Thursday Keynote Speakers
John Minahane
Sponsored by the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme and the Omaha Irish Cultural Center
John Minahane, born near Baltimore in West Cork, Ireland, has been involved in the arguments regarding the poets in the old Irish civilisation since the 1990s. His major work is The Christian Druids (repr. Dublin 2026), where he argues that the pre-christian intellectual class in Ireland creatively assimilated Christianity, producing a unique (and highly poetic) new culture. He has written about the dispute between poets of North and South in the early 17th century (The Contention of the Poets, Bratislava 2000) and presented a selection from the work of a 14th century master poet, Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh: Poems to the English / Dán na nGall (Aubane 2020). Two of Minahane’s translations appear in the ambitious recent anthology Bone and Marrow/ Cnámh agus Smior. An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Medieval to Modern (Winston-Salem 2022). Recently he has highlighted some under-appreciated political poetry in Irish: The Poets of Daniel O’Connell’s Time (Aubane 2025).
A Union of ‘Incompatible’ Cultures: Christianity and Druidry in Ireland
Sometimes it’s enough to change a letter or two in a word. Changing the first two letters of the Irish word druí, ‘druid’, we may get suí, ‘sage’, a word applied to the greatest saints and scholars of early Christian Ireland. Christianity in Ireland brought renamings, changes of veneer and changes of substance, some deletions and many additions, but it is astonishing how much of the pre-christian culture is legitimated or ‘rebranded’. A huge body of Irish law, for Christian clerics sometimes very controversial, is formulated in writing. Stories of non-christian heroes are also recorded in great numbers (the most famous being Táin Bó Cuailnge, the Táin or ‘Cattle Raid of Cooley‘). Even the ancient Irish gods retain much respectability: far from being denounced as demons, they are presented as ancient pioneers of useful arts and often recommended as role models. Irish-language Christianity in general, unlike Christianity anywhere else, is saturated in poetry, which was the medium of the Christians’ druidic predecessors.
The most reasonable explanation of these facts is that the Irish druids not only freely accepted but creatively assimilated the new religion. The challenge of the Latin culture was accepted; the Irish read a great deal of Latin and, as Professor Donnchadh Ó Corráin has shown, wrote a great deal also. In Irish Latin culture there were strains, more or less powerful at different times (though not represented by the outstanding 6th century saints, Columcille and Columbanus), that sought a more ‘mainstream’ understanding of Christianity and a sharp break with druidry. In The Christian Druids I show how the Christian-druidic elite held out against these pressures, arguing not polemically but poetically, so that Ireland did not undergo the heresy-forming and heretic-hunting experiences of other lands.
Sponsored by the Goldstein Family Community Chair in Human Rights
Dr. Olyvia Christley
Assistant Professor
School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs
Washington State University
Talk Title
"The Rise of Right-wing Politics in Europe"
Biography
Dr. Olyvia R. Christley is an Assistant Professor of Global Politics at Washington State University. She received her Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs and Political Methodology from the University of Virginia in 2022, where she also completed her M.A. and B.A. degrees in Foreign Affairs, the latter with High Distinction honors.
Prior to entering academia, Dr. Christley worked for the United States House of Representatives and the Virginia House of Delegates. While in graduate school, she was an editorial assistant for the American Journal of Political Science.
Dr. Christley's research focuses on the political psychology of nationalism, xenophobia, and gendered attitudes in Europe and the United States, with particular interest in how these phenomena shape support for radical right parties and how they correlate with conspiratorial thinking. Her research has been published in some of the leading journals of political science, including Political Behavior and Politics & Gender.
Recent Publications:
- Christley, O. R., & Zhirkov, K. (2025). Americans’ Opposition to Muslim Immigration: Untangling Religion from Country of Origin. Political Behavior, 1-23.
- Klofstad, C., Christley, O., Diekman, A., Enders, A., Funchion, J., Hemm, A., … & Uscinski, J. E. (2024). The New Satanic Panic. Political Science Quarterly, 140(2), 249-268
- Klofstad, C., Christley, O., Diekman, A., Kübler, S., Enders, A., Funchion, J., … & Uscinski, J. (2024). Belief in white replacement. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 13(2), 387-411.
- Munis, B. K., Memovic, A., & Christley, O. R. (2024). Of rural resentment and storming capitols: An investigation of the geographic contours of support for political violence in the United States. Political Behavior, 46(3), 1791-1812.
- Christley, O. R. (2022). Traditional Gender Attitudes, Nativism, and Support for the Radical Right. Politics & Gender, 18(4), 1141-1167.
Friday Keynote Speaker
Sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences
Lana Obradovic
Program Director, BOLD Institute
Associate Professor, Political Science
University of Nebraska Omaha
Talk Title
TBA
Background
Since 2019, Dr. Obradovic has also served as Principal Director of the BOLD Fellowship/Young Balkan Leaders Program, funded by the U.S. Embassies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. She has taught international relations and comparative politics for more than two decades at institutions including St. John’s University, Hunter College, Queens College in New York City, and Yonsei University in South Korea. Before joining the University of Nebraska at Omaha, she led Mercy University’s International Relations and Diplomacy Program in New York City.
Publications
She has written extensively on American foreign and national security policy, intelligence analysis, deterrence, gender and security, and regional dynamics in the Balkans and Northeast Asia. Dr. Obradovic’s recent work includes projects and reports for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on intelligence education and training, for NATO on cognitive warfare concept development, and for USSTRATCOM on Human Capital Strategy implementation. Dr. Obradovic is the author of Gender Integration in NATO Military Forces, which received the ERGOMAS 2015 Best Book in Civil-Military Relations Award in Tel Aviv. She is also the recipient of the UNO Global Engagement Award (2022), the Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award (2025), and the College of Arts and Sciences Research and Creative Activity Award (2026).
Her recent publications include “Russian Strategic Culture and Deterrence in the Arctic” in Space & Defense (with B. Valiant, 2025); “Closing the Tech Gap: Updating Cyber and Technology Curriculum for Homeland Security Professionals” in Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism (with D. House and M. Black, 2025); “Standardization of the Intelligence Analyst Workforce and Education: Are We There Yet?” in Journal of Security, Intelligence, and Resilience Education (with M. Black, 2024); “Behind the Curve: Technology Challenges Facing the Homeland Intelligence and Counterterrorism Workforce” in Journal of Cybersecurity (with D. House and M. Black, 2024); “Integrating Gender Perspective in Cognitive Warfare” in NATO OPEN (with J. Neathery-Castro, 2023); “Multi-Actor Deterrence: Defining the Concept” in Æther Journal of Strategic Airpower & Spacepower (with M. Black, 2022); and “Teaching Deterrence: A 21st-Century Update” in Journal of Political Science Education (with M. Black, 2020).
Education
Dr. Obradovic earned her B.A. degrees in Political Science and International Affairs from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, a Master of Arts in Government and Politics and a Graduate Certificate in International Law and Diplomacy from St. John’s University, and an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.