Saturday, October 22, 2016




LECTURE

One Day University
Symphony Space

A Semester of Ideas (all in one day) - NYC

"Join One Day University as we present our fall full-day event on October 22nd. Spend a fascinating day with 4 award-winning professors. You'll experience all four thought-provoking talks and countless engaging ideas - all in one day. And don't worry, there are no tests, no grades and no homework. Just the pure joy of lifelong learning!

Students will have a 1 hour and 15 minute lunch break. You may bring your own or purchase it at a nearby restaurant."




9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

Four Trials That Changed the World

Austin Sarat / Amherst College

Even if we know little about the law, most of us know something about one of law's great rituals, the trial. We are regularly fascinated when this or that legal case is played out in a courtroom and proclaimed in the media to be "the trial of the century." Courtroom contests pit good versus evil, right versus wrong. But, in addition to their dramatic quality, they also are educational moments, occasions on which some of our most important political and social issues get played out before judge and jury. In this lecture we will consider four trials that changed American history during the twentieth century.

We will start by examining the so called "Scopes Monkey Trial." In this 1925 case, a high school teacher was accused of violating a state law that made it illegal to teach human evolution in public schools. Next we take up the Nuremberg trials, held by Allied forces after World War II to prosecute the leaders of Nazi Germany. Our third trial occurred in 1995 when the state of California prosecuted O.J. Simpson for the murder of his wife. The final of the four trials that changed America occurred four year later when the United States Senate took up the impeachment charges against President Bill Clinton arising out of his conduct during and after his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Each of these trials crystallized crucial issues of the day. And, the decisions reached in each of them had a profound impact well beyond the boundaries of the courtroom. If you are interested in such pressing issues as freedom of speech and religion, the responsibilities of perpetrators of war crimes, the legal treatment of celebrities, and the private lives of public figures, or if you just want to have the fun of revisiting some of the most riveting moments in recent American history, this lecture will give you considerable food for thought.



Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has written, co-written, or edited more than ninety books in the fields of law and political science. Professor Sarat has received the the Stan Wheeler Award for his excellence as a teacher and mentor, awarded by the Law and Society Association.




11:00 AM - 12:15 PM

The Science of Sleep: How it Impacts Memory, Creativity, and the Ability to Process New Ideas

Jessica Payne / University of Notre Dame

What's going on in your head while you sleep? The research of Notre Dame Professor Jessica Payne shows that the non-waking hours are incredibly valuable for your day-to-day life, especially for helping to commit information to memory and for problem solving. If you ever thought sleep was just downtime between one task and the next, think again.The fact is, your brain pulls an all-nighter when you hit the hay. Many regions of the brain - especially those involved in learning, processing information, and emotion - are actually more active during sleep than when you're awake. These regions are working together while you sleep, helping you process and sort information you've taken in during the course of the day. Professor Payne's research has focused on what types of information are submitted to memory, and has been instrumental in better understanding how the brain stores the information.

Sound interesting? It is. And useful too, as Professor Payne will outline all sorts of practical information on how to control your sleep habits to insure maximum productivity.


Jessica Payne is the Nancy O'Neill Collegiate Chair and Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, where she directs the Sleep, Stress, and Memory Lab. Her course, The Sleeping Brain, routinely sports a waitlist because of its immense popularity among Notre Dame students. In 2012, Professor Payne received the Frank O'Malley Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is also a two-time recipient of the Distinction in Teaching Award, and won the Award for Teaching Excellence at Harvard University's Derek Bok Center.



12:15 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch Break




1:30 PM - 2:45 PM

Rights in America: A Brief (250 Year) History

John McCaskey / Columbia University

Rights to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." The Founding Fathers took these as self-evident, but we've been fighting about them ever since. What exactly are rights? Who has them? Are there different kinds? Are rights natural and inborn or artificial and granted by governments? Can rights come into conflict? If so, what should we do when that happens?

In this lecture, Professor John McCaskey will trace how Americans have answered these questions—from the country's founding, through the Civil War, the woman suffrage movement, the Progressive revolution, Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights, the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Civil Rights Movement, and recent battles over gay marriage and health care. Whatever your political persuasion, Professor McCaskey will give you a framework that you can use to analyze—and argue with others about—any question involving rights.

 

John McCaskey is an internationally recognized authority in the history of philosophy and has taught history, philosophy, and social ethics programs at Columbia University, Stanford University, and Brown University.




3:00 PM - 4:15 PM

Music and the Brain: What We Know (And What We Don't)

Jessica Grahn / Western University

Babies come into the world with musical preferences. They begin to respond to music while still in the womb. At the age of 4 months, dissonant notes at the end of a melody will cause them to squirm and turn away. If they like a tune, they may smile and let you know. Scientists cite such responses as evidence that certain rules for music may be wired into the brain.

This class will discuss how humans (and even animals) react to music, and how the brain's movement centers light up in response to music and rhythm, even when we aren't moving a muscle. To illustrate some of the effects music has on the brain, we will turn to research with people of all ages, from 1 to 100! We will also cover the exciting potential held by some musical therapies for helping those with degenerative neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease.


Jessica Grahn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Western University in Ontario. She has established herself as an emerging leader in the field of the neuroscience of music which combines her unique background as a classically trained concert pianist and her training as a neuroscientist. Professor Grahn's research studies how the brain responds to musical rhythm and how it may be processed in the brains of those who have brain dysfunction, such as those with Parkinson's disease. She has been awarded countless grants and honors for her work in neuroscience.

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