World traveler and photographer, Dr. Joe Whitehouse, kicks off the 2024 First Friday Forum speaker series on Jan. 5 with his fascinating presentation via Zoom, titled Iraq: The Cradle of Civilization.
Aficionados of the ever-popular First Friday Forum series will be pleased to learn that its sponsor, the Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church (LOPC), has come up with yet another compelling lineup of presenters for their 2024 program.
Bringing a variety of thought-provoking lectures to our local community in an increasingly complex world, the six programs are offered from January through June at 1:30 p.m. on the first Friday of the month.
The opening and closing talks in the series are via Zoom only, but those from February to May will be simultaneously livestreamed and in-person at the LOPC campus. There is no subscription or entry fee.
As always, the speakers are of a very high caliber with a broad and fascinating range of subjects.
Return speaker, Dr. Joe Whitehouse, kicks off the series on Jan. 5 with his Zoom presentation, Iraq: Cradle of Civilization – which indeed it is, since Mesopotamia, known as present-day Iraq, has long been cited as the source of a writing system, mathematics, timekeeping, calendar and the Hammurabi law code. Whitehouse promises to show a number of extraordinary pictures of historical, cultural and religious significance in Iraq, Kurdistan and Lebanon.
On Feb. 2, Adam Hochschild, author and lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), will discuss Post WWI Challenges to American Democracy. The following month, Carolyn Chen, UCB professor of ethnic studies, will reveal how today’s companies are transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life, with her March 1 presentation, Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley.
Taking the stage on April 5, William Jagust, professor of public health and neuroscience at UCB, will speak about Untangling Alzheimer’s. On May 3, Laura Beth Nielsen, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Legal Studies at Northwestern University, will share her remarkable progress in Northwestern University’s Prison Education Program.
The First Friday Forum concludes on June 7, with a Zoom presentation by Stanford University’s Oliver H. Palmer Professor in Humanities, Gordon Chang, about the Forgotten, Even Ignored, Chinese Who Built the Western Portion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
LOPC is located at 49 Knox Drive, Lafayette. For more information, including a variety of archived presentations, visit lopc.org/first-friday-forum.
