Upcoming Events

Knowledge Under Fire.

Knowledge is power, but that power can be threatening. Book banning, misinformation, anti-science movements, and the outright negation of known history are examples of a looming post-truth era. Shifting attitudes about the value of higher education and institutions that support inquiry and innovation in arts and sciences only exacerbate fears that knowledge is under fire. This series will explore knowledge under fire from multiple perspectives. What is threatening about knowledge? What is at stake when knowledge is under fire? This series will engage speakers across disciplines to examine the precursors and impacts of current challenges.

Fall 2025 Lecture Schedule

September 23, 2025, 4pm | Sewall Hall Auditorium

Speakers

Hengrui Luo, Assistant Professor of Statistics

Title: "Interpretability of decision trees in AI era"

Abstract:

Decision trees remain compelling because they read like flow charts: start at a root, answer simple questions, and reach a decision you can explain. Rather than retiring trees in an era of massive neural networks, we revisit them with three advances. First, we reframe splitting to prioritize questions that best separate high- from low-value cases, yielding shallower, easier-to-read trees without losing accuracy. Second, we introduce tensor-input trees that handle complex data—such as MRI scans and satellite images—by aggregating many pixels into a single, human-interpretable rule. This preserves transparency while scaling to high-dimensional inputs. Third, we outline a minimax martingale principle: a safety-first criterion that controls risk at each node so decisions remain reliable as the tree grows. Together, these ideas modernize decision trees, combining interpretability, efficiency, and robustness and offering a practical alternative—or complement—to deep models when clarity and trust are as important as performance. Results are simple, fast, dependable.

Erin Baumgartner, Director of the Houston Education Research Consortium

Title: "The fight for public knowledge in education"

Abstract:

Significant changes to the U.S. Department of Education are likely to have an impact on how local school districts serve pre-k to 12 students. Beyond funding and policy changes, losing access to important data and research directly from the department or through work historically supported by the department, these changes mean we must re-envision the way we provide support to public schools. In this moment, it is more important than ever for researchers evolve the way they share research, the audiences they communicate it to, and how they design and conduct equity-oriented research.

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October 21, 2025, 4pm | Fondren Library Kyle Morrow Room

Speakers

Illana Gershon, Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Anthropology

Title: "You Say You Want a Revolution: The Appeal of the Illiberal"

Abstract:

Many Americans, both on the left and right, seem willing to reject the liberal order these days. What has been happening in their everyday lives makes the liberal order seem like a paltry set of compromises that they are no longer willing to live with? Knowledge is under fire these days, but this is just a symptom of a larger attack on liberal order as a whole. As an anthropologist, I discuss what is happening in Americans' everyday lives that might encourage a turn to illiberalism.

Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, Associate Professor of Sociology

Title: "When Feelings Become Facts: Emotional Legitimacy and Knowledge Under Fire"

Abstract:

Emotions are often treated as irrational or "less than" knowledge, even though they significantly shape what is recognized as true. Social hierarchies shape which feelings and emotions gain legitimacy and determine whose experiences matter. What I call affective capital, the uneven value assigned to different groups' emotions, helps explain why some feelings are validated as truth while others are dismissed or weaponized. Anger, grief, or fear voiced by some can be discredited, while the same emotions in others are deemed credible, even patriotic. In this talk, I argue that knowledge under fire is not just a crisis of facts, but a struggle over emotional legitimacy. By centering emotions as forms of knowledge and affective capital as the mechanism of their selective validation, we can better understand how feelings structure power, belonging, and what we consider truth.