UNC Charlotte Capitalism Studies Program Continues Ginkgo Residential Speaker Series
The College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences is proud to announce the continuation of the Ginkgo Residential Speaker Series for the 2025-2026 season. The marquee series showcases the research of UNC Charlotte faculty.
Lectures will be held on Tuesdays from 6-7:30 p.m. and are open to the greater Charlotte community at no charge, but registration is requested. Events are held monthly at the Independent Picture House, close to the center of NoDa at 4237 Raleigh St., Charlotte, NC 28213.
The series is curated by Jurgen Buchenau, Ph.D., Dowd Term Professor of Capitalism Studies. We hope you will join us for one or all lectures and learn more about the research of our talented faculty.
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September 9
“Where Is The Best Place to Connect With Nature? At Your Door!”
We’ve all been taught that nature in urban and suburban places is an oxymoron, but Gagné explores how and why this assumption falls far short of reality.
Come learn more about the wide range of wildlife living alongside you in Charlotte, and why what we do in our yards matters just as much as the way our local parks and nature preserves are managed.
Sara A. Gagné, Ph.D., is the author of Nature at Your Door: Connecting with the Wild and Green in the Urban and Suburban Landscape (Stackpole Books, 2023) and Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences. Gagné’s research, teaching, and writing is dedicated to understanding and communicating how people and nature interact in cities. She lives in Charlotte, where she tries to spend as much time as possible looking for otters, salamanders, and other wild neighbors.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
October 7
“The Societal and Economic Stakes of Widespread Loneliness”
Loneliness is not an inevitable part of modern life, it is a challenge to address together in the community and broader society.
This lecture delves into the profound societal and economic consequences of loneliness, such as the lack of Gen Z’s future readiness in the workforce, providing attendees with the knowledge and practical actions to drive meaningful change.
Megan Smith, Ph.D. is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Sociology, where she is deeply engaged in student mentorship, research, and curriculum development. She has earned multiple honors for her contributions to teaching, including the Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Faculty award and a Trailblazer Award. Her research and teaching focus on mental health, loneliness, deviance, and criminology, and she actively involves students in projects on aging, AI in caregiving, and the criminal justice system. Beyond the classroom, Smith is a dynamic public speaker, author, and community educator; her latest co-authored two texts, include Ties that Enable (Rutgers, 2021) and Sociological Insights of Mental Health and Distress (Wiley, 2025). She earned a B.A. in Sociology from NC State, (Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa), her M.A. in Sociology from University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her Ph.D. from Emory University in Sociology with a focus on health and criminology.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
November 11
“A Mystery Memoir: Uncovering the Secrets of an Internment Camp in Postwar Czechoslovakia”
A typewritten booklet was discovered at an auction in Detroit many years ago. After translating and researching the recorded memoir, the research team of our speakers and John Sullivan discovered that the booklet’s author was the head doctor of a camp for displaced ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia during the years after WWII.
This presentation is about the joys of ongoing historical discovery while exploring the doctor’s distressing story, and what we can learn from it about our own historical moment.
Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau, Ph.D. is a Professor of German and currently serves as Chair of the Department of Languages, Cultures and Translation. She was awarded the prestigious Bank of America Teaching Award in 2021 and the Board of Governors’ Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022. She was a nominee for the Carnegie/Case Professor of the Year in 2011 and from 2009-2012 she was honored with the Bonnie E. Cone Teaching Professorship at UNC Charlotte. A native of Germany, Aliaga-Buchenau’s training is in comparative literature. She has served as Professor of German at Charlotte since 2002. In her research, Aliaga-Buchenau focuses on 19th century immigrants from Germany and their literary production. In particular, she is interested in women immigrants to the Americas. She also works on the translation of memoirs and novels from Spanish to English or German to English.
Jules Geaney-Moore, M.A. moved to North Carolina from New Hampshire in 2014 where they obtained a B.A. in Psychology and English at Guilford College. Jules now holds a Graduate Certificate in Human-Computer Interaction and another one in Professional and Technical Writing, as well as an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from UNC Charlotte. Jules works as the Business Services Coordinator at the Department of Languages, Cultures and Translation. The research for this project came up independently as a passion project in 2020 and led to Jules enrolling in the Master of Arts in History program at UNC Charlotte with an expected graduation date of December 2026.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
Scheduled Spring Events:
January 13
“The State and Genocide”
Martin Shuster, Ph.D. is a Professor of Philosophy and the Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is also affiliated with the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights and with the program in Capitalism Studies. In 2023, he founded the Philosophy and Critical Theory Lab (PaCT Lab). He has published books, articles, and essays on topics ranging from political philosophy to ethics to aesthetics to critical theory to philosophy of religion to the history of philosophy. In 2019, Shuster was Visiting Professor at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, while in 2007-2008 he was a visiting fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
February 10
“Tariffs, Trade Wars, and Boycotts: Between Nationalism and Globalism”
Jurgen Buchenau, Ph.D. is the Dowd Term Chair of Capitalism Studies and Professor of History and Latin American Studies at UNC Charlotte. He earned his Ph.D. in History at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1993. His research interests include modern Mexico, and especially international history, the Mexican Revolution, and the Cold War. His teaching interests feature the history of capitalism, U.S. foreign relations, and Latin American history. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of thirteen books, including one in production and In the Shadow of the Giant: The Making of Mexico’s Central America Policy (1996); Tools of Progress: A German Merchant Family in Mexico City, 1865-Present (2004); Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution (2007); Mexico, The Once and Future Revolution (2013, with Gilbert M. Joseph); and The Sonoran Dynasty in Mexico: Revolution, Reforms, and Repression (2023). He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the U.S. Department of Education, and the German Academic Exchange Service, among many others.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
March 17
“Schooling, Work, and Shiftwork: Childhood and Migration in the American South”
Elise Berman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, studies childhood, language, schooling and migration, particularly among Asian Pacific Islands and also among Jewish Americans. Her main current research focuses on Marshallese immigrant communities in the American South, exploring Marshallese children’s language and cultural practices as well as their experiences, outcomes, and identity in schools. She is also working on a secondary project on Jewish American experiences of inclusion and exclusion, as well as how language and discourse on Israel affects Jews more broadly. Her previous work analyzed Marshallese children’s language and cultural practices in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Berman has developed the first corpus of Marshallese children’s language practices, with data from communities in both the Marshall Islands and the United States. Her work has been published in journals such as American Anthropologist, Current Anthropology, Linguistics and Education, and the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology; her book Talking Like Children: Language and the Production of Age in the Marshall Islands (Oxford University Press) was a finalist for the American Association of Applied Linguistics first book award.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
April 14
“Climate Change: Media Stories vs. Scientific Evidence. What to Believe?”
Jack Scheff, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Geographical Sciences where he has worked since 2017. In his research, Scheff studies the effects of climate change on the water cycle, weather systems, and atmospheric circulation. He teaches courses related to climate variation, climate change, and water. In 2014, he got his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington in Seattle, and is originally from the Chicago area.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
May 12
“A Republic If You Can Afford It: How Much Does It Cost to Administer Elections?”
Mary Jo McGowan, Ph.D. is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration and the Executive Director of the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies. Her research focus is on public policies relating to elections, running for office, and regulatory policies affecting elections. She chaired the Campaign Finance committee on the Commission on the Future of North Carolina Elections.
Martha E. Kropf, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration. Her research focus is on Election Science (election conduct and administration), Voting Behavior, and Public Opinion. She was a Steering Committee Member, Commission on the Future of North Carolina Elections.
Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213), 6 pm
Sponsored by Ginkgo Residential and hosted by the Capitalism Studies Program in the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies. Supported by the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences.