Duke on Demand

Herman Teule, professor of Eastern Christianity at the Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), where he is the head of the Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, and the Catholic University of Louvain. He studied theology, comparative religion and oriental languages at the Universities of Amsterdam and Louvain, will be speaking on Islamism & Iraqi Christians on April 4th. Teule holds a PhD (Louvain) in Oriental Studies. Teule also holds a Visiting professorships in Moscow (St Tychon's theological University) and Kottayam-India (Mahatma Ghandi University).

The social science research on decision making doesn't show radical differences in men's and women's decision-making abilities in the US, yet it is clear that men and women occupy very different socio-economic roles and positions of leadership in U.S. society. Why? Sociological research on women's workplace performance suggests that women are more likely to measure success based on personal relationships (gaining approval from, collaborating successfully with, or competing against others, especially other women). The studies of male success tend to suggest that men succeed by aspiring to those above them, in competition with peers. Other experiments suggests that women are reluctant to put themselves into a situation of competition with other women and are also less willing than men to negotiate for better salaries or benefits in the workplace. The literature complicates these issues, asking what part of gender enculturation confuses "gender" and "competition."

Yan Lianke is the author of Lenin's Kisses and currently a finalist for the Man Booker International literary prize.

Mark Anthony Neal is joined by film director, Shola Lynch, to talk about her latest release, "Free Angela & All Political Prisoners".

Mark Anthony Neal interviews filmmaker Shola Lynch about her latest release "Free Angela & All Political Prisoners".

Tune in Monday, April 8th at 1:30pm EST to watch the stream:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edyIAsPPfzs

How does the media shape political change? How have journalists both challenged and offered cover for authoritarian regimes? Questions like these have been brought to the fore in recent years by the "Arab Spring" that has rocked authoritarian and military-dominated regimes across the Middle East, in which both professional and "citizen" journalists have played key roles. These same questions arose again and again in Latin America in the 1980s, where the late twentieth century's great wave of global democratization began. This interdisciplinary, transregional research conference, featuring pre-circulated papers, will bring together scholars who study print, broadcast, and digital media in Latin America, in order to think critically about the relationships between media cultures and political change in Latin America and to develop innovative tools to for scholars to more critically interpret media sources in historical research.

Co-sponsored by:

The History Graduate Program, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Graduate School, Romance Studies, and Cultural Anthropology at Duke University; the Trent Foundation; and John D. French research funds.

If lots of people say it's good, it must be good. Social proof is the tendency to adopt the most popular behavior because its social clout seemingly suggests that it is the "correct" or "best" behavior. Social proof is evident in "liking" on Facebook, foot traffic patterns across campus, and a certain sports rivalry between Duke and a school down the road. This week's readings will explore four dimensions of social proof: (1) critical social consequences, (2) the tendency to follow others (i.e., "herd mentality"), (3) the role of social proof in value and belief creation, and (4) the failure to detect social proof.

Laurie Patton, dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University, talks about "integrative learning," and how to break through arbitrary barriers. Patton advises students to find what continuously inspires them, and to build their education and life paths based on the "enduring question" that drives their own sense of purpose in life. Patton is introduced by Professor David Malone, director of Duke's Service Learning Program.