SBS Dean’s office
2021 Summer Seminar Series
Join the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences for the 2021 Summer Seminar Series each Thursday from June 10-July 15. This Zoom-based, virtual lecture series features engaging and timely topics presented by university faculty, diversity professionals and visiting scholars. This summer’s theme “An Open Door: Diversity in 2021,” explores diversity and inclusion through multiple lenses.
Stay connected! Join the series mailing list by emailing sbs.news@nau.edu or like the series on Facebook.
Missed a lecture? All presentations will be posted online July 19, 2021.
Support the series! This series is made possible thanks to the generosity of our community members. We hope you will continue your support with a donation to the series.
- Donate Online
- By check: NAU Foundation, PO Box 4094, Flagstaff, AZ 86011 (Include fund #5466 on check)
Thursday, June 10, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
Multidimensional Representation of Underserved Indigenous People
Presented by: Dr. Jiun-yi Tsai, Assistant Professor, School of Communication, Northern Arizona University
Native reporters make up less than 1% of America’s newsrooms, leaving out culturally appropriate viewpoints on issues that profoundly affect tribal members when covered by major outlets. This talk will introduce a collaborative citizen reporting project to empower Indigenous communities to tell their stories and retake agency over media representation.
Thursday, June 17, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
The Science of Using Humor in Science Communication
Presented by: Dr. Sara K. Yeo, Associate Professor, School of Communication, University of Utah
This presentation shares examples of research in the science of science communication, focusing specifically on emotion and science humor. Yeo will also discuss why it can be difficult to detect misinformation and why some individuals are more susceptible to misperceptions.
Thursday, June 24, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
Bending the Sex Binary: The Lived Experiences of Intersex People
Presented by: Dr. Georgiann Davis, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Nevada at Las Vegas
Are you “male” or “female”? This question isn’t as simple as it seems. In this talk based on the book Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis, Davis will discuss what intersex is and how intersex people navigate their lives, specifically their relationships with family members and medical providers. Davis will also highlight current movement strategies that fuel contemporary intersex activism. Suggestions for how to be a good ally to intersex people will be provided.
Thursday, July 1, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
Revoicing Disability: Vignettes as Approaches to Reflexivity (How to Bend Back on Ourselves)
Presented by: Institute of Human Development Panel, Northern Arizona University
The Institute for Human Development’s (IHD) panel is composed of Matthew Wangeman, Sakénya McDonald, John Schaffer, and John McDermott and brings to the forefront lived experiences through a lens of social justice. Providing commentary on disability issues, the panel will detail unique, embedded vignettes on disability and how lived experiences develop into an operative, shared meaning. The panel will also set forth how revoicing disability as an active measure spans agency and communion.
Thursday, July 8, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
Anti-Asian Racism, Belonging and Mental Health Among Asian Americans
Presented by: Dr. Aggie Yellow Horse, Assistant Professor, Asian Pacific American Studies and Justice and Social Inquiry, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University
With the ongoing parallel pandemics of historically embedded racism and nativism in the midst of COVID-19, important dialogues are emerging about conceptualizing anti-Asian racism and its effects on mental health of Asian Americans. Drawing from the Stop AAPI Hate national reporting center data and follow-up mental health survey, the study will discuss the impacts of anti-Asian racism experience on mental health among Asian Americans. Results show that perceived anti-Asian discrimination were independently associated with increased anxiety, depression, and recent race-based traumatic stress, and other stressors were associated with increased anxiety and depression. Perceived social support was independently associated with decreased anxiety, depression, and recent race-based traumatic stress.
Thursday, July 15, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
The Embodiment of the Self: Race, Class, Gender, and the Cultural Construction of Nature
Presented by: Dr. Phoebe Godfrey, Associate Professor-in-Residence, Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut
Godfrey will explore, based on research and teaching, how the social intersections of race, class and gender shape our cultural constructions of our bodies, and thus of nature. She will unpack how in Western culture bodies that are deemed inferior as a result of the intersections of racism, sexism and classism are the same bodies that are deemed to be ‘closer to nature’, ‘wild’ and / or ‘savage’. As such, addressing our societies’ ongoing violence towards BIPOC / women / LGBTQ+ peoples (and the consequential traumatic internalization of these experiences of violence), must be juxtapositioned with the on-going global environmental destruction and, ultimately, with climate change. Finally, Godfrey will propose that to heal these inseparable crises requires that we deconstruct our collective illusionary social identities, in order to engage in the ‘embodiment of the Self’ – bringing us as individuals and as a society back to a more accurate construction of nature, and therefore of our collective / selves.