Lectures

These are exciting times at Clarke University! Our Arts at Clarke line-up for the fall semester is once again, very impressive. Our goal is always for these events to be stimulating, educational, and enjoyable for all.

The theme for our arts and lecture offerings the 2019-2020 academic year is Do Something! We want these events to inspire and motivate people to do. Find your passion. Pursue a goal with your whole heart. Help others. Get involved. Be engaged. Make a difference. Do Something!

This year’s events are designed to highlight this theme and showcase talented artists, musicians, actors, and lecturers from around the country – and from right here in our back yard.

Do Something! … and attend one of these fantastic events!

February

February 6
Matt Russell: Executive Director, Iowa Interfaith Power & Light
Moving From Climate Change to Climate Action

Mackin-Mailander Lecture

Matt’s lecture will focus on faith and the shared values of faith traditions as the path forward in solving the climate crisis. Matt encourages others to move away from the politics of division and into action rooted in identity, specifically with a call to climate action grounded in the values we share across faith traditions.

7 p.m.
Jansen Music Hall
$10 general admission

For tickets, please call (563) 588-6377

March

March 3
David Nelson
Stages
Mackin-Mailander Lecture

Award winning performer David Lee Nelson was diagnosed with Stage Four Colon Cancer in 2017 at the age of 38. He kept a blog of his time in chemotherapy – a heartbreakingly funny chronicle of a disease which affects over nine million Americans. This material became the basis for his solo play. STAGES is not simply a play about sickness: it’s a story of life’s setbacks and surprises, and about searching for hope in the most unlikely of places.

7 p.m.
Jansen Music Hall
$10 general admission

For tickets, please call (563) 588-6377

March 31
Dr. Moshe Szyf: James McGill Professorship and GlaxoSmithKline-CIHR Chair in Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec
How Does Our DNA Talk to the Environment?

Mary Murphy, BVM Endowed Lecture in Biology

Dr. Szyf is the founding co-director of the Sackler Institute for Epigenetics and Psychobiology at McGill and is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Experience-based Brain and Biological Development program. His lab proposed that DNA methylation is a prime therapeutic target in cancer and other diseases and has postulated and provided the first set of evidence that “social environment” early in life can alter DNA methylation—launching the emerging field of “social epigenetics.”

7:30 p.m.
Jansen Music Hall
Free

April

April 2
Dr. Ilia Delio, OSF: Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Christian Theology at Villanova University                 

The Posthuman in the Second Axial Period and the Rebirth of Religion

Schemmel Lecture in Theology + Evolution Weekend Lecture

The lecture will focus on the shift in consciousness brought about by the impact of technology and mass communication, and the irony of resistance to accepting evolution despite this ongoing human development. S. Ilia will discuss the need for a rebirth of religion in an age of artificial intelligence.

This program is supported in partnership with Humanities Iowa and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The views and opinions expressed by this program do not necessarily reflect those of Humanities Iowa or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

7:30 p.m.
Jansen Music Hall
Free

April 16
Mike Debus, Live Performance Art Painter
Edward J. and Cathy Gallagher Arts @ Clarke Event

Mike Debus is a Live Art Performance Painter from the Kansas City area and has been successfully creating portraits, murals, and countless commissioned works since 2011. Mike has made Performance Painting his main focus and has enthusiastically taken his talents around the country.

7 p.m.
Student Activity Center
$10/general admission