A spring lecture given by Darren Dochuk, associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, will be televised on C-SPAN 3 at 8 p.m. and midnight EDT Saturday (June 24).  The lecture was part of a course titled “The History of Oil in American Life,” which offered a chronological, thematic and contemporary examination of oil in modern America.

In December, Dochuk was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, allowing him to write a book exploring the relationship between oil and religion. His research interests include the intersections of religion, politics and the American West and Southwest, as well as the Cold War and the politics and culture of energy and the environment. He is the author of “From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism” (Norton, 2011), which won awards from the Society of American Historians, the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians.

New York Democratic Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez has introduced a bill that would assist arts workers nationwide in paying down their student debt, for as much as $10,000. If you work in art education or other professional fields within the arts and your work benefits seniors, children, or adolescents, the American Arts Revival Act could help get you out of the red.

Velázquez’s bill stands in contrast to President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, which aims to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other cultural organizations, which offer financial support to some of the organizations, such as museums, where these cultural workers may be employed.