Insights Lecture Series

Lectures and book events featuring local and national experts speaking on a variety of subjects chosen for their relevance and their ability to spark insight and dialogue. All lectures are open to the public.

Thursday, May 31

Pompeii, Wine and the Ancient World
John F. Keegan, CWE, Miami University

5 to 6:30 p.m.: Tour of A Day In Pompeii exhibition
7 p.m.: Wine tasting and lecture in the Cincinnati Dining Room

We invite you to a special Insights Lecture filled with great wine and delicious hors d’oeuvres! Learn about the origins of wine approximately 7,000 years ago and its expansion around the world from John F. Keegan, certified wine educator at Miami University. Wine became a major part of Roman life when bread, rather than porridge, became a mainstay. Campania, near Pompeii, was the Roman world’s vineyard. This was especially true on the fertile slopes of Mt. Vesuvius and the surrounding area. We know much about Roman habits on wine, thanks to Pompeii and the writers of the day. Join us as we discuss the Roman way of wine production and consumption as seen in the archeological findings of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Wine tasting and lecture only: $30 per person; $25 for Members.
Wine tasting and lecture plus guided tour of A Day In Pompeii exhibition: $46.50 per person; $37.50 for members.

Call (513) 287-7001 by May 24 for reservations.

Thursday, June 21 

The Fernald Story
Sue Walpole, Community Relations Manager, Fernald Reserve

7:30 p.m. in Reakirt Auditorium

In Greater Cincinnati, the name Fernald conjures of images of huge overarching nuclear stations. The Fernald site has undergone many changes, from Native American antiquity, a rural agricultural setting, a Cold War mission, site cleanup, and now native wetlands, prairie and woodlands. For centuries, the area northwest of Cincinnati was mainly agricultural and largely undeveloped.

That all changed in May 1951, when Fernald began operations as a uranium ore processing facility that served as the first link in America's nuclear weapons production cycle. Throughout the nearly four decades of the Cold War, Fernald delivered high-grade uranium metal products for the nuclear weapons complex. Production operations ceased in 1989 and the site's mission changed to environmental remediation. the U.S. Department of Energy pledged to do three things at Fernald: Close it, clean it up, and give it back to the community.

Join us to hear more about this $4.4-billion cleanup, one of the largest undertaken in the nation's history. The site has been cleaned to the standards established by the community and approved by the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agencies as being protective of human health and the environment.

Thursday, July 19

Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: When History and Natural History Collide
Professor Lee Alan Dugatkin, University of Louisville

7:30 p.m. in Reakirt Auditorium

Join us for this free lecture where Lee Alan Dugatkin vividly recreates the origin and evolution of the debates about natural history in America and, in so doing, returns the prize moose to its rightful place in American history. What started out in the Revolutionary War era as an international dispute over natural history quickly took on important political overtones. This story revolves around three fascinating individuals: Thomas Jefferson, a French Count and world-renowned naturalist, George-Louis Leclerc Buffon. Buffon claimed that the flora and fauna in America was "degenerate," weak and feeble; humans included – a view widely held in Europe at the time. Jefferson sought to demonstrate that a young America was every bit the equal of a well-established Europe by sending a very large, dead moose to Paris. The American moose, Jefferson claimed “was so enormous a European reindeer could walk under it.”

Past lectures

Thursday, May 17

Distinguished Lecture: Steven Ellis, Ph.D.

Reception at 6 p.m. in Museum of Natural History & Science
Lecture at 7:30 p.m. in Reakirt Auditorium

Join us for our 2012 Distinguished Lecture with our very own Dr. Steven Ellis, Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Ellis is a Roman Archaeologist who is actively engaged in archaeological research and publication of urban and sacred sites in Italy and Greece. Dr. Ellis is internationally regarded as a pioneer in archaeological research and will talk about the latest results from his Pompeii excavations - a perfect complement to our current exhibit, A Day in Pompeii.

Are you a budding Pompeii scholar? After the lecture, Dr. Ellis will sign copies of his textbook, The Making of Pompeii: Studies in the History and Urban Development of an Ancient Town. Copies of the book will be for sale for the discounted price of $69.

Click here to listen to Dr. Ellis's interview with WVXU's Jane Durrell!

All lectures qualify teachers for 2 CEU credits.

Support for the participation of the UC Classics Department comes from the Archaeological Institute of America.