Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues: Public Lectures

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Seeing = Believing?

Eitan Grinspun, Graham Roberts, Greg Steirer, Steve Malcic, and Tabitha Peck

Where is computer-generated imaging and sound technology, including virtual reality, going next? Our panel of experts will discuss new developments in these technologies and what they mean for the politics of media production and consumption. The panelists include: Eitan Grinspun, Columbia University; Steven Malcic, Dickinson College; Tabitha Peck, Davidson College; Graham Roberts, The New York Times; and Gregory Steirer (moderator), Dickinson College.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of English; International Business & Management; Philosophy; the Film Studies Program; and the Churchill Fund. This program was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s Student Project Managers and it is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.
An Evening with Yoko Tawada

Yoko Tawada and Bettina Brandt

Yoko Tawada

Tawada Final Poster 194x300Award-Winning Writer

An Evening with Yoko Tawada

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Known internationally for her novels, poems and essays in German and Japanese, author Yoko Tawada creates worlds in which foreigners, outsiders and animals, always aware of their strangeness, navigate and read their surroundings with wonder and minuteness. Tawada will collaborate with Bettina Brandt (Pennsylvania State University) in a multilingual performance which includes German and Japanese as well as English translations. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of German; East Asian Studies; English; the Max Kade Foundation; and the Flaherty Lecture Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Citizen/Refugee.
The 1001 Black Men Online Sketchbook and the Art of Social Justice

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance, Mills College

Mance created 1001 Black Men: An Online Sketchbook as a reaction against the controlling images that have limited and defined media representations of Black men. Mance will use a slideshow of images from her series as the basis of a wide ranging discussion of art, Black maleness and gender performance, and representation.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Women’s & Gender Resource Center; the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity; and the Departments of Africana Studies; American Studies; English; French; and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies.
A Conversation with President Margee Ensign and Global Entrepreneur Martin Burt

Martin Burt and Margee Ensign

A Conversation with President Margee Ensign and Global Entrepreneur Martin Burt

Ensign and Burt will discuss what it means to be a social entrepreneur; ways to envision a life in the areas of social innovation, advocacy, and social change; and the possibilities of entrepreneurship as a mechanism for reducing poverty.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) Certificate Program and the Department of International Business & Management. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.
The Strange Career of the Jim Crow North: A Dickinson Story?

Komozi Woodard

Komozi Woodard ’71, Sarah Lawrence College

In the 1960s, the Congress of African Students at Dickinson College began the study of the Strange Career of the Jim Crow North with the early development of Africana Studies and the Black Arts Movement. This is the story of those Dickinson roots.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Waidner-Spahr Library; the Division of Student Life; and the Departments of History; Africana Studies; American Studies; Sociology; and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.
The Adipositivity Project

Substantia Jones

Jones discusses (and displays) a decade of body politics activism promoting fat acceptance and physical autonomy by subverting that most commonly used tool of what she calls the angst industrial complex: photography.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by The Trout Gallery. This program is also part of Love Your Body Week programming.
Your Body is Not an Apology

Sonya Renee Taylor

This performance by author/poet Sonya Renee Taylor uses popular education, performance poetry and media examples to introduce participants to the concepts of body terrorism and radical self-love.
Trump, Race, and the Slow Death of Democracy

Lester Spence

Lester Spence (Johns Hopkins University) talks about the causes and the potentially stark consequences of Donald Trump’s election. While some point solely to racial politics, Spence examines the role of the neoliberal turn.
Community Responses to Anti-Muslim Hatred

Joyce Davis, Samia Malik, Ikram Rabbani, and Ann M. Van Dyke

Since 2015, attacks on Muslims have spiked in the United States, including Central Pennsylvania. This evening’s panel will discuss community responses designed to combat anti-Muslim hatred by promoting pluralism and interfaith dialogue.

Panelists include Joyce Davis (World Affairs Council), Samia Malik (Council in American-Islamic Relations, Harrisburg), Ikram Rabbani '17 (Dickinson College), and Ann M. Van Dyke (Community Responders Network).
Border Angels and AMIREDIS: The Sad Face of Undocumented Immigration

Hugo Castro and José Luis Hernandez Cruz

Hugo Castro (Border Angels)and José Luis Hernandez Cruz (AMIREDIS) share their work with organizing disabled and undocumented immigrants within Central and North America.
Inequality and Stagnation by Policy Design

Thomas Palley

Thomas Palley, Senior Economic Policy Adviser to the AFL-CIO, focuses on competing hypotheses explaining the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing stagnation. How we explain these events is of critical significance since it influences how economic policy and society respond.
Reproductive Rights: Religion, Ethics, and the Law

Kathryn Ellis, David O'Connell, and Katie Oliviero

Panelists Kathryn Ellis (Unitarian Universalist minister), David O'Connell (Dickinson College), and Katie Oliviero (Dickinson College), explore contemporary religious, ethical and legal debates and realities concerning reproductive rights in the United States.
Fat Activism Down Under

Jenny Lee

Jenny Lee (Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia) explores the fat activist movement in Australia and New Zealand including fat femme synchronized swim, fat burlesque, and the “plus size” fashion industry. Lee will discuss the challenges of doing fat activism and scholarship, the complexities of dealing with the media and organizations that discriminate, the personal cost of fat activism, and the white privilege of prominent fat activists.
Frederick Douglass: On Photography

Laura Wexler

In the 1860s, Frederick Douglass gave several public lectures about the importance of the then-new invention of photography. In “Pictures and Progress” he shared his vision of the role he hoped photography would play in fostering a more democratic society after the Civil War. Along with Sojourner Truth, Douglass thus became one of the first major American theorists of the medium. Laura Wexler (Yale University) engages with Douglass's critical thought in the context of his time, and ours.
Albion W. Tourgée and the Interracial Campaign Against Lynching

Carolyn L. Karcher

Carolyn L. Karcher, Professor Emerita at Temple University, focuses on Albion W. Tourgée’s campaign against lynching, in which he teamed up with the African American journalist-activists Ida B. Wells and Harry C. Smith to form a united front against anti-Black violence.
Noisy Believing: Ethical and Spiritual Responses to Sexualized Violence

Kristen Leslie

Transformative responses to sexualized violence reflect an early Methodist ethic that connects faith to public action. This spirituality encouraged followers to “do all the good you can… for as long as ever you can.” Holding communities accountable to such a public ethic and teaching the silenced to speak are basic building blocks to changing the nature of sexualized violence on college campuses.

Rev. Kristen Leslie, Eden Theological Seminary
The Cyber Presidential Campaign of 2016

Jack Tomarchio

Jaco Tomarchio, Agoge Group LLC, will analyze how cyber breach and cyber security has influenced our national presidential election.
Roundtable on Election 2016

Kathleen M. Marchetti, Sarah E. Niebler, David O'Connell, and Eric Vázquez

A panel of Dickinson professors discuss the 2016 presidential election from an academic, nonpartisan perspective, covering topics such as gender and race, the importance (or not) of campaigns, immigration, voting behavior, and presidential primaries.
Eating While Black: A Case Study on Food Shaming and Policing

Psyche Williams-Forson

This talk examines how the current changing food world affects and is affected by African American people. In particular, it focuses on how the legacies of surveillance that surround black people have now extended to our food cultures.

Psyche Williams-Forson, associate professor and chair of American Studies, University of Maryland College Park
Iran and Saudi Arabia Relations

David Commins, Marybeth Ulrich, and Ed Webb

Marred diplomatic relations and religious differences between Iran and Saudi Arabia have flared up into proxy conflicts across the Middle East. Our panelists discuss the factors and offer insight into what the future will hold for the Middle East.
The Populist Challenge: Germany and the United States before the Elections

Lothar Probst

In the run-up to this year’s elections, both the U.S. and Germany are confronted with the phenomenon of a populism that employs anti-establishment and anti-Muslim prejudices in order to maximize votes. This lecture will focus on the similarities and key differences between contemporary populism in Germany and the United States. Lothar Probst is a German political scientist who recently retired from a professorship at the University of Bremen.
BREXIT: Implications and Aftermath – Panel Discussion

Kristine Mitchell, Mark Duckenfield, and Oya Dursun-Ozkanca

This panel of three experts discussed Britain’s decision to exit the European Union, the forces that led up to it, the process by which the exit will happen, and its international implications. Panelists include: Mark Duckenfield, U.S. Army War College; Oya Dursun-Ozkanca, Elizabethtown College; and Kristine Mitchell (moderator), Dickinson College.
Mother’s Day: Song of a Sad Mother

Carmen-Francesca Banciu

German-Romanian author Carmen-Francesca Banciu reads from and speaks about her novel, Mother’s Day: Song of a Sad Mother. Part “bildungsroman,” part autobiographical memoir, Mother’s Day explores mother-daughter relations under the communist dictatorship in Romania and sparks dynamic questions about Eastern Europe, work, the woman artist, and women’s relationships with one another.
The World that Food Made

Raj Patel

We hear a great deal about the food system, about how it’s broken or – indeed – that it’s working exactly as it ought. But it’s not exactly clear what that system is. Once you learn to think systemically, it becomes clear that the most important things the food system has made are things you can’t eat. Raj Patel (University of Texas, Austin and Rhodes University, South Africa) discusses that food system.
Celebrating a Dead Letter or a Living Document?

Barry W. Lynn

In this Constitution Day address, Barry W. Lynn '70, the executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State discusses "originalism." “Originalism” in Constitutional interpretation is often characterized as the only legitimate way to understand the Constitution. If that were true, the “Constitution” would be a dead letter by now, unable to protect the rights of Americans in rapidly changing times.