October 16th

Andrey Reznikov: "The History of Writing: from Pictograms to Emoji"

The ability to speak arose hundreds of thousands of years ago as part of our intellectual development during evolution, but writing was invented quite recently. Humans have been able to represent language in written form for a mere 5000 or 6000 years. Although language underlies both spoken and written communication, the two modes are fundamentally different in nature. Speaking developed in human beings naturally, but writing had to be invented. In every society, every typically healthy human being knows how to speak. By contrast, writing is an advanced skill, and it is not possessed by everyone.

October 30th

(CANCELED) Laura Colmenero-Chilberg: "Madness in Popular Culture: The 'Insanity' of Women"

Throughout history women have been diagnosed, treated, committed to institutions (or burned at the stake) for symptoms of what their society identified as insanity.  From the wild bacchanalia of the Maenads in Ancient Greece, to the delicate insanity of Ophelia, to the mad heroines of classic Victorian literature, to contemporary images found in television series like Penny Dreadful and movies like Kill Bill, women suffering from mental instability has been a favorite topic of popular culture.  Why? Is there really a tie between gender and insanity, a “female malady,” or is there something else going on?

The social construct of women as “deviant” has a long history. It can be seen in the world’s major religions and spiritual traditions, which often view women as “uncontrollable.” In the last two centuries in particular, we have seen a very strong connection between the concept of femininity and the cultural construction of madness. In this course we will focus on the historical and cultural factors and behaviors that have been associated with madness in women as it is reflected in popular culture. By examining the representations of insanity in popular culture, we can examine changing ideas about gender, social class and family structures, and the effect these factors have on what we consider to be “sane.”

November 6th

Craig Christensen: “The 14th Amendment and the doctrine of incorporation. What do 'privileges and immunities' and 'due process' mean and how do they affect us?”

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted shortly after and as a result of the Civil War. It marked the first time that the Constitution began to regulate the conduct of the various states toward their citizens and the rights of those citizens. Without the 14th Amendment we likely would not have had the same debates about abortion, guns, affirmative action or many other contentious issues as the states would likely have remained largely free of the Bill of Rights. Even with the ratification of the Amendment the application of the Bill of Rights and other rights has been slow and incremental taking more than 140 years. We will discuss how the Amendment affects these issues and how we got here in two sessions. 

November 13th

Craig Christensen: “The 14th amendment and 'equal protection' Who is protected from what and by what standards?”

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted shortly after and as a result of the Civil War. It marked the first time that the Constitution began to regulate the conduct of the various states toward their citizens and the rights of those citizens. Without the 14th Amendment we likely would not have had the same debates about abortion, guns, affirmative action or many other contentious issues as the states would likely have remained largely free of the Bill of Rights. Even with the ratification of the Amendment the application of the Bill of Rights and other rights has been slow and incremental taking more than 140 years. We will discuss how the Amendment affects these issues and how we got here in two sessions.

2023-24 Lineup coming soon!

2023-24 Lineup coming soon!

2023-24 Lineup coming soon!

2023-24 Lineup coming soon!

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

2023-24 Lineup coming soon!

2019-2020

• Trenton Ellis - "Hungry Jackets: Exploring Food Insecurity on Campus"

• Tim Steckline - "Conspiracy Theory Minus the Smirk: The Structural Analysis of Hustles and Hoodwinks"

• Jarrett Moore - “Manufacturing (Real)ity”

• Clarissa Thompson - “Mindful Movement: Campus Yoga and Meditation”

• Andrey Reznikov - "The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster and His Dictionary"

• Aaron Bauerly - "Grey Gaming: The Rise of the Antihero"

• Chris Fuchs - "Christopher Landauer and Chris Fuchs: 'Wizard, Fighter, Rogue RPG Design: Community Building Through Gaming"'

• Kelly Kirk - "Veterans' Legacies, Veterans' Impact: the 93rd CTD in the Black Hills"

• Laura Colmenero-Chilberg - "Trick-or-Treating, Jack-o-Lanterns, and Feeding the Dead: How the Ancient Roots of Halloween Connect to Present Day”

• Erica Whitiker - "Hello. Hey! What Up?!?!: The Subtle Art of Code Switching"

• Parathasarathi Nag - "A Brief History of Black Holes"

• Miro Hacek - "Yugoslavia: Heaven Or Hell on Earth?"

• Tim Steckline  - "Gates without Walls: An Anarchist’s Appeal for Open Borders" 

• Du-Lu Hsiao - "Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé: The story behind Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games."

• Janette Hettick - “Change is  Hard:  Explaining, Reframing, and Coping with Life Transitions”

• Dan May - “That Song Changed My Life: The BHSU Community Reflects on the Power of Music”

  (An Interactive Geek Speak Experience:  Bring  Your Stories!)

• David Berberick - "School music vs. Our music. Why is this a thing and what can we do to change it?"

• Nick Drummond - "Hollywood and Politics: Using Movie Scenes & Television Shows to Illustrate a Point"

2018-2019

• Jeff Wehrung - “Why We NEED Science Fiction!”

• Dan May - “Bridging the Gap: Diversity in the STEM Pipeline”

• “East Meets West (River): Creative Readings from BHSU and USD Creative Writing Faculty”

• Tim Steckline - “Zoot Suits and the Sailor Riots of 1943: Race Terror in Aztlan”

• Kelly Kirk and Carrie Gray-Wood - “A Taste of Place: The History and Geography of Food in Italy”

• BHSU Art Faculty - “Beyond the Classroom”

• Kelly Kirk - “Honoring Veterans' Legacies”

• Andrey Reznikov - “The Role of Bible Translations in Establishing the English Language”

• Aaron Bauerly - “You are the Hero: Interaction with Mythic Archetypes Through Games”

• Du-Lu Hsiao - “How to be Spanish”

• Desy Schoenewies - “Drawings from China: Experiences from the BHSU/Baoding University Partnership BHSU Artists at Baoding University”

• Tami Haaland - “An Afternoon of Poetry with Montana's Former Poet Laureate”

• Tracy Hunt and Chelsey Groseclose - “The Matrix Within: from Insomnia to Lucidity, the Powers of Sleep and Dreaming”

• Altman Studeny, Carrie Gray-Wood, and Tim Steckline - “Twisted Fibers: Felt as Art, Technique, and Social Critique”

• David Cremean - “Bruce Springsteen as Storyteller”

• Jeffrey Winter - “Secrets and Unconventional uses of Microsoft Office”

• Holly Downing - “Why Our Mascot is Not a Bee—The Frustrations of a BHSU Entomologist”

• Max Marc - “It's 2019... how 'Blade Runner' predicted Elon Musk, the Simulation, and the coming war with A.I."

• Chris Hahn - “We’re All Musicians: Exploring the Brain-Music Relationship”

• Petrika Peters - “Global Dumping: What Happens to Your Electronic Waste?”

• Alex Lang - “Noise-Makers: Fascists and Music”

2017-2018

• University Honors Capstone Defenses:

  • Carissa Hauck - “Why Black Hills State University Domestic Students Choose Not to Study Abroad"

  • Madison Jilek - “Utilizing Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy to Detect Trace Impurities for Rare Event Search Detectors"

  • Kayti Parish - “Purposeful Movement, its Relationship to Kinesthetic Learning, Ways in which it has Already Been Incorporated into the Classroom, and the Full Body Science Project"  

  • Khazayma Khan -“A Revival of Justice: An End to Life Without Parole Sentences for Nonviolent Drug Crimes” 

  • Alexandra Hancock - “Let Them Play: Increasing Time Children Spend Outdoors in Midwest Towns of Fewer Than 15,000 People"

  • Courtney Dahlgren - “Photoredox Coupling of an Activated Aldehyde and Various Trifluoromethylation Reagents"

  • Thomas Trimble - “Platinum Group Elements: A Sustainability Paradox"

  • Bobby Russell - “Teaching a Work of Literature through Its Historical Development: A Unit Plan for William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Its Sources"

  • Abigail Burnett - “Business Plan for Galusha Solar"

  • Dakota Becher - "The Pen(is) Mightier than Sealed Lips: An Analysis of Rape Culture Within Young Adult Literature"

• Adam Blackler - “Berlin Now: A Portrait of a City after the Wall" 

• Tim Steckline - “America’s Favorite Carnage: Selling Wilderness Ordeals as Spectacle” 

• Dan May and Courtney Huse Wika - “Fano-Plane and Di-Graph Poetics: Intersections of Math and Poetry" 

• Amy Fuqua - “’A Little More than Kin and Less than Kind:’ The Concept of Relation Across Religious and Cultural Traditions" 

• Jami Stone - “’Trash Has Two Parents: The Person Who Threw It and the Person Who Walked by…:’Thriving in the Age of Accelerations" 

• Dan Swenson - “Gerrymandering:The Geometry of Redistricting"

• Petrika Peters - “Sustainability, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Making the Connection" 

• Dan May and Laura Colmenero-Chilberg - "Rebel Girl: Celebrating a Century of Exchange Between American Popular Music and Feminism" 

• Max Marc"Science - ", the Expert Problem, and Mass Hysteria” 

• Dave Berberick - “From Bach to Braindrill: Exploring the Similarities between Metal and Classical Music and Fandom” 

• Tim Steckline - "Simulations of History: 8 Second Looks at 4 Iconic Photos" 

2016-2017

• Colin Garnett - "Weapons of Math Destruction" 

• Gina Gibson - "I Am the Bone Collector, Now What Do I Do?" 

• Dan May - "The Joy of SET: Inroads into Combinatorics and Finite Geometry" 

• Karl Lehman - "Imagining Mythica: Hit-and-Run Game Design for the Bullheaded OR Building Narrative Engines for an ADD world at the Intersection of Math, Myth, Movies, and Money OR Perseverance and Beginner's Mind: The Eye-opening March from Mythica to Walmart" 

• Andrey Reznikov - "The Meaning of Everything: The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary" 

• Denice Turner - "Tasting Life Twice: On Life-Writing and Wellbeing" 

• Du-Lu Hsiao - "Use of Images for Visualization and Visual Literacy in Language Class" 

• Courtney Huse Wika - "Something Wicked This Way Comes: The History, Myths, and Rituals of Halloween" 

• Kelly Kirk - "Veteran Legacies in the Black Hills" 

• Parthasarathi Nag - "Searching for Riemann: A Brief History and Some Recent Insights into One of the Most Intriguing Unsolved Million-dollar Problem in Mathematics" 

• The University Honors Capstone Defenses:

  • Katherine Nelson - "Spirituality: The Cornerstone of the Inca Empire"

  • Katelyn Woten - "Financial Literacy and Delayed Gratification for BeeSweet Farmers in Zambia"

  • Alissa Iverson - "Evaluating the Clonal Structure of Invasive Ivy through Microsatellite Markers" 

• Liz Fayer and Joanna Jones - "Metapatterns" 

• Martin Fashbaugh - "From Blake to the Beatles and Beyond: The Legacy of Romanticism" 

• Cody Drolc - "Bad Bureaucrats? The Future of Whistleblowing in a Post-Snowden World"

• Nikki Dragone - "Advocating for the Protection of Native Women Through Theatrical, Spoken Word and Slam Poetry Performances" 

• Dan May - "Do-si-dos and Dihedrals: Mathematics and, wait, what...Dance?!?" 

• Jason Daniels - "Truly Revolution? The Haitian Revolution and its Legacy" 

• Jeffrey Wehrung - "Who is The Reluctant Celebrity? - Crazy Horse, Korczak Ziolkowski, Chief Henry Standing Bear, or a University and Medical Training Center" 

• Justin Tremel - "Mathematical Music: Bob Dylan's Extra-Lyrical Artistry" 

• Erica Whitiker - "Prejudice, Privilege, & Perseverance Through the Lens of Disney's Zootopia" 

• Adam Blackler - "Stunde Null: The Holocaust and Memory after 1945" 

• Trenton Ellis - "Panic! At the Meat Department. Food Scares as Moral Panics" 

• Avi Jain - "Iconography of Desire (And Confusion)" 

• Tim Steckline - "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Oscar Wilde: The Dialectical Cowboy" 

• Karin Humar - "BHSU Edge: Creating the Professional Student Development Program"

• Parthasarathi Nag - "Supersymmetry, Superstrings and the quest for the Theory Of Everything" 

• Jace DeCory and Tim Steckline - "Are We All Related? Race and the Embrace of The Other" 

• David Cremean - "Lawyers, Home Runs, and Money: The Long and Ongoing Corruption of Professional Baseball, America’s Past-its-Time"

• Tim Steckline - "999 Mona Lisas in the Age of Digital Reproduction: A Tribute to the Life and Work of Walter Benjamin" 

• Andrey Reznikov - "I'm Like, Who Needs This Grammar Stuff?" 

• William Cockrell, Lesleigh Owen, Terri Bruce, and Emilia Flint - "LGBTQ+: Fleshing Out the Acronym" 

• Hailima Yates - "Recycling Perceptions" 

• Scott Ahola, Emily Eggebraaten, Amber Wilde, and Shana Monnens - "Dangerous Minds: Banned Books and their Authors"

• Lilias Jones Jarding - "Uranium Mining in the Black Hills: An Explosion of Interest" 

• Trenton Ellis and Dr. Dan May - "All We Are Saying: Social Activism in Music" 

2015-2016

• Alicia Benz - "In vitro Nanoparticle Cytotoxicity on Buffalo Rat Liver Cells"

• Ashley Ruegg - "The Islamic Moorish Influence on the Architecture in the South of Spain"

• Trenton Ellis - "The Social Life of Meat"

• Dan Swenson - "A Tour of Voting Systems: How do we choose a winner?" 

• Day May - "God Show Me the Way: Religion and Hip Hop"

• Tom Arnold - "Not Just a Cheesy Monster Movie: the Multiple Meanings of Godzilla" 

• Desy Schoenewies - "Draw Something! A Drawing Workshop"

• Amy Fuqua - "Biblically Speaking: Sin and the Role of Women in the Christian New Testament"

• Martin Fashbaugh - "Preaching to the Nerves Instead of the Judgment:' The Victorian Sensation Novel,"

• Jeffrey Wehrung - "The Narcissistic Doctor? Leadership, Ethics, and Dr. Who"

• Nikki Dragone - '"I Was Real Once,' sighed Mr. Holmes: #BelieveinSherlock #FightJohnWatsonsWar,"

• Adam Gaffey - "Public Speaking: Raising Hell"

• Courtney Huse Wika, Trenton Ellis, Rickie Legleitner, and Laura Colmenero Chilberg - "#BlurredLines: American Raunch Culture"

• Ann Porter - "Stuffies, Sex and the Contemporary Counter-Reformation"

• Megan Hohn - "So Much More Than 'Just a Game:' A Complete Summer Program Curriculum for School-Aged Children Aligned to Education Standards" 

• Trenton Ellis and John Alsup - "Perspectives on Hunger"

• Nikki Dragone - "Speaking on Behalf of the Natural World’s Rights"

• Laura Colmenero Chilberg - "Studying Society through the Apocalyptic Novel: The Road, The Year of the Flood, The Stand, and On the Beach"

• Andrey Reznikov - "The Origins of Language"

• Tim Steckline - "Outgrowing Optimism"

• Byron Hollowed - "Robin Hood Redux: How through Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), CEOs Rob From the Poor and Pay the Rich"

• Matthew Bauman - "Now That It's Too Late?: Climate Change and the Anthropocene"

• Jace DeCory, Justin Ramsey, Tara Ramsey, and John Dixon - "Ethnobotany and Indigenous Lakota Plants"

• Ignatius Cahyanto - "I'll Take You to the Dark Side: Our Fascination with Death and Disasters"

• Tim Martinez - "The Man on the Motorcycle: The Revolutionary Thought of Che Guevara"

• Adam Gaffey - "Always Contested:The Confederate Flag in the Public Imagination"

• Kelly Kirk and Chris Hahn - "All that is Good is Nastier than Ever: Punk vs. Disco: The Defunkification of the Nation"

• Kristin N. Prescott - "Just Do It: Sports Participation & Onset of Sexual Behaviors in Adolescents"

• Cody A. Drolc - "Cracking the 'Hermeneutically' Sealed Box of Structuralism: A Poststructuralist Reading of Nicos Poulantzas"

• Myranda K. Mattke - "Mathematical Instruction: Sometimes Change is Good"

• Kim R. Kaufmann - "In the Name of the People: Castro's Revolution in Theory, Practice, and Results"

• Lucas C. Fralick - "Harry Truman and the Atomic Bomb: A Complex History and Analysis"

• John Ginther - "Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game"

• Aris Karagiorgakis - "The Truth is in Here: Why 12 Million Americans Believe Lizard People Run the Country (and Other “Crazy Conspiracies)"

• Dan May - "Love Me I'm Rich: The Rise and Fall of American Alternative Rock"

• David Crimean - "Breaking Bad and Inexhaustible Extreme Met(h)aphor"

• Pam Wegner - "You Want to Send a Message, Use a Telegram. Theatre, Politics, and the Art of Confrontation"

• • Will Cockerel - "The Video Game Monologues: An Examination of Gender in a Male Dominated World"

  • Chris Hahn and Kelly Kirk - "All That Is Good Is STILL Nasty: The Continuing Funkification of the Nation Part I: Funk and Urban Culture in the 1970s"

2014-2015

• Tom Arnold - "Butchers, Buffoons, and 'Basterds': Nazis in Popular Culture"

• Nicholas Wallerstein - "The Sound (and a Bit of Sense) of Poetry from Ancient Times to the Present"

• Desy Schoenewies - "Hands Up Don't Shoot: Boiling Points of Tension in Ferguson, Missouri"

• Adam Gaffey - "The Rhetoric of Equality: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Arguments on Civil Rights"

• Rickie Ann Legleitner - "Disruptive Depictions of Disability in South Park"

• Tyrone White - "Welcome to the Zombie-Ridden Landscape of the Real: The Walking Dead and the 21st Century Passion for the Real"

• Julie Gueswel and Jordan Louks - "The Fall Defense: Revealing Tournament Theory's Motivational Techniques within Hollywood Movies; On Finding Hope"

• Robb Campbell - "The Geek Chic"

• Adam Gaffey - "Lincoln and Gettysburg From Rhetorical Artistry to National Totem"

• Dan May - "For pairs of lips to kiss maybe / Involves no trigonometry : Mathematics and Poetry"

• Courtney Huse Wika - "Practical Magic: The Myths and Rituals of Halloween"

• Tim Steckline - "The Dark Mouse: The Evils of Disney"

• Amy Fuqua - "Why Democracy Needs Good Novels: The Future of Fiction"

• Sandra Marker, Cheryl Anagnopoulos, Adam Gaffey, and Nicholas Wallerstein - "WE ARE #RAVENSNATION: Violence in the NFL"

• Chris Hahn - "All That is Good is Nasty: The Funkification of the Nation"

• Jami Stone - "Happy? The Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment"

• Kelly Kirk - "The Super History of America's Superheroes"

2013-2014

• Nicole Faas and Kaitlin Schneider - "The Defense: "The Surveillance Industrial Complex: America's Privacy Crisis;" "Distinguishing the Meditative Benefits of Drawing Within and Without Borders on Acute Stress"

• Courtney Huse Wika - "This is Gonna Suck: The Vampire in History and Literature"

• Gina Gibson - "A Look at Beauty: Bias, Brokenness, and the Pursuit of Truth"

• Laura Colmenero-Chilberg - "Children Beware! Stephen King and Evil in Its Many Forms"

• Emilia Flint - "My Bloody Valentine: The Psychology of Serial Killers"

• David Cremean - "Just a Shadow You're Seeing That He's Chasing: Bob Dylan, Mystic"

• Ann Porter - "What Does the Fox Say: The Animal in Art and Society"

• "We Wish you a Merry and Terrifying Christmas: Myths, Histories, and Legends of the Holiday"

• Desy Schoenewies - "56 Houses Left: Urban Decay and Abandonment"

• Sasha Pursley - "Killing the President: JFK and the Conspiracies"

• Kelly Kirk - "The Good Death: Death and Dying in the Civil War"

• Courtney Huse Wika - "Your Guide to the Apocalypse: The History of Zombies"