College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

The newly published “Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas” by English professor Jeffrey Leak has been praised for “shining a piercing light” on the elusive Dumas, who has remained a mystery even to his fans.
Leak, through interviews with Dumas’ family and friends, along with writers who knew Dumas, examined the author’s life and writing.

Faculty author and national expert on election administration Martha Kropf will discuss how the 2000 election continues to affect policymakers nearly 15 years later in the final installment of the 2013-14 Personally Speaking Lecture Series. This free, public talk is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 20, at UNC Charlotte Center City. A reception will follow.

As part of the Project Mosaic Brown Bag Seminar series, James Walsh, political science and public administration, will talk about “Ethnic Exclusion, Oil and Civil War” at 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 25, in Cone University Center, Room 348B.

James Tabor, professor and chair of religious studies, will discuss the relationship between Israel and the United States at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 12, at UNC Charlotte Center City, Room 204, as the fourth speaker in the 2014 Great Decisions lecture series.

 Local communities can expect the number and asset size of philanthropic foundations to increase, due to the rise in health care consolidations driven by health care reform. In the past, assets of this kind may have been underused or even undocumented.  A new database created by UNC Charlotte researchers can help bridge this gap.

Project Mosaic, established by the University to enhance social and behavioral science research, will hold a number of free workshops for faculty and graduate students. Registration is required.
The workshops have been selected by Project Mosaic officials to meet the methodological needs of social and behavioral scientists.
Upcoming workshops include:
“Thinking about Qualitative Software:  NVivo and Its Potential” at 3 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 29, in Atkins Library, Room 273.

Parallels between social media blogs, tweets and other virtual media to that of writings in 17th-century France is the focus of the next Personally Speaking talk scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 13, in the J. Murrey Atkins Library.

The website Heritage Daily compiled the top 10 archaeological discoveries for 2013, and number five was the Early Roman period mansion discovered by a team co-directed by James Tabor, chair of religious studies.

In the 16th annual Alice Tate Lecture in Judaic Studies, Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt University will talk on “The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.” This free, community talk will be at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 3, at Myers Park Presbyterian Church.
The lecture will consider how Christians have misunderstood Judaism and the “Jewish” Jesus, while Jews often remain ignorant of Jesus and his messages set in its original Jewish historical contexts.

Jean-Claude Thill, the Knight Foundation Distinguished Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, was named a 2013 Fellow of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) at the organization’s 60th annual North American Meetings of the RSAI in Atlanta, Ga. He is the sole U.S. regional scientist to be recognized this year, along with scholars from Japan, Sweden and Italy. Worldwide, RSAI has a cadre of 70 fellows.