Skip to main content
Intellect

BYU's David M. Kennedy Center to present variety of lecture topics Nov. 1-8

Postwar Taipei, field studies in film, Catholics and the Holocaust and the history of the CIA will be lecture topics this week (Nov. 1-8) hosted by Brigham Young University’s David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies:

  • “Remapping Taipei: How Poets and Filmmakers Rethink Postwar Nationalist Cultural Policy” will be presented by Steven Riep, an assistant professor of Asian languages at BYU, on Wednesday, Nov. 1 at noon in 238 Herald R. Clark Building. Riep specializes in modern and contemporary Chinese literature, film, and culture.

    He has spent more than seven years in Taiwan as a missionary, a Rotary International Foundation Ambassadorial Fellowship recipient and a Fulbright Research Fellow and an American Council of Learned Societies-Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Dissertation fellow.

  • Wynn Hougaard, an award-winning film and video editor, will present “It’s about the Story” at an International Field Studies lecture on Friday, Nov. 3 at noon in 238 Herald R. Clark building. Hougaard, who works with the LDS Motion Picture Studio, has been a film and video editor for nearly 11 years, but his roots are in field studies.

    During his senior year at BYU, while on a field study in Guatemala, Hougaard shot and later produced “Quiché: Land of Many Trees,” a half-hour documentary about the effects of deforestation on the small community of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán.

    He has since edited many documentaries about different cultures and worked on 13 feature films.

  • Suzanne Brown-Fleming from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., will present “The Holocaust and the New Catholic Conscience” on Monday, Nov. 6 at 1 p.m. in 238 Herald R. Clark Building. Brown-Fleming is a senior program officer in the University Programs Division of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and is responsible for planning, coordinating and implementing major institutional program partnerships, scholarly symposia, endowed annual lectures, summer research workshops, calendar panels, calendar lectures and VIP visits at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    An active scholar of the Holocaust and church relations with an emphasis on the Roman Catholic Church, her current research is for a monograph titled “The Vatican-German Relationship Re-examined, 1922–1939.”

  • Nicholas Dujmovic, a staff historian with the CIA, will present “Turning the Telescope Around: The CIA Looks at its History” at a Global Awareness lecture on Wednesday, Nov. 8 at noon in 238 Herald R. Clark building. Dujmovic joined the CIA in 1990 as an analyst and has also served as a speechwriter for John Deutch and George J. Tenet, former CIA directors, and as editor of the “President's Daily Brief.”

    Prior to his agency career, Dujmovic was a seagoing officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and taught at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

    Most lectures are archived online. For more information on David M. Kennedy Center events, see the calendar online at kennedy.byu.edu.

    Writer: Lee Simons

    Related Articles

    data-content-type="article"

    Wildflowers not wildfires: How BYU and Provo City are helping to restore Rock Canyon Trailhead

    July 10, 2025
    At Rock Canyon Trailhead in Provo, Utah, BYU researchers are fighting fires with flowers. By replacing a problematic weed called cheatgrass with wildflowers, students and faculty are working to protect and restore one of Provo’s most popular hiking spots.
    overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
    data-content-type="article"

    Wildfires in residential areas are on the rise; why hydrants and the water system behind them were never meant to stop those fires

    July 01, 2025
    BYU professor Rob Sowby teaches and studies environmental engineering, urban water infrastructure and sustainability. He has particular expertise in the planning, design, construction and operation of public water systems. That expertise has been increasingly important (and regularly sought out) in the wake of apocalyptic wildfires that have taxed those public water systems.
    overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
    data-content-type="article"

    Meet the BYU math student helping make wildfire predictions faster and smarter

    June 25, 2025
    Using machine learning and math, a BYU student improved a key tool firefighters rely on during wildfire season
    overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
    overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText=