As the deadline for the NSRC Summer Institute approaches, NSRC staff and interns are going to write about our featured Summer Institute lectures each week and tell you why you want to spend a portion of your summer in a classroom with these talented scholars. To kick off the series, I’m pulling out all of the stops and throwing down this ever-convincing gambit – if you love Oprah, you should come to the Summer Institute.

No, Oprah is not one of our featured scholars, but Lisa Diamond is and on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 she will be on The Oprah Winfrey Show discussing her research on women’s sexual fluidity. So if you want to know more about Oprah and what she is really like in person, the NSRC summer institute with Dr. Lisa Diamond is the place to be! But seriously, Oprah may have revolutionized daytime television, but she's got nothing on Lisa Diamond when it comes to revolutionizing the way we think about sexuality.

Students interested in identity, attraction, and sexuality must meet Dr. Diamond because she is doing some of the most innovative research in the field. Her book, Sexuality Fluidity, takes a critical look at gender, sexual attraction, and systems of categorizing sexual...