Fall 2017 Pinedale

Sublette County Library  |  Pinedale, WY

Lovatt Room, 155 South Tyler Avenue

September 16, 2017  | 9:00  AM

Doors open at 8:30 AM for coffee and donuts.

9:00 AM   How Synthetic Biology Will Change Medicine... And Us
Mark Gomelsky, Professor of Molecular Biology, University of Wyoming
 
Biology is rapidly becoming an engineering science. Genes—the units of life—can now be added to existing organisms and edited in the existing organisms. In the near future new cells will be created with an assortment of desired properties. That means we can change genetic programs in animals and humans. But will Synthetic Biology benefit or harm humanity? In this talk about the coming BioRevolution, Dr. Gomelsky will describe Synthetic Biology and address the philosophical and ethical questions it engenders. He will describe how his laboratory’s research enhances the utility and safety of designer cells, and how it creates new therapeutic opportunities.


 
10:15 AM  Writing the Way West: Authors in America
Caroline McCracken-Flesher, Professor of English, University of Wyoming
 
Nineteenth-century writers imagined the west as virgin territory. Robert Louis Stevenson, riding the rails across Wyoming, was disappointed; Oscar Wilde wittily saw only himself—reflected in every prospect. Other explorers in literature and in land, from Walter Scott to John Wesley Powell, had already written over the west. Join Caroline McCracken-Flesher to relive this race through the landscape, chasing the language that can speak for our expanse of rocks, rivers, and precious few trees. 


 
11:30 AM  The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us About the Future
Robert Kelly, Professor of Anthropology, University of Wyoming
 
This lecture discusses the four major “beginnings” of human history – the origins of technology, culture, agriculture, and the state—and presents evidence that humanity is entering a fifth beginning, one that can be expected to mark dramatic changes in world economy, war, culture, and governance.

Previous Recording of Dr. Robert Kelly

Saturday University in Pinedale is sponsored by the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Humanities Council, Sublette BOCES and Sublette County Libraries.

Click to download the event poster.