The President's Lecture Series was established at the University of Montana in 1987 by the administration of University President James Koch. Sponsored by the Office of the President, the intention of the series was to bring respected and engaging speakers to the University of Montana. Originally, there were six speakers a year who each presented an academic lecture. As of 2017, the series schedules ten speakers an academic year. The presentations are free and open to the public. Lecturers include diplomats, musicians, biologists, theologians, authors, historians, and social scientists who address important and timely topics within their area of expertise.
This collection contains video recordings of many of the University of Montana's President's Lectures from 1988 to the present. The recordings are on various formats including VHS, U-Matic, Mini DV, and DVD. Many of the lectures are available in multiple formats. Most lectures since 2008 have accompanying release forms. The collection also contains event programs for the lectures from 1987-2016.
This collection has been divided into three series.
Series I: Lecture Recordings, 23.3 linear feet, 1988-2018
Series II: Recording Releases, 0.2 linear feet, 2008-2018
Series III: Programs, 0.2 linear feet, 1987-2016
Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and The University of Montana-Missoula. Some of the video recordings are not available for viewing, please contact Archives and Special Collections for additional information.
Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes. The University of Montana retains rights to some of the recordings in this collection, please contact Archives and Special Collections for additional information.
University of Montana President's Lecture Series Records and Video Recordings, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.
Lectures are recorded at the University of Montana and transferred to Archives and Special Collections.
Additions to this collection are expected.
Recordings were individually numbered during processing. Items with restrictions from the presenter were placed in a separate box at the end of the collection. Releases for individual lectures were also foldered chronologically and placed at the beginning of the run of recordings.
Depending on the format, some lectures are available in multiple parts due to run time of U-Matic and VHS. Additionally, the master copies of many lectures from the early 2000s are on MiniDV tapes with a VHS duplicate.
Archives and Special Collections also houses the records of the Office of the President (RG 01) and University of Montana publications (UPUBs) that contain additional information about the President's Lecture Series. Many of the recordings available in this collection are also available in the general collection at the Mansfield Library.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
Materials are arranged chronologically.
"Who Owns America? The Conflict Over American Values" Part 1
"Who Owns America? The Conflict Over American Values" Part 2
"Mrs. Thatcher and the Transformation of British Politics" Part 1
"Mrs. Thatcher and the Transformation of British Politics" Part 2
"Memory and the Problem of Tradition in American Culture" Part 1
"Memory and the Problem of Tradition in American Culture" Part 2
"The Africans: A View from Within" Part 1
"The Africans: A View from Within" Part 2
"Women, Society, and Literature" Part 1
"Women, Society, and Literature" Part 2
"Women, Society, and Literature" Part 3
"Women, Society, and Literature" Part 4
"The Challenge of Philosophy in the Modern Worlds" Part 1
"The Challenge of Philosophy in the Modern Worlds" Part 2
"The Challenge of Philosophy in the Modern Worlds" Part 3
"The Challenge of Philosophy in the Modern Worlds" Part 4
"The Challenge of Philosophy in the Modern Worlds" Part 5
"At the Keyhole: the Historian Watching the Scientists Work" Part 1
"At the Keyhole: the Historian Watching the Scientists Work" Part 3
"At the Keyhole: the Historian Watching the Scientists Work" Part 4
"At the Keyhole: the Historian Watching the Scientists Work" Part 5
"Modern Communication and the Death of Art and Politics" Part 1
"Modern Communication and the Death of Art and Politics" Part 2
"Modern Communication and the Death of Art and Politics" Part 3
"Modern Communication and the Death of Art and Politics" Part 4
"Modern Communication and the Death of Art and Politics" Part 5
"Modern Communication and the Death of Art and Politics" Part 6
"Public Education and Drug Abuse: Two National Security Issues for the 1990s"
"The Riddle of Evil" The Causes and Cures of Human Destructiveness" Part 1
"The Riddle of Evil" The Causes and Cures of Human Destructiveness" Part 2
"Coherence without Consensus: Reflections on the Great Curriculum Controversy" Part 1
"Coherence without Consensus: Reflections on the Great Curriculum Controversy" Part 2
"The Case of the Woman Warrior: Gender, Violence, and Allegory in Revolutionary Painting" Part 1
"The Case of the Woman Warrior: Gender, Violence, and Allegory in Revolutionary Painting" Part 2
"The Undergraduate Experience"
"A Country without Secrets: Nature and History in the American West" Part 1
"A Country without Secrets: Nature and History in the American West" Part 2
"Law, History, and Reality" Part 1
"Law, History, and Reality" Part 2
"Muslim Nationalism in the Soviet Union: the Case of Azerbaijan"
"Muslim Nationalism in the Soviet Union: the Case of Azerbaijan"
"Teaching, Learning, and the Community: The State of the Humanities in the U.S." Part 1
"Teaching, Learning, and the Community: The State of the Humanities in the U.S." Part 2
"The Future of NATO"
"Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Reverse Discrimination: Appearances and Realities" Part 1
"Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Reverse Discrimination: Appearances and Realities" Part 2
"The Crisis in Scholarly Communication: Has the Vehicle Lost a Wheel?"
"Aristotle's Poetics and Greek Tragedy"
"The German Question"
"Johann Sebastian Bach: a Fulfillment and a Beginning" Part 1
"Johann Sebastian Bach: a Fulfillment and a Beginning" Part 2
"Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy: the Conquest of Paradise" Part 1
"Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy: the Conquest of Paradise" Part 2
"The Essentials of Poetry" Part 1
"The Essentials of Poetry" Part 2
"The Brave New World of Health Care" Part 1
"The Brave New World of Health Care" Part 2
"The Reenvisioning of the American West"
"Five Hundred Years After Columbus: the End of the Age of Colonization and the Beginning of the Age of Discovery" Part 1
"Five Hundred Years After Columbus: the End of the Age of Colonization and the Beginning of the Age of Discovery" Part 2
"Human Nature: What We Need to Know About Ourselves in the Twenty-first Century" Part 1
"Human Nature: What We Need to Know About Ourselves in the Twenty-first Century" Part 2
"Pericles's Vision for Athens" Part 1
"Pericles's Vision for Athens" Part 2
"George Orwell: The Face Behind the Page"
"From Limited to Total War, 1861-1865"
"Preserving Traditions: Northern Eskimo Value Systems"
"The Social Construction of Reality and the Reality of Social Construction" Part 1
"The Social Construction of Reality and the Reality of Social Construction" Part 2
"How to Build Democracy on Ruins: The Struggle of Eastern Europe"
"The Light and Lively Harpsichord: A Lecture-Entertainment" Part 1
"The Light and Lively Harpsichord: A Lecture-Entertainment" Part 2
"The Slow Poetry of Fact" *says 1 of 2 but we only have 1
"The Music of Chopin and Liszt: A Lecture-Concert"
"Vichy France: Fifty Years After"
"'From the Frontier of Writing' A Reading and a Lecture" Part 1
"'From the Frontier of Writing' A Reading and a Lecture" Part 2
"Charles Russell: The Persistence of His Art"
"America's Role in a Changing World"
"Venus Our Sister Planet" How Does It Work?"
"Political and Libidinal Economy on the Edge of the Second Millenium"
"Reconstruction and the American Constitution"
"America's Continuing Racial Dilemma: Hope and Despair"
"A Song of Love and Life: The Glories of Italian Opera"
"Religious Freedom Fundamental Right for all Peoples"
"The Idea of the University in Action"
"The Ascetic Attack on the Aesthetic: Explicit vs. Implicit Social Criticism"
"Fears of a Federalized Militia: The Second Amendment in Historical Context"
"A Beethoven Evening with Ignat Solzhenitsyn"
"Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies"
"Women's Psychology and Girls' Development"
"The Repertoire of Paul Robeson"
"Sexually Transmitted Diseases: A Plague Upon Our House"
"Reflections on the Centenary of Motion Pictures"
"Meanings of the Millennium"
"Continuing Catastrophe: Chernobyl and How It Affects Us"
"AIDS: The Life and Death of HIV"
"What to Listen for in the World"
"The Black Struggles of the 1960s and the 1990s Compared"
"The New Religious Landscape of America: The Challenges of Religious Pluralism"
"The New Culture of the Body: Gender, Science, and Work in Late Twentieth-Century America"
"Johann Sebastian Bach: Virtuoso, Metaphysician, and Man of Faith"
"The Workers and the World Economy"
"The Southern Christian Response to the Defeat of the Condfederacy"
"What You Should Know About Herbal Medicines"
"Italian Instruments, French Bows, German Music: A Lecture-Recital"
"The View from My Window on the World of Physics"
"The King We Left Behind"
"Democracy On Trial"
"Is There Room in the Lifeboat? Health Care and Disabled People"
"P'ansori: Performance and Commentary"
"The Schools We Need"
"Computers and Mathematics: Recent Successes and Insurmountable Obstacles"
"Strauss, Mahler, Schoenberg: Alexander Zemlinsky?"
"Devolution, Federalism, and the Tenth Amendment"
"U.S.-China Relations After the Summits"
"The Repressive Tolerance of Multiculturalism"
"Unity Through Music"
"Genes, Genesis, and God: Values in Natural and Cultural History"
"Mothers of Invention: Writing Women into the Civil War"
"Parks in Peril: Why There Is a Tropical Biodiversity Crisis"
"Mathematics, Computer Games, and Gender"
"History as Storytelling"
"J.S. Bach's: Clavieruebung Masterpieces for the Harpsichord"
"The Challenges and Tensions of a Globalized World"
"Jazz as a Metaphor for Democracy"
"From Kosovo to Kashmir: What Does America Owe the World?"
"Young Man Lincoln"
"The Pathology of Partisanship"
"A Lecture-Reading"
"Making Knots Dance: The Fascinating Mathematics of Ravelled Ropes."
"The Philosophy of Romantic Love"
"Why Conserve Biodiversity"
"Loneliness as Illness, Love as Medicine: Stories and Science from the Worlds of Mind-Body Medicine"
"Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Activist Continuum"
"Crossover: The Interaction Between the Folk Tradition and Classical Music from the Renaissance to the Twenty-first Century"
"Globalization: The Clash Between Economics and Politics"
"Robert Frost Reading and Analysis"
"The Voice of the Piano: A Lecture-Concert"
"The Lustre of Our Country: The Invention of Religious Freedom"
"Cuba and the United States: From Cultural Engagement to Political Conflict"
"In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West" 2 copies
"The End of Farming? The American Heartland in Classical Context"
"The Relevance of Philosophy to Life" 2 copies
"The Critical Turn: The Arts Without Mystery" 3 copies
"The Shape of Space"
"China's Place in the World: Implications for U.S. Policy"
"Around the World in Eighty Minutes with the Verdehr Trio: A Commissioning Odyssey"
"Does Ethics Matter? Reflections on Enron and Other Scandals of the Past Year"
"Is Medicine a Science?"
"One History or Two? Black and White Women in American History"
"Pearl Harbor II: The Intelligence Failure of September 11th and What Needs to Be Done"
"The Puzzle of Consciousness"
"The Resurgence of Islam: The Next Eruption"
"The Four Horsemen of the Cultural Apocalypse: The State of the Arts at the Present Time" 2 copies
"Globalization and World Health: Threats and Responsibilities" 2 copies
"Defending Science - Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism" 2 copies
"The European Challenge to Pax Americana"
"John F. Kennedy: The View Forty Years Later" 3 copies
"Crossing Threshholds: The Environment as a Moral Issue"
"The International Struggle Over Asbestos"
"Documenting the Aftermath of September 11th through Photographs," "The International Struggle Over Asbestos" DVD
"Digging for Moy Sand and Gravel: A Lecture/Reading" DVD
"Bio Nano Science and Technology" and "Self-Organization in Nano/Micro Systems"
"Imagination in Place" and "Imagination in Place: A Seminar on a Lecture"
"Law and the War in Iraq" and "New York Times v. Sullivan: A Retrospective After 40 Years"
"Technology and the Winning of World War II: The Story of a Hero History Forgot" and "Intimate Histories: Reexamining the Record on Robert Oppenheimer"
"The Council of Trent and the Making of Modern Catholicism" and "Four Cultures of the West"
"The World of the New Urban Poor" and "The Roots of Racial Tensions"
"The Secessionist Movement in Vienna: A Visual Interpretation as Seen Through Gustave Limt's 'Beethoven Frieze'" and "Otto wagner's Church at Steinhof: The Archivterual Manifestation of a New Attitude Toward the Mentally Ill"
"The New Genetics: A Visit from Prometheus or Pandora?" and "Stem Cell Research: What is Progress?"
"Women and Social Justice: Midwives of a Better World" and Walking with Miss Ellie: Connecting Friendship, Prayer, and Justice-Making"
"Creationism versus Evolution" and "Morgan's Canon"
"City on a Hll and Embattled Fortress: An Anatomy of American Nationalism" and "Ethical Realism: A Foreign Policy Philosphy for Our Time"
"From Copper to Corots: The Two Lives of William Andrews Clark, Senator of Montana" and "Franco-American Relations: Past and Present"
"Sexual Selections: What We Can and Cannot Learn about Sex from Animals" and "Singing and Scales: Crickets Riskin It All from an Acoustically-orienting Parasitoid"
"A Short History of the Early Violin: A Lecture-Concert" and "Master Class"
"The Massive Mysticism of Stone: Religion's Ecological Phase" and "Song of Songs: Environmental Activism by Religious Communities"
"The Privatization of Freedom in America: What It Means for Individuals and Democracy" and "The Medieval and Christian Sources of Modern Freedom"
"From Bewitched to Buffy: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media" and "The Mass Media and Celebrity Culture"
"Rethinking World Literature from Goethe's Idea to Harold Bloom's The Western Canon" and "The Novel: The Survival of the Fittest"
"Ethical Politics: Illusion or Reality?" and "The Evolution of Consciousness and Religion"
"How Durable Is the American Empire?" and "Revising the American Century"
"What Went Wrong with U.S. Foreign Policy" and "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"
"The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on Our Bible" and "Major Surprises in the Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls"
"Europe in the 21st Century: Too Big to Be Left Alone, Too Weak to Go It Alone" and "Iraq: America's Most Foolish War?"
"Birthplace of Rivers: The Diversity, Destruction, and Restoration of Headwater Streams" and "Forest-Stream Linkages in an Urbanizing Landscape"
"The Red Wave in Latin America: What the Turn to the Left Means for the United States" and "Contemporary Brazil: Continuity and Change"
"Women and the Iraq War" and "Women and the Globalization of Factories"
"Deadly Waiting Game: An Environmental Justice Framework for Examining Natural and Manmade Disasters Beyond Hurricane Katrina" and Environmental Justice for All"
"The Evolution-Creation Struggle: An American Story" and "Is Darwinism an Exhausted Paradigm?"
"The Crisis of Education in America" and "The Transformation of American Conservatism, 1955-2001"
"Study War No More: Violence and the Literary Imagination" -- RESTRICTED
"What Is at Stake in Afghanistan?"
The Wars in Afghanistan: The Post-Imperial Transformation of a Regional State System
"Keeping America Great" Lecture
"Keeping America Great" Seminar
"The Threat to the Planet: How Can We Avoid Dangerous Human-Made Climate Change?"
"What Determines Climate Sensitivity?"
"The US and China: The Most Important Bilateral Relationship in the World" -- RESTRICTED
"Slaves No More: Two Recently Discovered Slave Narratives and the Story of Emancipation" and "The Civil War and Emancipation in American Memory"
"Creating Just Societies: The Environment, the Economy, and Human Relations in the Next Millennium" and "Indigenous Thinking on Sustaining Development Strategies for the Northern Plains-Great Lakes Region"
"Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" and "The Globalization of Anti-Semitism"
"Oceans, Climate, and Human Health: The Cholera Paradigm" and Infectious Diseases, Climate, and the Environment
"How to Read a Play: The Theater and Society in the 21st Century" and "Ripped from the Headlines: The The Theatre and the World Around It"
"Religion and Violence in the 21st Century" and "Why Americans Fight: Our 'National Religion' as a Cause of War"
"Finding Beauty in a Broken World" -- RESTRICTED
"Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia" and "The Strength, Appeal, and Prospects of al-Qaeda Today"
"The Catholic Intellectual and Writer Today" and "Writing about the Life of Gerard Manley Hopkins"
"Using Ecological Approaches to Understand and Predict Emerging Diseases" and "Why Do Emerging Diseases Like SARS and West Nile Happen and What Can We Do to Stop Them?"
"The Russian Romantics: Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Medtner, and Rachmaninov" -- RESTRICTED
"Red, White, Black, and Blue: Race, Culture, and Mental Health in America" and "Mental Health Matters for the Nation and Montana" -- RESTRICTED
"Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq" and "A Conversation with CIA Veteran Michael Scheuer"
"Politics and the Pursuit of Excellence" and "Is Moral Perfectionism Incompatible with Democratic Equality"
"Public Service and the Idea of a Changing World" and "On the Priority of Culture to Politics"
"Unruly Americans and the Origins of the U.S. Constitution" and "Abigail Adams: Entrepreneur"
"Modern Media: A Photojournalist's Vision for the Future" and "Storytelling Through Photojournalism: From Life Magazine to Modern Multimedia"
"Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond" and "World Energy Security"
"The Truth about the Drug Companies" and "Health Reform: Realistic and Unrealistic"
"Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse" and "Designing Post-Carbon Cities: The Oberlin Project"
"Engaging the Muslim World" and "Iraqi Politics on the Eve of the Election: Prospects for Obama's Disengagement"
"Because It Was He, Because It Was I: The Good of Friendship" and "Friendship and Other Non-Moral Values"
"The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service" and "The Impact of the Iraq War on the Economy"
"Does the Rise of China Threaten American Interests?" and "China's Human Rights Record and Why It Matters to Us"
"The American Century: Its Beginnings - and End?" and "Reconsidering the Roots of the American Empire"
"The Books That Changed America" and "The Passages of Herman Melville"
"Finding Your Inner Fish" and "Fossils, Genes, and the Evolution of Limbs"
"Overcoming Moral Distress: Reforming Organizations and Institutions" and "Biology and the Concept of Death as Un-American"
"Human Rights and the CIA: The Case of the Assassination of Patrice Lumumba" and "Long-Term Human Environment Interaction in Amazonia: From 11,000 Years Ago to the Present"
"Marx on Equality" and "Seminar"
"Gandhi after Gandhi" and "Seminar"
"Leonardo and Steve: The Young Genius Who Beat Apple to Market by 800 Years" and "Giving a MOOC - a Survival Guide"
"The Verve: Humanism, Scholarship, and Modern Life" and "Hamlet's Lyric Theatre"
"3,000 Years of Ancient Ireland's Music and Instruments"
"How Self-Service Has Replaced Public Service in the Gilded Capital" and "The Role of the Media in the Washington Carnival"
"Learning from the Octopus: How Observations of Nature Are Transforming Science and Society" and "Observation and Trust: Rethinking Environmental Science and Law for a Complex World"
"Picasso, Matisse, and the 1913 Armory Show in Chicago"
"The Emancipation Proclamation: Myths and Realities" and "The Scorpion's Sting: The Irreconcilable Conflict over Slavery"
"Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, PRISM, Edward Snowden, and National Security" and "The Death of the Liberal Class and the Crisis of the American Political System"
"The New American Militarism" and "The Importance of Reinhold Niebuhr's 'Irony of American History'"
"John Stuart Mill and John Henry Newman: Two Concepts of Liberty and Conscience" and "The Nature and Scope of Religious Freedom"
"The Work of the Imagination" and "Trusting What You're Told: How Children Learn from Others"
"Military Neo-Liberalism: The Evolving Profile of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century" and "It's the Oil, Stupid: The Oily Aspects of the Current Wars in Iraq, Syria, and Other Hot Spots on Five Continents"
"Reconsidering the Cold War's End" and "Ukraine, Russia and the West: Crisis, Causes, and Consequences"
"The Arab Spring and the Israeli Spring" and "Betrayal: Political and Personal"
"How Europeans Became Curious" and "The Ups and Downs of Capitalism"
"MicroRNAs and Blood Cell Homeostasis" and "Gene as Therapies"
"The Wisdom of the U.S. Constitution" and "Science and the Humanities in America's Universities"
"The Changing Face of Classical Music"
"Current U.S.-Latin American Relations in Historical Perspective: How Latin American Opposition to U.S. Expansion Helped Shape the Global Order" and "Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman"
"A War Against War: The Americans Who Fought for Peace: 1914-1918" and "What Is the Legacy of the 1960s?"
"Living Seed, Living Soil, and Earth Democracy" and "We Are All Seeds: Food Security and Environmental Sustainability"
"Two New Games for Carbon" and "The Commonalities and Differences between the Arts and Sciences"
"A Conversation with Anthony Romero" and "Civil Liberties in America Today"
"Can We Reclaim the American Dream?" and "Who Stole the American Dream?"
"Neuroimaging Methods in the Study of Neural Connectivity in Brain Health and Disease" and "Brain Health, Aging and Alzheimer's Disease: Perspectives from Neuroimaging and Neuropsychology"
"Showdown in the South China Sea: Beijing and Washington Struggle for Dominance over the 'World Island'" and "Surveillance and the Future of U.S. Global Power"
"Researching Irish Republican Army Prisoners in England: 1968-1998" and "Irish America and the 1916 Rising"
"Why So Little Policy Movement on Caregiving Issues? A Policy Feedback Perspective" and "Trapped in America's Safety Net: One Family's Struggle"
"A Jane Austen Education" and "The Crisis in Higher Education"
"Economics and the Art of Strategic Thinking"
"Soldiers and Dancers Sharing the Dance Floor" and "Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers"
"Ecology and Political Economy in the History of Capitalism" and "Environmental Justice for the Anthropocene"
"Missing, Broken, and Forgotten: The Never-Ending Challenges of Filmmaking" and "America's Deadliest Battle: An Experiential Film of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive"
"Koba, the Young Stalin: The Making of a Revolutionary" and "Lessons of October: The Fate of Democracy and Socialism in the Age of Revolution and Counter-Revolution"
"Last Men and Women" and "Slouching Towards Utopia"
"The Rise and Promise of the Mechanical Bond in Chemistry and Beyond" and "Mingling Art with Science"
Materials are arranged chronologically.
Materials are arranged chronologically.