In 2011, Leelanau Summinars began presenting a series of thought-provoking, educational, and inspiring seminars during the summer months. In 2023, Leland Township Public Library became the proud steward of this tradition, committed to bringing exceptional speakers and ideas to the community.
This year, Leland Library Summinars is partnering with the International Affairs Forum, a program of Northwestern Michigan College, on two lectures: July 2nd with Christina Michelmore and July 14th with Laura Robson. These two events will be offered via livestream in addition to an in-person audience at the Leland Township Public Library Munnecke Room. Registration is required for those lectures as seating will be limited.
All lectures are held in the Munnecke Room at the Leland Township Public Library.
To request accommodations due to a disability, please contact Chelsea Hilton at programs@lelandlibrary.org
or call 231-256-9152.
Summinars 2026
Arc of Fire: Understanding the Connected Wars in Today’s Middle East
Christina Michelmore
July 2 at 4pm
In Partnership with the NMC International Affairs Forum
Livestream Option Available
This lecture traces the unfolding conflict in the Middle East over the past two and a half years, examining how each development shaped the next. Drawing on deep historical roots, it explores why these disputes have proved so enduring, so emotionally wrought and so hard to end.
CHRISTINA MICHELMORE received her BA from Smith College and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania. She lived and worked in the Middle East for seven years—in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Pakistan. In 1984, she joined Chatham University’s history department, which she chaired off and on for 30 years. She wrote academic articles on American views of Muslims and Arabs and contributed Op Eds on U.S. foreign policy. After 9/11, she focused on public education about Middle Eastern people, cultures, and politics. She directed the “Communities of Islam” program in 2002 and was named Pennsylvania International Educator of the Year in 2004–2005. She retired in 2014.
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The Implications of the Plural: Should the Founders Have Created the United STATE of America in 1776?
Greg Nobles
July 7 at 4pm
When the Declaration of Independence asserted that “these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states,” it took an obvious-seeming but still significant
step: it assumed that individual states, when united, would form one nation. The problem, though, was that the states didn’t always want to be united. This talk takes an alternative approach: what if the Founders had simply scrapped the existing state boundaries and identities and made one truly national body, the United State of America? That didn’t happen, of course, but it gives us a way to explore the implications of what did happen, from the time of the American Revolution to the Civil War—or, as some would call it, the War Between the States.
GREG NOBLES, Professor Emeritus of history, joined Georgia Tech in 1983 and spent 33 years there specializing in early American and environmental history. Nobles held two Fulbright professorships, received multiple NEH grants, and held residential fellowships at Harvard, the Huntington Library, and other leading institutions. After retiring, he was Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society and the Huntington Library. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan and an AB from Princeton University.
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Fly-fishing as a Life Skill
Christopher Schaberg
July 9 at 4pm
Author and professor Christopher Schaberg will share what he has learned from two decades of fly-fishing and how these lessons can be applied to our modern, fast-paced, hyper-connected lives. Accessible for those new to the activity, but of use for experienced fly-fishers as well, Schaberg will demystify the sport and offer creative ways to think about this decidedly slower way of inhabiting waterscapes and interacting with non-human species.
CHRISTOPHER SCHABERG, Director of Public Scholarship at Washington University, is a writer and editor, as well as a scholar of contemporary literature, environmental thought, and the culture of air travel. He is the author of ten books, most recently Adventure: An Argument for Limits and Fly-fishing. Schaberg holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Davis.
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Inhumanitarianism? The Origins and Purposes of the Modern Refugee Regime
Laura Robson
July 14 at 4pm
In Partnership with the NMC International Affairs Forum
Livestream Option Available
The advent of internationalist refugee aid has long been told as an inspirational story of humanitarians fighting tirelessly for a system for that would recognize and guarantee the rights of displaced and dispossessed people. But thinking historically about the genesis of modern refugee policy tells us that has long had a different goal: to make use of refugees as cheap workers in an emerging system of global industrial capitalism. This talk traces the century-long history of the ways in which modern refugee regimes have sought not to protect refugee rights but to remake refugees as migrant labor, serving the interests of states and capital rather than the interests of displaced people themselves.
LAURA ROBSON, Elihu Professor of Global Affairs and History at Yale University, is a scholar of international and Middle Eastern history, with a special interest in questions of refugeedom, forced migration, and statelessness. She has published extensively on the topics of refugee and minority rights, forced migration, ethnic cleansing, and the emergence of international legal regimes around resettlement and asylum. She received her PhD from Yale in 2009 and holds additional degrees from Tulane University, the Royal Academy of Music, and Oxford University.
Are You Just Your Brain? Or Something More?
Paul Gregory
July 21 at 4pm
Are human persons just brains in bodies? Are we fancy—but purely physical—biological robots? Or are we something more? A soul? An immaterial mind? Pure information that can be uploaded to the cloud and live forever? We will take a whirlwind tour of philosophical theories of mind, with many questions and even more possible answers.
PAUL GREGORY is Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at Washington and Lee University. He joined the department in 2002. His teaching and research focus on philosophy of mind, language, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and the history of analytic philosophy, especially the work of W.V. Quine. His book Quine’s Naturalism was published by Continuum, and Formal Logic, his textbook on symbolic logic, is published by Broadview Press. He teaches courses in logic, philosophy of mind and language, and special topics on cyborgs, human enhancement, and transhumanism. Gregory holds a PhD. and MA in Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a BA from Syracuse University.
Open Doors, Closed Gates: 200 Years of US Immigration Policy
Molly Michelmore
July 23 at 4pm
The United States is a nation of immigrants. That immigration has been shaped by economic change, by ideas about race, by diplomatic and national security considerations, and by domestic politics. From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 through the Immigration Restriction Acts of the 1920s, to today’s debates about the border, arguments over who is welcome here—and who isn’t—have been about the nature of the U.S. itself. This complex, and often contested, history, raises broader questions about identity, citizenship, and what it means to be an American.
MOLLY MICHELMORE is a Professor of History at Washington and Lee University. She teaches courses on race, class, and politics in postwar America, the 1960s, the Cold War, and the age of Reagan. Her research focuses on fiscal policy, welfare state formation, and American political development. She is the author of Tax and Spend and co-editor of The United States in World War II: A Documentary History. Her work has appeared in major academic journals and media outlets including the Washington Post, New York Times, and the New Yorker. Michelmore holds a PhD. from the University of Michigan and a BA.from Amherst College.
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Creativity in Business & Life
Jamie Gallagher
Tuesday, July 28 at 4pm
As we seek success and fulfillment in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, we find Creativity as a superpower. Beyond artistic talent lies a mindset and skillset which drive professional achievement and personal satisfaction--- the new Creativity. The journey from the early days of LEGO to rejuvenating a 250 year old pencil business help tell this fun and engaging story.
JAMIE GALLAGHER grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and graduated from the University of Notre Dame before embarking on a 40-year career in the toy and creative products industries as a senior marketing executive with LEGO, and CEO of Playmobil USA and Faber-Castell USA.
Upon his semi-retirement in 2023, Jamie formed 4 the Win Partners, focusing on driving success and fulfillment by integrating Purpose, Culture, Creativity and Clarity with strategy. He regularly speaks at college campuses, business conferences and trade associations.