Lunchbox Lectures

Lunchbox lectures featuring UGA faculty are held in Moore College. Attendance is limited to the first 25 students who RSVP. Lunch is provided by the Honors Program through support from the Honors Program Annual Fund.

fall 2011 | spring 2011 | fall 2010
spring 2010 | fall 2009 | spring 2009

Book Discussions

The Honors Program hosts faculty-led book discussions throughout the year. Discussions are held over dinner, usually in professors' homes, and all books are provided by the Honors Program through support from the Honors Program Annual Fund.

fall 2011 | spring 2011 | fall 2010
spring 2010 | fall 2009 | spring 2009

lunchbox lectures (fall 2011)

Taxonomists: An Endangered Species? with Dr. Joseph McHugh, Professor and Curator, Department of Entomology

The Importance of Now: What Every Global Citizen Needs to Know About the Emerging Data on Climate Change with Dr. Jacqueline Mohan, Assistant Professor of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology and Biogeochemistry, Odum School of Ecology

The 2012 Nomination Campaign - New Rules, New Players, New Media and Old Conflicts with Dr. Audrey Haynes, Associate Professor of Political Science

Has the Fed Been a Failure? with Dr. William D. Lastrapes, Professor of Economics, Terry College of Business

Alfred Hitchcock —the Master of Suspense as Master Art Historian with Dr. Janice Simon, Associate Professor of Art History

The Science and Practice of Meditation with Dr. Jerry Gale, Associate Professor of Child and Family Development

Leadership 2030 and Beyond: When Millenials Rule the World with Dr. Dale Gauthreaux, Director of the Institute for Leadership Advancement, Terry College of Business

What Does Health Care Reform Have To Do With Young Adults? with Dr. Monica Gaughan, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management

The Possibility of Creative Learning in Higher Education with Dr. Tracie Costantino, Associate Professor of Art Education

Pathogenesis: How Infectious Agents Cause Disease with Dr. Corrie Brown, Professor of Veterinary Pathology

lunchbox lectures (spring 2011)

Queer Cinema: Educating Youth and Adults with Dr. Robert Hill, Associate Professor of Adult Education

How Much Better in School are Girls than Boys? with Dr. David Mustard, Associate Professor of Economics, Terry College of Business

Global Pastoral: A Poetry Screening with Dr. Andrew Zawacki, Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing

50th Anniversary of the Desegregation of UGA: Desegregating UGA – The Regional Context with Dr. Thomas G. Dyer, University Professor Emeritus and Vice President for Instruction Emeritus

City Upon a Hill: Civil Rights and Desegregation in Rock Hill, South Carolina with Dr. Derrick P. Alridge, Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for African American Studies

Cross-Disciplinary Conversations: Interdisciplinary Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences – The Experience of the Institute for Behavioral Research with Dr. Steve Beach, Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology and Director of the William A. and Barbara R. Owens Institute for Behavioral Research

50th Anniversary of the Desegregation of UGA: Learning from our Past – Healing the Racial Divide, One Relationship at a Time with Dr. Tina Harris, Professor of Speech Communication

Cross-Disciplinary Conversations: Conservation in a Complex World with Dr. Peter Brosius, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Integrative Conservation Research

Cross-Disciplinary Conversations: Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts at UGA with Mark Callahan, Artistic Director of Ideas for Creative Exploration and a faculty member of the Lamar Dodd School of Art

50th Anniversary of the Desegregation of UGA: Evolution of Diversity Resistance with Dr. Kecia M. Thomas, Professor of Psychology and Senior Advisor to the Dean for Inclusion and Diversity Leadership

lunchbox lectures (fall 2010)

Legally Correct Fairy Tales: A Look at the Funny Side of Law with Deborah Gonzalez, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Office of Institutional Diversity

Beyond the Bad Men of Mad Men: How the Image Makers Have Kept America Beautiful Made an Indian Cry, and Prevented Forest Fires, with Dr. Karen King, Professor of Advertising and Public Relations, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

Now You See It, Now You Don’t? Healthcare Reform in the Wake of the 2010 Election with Dr. Phaedra Corso, Associate Professor of Health and Policy Management, School of Public Health

Obama is a Muslim: The Persistence of a Political Myth with Dr. Barry Hollander, Associate Professor of Journalism, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

Cross-Disciplinary Conversations: Fostering Interdisciplinary Inquiry with Dr. Libby Morris, Vice Provost of University of Georgia, Director of the Institute of Higher Education, and Professor of Higher Education

Time Stories: 50 Years of Desegregation at UGA with Dr. Cheryl Dozier, Associate Provost and Chief Diversity Officer, Office of Institutional Diversity

Cross-Disciplinary Conversations: Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Environmentalism: With Whom Do We Work to Save the Planet? with Dr. Betty Jean Craige, University Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.

Cross-Disciplinary Conversations: How and Why Create an Interdisciplinary Institute like the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute? with Dr. Harry Dailey, Director of the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute and Professor of Microbiology and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

What is Evidence-Based Medicine, and Why Haven’t We Always Done It? with Dr. Mark Ebell, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health

Why in the World does UGA have a Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases? with Dr. Daniel Colley, Director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases and Professor of Microbiology
Why the Reconstruction of Haiti Matters with Drs. Larry Nackerud and Ed Risler, Professors in the School of Social Work

Nature Inspired Search for Snakes in Hypercubes with Dr. Don Potter, Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Professor of Computer Science

lunchbox lectures (spring 2010)

Ouji Walking Through Confusion with Michael Oliveri, Associate Professor of Art and Digital Media

Collaboration with the CDC and a New Test for Malaria with Dr. Jessica Kissinger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics

Health Care Reform in the U.S.: The Beginning or the End? with Dr. Brenda Cude, Professor of Housing and Consumer Economics

Basic Financial Planning for the Graduating College Student with Charles A. Lankau, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Legal Studies, Terry College

Salamander Ecology in a Rapidly Changing World with Dr. John Maerz, Assistant Professor in the Wildlife Ecology and Management Program, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources

The Spanish Inquisition: Expect the Unexpected with Dr. Benjamin Ehlers, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the History Department

Sink, Swim, or Get Out of the Pool? with Dr. Myra Moore, Lecturer in the Department of Economics, Terry College of Business

What You Might Not Know About Haiti: How Haitians are Helping Each Other and Why with Dr. Leara Rhodes, Associate Professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

Wilderness Areas, the Wilderness Act, and the Courts with Peter A. Appel of the Georgia School of Law

Lunchbox Lectures (fall 2009)

Who Wins? Explaining Success and Failure in War with Dr. Patricia Lynne Sullivan, Professor in the Department of International Affairs

Bridging the Digital Divide in Organizations with Dr. Dave Chatterjee, Associate Professor in the Department of Management Information Systems, Terry College of Business

Judith Ortiz Cofer, Regents and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing, reflections on Silent Dancing and readings from recent work

Millennium Development Goals and You with Dr. Maria Navarro, Instructor in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication

In the Country of Beautiful Women: A Telenovela’s Critique of Plastic Surgery Obsession with Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, Associate Professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

The Political Economy of NAFTA: Immigration and Drugs in Mexico with Dr. Sergio Quesada, Curriculum Coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute

What a Difference a Bow Makes: Chivalry and the Early Samurai Ethos in Comparative Perspective with Dr. Karl Friday, Professor of History

Lunchbox Lectures (spring 2009)

The Beatles’s A Day in the Life with Dr. Stephen Valdez, Associate Professor in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music

Workers’ Rights in China? New Labor and Employment Laws with Dr. Marisa Pagnattaro, Associate Professor in the Department of Legal Studies, Terry College of Business

Medical Ethics – Old Problems, New Challenges with Robert S. Galen, M.D., M.P.H., Professor and Senior Associate Dean of the College of Public Health

Statistical Reasoning and the Media with Christine Franklin, Senior Lecturer and Undergraduate Coordinator in the Department of Statistics

Poverty Reduction and Philanthropy in Athens with Delene Porter, President and CEO of the Athens Area Community Foundation

Exploring Behavioral Adaptability in Primates with Dr. Dorothy M. Fragaszy, Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior Program, and Director of UGA’s Primate Behavior Laboratory

Of Darters and Dollars: The Intersection of Science and Policy in the Etowah Watershed with Laurie Fowler, Environmental Practicum Director at Georgia Law, Director of Public Service and Outreach at Odum School of Ecology, and River Basin Center Director for Policy

What Happens to Soil When It Rains: Investigations of Soil Fe Cycling Across Hawaiian Climate Gradients with Dr. Aaron Thompson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences

lunchbox lectures (fall 2008)

Great Powers and Strategic Hedging: The Case of Chinese Equity Oil Investment with Dr. Brock F. Tessman, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs

The Role of Journalists in Addressing Health Disparities in the South with Professor Patricia Thomas, Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism at Grady College

Development and Deployment of Innovative Solutions at the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid: Guiding Principles for Students and Others with Dr. William Kisaalita, Professor and Graduate Coordinator in UGA’s Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department

It Takes a Real Man to Be the Perfect Woman:  The Life and Career of Julian Eltinge, America’s Most Famous Female Impersonator with George Contini, Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies

Who Will Win the Presidential Election and Why? with Dr. David B. Mustard, Associate Professor of Economics, Terry College of Business

DNA Fingerprinting and Its Social Implications with Dr. Wyatt Anderson, Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor of Genetics

Book Discussions (fall 2011)

The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us (Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Erik Hofmeister, Assistant Professor of Veterinary Anaesthesiology

Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (John Stauffer)
Discussion Leader: Dr. David Williams, Associate Provost, Director of the Honors Program, and Professor of Religion

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (Isabel Wilkerson)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Michelle Garfield Cook, Interim Associate Provost for Institutional Diversity and Associate Dean of Franklin College

The Death and Life of the Great American School System (Diane Ravich)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Ronald Butchart, Professor and Department Head of Elementary and Social Studies Education

A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
Discussion Leader: Jessica Hunt, Scholarships Coordinator, Honors Program

The Grand Design (Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow)
Discussion Leader: Dr. William Kretzschmar, Professor of English

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Shari Miller, Assistant Professor of Social Work

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Karen Russell)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean and Professor of English

The Children of Shahida (Anandam Kavoori)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Anandam Kavoori, Professor of Telecommunications, Grady College

Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food, Taming Our Primal Instincts (Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Travis Glenn, Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, College of Public Health

Book Discussions (spring 2011)

Chosen by a Horse (Susan Richards)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Rebecca Mullis, Professor of Foods and Nutrition in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

Evening in the Palace of Reason (James R. Gaines)
Discussion Leader: Dr. David Williams, Associate Provost, Director of the Honors Program, and Professor of Religion

All Over but the Shoutin’ (Rick Bragg)
Discussion Leader: Dr. John Inscoe, Professor of History

Keepin’ It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White (Prudence L. Carter)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Linda Renzulli, Associate Professor of Sociology

Out Stealing Horses (Per Petterson)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Naomi Norman, Professor of Classics

Complexity: A Guided Tour (Melanie Mitchell)
Discussion Leader: Dr. William Kretzschmar, Professor of English

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time (Greg Mortenson and David Arthus Relin)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean of Franklin College and Professor of English

The Bottom Billion (Paul Collier)
Discussion Leader: Dr. John Greenman, Professor of Mass Communication, Grady College

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
Discussion Leaders: Dr. Chao Guo, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy, and Dr. Morgan Marietta, Lecturer in the Department of Political Science

Being Human: A Darwinian Theory of behavior (P. R. Lawrence)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Rick Watson, Professor of Management Information Systems, Terry College of Business

Book Discussions (fall 2010)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)
Discussion Leader:  Prof. Patricia Thomas, Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism, Grady College

Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate (Bob Woodward)
Discussion Leader:  Tom Landrum, Senior Vice President for External Affairs

A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (Arnold Leopold)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Michael Tarrant, Professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources

Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution (Derrick Jensen)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Janette Hill, Professor in the Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy

The Book Thief (Mark Zusak)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Meg Amstutz, Chief of Staff, Office of President Michael Adams

All the King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean of Franklin College and Professor of English

Joyce and the G-men: J. Edgar Hoover’s Manipulation of Modernism (Claire A. Culleton)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. David Williams, Director of the Honors Program and Professor of Religion

A Street in Marrakech (Elizabeth Warnock Fernea)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Sharon Nickols, Professor in the African Studies Institute and Family and Consumer Sciences

Outcasts United (Warren St. John)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Stacey Kolomer, Associate Professor in the School of Social Work

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Angela Fertig, Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Public Policy

Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger)
Discussion Leader:  Jessica Hunt, Scholarship Coordinator, Honors Program

Book Discussions (spring 2010)

Renegade: The Making of a President (Richard Wolffe)
Discussion Leader: Dr. J. Douglas Toma, Associate Professor, Institute of Higher Education and Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Law

The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins
Discussion Leader: Dr. Pamela Kleiber, Associate Director of the Honors Program

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Alison Bechdel)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Christopher Pizzino, Department of English

In Defense of Food (Michael Pollan)
Discussion Leader: Dr. John Maurer, Professor of Avian Medicine, Center for Food Safety

The Last Gentleman (Walker Percy)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean of Franklin College and Professor of English

A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr.)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Jonathan Evans, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Medieval Studies Program

Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (David W. Blight)
Discussion Leader:  Dr. Luke Naeher, Department of Environmental Health Sciences

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall (Anna Funder)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Martin Kagel, Professor of German and Department Head

Founding Faith:  How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty (Stephen Waldman)
Discussion Leader: Dr. David Williams, Director of the Honors Program and Professor of Religion

Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home (Pico Iyer)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Kavita Pandit, Associate Provost for International Education

Book Discussions (fall 2009)

Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir (Neely Tucker)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Sharon Nickols, College of Family & Consumer Sciences

Surprise, Security and the American Experience (John Lewis Gaddis)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Brock Tessman, Department of International Affairs

Killers of the Dream (Lilllian Smith)
Discussion Leader: Dr. David Williams, Director of the Honors Program and Professor of Religious Studies

The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien)
Discussion Leader: Jessica Hunt, Honors Program Scholarships Coordinator

Hooked: Five Addicts Challenge our Misguided Drug Rehab System (Lonny Shavelson)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Brian Bride, School of Social Work

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (Maxine Hong Kingston)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Kam-ming Wong, Department of Comparative Literature

Deliverance (James Dickey)
Discussion Leader:Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean of Franklin College and Professor of English

Book Discussions (spring 2009)

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (Christopher Browning)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Jerome S. Legge, Jr., Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs

Time of Our Singing (Richard Powers)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Pamela Kleiber, Associate Director of the Honors Program

Master and Commander (Patrick O'Brian)
Discussion Leaders: Dr. Carl Bergmann, Associate Research Scientist at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and Dr. Harry W. Dickerson, Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine

Synchronicity, Science, and Soulmaking: Understanding Jungian Synchronicity Through Physics, Buddhism, and Philosophy (Victor Mansfield)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Bonnie Cramond, Professor of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology, College of Education

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Margaret A. Amstutz, Chief of Staff, Office of the President

The Wizard of the Crow (Ngugi wa Thiong’o)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Sharon Y. Nickols, Faculty Associate in the African Studies Institute and Professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences

Creating a World Without Poverty (Muhammad Yunus)
Discussion Leader: Dr. William Kisaalita, Professor and Coordinator of Graduate Programming, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Jeffrey Toobin)
Discussion Leader: Professor Jere Morehead, Vice President for Instruction and Professor in the Terry College of Business, Department of Legal Studies

Netherland (Joseph O’Neill)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean of Franklin College and Professor of English

book discussions (fall 2008)

The Last Lecture (Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Maureen Grasso, Dean of the Graduate School

The Double Helix (James Watson)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Ian Hardin, Professor of Textile Science

Turbulence (Jia Pingwa)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Leara Rhodes, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication

The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eugenides)
Discussion Leader:  Jessica Hunt, Honors Program Scholarships Coordinator

No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean of Franklin College and Professor of English

The Lost Boys of Sudan:  An American Story of the Refugee Experience (Mark Bixler)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Pamela Kleiber, Honors Program Associate Director

When the River Runs Dry: Water—The Defining Crisis of the 21st Century (Fred Pearce)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Alan Covich, Professor of Ecology

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes (Mark Penn)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Doug Bachtel, Professor of Housing and Consumer Economics

The Cheating Culture:  Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead (David Callahan)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Andrew Carswell, Assistant Professor of Housing and Consumer Economics

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