Nerd Nite 24 will take place on February 12th, just in time to talk about Valentine’s Day topics. We are also pairing with Read Across Lawrence for our first presentation.
On February 12th at Pachamama’s Alton Ballroom (doors at 7 pm, presentations at 8 pm) the topics will be:
Stephanie Scurto
“The Myth of White Picket Fences: The American dream confronted in Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.”
Bio and description coming soon!
Gina L. Egan, PhD
“No Means No: Shining light on violence against women and how hope and healing persevere.”
One Billion Women on this planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime! That is 1 in 3 women! This statistic is alarming and the fact that it is true is not acceptable. Violence against women is not a “women’s issue”; it is a HUMAN issue. It affects women and men, girls and boys. It is time to end it, but what can we possibly do? V-Day is a global movement dedicated to ending violence against women and girls locally and globally. Gina will explore this issue and show what V-Day is doing in the effort to end this violence.
Gina is a new activist and feminist (still trying to be ok with this label) but has jumped in with both feet in the past year or so. Her passion comes from a newly-nurtured but deep-rooted belief that everything and everyone on this planet is connected and should be valued. It is from this place that she finds incentive to be a new board member of the United Nations Association of Greater Kansas City, a co-chair of the Women’s affinity group of the UNA-GKC, producer of the annual V-Day event and its auxiliary event One Billion Rising at JCCC, co-organizer of the one day conference at JCCC “Local Peacebuilding: Lessons from Uganda,” and speaker on the issue of violence against women and the V-Day movement. And now for something completely different: Gina is an Assistant Professor of Science at Johnson County Community College, and she earned her PhD in chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University in 2001. She also was a forensic chemist for the FBI Laboratory Division in Quantico, VA, but that just feels like a past life now.
Mike Anderson
“Idioms, currencies, and fantasies: An exploration into the tenants of relational satisfaction”
The world is full of popular myths about what makes romantic relationships work. The goal of this presentation is to help seperate fact from fiction in the realm of relational satisfaction. Citing both quantitative and qualitative studies, this presentation will provide the listener with the most up-to date research on how to increase both relational and sexual satisfaction in their romantic relationships. While there is no magic pill or equation to a successful relationship, research has shown several commonalities that seperate the successful relationships from the unsuccessful. With topics ranging from nicknames to sexual fantasies, every listener will go home with several ideas on how to better enhance and maintain their current or future romantic relationships.
Mike Anderson received both his Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in the Communication Studies department. Mike’s emphasis was on sexual communication and taboo topics in romantic relationships. Mike’s dissertation focused on the role of sexual fantasies in the realm of both relational and sexual satisfaction in romantic couples. He obtained 500 sexual fantasies for this project. Mike’s work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, academic books, and peer-reviewed journals. His most recent work on the communication of past sexual experiences in romantic relationships was published in the Journal of Sex Research. At KU Mike taught classes in public speaking, persuasive speaking, problem solving in teams and groups, behavioral research methods, and relational communication. Currently, Mike is the host of the Not So Late Show, a late night talk show on WOW’s Channel 6. The show has received several awards, and in 2012 Mike was named “The Most Interesting Character in Small Town America” by Readers Digest.