For the first time in over a decade, Congress is considering legislation that would drastically reform immigration in America. The issue, however, is highly contentious with any number of interests hoping to shift the bill one way or another. Even once all of the debates are said and done, it's still not clear whether or not such legislation will actually become the law of the land guiding America's relationship with immigration in the future. 

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This November, scholars and activists from around the world will gather at UK to attend the 5th Biennial Conference of the International Herbert Marcuse Society. Arnold Farr, a philosopher and social theorist here at the University of Kentucky, is organizing the conference, which seeks to examine “Emancipation, New Sensibility, and the Challenge of a New Era.”

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.

The Big Blue Nation spans across more than just the Bluegrass. Chris McDaniel, who graduated from UK with a Psychology degree in 1997, resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, and heads up the UK Alumni Club there. He is a chiropractor, writer and filmmaker, among other things. In this podcast, he shares some fond UK memories, talks about his creative and professional endeavors, and gives some advice to current students. This interview was conducted by Laura Sutton.

This past April, the University of Kentucky's Jewish Studies Program was lucky enough to host a lecture with renowned scholar and author Catherine Rottenberg. The talk, titled "The Making of an Icon: Black Harlem and the Jewish Lower East Side," concluded a series of special events hosted over the past year by the Jewish Studies Program. Rottenberg is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics and the Gender Studies Program of Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel. She is also the author of Performing Americanness: Race, Class, and Gender in Modern African-American and Jewish-American Literature.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This fall, University of Kentucky WRD Professor Jenny Rice will be leading the course UKC 381: Argumentation - “Deliberation, Persuasion, and Bullshit in the Public Sphere." While the title of the course may seem provocative, the topic is serious. In the class, students can expect to examine the tactics and strategies used to argue key issues in the public sphere and what the legacy of those arguments have left us with today.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

For nearly two decades, the Jewish Studies program has drawn students and faculty from all over UK to teach and learn about Jewish culture, language, history, and beyond. In this podcast, I spoke with up-and-coming Jewish Studies Director, Jan Fernheimer, about what’s in store for Fall 2013, including a visiting scholar from Israel, a film series, and opportunities to connect with communities within and beyond the Commonwealth. 

According to recent research, approximately one in five Americans don’t identify with a religion. Will Gervais, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, studies the origins of atheism, and is a recent addition to UK's faculty. In January 2013, he co-authored an article, "The Origins of Religious Disbelief," in the journal, Trends in cognitive sciences. Co-written with Ara Norenzayan from the University of British Columbia, the article defines four different types of atheism and their origins. 

University of Kentucky alumni Debdas Mukerjee graduated in 1962 with his Ph.D. in genetics. After UK, Mukerjee contributed his expertise to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center before his career finally carried him to the Environmental Protection Agency where he was a Senior Environmental Health Scientist for the United States. 

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

During the 2013 fall semester, University of Kentucky students will have the opportunity to delve into questions that explore some of society's most deeply held beliefs. The ambitiously titled class, "A&S 300: The Meaning of Life - Psychology, Evolution, Religion, and Morality," will be led by Psychology Professor Will Gervais who has focused his research around this very topic.

This podcast was produced by Patrick O'Dowd.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.