Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Fabulous Forum: UNLV spans the globe in University Forum lecture series

In spring 2002 Brad Eden wandered rainy England with a video camera searching for signs of J.R.R. Tolkien.

There were the bogs and fields where Tolkien played as a child, the homes where the professor wrote his famous books and the cemetery where he was laid to rest.

"This was the walk where Tolkien converted C.S. Lewis to Christianity," Eden said into the video camera as he neared a pathway.

Watching the video recently in the Barrick Museum Auditorium, Tolkien enthusiasts leaned forward, nodded, contemplated, whispered and jotted notes.

It couldn't get more concentrated than this. Eden, who works at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas library, was into the fourth lecture on Tolkien he has given over the past few years.

There had been others more popular, particularly last winter's "Music Inspired by the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien."

Still, 50 people skipped an episode of "Survivor" and a post-season baseball game to see shaky footage of Sarehole Mill where young Tolkien played with his brother, and a pub that he and C.S. Lewis frequented, and to learn why the devout Catholic's theories of sub-creation led him to writing fantasy.

"I see some of these people every year," Eden said after his recent lecture and video presentation. "You get a real mix of people."

Eden's Tolkien lectures at UNLV's University Forum are part of a uniquely diverse lineup of presentations sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts.

Endangered Ethiopian tribes, jazz history through a drummer's perspective and a post 9-11 concept of the Vietnam War are just a few topics explored by local and national scholars.

The series is modest compared to UNLV's Barrick Lecture Series, which has brought in more notable figures, such as Jimmy Carter, James Carville, Walter Cronkite and Carl Sagan.

But the Forum lecture series' concentration on specific areas of interest has drawn its own following over the years.

North Las Vegas resident Bob Furtek said he's been attending the lectures for five years.

"I appreciate the travel-oriented lectures where you can learn about other cultures," Furtek said before a recent lecture on Antarctica and its landscape. "I like to find out what other places of the world look like."

Pausing, Furtek added, "I'm not so interested in social sciences or poetry."

But chances are someone else will be.

"The idea is to provide a link between campus and community," said Steve Parker, founding director of the series, now in its 18th year. "We look for topics that have intellectual interest in them, but are also popular and and reach out to thinking people in Las Vegas."

Last year jazz pianist Bill Cunliffe, instructor at the University of Southern California, presented a lecture on jazz history, giving a decade-by-decade performance of "Swannee River" translations.

Series lineup

This year's series began with lectures on contemporary feminism and cave exploration in India.

On deck are the secrets to engineering Las Vegas production shows and a look at health issues in developing countries.

In conjunction with the Vegas Valley Book Festival, Marvin Bell, the Flannery O'Connor Professor of Letters at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, will read from his "Dead Man Poems" Oct. 23.

In November a professor from George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., will present "A Secular Tradition across Islamic History."

"That one of the nation's leading scholars on Islam would come in and speak on that subject is fantastic," David Wrobel, associate professor of history at UNLV, said.

Wrobel arranged for last month's presentation on baseball and American culture by Charles Alexander, a history professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and author of several sports history books.

Making connections

Alexander was the first to offer a course on the history of baseball and its influence on American culture. The fact that Wrobel completed his master's and doctoral dissertations under Alexander influenced his appearance in Las Vegas.

"It really helps when you have a personal connection," Wrobel said. "We're very fortunate that the history faculty and other faculty members are well connected with people around the country and around the world."

The funds provided by the UNLV Foundation and the Jerry Kalafatis-Lodge Charitable Foundation enable the program to thrive every year.

But sometimes it's difficult to request sought-after speakers at one-fourth (or even less) of what they'd make speaking elsewhere, Wrobel said.

"Whenever you bring in a speaker, it involves a lot of work because you run around seeking a little bit of money. But we know that at the end of the day, building those connections with the public is important."

And even the most obscure topics will draw an audience.

When an expert from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff gave a lecture on how to build a straw-bale house, Perry said, "It was standing-room only."

Ron Rindge, a field supervisor in the construction industry, attended last weekend's music recital of early instruments and says he'll likely be at next month's lecture on Franco-American relations and the current rise of Arab/Muslim influence in France.

"I read the brochures, whatever I find intriguing, I see," Rindge said. "It's free, what else can you say? You get uniquely talented individuals who come and speak or exhibit their (knowledge)."

His only complaint, he said, is that there aren't more lectures.

Keeping it rich

The lecture series receives about 40 proposals a semester (fall and spring) and a seven-person peer review panel reviews the proposal to see if it is academic as well as interesting. Roughly 6,000 fliers are sent to promote the lectures.

"We get proposals off the wall, but our goal is to appeal to as broad a community as possible," Perry said. "In a large and diverse place like Las Vegas we get a good turnout."

Perry is anticipating a large turnout for an Oct. 21 lecture titled, "Las Vegas at the Intersection of Theater and Engineering."

"I think anybody who's been to a Cirque du Soleil production and wondered how they do it, is going to be there," Perry said.

Anyone curious about global health issues might be likely to attend "Health, Poverty, Environment and Development: Complex Interactions, Efficient Solutions," a lecture presented by Majid Ezzati, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Health.

Ezzati's lecture was proposed by David Hassenzahl, an assistant professor of environmental studies at UNLV, who knows Ezzati from when the two attended graduate school at Princeton University.

"There's some very severe environmental problems going on in the rest of the world," Hassenzahl said.

"There's a lot of changing going on for better or for worse with population putting demand on the resources, yet new technologies making improvements ... He'll be focusing on solutions."

Even those not too interested in global health issues may turn up at the lecture.

"There's a community crowd that comes to the lecture series regardless of the topic," Wrobel said.

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