risk managements, disease control and economic and environmental planning and intervention.

Reservations are required for each Meet the Professor, with $15 payment by check. To reserve a spot, contact Janna Tajibaeva at 852-2247 or via email no later than the Monday before each event.

This piercing character study uses a love triangle to meditate on the themes of infidelity, friendship and loyalty. The plot is sometimes told out of chronological order, with the first scene taking place after an affair has ended in 1977 and the final scene ending before the affair begins in 1968. The innovative structure exposes the characters’ hidden emotions.