Northwest Independent Scholars Association

 

RECENT MEETINGS:

 

 

January 31, 2024,  KATE Burrows:  Humanizing the Coronavirus: The Coronavirus in Animated Short Films of the COVID-19 Pandemic"

 

March 13, 2024: Dick Etulain: "The Basques: The Mystery People of the American West."

 

May 21, 2024: Margaret DeLacy: “Piecing together the story of Philip de la Cour (1710-1785): A Jewish Physician in Enlightenment Britain”

 

ARCHIVES

 

2023

 

 

       February 1, 2023, David Ritchie: "Napoleon’s Teeth, thoughts on writing a play, and on creative non-fiction as a means of thinking through history."

March 29, 2023: Bill Adams: "The Misinterpretation of Dreams"

 

May 31, 2023: Jane Wulff: "All in Good Time: How a community's life story, long disregarded, is now being heard"

 

September .....cancelled due to illness of host

 

Wednesday, November 8, 2023:  Michael Meo:  "Eduard Kummer's paper from the Journal de mathématiques    

    pures et appliquées)" and 40th birthday celebration

 

2022

 

 

         January 19, 2022:  Greg Steinke: Music and the Poetry of Lawson Fusao Inada

 

        April 20: Crystal Zingsheim: "Camerons Obscura, Searchers of the Obscure"

 

        September 20: Kate Burrows: "Autoethnography from the Perspective of a Person with Psychosis"

 

        November 30 Margaret DeLacy: "Cleansing and chlorine.  A story about disinfectants and antiseptics"
 

 

 

 

2021

 

February 24: Mary Hansen, City Archivist, Portland City Archives (postponed)

 

March 31: Barbara Canavan, "Zoonotic Disease: Past and Present"

 

May 5: Martha Bailey, "Science, Skepticism and the Unknown: Educating Community College Students about   Science"

 

September 20: Morgan Young "Historical Research Associates"

 

November 17th: Kate Burrows, " 'From the Moon and Back' : Hearing Device Advertisements of the 20th Century"

 

 

 

2020

 

January 29: Margaret DeLacy: " 'Reasons for Classing of Diseases, Medicine and Physicians': John Bellers (1654-1725), Quakerism, and Medical Reform"

 

POSTPONED: Anne ONeill: "Researching and Writing Pre-Oregon Trail Historical Fiction"

 

June 17th. 2020: virtual NISA social meeting via Zoom

September 30. 2020: Barbara Canavan "High Politics and Pandemic Predictions: The Swine Flu Fiasco of 1976"

November 11, 2020: Margaret DeLacy: "The Early Eighteenth-Century Apocalypse, Some Origins, Confluences, and Questions"

 

 

2019

 

 

    January 23: Richard W Etulain: "Presidents Who Shaped the American West."

 

          March 13: Irene Hecht: "Under Manila Skies"

 

        May 29: David Ritchie: "What Do You Call Your Sword?"

 

        September 18: Robert McGown:  "Super Novas and Our Fragile Earth"

 

        November 20: Josie Cooper: Dancing with Ideas: The Personal Essay as a Vehicle for Challenging

         Assumptions about Aging

 

 

 

 

 

 

2018

 

 

        January 17 2018: David Kohl: "Portland's Lan Su Chinese Garden in Context"

 

        March 28, 2018: Barbara Canavan: "High Politics and Pandemic Predictions: A Historical Perspective"

 

        May 23, 2018: David Ritchie: "The Mortar and the Sword: Weapons in Fantasy and Reality"

 

        September 26, 2018: 35th. anniversary party

 

      November 28, 2018: Jane Elder Wolff: "Beyond Words:  The Story of an Orchestra.  How the world-class musical legacy with the community of

             Vancouver, Washington Vancouver Symphony  Orchestra is building a world-class musical legacy with the community of Vancouver,       

             Washington

 

   

2017

 

 

January 25, 2017, Richard March: "Rough Stuff: the Assassination Attempts"

 

March 15, 2017, Nikki Mandell: "A Hotel of Her Own: Building by and for the New Woman, 1900-1930"

 

May 17, 2017, David Ritchie and Bob Martin: Teaching Art: Circumstance, Creativity

 

September 20, 2017, Martha Bailey: "Understanding Islam: Networks Across Time and Space"

 

November 8, 2017, Richard Etulain: "Ernest Haycox and the Western"

 

 

 

 

 

2016

January 20, 2016, Tom Hubka: "The Wall-Painting from an 18th Century Polish Wooden Synagogue Jewish Liturgical Art--painted by, for, and about Jews" [postponed to February 17]

 

March 14, 2016, Don Blanchard: "Henry Gray's Eye Anatomy'"

 

May 18, 2016, Rosemary Lombard: "Teaching Turtles Elements of Language: Possible Applications to Teaching Humans"

 

September 21, 2016, Josey Cooper: "Putting a Face on Social Concerns."

 

November 9, 2016, Jimmie Moglia: "History of the Art of Memory and its Applications"

 

 

 

2015

        January 14, 2015, Dick Etulain: "Calamity Jane: The Making of a Frontier Legend"

March 11, 2015, David Kohl:  "Lutheran Women in Republican China".

 

May 20, 2015, Michael Munk: "Street Car Suburb: Council Crest"

 

September 9, 2015: Margaret DeLacy: "Healers and Hellions: outsiders and medical sociability in London in the early eighteenth century"

 

November 11: Scholarly research session at the Multnomah County Library

 

 

 

 

2014

 

 

        January 29th., 2014, Jack Boas:  "Writer's Block Scribblers against Hitler. The Story of the Antifascist Writer's Congress in Paris, 1935"

March 19th., 2014, Irene Hecht: "The Intersection Between Social Evolution and Individual Choices Child Naming Patterns in Colonial New England"

 

May 7th., 2014, Zeb Larson : "Community Mental Health in Oregon: From Asylums to Jails"

 

September 18th., 2014, David Ritchie: "Professor of the Sterner Sex: Rodney Glisan (1827-1890) and Gender Relations in Portland's Early Medical History."

 

November 5th., 2014, Donald Blanchard, "Iceland Spar and Early Polarizing Theories of Light"
 

 

 

 

2013

 

January 23rd., 2013, Steven McLure: "Captain William Clark's travels on the Willamette River in 1806"

 

March 20th., 2013,  Richard W. Etulain: "Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era"

 

May 22nd., 2013, Josephine Cooper: "Where are the women in the workplace history of meatpacking industries?

 

September 25th., 2013, Morgen Young: "Nyssa, Oregon Documenting a Japanese American Farm Labor Camp"

 

November 16th., 2013 : 30th. birthday celebration

 

 

 

2012

 

 

          January 25th., Paul Metzner: "The Rage of Humor in the Age of Reason; or, Laughter in Western Culture, 1650-1800 and in General"

            with an  International Set of Co-Authors"

March 7th., Margaret DeLacy, "Communication, contagion and reform: the Medical Society of London, 1773-1803"

 

May 16th., Polina Olsen, "Stories from Jewish Portland"

 

September 12th. Morgen Young, Making a Career as a Consulting Historian"

 

November 7th. Chris Mooers: "Experiences in Coordinating and Editing a Cambridge University Press Scientific Monograph

 

2011

 

January 26th., Josey Cooper:  "Physician-Executioner: Medical and uniformed policing of the social order in Nazi Germany"

 March 16th., James Kahan: "Some more or less random thoughts on multidisciplinarity and innovation."

 

May 18th., Michael Meo: "Evidence of Romanticism in Astronomy in early 19th.-century Russia"

 

September 21st., Gerald Williams: "Transitions - A Decades Long Journey in Research and Writing."

 

November 16th., Hugh Ferguson: "What they've been saying about Paganini"

 

 

    

2010

 

January 27th., Alice Scherer: "Indigenous Beadwork of the mid-Columbia River during the 19th and early 20th Centuries: an Examination".

 

March 10th., David Ritchie: "Not Napoo, Tra-La: Towards New Understandings of Slang, Song, Memory and Identity in the Tommy's Experience of the Great War".

 

May 5th., Peter Abrahams: "Bringing automation to astronomy".
          

September 22nd., David Kohl: "Religion in the Hong Kong School System: Refugees to Expatriates

         November 10th., Harry Stein: "Circulation Matters: The Oregonian, 1861-2010"

 

 

 

2009

 

January 28th: Rosemary Lombard: "A Thirty-Year Adventure in Cognitive Ethology: Box Turtle Diode’s Experiment and Where It Led"

March 25: Barbara Mahoney: "Dispatches and Dictators: the Career of Ralph Barnes"

May 27th: Hilary Russell: "How Writers can work with Editors to improve their Work"

September 21: Sandy Polishuk: "Good Work Sister! Woman Shipyard Workers of World War II, an Oral History"

November 18th. Greg Steinke: MOTHER EARTH - A Native American View

 

 

2008

 

January 30: Martha Bailey "Abstract Moral Realism and Moral Absolutes"

March 26: Peter Abrahams, "1608-2008: Clarifying the Anniversary of the Telescope"

May 14: Anne Key, "From Beloved Sisters to Vampires: Myths and Misinterpretations of the Cihuateteo"

September 3rd: David Kohl, "Lutherans on the Yangtze"

November 12th: Don Sevetson, "A Pioneer Missionary"

 

2007

        January 17: Hilary Russell "How authors can work with a professional editor

to improve their work".

March 14: Richard Etulain "Telling Stories about the American West"

May 24: Diane Goeres-Gardner "Making the Past Relevant

 

September 19: Joshua Binus "How the West was One: Extra High Voltage Electrical Transmission and the Origins of the Western Grid"

 

November 14: Sara Piasecki, ""Materials in the OHSU History of Medicine Collection of interest to local historians"

 

2006

January 27: Margaret DeLacy, "Benjamin Franklin and Eighteenth-Century English Medicine"

March 14: Josh Binus will discuss the new Northwest History Network

May 24: David Ritchie: "Two Young Women Pose Atop A Camel, An Exercise in Seeing"

September 20: Robert Newman: "The December Panic of 1950"

November 15: Harry Stein: "Fighting for Aluminum and For Itself: The Bonneville Power Administration, 1939-1949"

 

2005

February 2: Carole Glauber: "The Paperless Paper Trail"

March 23: Michael Meo: "Nineteenth-Century Algebra finds use in String Theory"

May 18: Herb Beals: Spanish Exploration on the NW Coast of America (1774-75)"

Sept. 21: Sharan Newman:  "Digging up the Dirt in Portland and finding a Pearl or Why Writers Should Do Their Own Research"

November 30: Jim Kopp "From Aurora to The Zoo: Exploring Oregon’s Utopian Heritage"

 

2004

 

January 14: Harry Stein:, "Gus J. Solomon, Local Counsel, and DeJonge v. Oregon's Extension of  Freedom of Assembly and the Right to Petition to the States."

February 25: David Ritchie:  "Going Nowhere in Grand Style; William Drummond Stewart's Big Botanical Party"

May 19: Michael Meo: "The Greatest Advance in Vectors during the 20thCentury"

August 25: Business meeting, conference discussions

Sept. 22: Tom Edwards: "Student Activism at Pomona, Willamette, and Whitman, 1965-1971." 

November 10: Sara Halprin: "Writing a Biography of a Living Subject: Seema's Show: a Life on the Left"

 

2003

January 29: Mike Munk, "Portland's Bohemia, 1912-1919: The Diaries of Helen Walters"

March 26: Margaret DeLacy, "Smallpox controversies in the early eighteenth century"

June 4: Sharan Newman: "A roundtable discussion about publishing and promoting your work"

September 24: Business meeting, election of officers, social and discussion of possible conference

          November 19: Sandy Polishuk: "Julia Ruuttila"

2002

 

January 16: Janice Archer: "Watching Women Work in late Thirteenth-century France: Official and Unofficial Visibility"

March 13: Susan Butrille: "Mysteries of the Black Madonna."

May 8: Frank Engel: "Acts of Faith, Acts of Madness: The Two Faces of Fray Jose Diaz Pimienta, 1680-1720"

September 17: David Ritchie: "Across the void by e-mail"

November 11, Mary Cross: Exhibit, "Quilts: Heirlooms from the Homefront" 

 

2001

January 8: Lin Hathaway Bunza, "Malevich, Kandinsky, and the Russian Avant-Garde"

April 11: Michael Meo, "A mathematical metaphor in the work of Victor Hugo"

May 30: Rayna Kline, "Crossing boundaries: Voices of women from the French Resistance"

September 13: Sharon Wood Wortman, "Portland's Willamette River Bridges"

November 7: Carole Glauber, "Isabella Bird Bishop: Korea, the Yangtze Valley and Beyond" 

 

2000

January 12: Priscilla Macy, "Women's Voices from Mozambique"

March 15: Judith McGaw, "If Men Wore Bras: Reflections on the Book that Changed My Life"

May 10: Peter Abrahams, "Alexis-Marie Rochon, Jean-Baptiste Grateloup, and the earliest cemented lens."

September 27, Norm Cohen, "The railroad in American folk and popular song: a survey with recorded examples and accompanying slides"

November 16, Harry Stein, "Judge Gus Solomon, an Oregon liberal on the bench"

 

1999

January 13th: James Kopp, "Medicine in the Year 2000 -- A View From the 19th Century: Health and Disease in the Utopian Writings of Edward Bellamy"

March 3rd: Harry Stein, "Cascadia and the Start of Company Lumbering"

May 12: David Ritchie, "Words, Swords and the Ties that Bind"

September 15: Charles Wallace, "Antepast of Heaven: Eating and Drinking with the Wesleys in Eighteenth-Century England"

November 16: Lawrence Hammar, " Welcome to Daru!–'the world's smallest capital': Space, race, and sex in Papua, 1893-1993

1998

January 21: Christopher Zinn, the new director of the Oregon Council for the Humanities, Informal discussion of the goals of the Council and the role of independent scholars.

March 4: Mary Cross, "Quilts as Visual Records of Human Experience."

May 20: Sharan Newman, "Jews at the time of Rashi: before Ghettoes or Yiddish"

October 7th., Tom Franzel, "Data manipulation and massage, and the emerging concept of error in early studies of sound, 1636-1713"

November 17th., Franklin Engel, The Last Crypto-Jews of Portugal"

 

1997

February 12: Deborah Trousdale, "Reconstructing the World: Compositional Innovation in Fin de Siècle Painting."
 
May 7: Fred DeWolfe: "The Radicalization of John Reed"

September 9: Dory Hylton, "The People's Jamboree: A Vietnam War Protest in Portland"

November 4: Susan Butrille,"On the Trail of Three Books: Women's Voices from the Oregon Trail, Women's Voices from the Western Frontier, and Women's Voices from the Motherlode

 

1996

January 31: Tom Franzel, "The Strange and Checkered Career of Carrington's Law: Differential Rotation Meets Helioseismology."
 
February 22: Margaret DeLacy "The Internet for Independent Scholars."
 
April 10: Paul Pitzer ,"Writing the Biography of J.D. Ross"
 
June 5: Michael Munk, "Academic Freedom during the McCarthy Era: The Dismissal of Stanley Moore from Reed College."
 
September 25: Peter Abrahams, "Issues in Translation: Using Foreign Language Sources as Materials in Scholarly Research."
 
November 29: Michael Meo, "Gaulois and Cauchy: Politics at the Birth of Group Theory, 1830-1845."
 
December 4: Norm Cohen, "Nineteenth-Century American Pocket Songsters: Neglected Treasure Troves."

 

1995

April 14: Sandy Polshuk, "The Struggle to Admit African Americans into Local 8, IWLU"
 
September 20: Carole Glauber, "Myra Albert Wiggins, Northwest Photographer,1869-1956."
 
October 7: Gary Sampson, P.S.U., "Public Electronic Databases of Interest to Scholars"

 

 

 

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