The cornerstone of the McKelvy Scholars Program is our Sunday night dinner and discussion. Every Sunday night, scholars order dinner from a local restaurant and facilitate a discussion on a topic of their choosing.
Following the links on the right will lead to brief descriptions of the discussions from past years, taken from the informational e-mails and announcements in Lafayette Today that our Scholars send out in preparation for their discussions. Below are the discussions from the current semester:
We use small talk on a daily basis. Though underwhelming and impersonal, we still engage in it. This discussion asks why. Why is it such a big part of being a part of being in a community, workplace, or society in general? Is it part of our unspoken social contract? Should it be? And how does small talk differ in other cultures?
Queerbaiting has gone from positive representation to negative appropriation to an accusation you may have seen in your own life. This discussions is all about queerbaiting, when it’s harmful, when it’s beneficial, what happens when we accuse people of it, and how it’s affected your life.
What do “Western culture” and “Eastern” culture mean, anyway? Where do those generic descriptions come from? Are we judging cultures and deeming “right” and “wrong” (cultural relativism) for them or is human development, regardless of culture, universal? This discussion takes steps to answer all of that.
Traveling to a new country to help disadvantaged groups can attract people who want to do some good; however, we also need to reflect on the cultural dynamic behind this phenomenon. Does the desire to travel to help stem from a sense of altruism or egoism? What potential consequences could occur due to volunteer tourism? This is a discussion about it.
How are we taught to express, feel, and accept the love in our lives? Why can love become a driving force in our decision-making? And how do we build relationships with those around us? It’s a discussion about all of that.
This discussion asks about the motives of higher education, the people who hold authority to shape a school’s curriculum and values, and the matter of who should do that shaping. It takes a collective look into the current missions of academic institutions, as well as the people influencing these missions.
This week’s discussion is about the shift from handcrafted to mass produced fashion through the lens of corsetry. Are they oppressive tools of the patriarchy? Symbols of femininity? Just crop tops? The discussion focuses on corsets and fashion from craftsmanship to fast fashion and gender based oppression.
This is a discussion about stigmas surrounding ruralness and cultural questions about the dynamics of race, class, and politics in the rural countryside.
Self-optimization, for this discussion, is the act of improving different aspects of ourselves, such as health, productivity, social connectedness, creativity, and intelligence. How do we understand its value, dangers, and overall place in contemporary society? This is a discussion about it all, be it helpful, harmful, political, technological, or any other.