NDSU history professor to speak Thursday John Cox, chair of the NDSU Department of History, will present some of his recent research at a talk sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the Department of History at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 26, in 280 Gamble Hall. His talk, "Socialism, Serbofilia, Sex, and Suicide: The Mad World of Slovene Literature and Politics Around 1900," will explore the changing landscape of Slovene politics and culture in the twilight years of the Habsburg Empire. He will focus on the ideas of Ivan Cankar (1876-1918). Cankar was a highly regarded and prolific prose writer whose quests for esthetic authenticity and for Slovene political rights led him to embrace socialist, pro-Balkan political views that complicate today's dominant narrative of the Slovene "national awakening." Cox will also read selected (potentially amusing!) passages from his newly-released translation of Cankar's novel "Martin Kacur: Biography of an Idealist" (Central European University Press, 2009), which treats the moral decline and catastrophic fall of a progressive schoolteacher in the Slovene countryside about 1900. -- William Caraher, Assistant Professor, History, william.caraher@und.edu, 7-6379