News 2024 Spring Faculty Lecture Series Kicks off in February

Minimum wage, technologies of handwriting, and China’s participation in UN peace operations are the featured topics for the upcoming Hartwick College Faculty Lecture Series.

The series starts Friday, February 9, with the presentation, “Minimum Wage as a Poverty-Alleviation Tool in the Face of Powerful Employers.” The lecture will be delivered by Carlena Ficano, professor of economics, and John Mahn ‘23, a John Christopher Hartwick Scholar. Ficano and Mahn will use newly available data to evaluate changes in poverty rates in the wake of state-level minimum-wage changes from 2015 to 2020 across counties with differing levels of employer power.

On Friday, March 8, Lisa Darien, associate professor of literature, media and writing, will cover “Technologies of Handwriting: Manuscripts, Material Culture, and the Past.” Darien will discuss how a focus on material can lead not only to a deeper scholarly understanding of how medieval manuscripts were produced, but can also be used to help students connect with places and time periods often erroneously viewed as too remote to be relevant today.

The spring edition of this lecture series concludes on Friday, April 12, with “Selective Peacekeeping: Understanding China’s Participation in UN Peace Operations,” a talk led by Jing Chen, associate professor of political science. The discussion will focus on a study by Chen that reveals how China follows a two-step decision-making process for participation in UN peacekeeping operations.

All talks in the Faculty Lecture Series will take place in Eaton Lounge, Bresee Hall, from 12:20– 1:15 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information, visit the series webpage or contact Bradley J. Fest, associate professor of English, at [email protected].