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Dr. Ken Ono

Abstract:

Dear Sir...I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk... of the Port Trust Office at Madras... I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at Mathematics...I have not trodden through the conventional regular course... but I am striking out a new path...

What followed in the letter were astonishing mathematical formulas, so otherworldly the letter's recipient could not help but believe they were true. Written in 1913, it has taken mankind one century to understand their meaning; along the way, the pursuit has led to solutions of ancient mathematical mysteries, breakthroughs in modern physics, and ideas which help power the internet. With this letter, Srinivasa Ramanujan-impoverished Hindu college dropout, self-taught in mathematics, reaching for worlds beyond the shores of India-introduced himself not only to G.H. Hardy (superstar British mathematician), but to the history of human thought. Ramanujan spent his youth sitting on cool stone floors in the neighborhood temple, surrounded by deities, his mind wandering the cosmos of math as he built upon the contents of a shabby textbook that was his bible. After absorbing the surprising equations in the letter, Hardy invited Ramanujan to study in England, an extraordinary offer for an Indian under colonial rule. Together they innovated vast tracts of mathematics, before Ramanujan returned to India in fragile health. Tragically, he died at 32 from a misdiagnosed illness, leaving three enigmatic notebooks that drive cutting-edge research to this day. The speaker will talk about Ramanujan and share exclusive clips from the recent Hollywood film "The Man Who Knew Infinity" which stars Dev Patel (Ramanujan) and Jeremy Irons (G. H. Hardy).

About the speaker: Ken Ono is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Emory University. He has authored over 150 research papers, as well as 5 books. His work includes ground-breaking results in Number Theory. He has received numerous awards and honors, including a Levy Prize, Sloan Fellowship,a Presidential Career Award from President Clinton, a Packard Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and he is a member of the US National Committee for Mathematics at the US National Academy of Sciences. In addition to his research accomplishments, Ono is also a master lecturer and teacher as evidenced by his receipt of the 2005 National Science Foundation Director's Distinguished Scholar Award. He has recently been named the George Polya Distinguished Lecturer by the Mathematical Association of America and the MacLaurin Lecturer by the American Mathematical Society. He is also an Associate Producer for the film "The Man Who Knew Infinity".

Reception: There will be a reception for Professor Ono from 2:30-3:15 pm in room 745 of the Patterson Office Tower on 27 October.

Acknowledgements: Ken Ono's visit is sponsored by the Department of Mathematics, The Dr. J.C. Eaves Undergraduate Excellence Fund in Mathematics, and the College of Arts and Sciences as part of Passport to the World - Year of South Asia.

Date:
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Location:
Thomas Hunt Morgan Biological Sciences Building Room 107
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U.S and E.U Trade Relations: the French Example

 

Eric Beaty – Economic and Commercial Attaché
United States Consulate for Western France

 
Born in Sapulpa, Oklahoma on October 21, 1958, Eric Beaty grew up in Nacogdoches, Texas.  He graduated from Nacogdoches High School in 1976 and did his undergraduate studies at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, earning a B.A. (Cum Laude - 1979) with a double major in French and German and a minor in history.  He went on to earn an M.A. in French literature at Rice University in Houston, Texas (1982).  Later, Beaty received an Msc. in Linguistics from Aston University in Birmingham, U.K. (1996).

Beaty began his career at the University of Rennes 2, France in 1981 as a lecturer in American studies.  He then worked as the assistant director of courses at two Chambers of Commerce in France.  In 1986, Beaty became the executive director of a bi-national center known as the Franco-American Institute, an organization created by Rennes City Hall, the U.S. Embassy in Paris and Rochester, N.Y. City Hall in 1961. 

In 1999, Beaty was instrumental in setting up the United States Consulate for Western France. He was hired in 2000 by the U.S. State Department that same year as the Economic and Commercial Attaché. 

Beaty has participated in the organization of 14 White House visits and 36 congressional delegation visits.  He has chaired the Rennes-Rochester, N.Y. sister-city relationship since 1986.   He is on the board of the University of Rennes 2.  Beaty has received 18 meritorious and superior service awards from the White House, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Beaty received a National Export Initiative award for his export success stories in 2011.   

Date:
Location:
Multipurpose Room (B-108C) at the WT Young Library
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Bale Boone Symposium: Europe Today and the Memory of Violence

Symposium: Europe Today and the Memory of Violence

All sessions at W. T. Young Auditorium, University of Kentucky

Schedule

W. T. Young Library Auditorium

9:00

 

Introductory remarks 

9:15

The French Revolution and the European Memory of Violence

Jeremy D. Popkin, University of Kentucky

10:00

Law, Morality, and Violence in Nazi Germany

Herlinde Pauer-Studer, University of Vienna

11:15

“Inadmissible” but Secondary: Algerians, the Parisian Police and the Afterlives of State Terror

Lia Brozgal, UCLA

1:30

Weapons of Mass Instruction: Historical Narratives as a Destructive and Reconstructive Force in Former Yugoslavia

Charles Ingrao, Purdue University

2:30

Narcissistic Group Dynamics and the Threat of Violence within Liberal Democracy

Stefan Bird-Pollan, University of Kentucky

3:45

Aftermath of Violence: Reconceptualizations of Trauma

Sara Beardsworth, University of Illinois-Carbondale

4:45

 

Concluding round table

 

 

Date:
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Location:
W. T. Young Auditorium
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Bale Boone Symposium: Normalizing the Nation: Commemorating the State in Berlin and Dublin, 2013-2016

Karen E. Till is Senior Lecturer of Cultural Geography at Maynooth University and Director of the Space&Place Research Collaborative. Till’s geo-ethnographic research examines the significance of place in personal and social memory, and the ongoing legacies of state-perpetrated violence. In addition to numerous articles and chapters, her publications include The New Berlin: Place, Politics, Memory(2005), Mapping Spectral Traces (2010), and the co-edited volumesTextures of Place (2001) and Walls, Borders and Boundaries (2012). Till’s book in progress, Wounded Cities, highlights the significance of place-based memory-work and ethical forms of care at multiple scales that may contribute to creating more socially just futures.

Throughout Europe, a wave of anniversary commemorations remembering events such as war and division has been celebrated over the past five years. Using examples from the ‘Super-Gedenkjahr’ in Berlin (2014) and the ‘Decade of the Centenaries’ in Dublin, I examine how recalling difficult pasts may extend conservative agendas of ‘normalising’ the nation, but may also work to recall the foundations of the democratic state as a means of challenging forms of current-day social violence in a neoliberal and transnational Europe. 

For more information visit: http://www.uky.edu/academy/2016BBS.

Date:
Location:
W. T. Young Auditorium
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