• January 28
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• Moses Lake

IN PERSON: Fighting for Love: Strong Women in Onscreen Romances

How do film and television portray romance for strong, independent women? Why should we care? Join Professor Allison Palumbo as they explore 40 years of fighting female characters onscreen—from private eyes to cops and spies—who struggle to find love. Even in these fictional worlds, where anything should be possible, romantic relationships tend to disempower female-bodied […]

• January 30
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• Shelton

IN PERSON: After the Blast: Mount St. Helens 40 Years Later

On May 18, 1980, the world watched in awe as Mount St. Helens erupted, killing 57 people and causing hundreds of square miles of destruction. Everyone thought it would take ages for life to return to the mountain, but scientists who visited soon after were stunned to find plants sprouting up through the ash and […]

• January 26

ONLINE: Life After Prison: The Prison-to-School Pipeline

You may have heard stories about tragic outcomes related to the “school-to-prison pipeline.” In this discussion, Omari Amili introduces new possibilities and challenges fear-based narratives through his exploration of a potential new pipeline that runs from prison to college. While sharing his story and exploring the history of mass incarceration, especially in Washington State, Omari […]

• January 27

ONLINE: One Second of Hate: A Story of Forgiveness

“Where are you from?”, his attacker asked before shooting Rais Bhuiyan during a killing spree in Texas shortly after 9/11. The attacker, a white supremacist, had been hunting for “Arabs” and perceived Muslims, though not one of his victims turned out to be from the Middle East. Despite being shot in the face, Bhuiyan survived, […]

• January 27

ONLINE: This is the End: How Movies Prepared Us for the Apocalypse

Great city streets emptied of people; a population panicked; misinformation in the air. If some of our experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic seemed familiar, it might be because the movies already imagined them. Whether the cause is environmental factors (The Day After Tomorrow, Snowpiercer, Contagion), nuclear disaster (On the Beach), or unexplained doomsday (Midnight Sky, […]

• February 3

ONLINE: An Appetite for Film: Food in the Movies

A film can build tension through editing, just like a simmering stew builds flavor through a slow dance between ingredients. Putting food and film together, however, opens movie lovers up to a slew of wonderful experiences and shared memories. Food can help us to identify with characters who bond over meals, explore ideas about identity […]

• February 3

ONLINE: American Democracy’s Indigenous Roots and Future

History books teach us that the Founding Fathers birthed American democracy, but do not reveal the Indigenous sources of inspiration that guided their vision. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace—uniting six Nations in an alliance that predates the American Constitution by centuries—served as a powerful example to men such as Benjamin Franklin, who benefited […]

• February 8

ONLINE: Whiskey and Wiretaps: The Northwest’s Rumrunning King

On Thanksgiving Day, 1925, Roy Olmstead was trapped by federal prohibition agents and their Tommy guns on a lonely Puget Sound dock. His reign as the Northwest’s most prolific bootlegger had ended. But big questions—political, cultural, and legal—remained. Why did Olmstead, the youngest lieutenant in Seattle Police Department history, form a secret gang to take […]