UNH lecture series explores opioid crisis in New Hampshire

Friday, September 28, 2018

This year’s Saul O Sidore Lecture Series at UNH seeks to shed new light on the opioid epidemic in New Hampshire. A series of events connects faculty collaborators from across UNH to ask what liberal arts disciplines can bring to the table to address the opioid crisis in the State.

“We will explore how liberal arts modes of inquiry, humanistic sensibilities, and ways of understanding and conceptualizing a problem might address this particular issue in practical and insightful ways,” says Michele Gibbons, assistant professor of communication and one of the organizers of the series.

The goal of the series is to prompt and guide community conversations about the opioid crisis that blend the interdisciplinary expertise of UNH faculty with that of national and local scholars, professionals and stakeholders.

The series will grapple with three related themes: contextualizing New Hampshire’s opioid crisis, challenging assumptions about addiction and recovery, and reframing the conversation surrounding the “war on opioids.”

Upcoming events in the series are:

Re-framing the Opioid Crisis in Historical Perspective

A lecture by Bruce K. Alexander, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University
Thursday, October 11, 5:30 p.m.
Memorial Union Building Theatre II, Durham

Pain, Misuse, and Abuse: Exposing Communication Practices Driving the Opioid Epidemic
A lecture by Wayne Beach, Ph.D., School of Communication, San Diego State University
Thursday, October 25, 5:30 p.m.
Murkland Hall, Room 110, Durham

All events in the series are free and open to the public. For more information, visit: https://cola.unh.edu/center-humanities/sidore 

The annual Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series is sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire. This year’s series is also supported by the Behavioral Health Initiative at UNH, which aims to serve the behavioral health needs of the State of New Hampshire.