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<p>NANTICOKE &#8212; Dizzy? Check. Bewildered? Check. Head spinning yet? Check.</p><p>Those who attended the Educational Series on Social Justice and Human Rights concluding lecture on Thursday at Luzerne County Community College left with more questions than were answered.</p><p>Professors Jeff Schultz and Henry &#8220;Hank&#8221; Hunsinger spoke to a packed auditorium about social justice and the current war in Syria and the Middle East.</p><p>The goal of the lecture was to inform those where to start if they&#8217;re interested in the war, Middle East or Middle Eastern politics. Hunsinger prefaced the lecture by saying, &#8220;you can&#8217;t begin this in 1979, you can&#8217;t begin this in 2011, you have to begin way back.&#8221;</p><p>Hunsinger dominated the majority of the lecture as the conversation weaved through topics such as the earliest Sunni-Shia conflict, Arab Nationalism, and the reign of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but Schultz began the lecture with the issue of realpolitik &#8212; the notion that governments do things for questionable reasons.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not necessarily the rational reason but it&#8217;s what they consider as important,&#8221; Schultz said. &#8220;It&#8217;s more commonly a win-lose or perhaps a lose-lose.&#8221;</p><p>Though the war and the idea of studying the Middle East is a heavy topic, the duo kept the crowd engaged and kept the talk light by inserting snark and humor into the lecture. During the lecture, they broached the topic of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and it happens to be Shultz&#8217;s favorite topic.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to steal any of his thunder,&#8221; Hunsinger said.</p><p>&#8220;No, no take it,&#8221; Shultz urged his partner on.</p><p><strong>Interest</strong></p><p>Alicia Duszak and Dana Wido came to see the lecture thinking it was just going to be a conversation on the modern day war. They were shocked at how current events interconnect with ancient history.</p><p>&#8220;I did not expect it, to see so much history, so far back,&#8221; Wido said. &#8220;It was interesting.&#8221;</p><p>Duszak was also surprised about the cost factor of the wars and how much one thing leads to another.</p><p>&#8220;We had an excellent turnout to all our events this year,&#8221; Judi Myers, Diversity Council chairwoman and Coordinator of Diversity, said in an email.</p><p><strong>Why Now?</strong></p><p>For the third year, the LCCC Diversity Council puts together the lecture series and chooses the topics and speakers. This year, they joined with the Social Science Department.</p><p>&#8220;Students that attended our events have a much better understanding of local and global issues compared with those that did not attend any events, &#8221; Myers said.</p><p>According to Shultz, history is about perception. And Hunsinger believes that because we don&#8217;t see the war, it&#8217;s not &#8212; but should be &#8212; on the top of America&#8217;s priority list.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Luzerne County Community College history professors Henry Hunsinger, right, and Jeff Schultz talk about current events in the Middle East during a symposium at the college in Nanticoke on Thursday morning. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_TT111415symposium_mm_2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Luzerne County Community College history professors Henry Hunsinger, right, and Jeff Schultz talk about current events in the Middle East during a symposium at the college in Nanticoke on Thursday morning. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p>This lecture as well as the other lectures in the series can be found on video on the LCCC Diversity website: www.luzerne.edu/diversity.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Melanie Mizenko at 570-991-6116 or on Twitter @TL_MMizenko</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Middle East lecture concludes educational series at LCCC