Lunch Colloquiums
Lunch Colloquiums are generally held twice monthly at the Luce Center and feature a wide range of faculty from all parts of the university.
Colloquiums usually take place every first and third Monday or Tuesday, unless otherwise noted.
Many of our colloquiums are recorded. Click on a title link to view the session.
All meetings are hybrid and take place from 11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m., except as noted.
In-Person: 130 The Luce Center | 825 Houston Mill Road, Atlanta 30329 Monday, September 8 Stephen Crist will consider the relationship between the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and jazz. It might seem these two repertoires have little to do with each other, since Bach worked in Germany in the first half of the 18th century and the origins of jazz date to around the beginning of the 20th century in the US. But through a series of vignettes—including music by Dave Brubeck, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Peterson, and Nina Simone—he will unfold a taxonomy of the various ways in which jazz musicians have responded to the music of Bach and demonstrate they aren’t strange bedfellows at all. Monday, September 22 Drawing on illuminating interviews with leading scientists from around the globe as well as his own pioneering research on monarch butterflies, de Roode demonstrates how animals of all kinds—from ants to apes, to bees, to bears, to cats and caterpillars—use various forms of medicine to treat their ailments and those of their relatives. There are apes that swallow leaves to dislodge worms, sparrows that use cigarette butts to repel parasites, and bees that incorporate sticky resin into their hives to combat pathogens. De Roode asks whether these astonishing behaviors are learned or innate and explains why now more than ever we need to apply the lessons from medicating animals, which can pave the way for healthier livestock, more sustainable habitats for wild pollinators, and a host of other benefits. Monday, October 6 The biblical storylines of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus reverberate throughout the Qur’an. These stories, retold by Muslims 500 years after the advent of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, give Islamic belief and practice a deep, rich relationship to both Jewish and Christian belief and practice. This presentation will explain the overall presence of biblical people in the Qur’an and give major glimpses of special aspects of the Qur’anic presentation of people like Noah, Abraham, Jacob and his son Joseph, and Jesus and Mary. This talk is presented with the support of a Heilbrunn Fellowship sponsored by Emeritus College and Emory College of Arts and Sciences. Monday, October 20, 2025 In this talk, Carla Freeman will describe the genesis of the Fox Center’s new directions and how it promises to further recognition of the humanities at Emory and beyond. With higher education facing potentially transformational change, there has never been a better time to intensify recognition of the humanities and their important role in scholarly and public life. In 2025–2026, Fox Center students and faculty are engaging in a yearlong exploration of “Life/Story,” following last year’s examination of “Democracy: Past, Present, and Future,” to ask questions such as “How do biography, oral history, and ethnography unearth particular renderings of a life? How does a single life story shed light upon central themes of the human condition?” The focus of Fox Center fellows’ research (from undergraduate honors students through tenured professors across diverse humanistic fields) includes individual subjects both “renowned and obscure.” What will tie these studies together is a collective examination of how a single life can provide an illuminating “entry point for understanding broad political, sociocultural, and historical phenomena.” Monday, November 3 Mel Konner, who together with Boyd Eaton helped originate the so-called Paleo diet in the 1980s, has not been especially enthusiastic about all the things that have gone by that name more recently. Based on his fieldwork with the San (Bushmen) of Botswana in the 1970s, and much research and debate since, he'll discuss what can be believably said about our remote ancestors’ diets (plural) and how that knowledge can help keep us healthier. Hint: It has more to do with what we should eat less of than what we should specifically eat. Monday, November 17 Lois Overbeck will present a brief overview of the editorial project begun in 1985 by Samuel Beckett that became affiliated with Emory's graduate school in 1990. With the assistance of Emory graduate and undergraduate students from many disciplines, as well as the support of many faculty colleagues at Emory, four volumes of Beckett's selected letters were published by Cambridge University Press (2009–2016). While more than 16,000 letters were consulted and transcribed by the four editors, only about 2,500 were selected for publication. It seemed important to make more of these letters accessible for future scholarship. With the approval of the Beckett estate, the Beckett Project worked with the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship to develop an open-access website, a finding aid and index of letters that have been published or are in public archives around the world. Overbeck's talk will include a few stories from along the way, a glimpse of Chercher, recollections of students who were involved in the work, and an opportunity to meet some of the collaborators. Monday, December 1, 2025 Read any good books lately? Might you be willing to recommend one (or more) of those good books to those of us wondering what to read next? We are looking for volunteers to describe books they have enjoyed that others might enjoy as well. If you’ve got one to discuss, we’ll be happy to allot you five minutes of our BookFest time. If you’ve got two or three, we can schedule you for ten minutes. And of course, you can choose a book or books of any kind at all. Monday, December 15, 2025 Please join us for a special holiday version of our lunch colloquium. No lecturer, just food, music, and spending time with friends before the holiday break. 2025–2026 Programs
ZOOM: Information will be emailed to all registrants before the meeting.
Stephen Crist, Professor of Music History and Chair of the Department of Music
“Bach and Jazz: Strange Bedfellows”
Jacobus de Roode, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Biology
“Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves”
Vernon Robbins, Professor of Religion Emeritus, Winship Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities
“Bible People in the Qur’an”
Carla Freeman, Director of the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry and Goodrich C. White Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
“Fox Center—New Directions”
Mel Konner, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor Emeritus
“Myth and Science in the ‘Paleo’ Diet”
Lois Overbeck, Director, Letters of Samuel Beckett Project, Department of English, and Curator of the open-access website Chercher
“‘The End Is in the Beginning. And Yet You Go On’"
BookFest
Emeritus College Holiday Party—In-person only