Tuesday, April 20 2021 at 5:00pm MDT
Join us for a live Colorado College Alumni/Parent Book Club discussion of Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life, with alum and author Katherine E. Standefer (‘07). On each evening of the series, Standefer will lead an interactive, virtual conversation with a different series of Colorado College professors and/or distinguished alumni.
On this evening, Kati will be in conversation with sociologist Sarah Diefendorf (’09), filmmaker/producer Mike Shum (’07), and philosopher/medical ethicist Erika Versalovic (‘15)
Dr. Sarah Diefendorf (‘09) researches the constructions of gender and sexuality within religious and educational institutions, using this research to interrogate larger political and cultural agendas in the US, and the social inequalities and health outcomes related to these agendas. By employing a variety of qualitative methods, she produces data that push against many of our assumptions about gender, sexuality, religion, and politics. Her book manuscript, under advance contract with The University of California Press, uses ethnographic data to explain how white evangelicals are working to sustain their institutions during a time in which Millennials are leaving religion behind. Currently a Scholars Strategy Network Postdoctoral Fellow, Sarah is based in Utah while she conducts research on youth suicide in the Mountain West. She has published work in Gender & Society, Signs, Sex Roles, and Sexualities and won numerous awards for both her research and teaching. Most recently, she was awarded the American Sociological Association Section on Sexualities’ Early Career Award and the American Sociological Association Section on Religion Distinguished Article Award. She earned her PhD in Sociology from The University of Washington.
Mike Shum (‘07) is a journalist and filmmaker who specializes in cinematography and production. Shum’s work explores the ways in which we perceive and define home within contexts of historical and cultural struggle. Most recently, Shum was the writer-director and producer on the Frontline/PBS post-election special collaboration, "American Voices: A Nation in Turmoil". The broadcast film is an excerpt of a long-term project following people in the United States as they live through the COVID19 Pandemic. Shum was a finalist for the 2015 National News and Doc Emmy for Outstanding Interview with the NYTimes for his work in Iraq. In 2017, he produced and served as director of photography for the Tribeca Film Festival’s Audience Award-winning film, Hondros — a documentary on the life and work of famed photojournalist, Chris Hondros, now available on Netflix. In 2019, Shum served as director of photography for the film Predator on the Reservation — a documentary about a doctor who preyed on children for over twenty years within the Indian Health Services. He and his team were finalists for the 2020 National News and Doc Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Documentary with the Wall Street Journal and Frontline/PBS.
Erika Versalovic (‘15) is a medical ethicist who focuses on the social and ethical implications of neural devices. She is a PhD student in the philosophy department at the University of Washington where her dissertation focuses on the moral importance of holding people in their identities during times of illness when physical and mental disruptions threaten their sense of self. This work is informed by her work as a neuroethics research assistant at UW's Center for Neurotechnology. There, she works on projects collecting perspectives of potential users of invasive neural devices like deep brain stimulators and aiming to understand the ways these devices can impact users' agency. She is also a member of UW's Critical Humanities in Medical Education research cluster, a group that connects medical students and graduate students across the humanities and social sciences to develop a more equitable and inclusive medical school curriculum. After graduate school she hopes to become a clinical ethicist who works closely with patients, families, and healthcare teams to navigate the complicated ethical terrain that characterizes contemporary medicine.
