Elections in a Time of Crisis

Dr. Rufus Fears

View news release

By popular demand, we welcome back J. Rufus Fears, Ph.D., the David Ross Boyd Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma, to discuss something that is a hot topic no matter where you go – the November election. Free elections are the foundation of democracy. Winston Churchill defined democracy as the right of every citizen to cast a ballot and to have that ballot count. To the amazement of Europe, the United States held presidential elections in the midst of the Civil War and in the depths of the Depression. Those were both critical elections that changed our history. We face another such election this year.

Dr. Fears will ask what lessons history holds for us and will discuss other presidential elections in times of crisis. His focus will be on what he considers to be the most important presidential election in our country’s history. Care to venture a guess as to which one?

The Dust Bowl: Behind the Scenes of Ken Burns' New Film

Dayton Duncan

View news release

Award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker Dayton Duncan is known for his work that chronicles important people, places and events in American history. From Lewis & Clark to The National Parks, Duncan uses his unique skills to transport people across time and space. He frequently partners with fellow documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Their most recent project, The Dust Bowl, will air on PBS in November.

Duncan, the writer and producer of The Dust Bowl, will provide a sneak preview of excerpts from the film. He will provide a behind-the-scenes commentary on the making of the film, as well as discussion about this important and often overlooked moment in American history.

Under One Fence

Wyman Meinzer

View news release

A self-taught plains historian and professional photographer, Wyman Meinzer has traveled across the State of Texas to capture the first and last rays of sunlight as they kiss the landscape. Throughout his career, he has photographed or written 25 photography books and his images have appeared in Smithsonian, Time, Field and Stream, and Newsweek to name a few. He was once described as a man with the eye of a nineteenth-century impressionist painter and the soul of a buffalo hunter.

Meinzer will share with us the story of "Under One Fence: The Waggoner Ranch Legacy". The ranch was established in 1849 by Dan Waggoner with six horses and 249 head of longhorns. Since then, it has grown to a massive 525,000 acres and grazes 12,000 head of cattle. Meinzer’s story captures the historical legacy and life way of ranching while describing the most contiguous acreage under one fence in America.

Curiosity and the Exploration of Mars

Gentry Lee

View news release

In early August, 2012, an SUV-sized roving vehicle named Curiosity, originally encapsulated in an enormous aeroshell, hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour. It then decelerated for seven minutes using a heat shield, a parachute, and eight rocket engines to land gently on its wheels in Gale Crater on Mars. Curiosity is a technological miracle, by far the most complex robot ever built by mankind. Gentry Lee, Chief Engineer for the Solar System Exploration Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is responsible for the engineering integrity of robotic planetary missions including Curiosity. Lee will share the excitement and wonder of the Curiosity mission, describe the rover from both a scientific and engineering point of view, and place Curiosity in the context of the overall human exploration of Mars.