Second Galaxy Series program to feature discussion of COVID-19

Seasons of COVID, a presentation and discussion, scheduled for Feb. 22 has been postponed to Thursday, Feb. 24. at the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center at 7 p.m.

The Art of Dissent was shown at Eagle Theatre, Feb. 23, followed by a question-and-answer session.

According to CSC Professor Dr. Tom Smith, who coordinated Le Sueur’s visit to Chadron, Le Sueur studies the history of ideas and empires and is a preeminent authority on European colonialism and decolonization. He completed his doctorate in history at the University of Chicago. He is the Samuel Clark Waugh Distinguished Professor of International Relations and chair of the Department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Smith said Le Sueur, who was elected Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford University in 2002, is a major academic.

“His expertise in French history, Algerian history, decolonization, international affairs, and post-colonial thought has resulted in a large array of publications from an essay in Foreign Affairs to an overview of French intellectual Tzvetan Todorov. Le Sueur also worked with French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu in connection to his first book, Uncivil War - an analysis of French and Algerian intellectual’s responses to Algeria’s war of national liberation,” Smith said.

Further, according to Smith, Le Sueur has never been content to work within traditional disciplinary boundaries.

“Over the last decade, he has provocatively pushed the boundaries of artistic and public engagement through documentary film making,” Smith said.

Le Sueur's first feature documentary film, The Art of Dissent, a 2020 co-production of Czech TV in Prague and NUtech Ventures at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, won five international film festival awards. Recently, The Art of Dissent received a cinema rights distinction resulting in major platforms, such as cable outlets, iTunes, and Amazon making the film available to the public, according to Smith. 

Le Sueur’s latest documentary film, Seasons of COVID, tells the story of the pandemic in Nebraska and will be released in spring 2023. Le Sueur will give a public talk about this project, interspersed with clips from the production.

Smith said Le Sueur’s interests have significant overlap with those of CSC faculty member Dr. Deane Tucker.

“They will surely have a stimulating conversation with students in Tucker’s HUM 369: Philosophy and Documentary Film,” Smith said.

In Smith’s course, Le Sueur and Smith will draw on Le Sueur’s expertise in French history to help CSC students engage with the historiographies of the French Revolution and its offspring, the Haitian Revolution.

Schedule (revised due to weather-closure of campus Feb. 22)

Feb. 23:           The Art of Dissent at Eagle Theatre, followed by Q&A session, 7 p.m.

Feb. 24:           Public Talk: Seasons of COVID, Sandoz Center, 7 p.m.

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—Chadron State Foundation