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Mixed Race Saviors?: Learning from Latin American Racial Politics – Panel Discussion

Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Santiago Anria (moderator), Dickinson College
Tanya Hernández, Fordham University
Stacey Moultry, Dickinson College
Eric Vázquez, Dickinson College

There is a myth that as the U.S. becomes more mixed race, racial harmony will follow. But as we have seen in Latin America and the Caribbean the presence of mixed race majorities does not preclude racism. This talk will address how the U.S. can learn from the existing racial inequalities of Latin American and Caribbean societies in order to chart a better path forward.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of English; American studies; Latin American, Latino & Caribbean studies; and political science; and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness & Inclusivity. It was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

Santiago Anria is assistant professor of political science and Latin American studies at Dickinson College. His research focuses on social movements, political parties, and democracy in Latin America and has appeared in journals including Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Democracy, Studies in Comparative Political Studies, Read more

Gender, Religion, and Violence

Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Margee Ensign, Dickinson College
Jean-Pierre Karegeye, (moderator), Dickinson College
Christina Li, U.S. Department of State, Office of Religion and Global Affairs
Stephanie Ogorzalek, U.S. Department of State, Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues
Celestino Perez, U.S. Army War College

In several current world conflicts, multiple sides claim religious belief as a motivation for violent actions, including gender-based violence. In fact, the U.N. “Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence That Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes” lists gender-based violence as one of the key elements related to atrocity crimes. Panelists will discuss prevention strategies, military actions, education, government policies, and constructions of gender.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Churchill Fund. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

Margee Ensign became Dickinson’s 29th president on July 1, 2017. Prior to Dickinson she served for seven years as the president of the American University of Nigeria (AUN), a young, private university based on the U.S model of university education. There she Read more

Lilliana Mason

University of Maryland, College Park

Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

In her book, Uncivil Agreement, Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious, and cultural lines, which have recently come to divide neatly between the two major political parties. She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the departments of philosophy; political science; and sociology; and the program in policy studies. It was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers and is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lilliana Mason is assistant professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press). She received her Ph.D. in political psychology from Stony Brook University and her B.A. in politics from Princeton University. Her research on partisan identity, partisan bias, social sorting, and American social polarization has been published in journals Read more

Linda Hogan

Poet and Novelist

An Evening with Writer Linda Hogan

Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Poet and novelist Linda Hogan will read from a selection of her works, many of which connect to themes related to gender, Indigeneity and the environment.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Women’s & Gender Resource Center and the departments of creative writing, English, American studies and women’s, gender & sexuality studies. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Sustainability .

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Linda Hogan (Chickasaw), former faculty at Indian Arts Institute, writer-in-residence for The Chickasaw Nation, and professor emerita from the University of Colorado, is an internationally recognized public reader, speaker, and writer of poetry, fiction, and essays. In July, 2014, DARK. SWEET. New and Selected Poems, was published from Coffee House Press. Her other books include INDIOS (Wings Press, 2012), a long poem and also a one-woman performance piece; ROUNDING THE HUMAN CORNERS (Coffee House Press, April 2008, Pulitzer nominee) and the well-regarded novel PEOPLE OF THE WHALE (Norton, August 2008). Works include novels MEAN SPIRIT, a winner of the Oklahoma Book Award, Read more

Sarah McBride

Activist

Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Sarah McBride is the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign and one of America’s leading public voices in the fight for LGBTQ equality. Her moving memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different, chronicles her journey as a transgender woman, from coming out to her family and school community, to fighting for equality in her home state and nationally, to her heartbreaking romance with her late husband. A book sale and signing will follow the program.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Office of LGBTQ Services, the Women’s & Gender Resource Center, the department of women’s, gender & sexuality studies, the Churchill Fund, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Inclusivity and Outlaw at PSU -Dickinson School of Law. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Sarah McBride is a progressive activist and currently the national press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization. In 2016, Sarah made history when she became the first openly transgender Read more

Unveiling America: Addressing Issues of Contemporary Homelessness

Thursday, February 28, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Jim Hoefler (moderator), Dickinson College
Christina Kapp, Cumberland County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities (Panelists was unable to present due to unforeseen circumstances)
Beth Kempf, Community CARES
Scott Shewell, Safe Harbour
Tim Whelan, Cumberland County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities

A panel of community leaders will discuss their efforts to find sustainable solutions to homelessness in this region.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund; the departments of English; American studies; religion; and sociology; and the health studies program. It was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers and is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Jim Hoefler is professor of political science and coordinator of the policy studies program here at Dickinson where he has been teaching courses on politics and policy making since he joined the faculty in 1989.

Hoefler’s primary area of research is end-of-life care and end-of-life decision making. He has published several books and numerous articles in this area and has served on the UPMC Pinnacle Carlisle’s Biomedical Read more

Amandine Gay

Filmmaker

Part of the Tournées Film Festival

Ouvrir la Voix (Speak Up/Make Your Way)

Friday, February 22, 2019
Althouse Hall, Room 106, 5:45 p.m.

Filmmaker Amandine Gay will join us for the showing of Ouvrir la voix (Speak Up/Make Your Way) and for discussion and Q&A. The film is a documentary by and about francophone European black women from the diaspora. Through art, performances, and compelling storytelling, the film focuses on a common experience related to one’s minority status in predominantly white, ex-colonial countries, while highlighting the great diversity of Afropean communities.

Tournées Film Festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of French & Francophone studies; women’s, gender & sexuality studies; film & media studies; music; history; the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity, the Women’s & Gender Resource Center, the Office of LGBTQ Services, and the French Club.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Amandine Gay is a Saint-Denis-based Read more

Dixa Ramírez

Brown University

Dominican Blackness, Ghosting, and Bad Patriots

Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

This talk explores how Dominican fiction, film, architecture, fiction, and poetry negotiates the miscomprehension, miscategorization, and misperception–or ghosting–of the Dominican Republic from broader Western discourses.

Note: Monday, February 18, 2019, Althouse Hall, Room 106, 7 p.m.
Film Showing: Cocote – This film, shot entirely in the Dominican Republic, is in connection with Dixa Ramírez’s program.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of Spanish & Portuguese; Latin American, Latino & Caribbean studies; American studies; the Women’s & Gender Resource Center and the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dixa Ramírez is assistant professor of transnational African American literatures in the American studies and English departments at Brown University. Her first book, Colonial Phantoms: Belonging and Refusal in the Dominican Americas, from the 19th Century to the Present, argues that dominant Western discourses have ghosted the Dominican Republic despite its central place in the architecture of the Americas. Ramírez’s work has been published in Atlantic Studies, Comparative Literature, The Black Scholar, Small Axe Read more

Sharrell Luckett

Scholar & Performance Artist

Program is part of Love Your Body Week

YoungGiftedandFat: From Liberation to Creation

Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

YoungGiftedandFat author, Sharrell Luckett, outlines the journey towards self-love through the sharing of narratives that are at once specific and universal. A book sale and signing will follow the lecture.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund. This event is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Love Your Body Week events are co-sponsored by Clarke Forum; Women’s and Gender Resource Center; Office of LGBTQ Services, Student Life and Campus Engagement; Wellness Center; PALS; Psi Chi; Psych Club; Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice; Access and Disability Services; Departments of Theatre & Dance; Psychology; and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Creative Writing and the Waidner-Spahr Library.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Sharrell D. Luckett, Ph.D. is director of the Helen Weinberger Center for Drama and Playwriting and assistant professor of drama and performance studies in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati. She is also affiliate faculty in the Read more

Barbara Brown Wilson

University of Virginia

Resilience for All: Striving for Equity Through Community-Driven Design

Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

This talk will focus on the author’s research on community-driven efforts to make change in underserved communities and the lessons these efforts illuminate for resilience theory and practice. A book sale and signing will follow.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and a Civic Learning and Engagement Initiative Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education and the departments of art & art history and environmental studies. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Sustainability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Barbara Brown Wilson is an assistant professor of urban and environmental planning and the director of inclusion and equity at the University of Virginia School of Architecture. Her research and teaching focus on the history, theory, ethics, and practice of sustainable development, and on the role of urban social movements in the built world. Her work investigates the role of codes (e.g. building, land use, and societal) and coalitions working in the service of more resilient communities. Wilson is particularly interested in the Read more

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Award-winning Investigative Reporter for The New York Times Magazine

Morgan Lecture & KDP Spring Forum & MLK Jr. Symposium

Understanding the Impact of Modern Day Segregation

Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Award-winning The New York Times Magazine investigative reporter, Nikole Hannah-Jones, will explore the important roles schools play in their communities, how they’re affected by their surrounding neighborhoods, and how seeing race from the lens of education tells a whole new story of inequality in America.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by Dickinson’s Chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, the International Education Honor Society; the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity; the Churchill Fund, the Department of English; the Women’s & Gender Resource Center; and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness & Inclusivity.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Nikole Hannah-Jones covers racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine, and has spent years chronicling the way official policy has created—and maintains—racial segregation in housing and schools. Her deeply personal reports on the black experience in America offer a compelling case for greater equity. She has written extensively on the history of

University of Delaware

The Bruce R. Andrews Lecture

Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories

Monday, February 4, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

Miller will discuss her research on the roots of conspiracy theory beliefs, including the motivating forces of self-concept preservation, uncertainty, and powerlessness.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Bruce R. Andrews Fund.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Joanne M. Miller is associate professor of political science and associate professor of psychology and brain sciences at the University of Delaware. Her work, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, centers on the psychological underpinnings of political attitudes and mass behavior. She is the recipient of three best paper awards from the American Political Science Association, including the Paul Lazarsfeld Award for the best paper delivered on a Political Communication panel (for her co-authored paper (with Kyle L. Saunders and Christina E. Farhart) titled “Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust”). She has published articles in journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Psychology, and Public Opinion Read more

Beth Norcross – “Wesley Lecturer”

The Center for Spirituality in Nature

Wesley Lecture

Church of the Wild: A New and Old Way of Experiencing Spirituality

Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Norcross will share information about her organization’s new Church of the Wild, that gathers people in nature to celebrate the mutual indwelling of the Divine and the earth. She will discuss how the gathering is attracting both regular church-goers as well as those for whom traditional church is not appealing.

This lecture is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice with special thanks to the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church and co-sponsored by Division of Student Life; the College Farm; the Center for Sustainability Education; the Women’s & Gender Resource Center; and the departments of religion and environmental studies. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Sustainability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Founder and executive director Beth Norcross brings her training and experience in both theology and ecology in founding and leading the Center for Spirituality in Nature. An enthusiastic and popular teacher, speaker and preacher, she loves to share her passion and Read more

Macarena Gómez-Barris

Pratt Institute

Extractive Zones + Decolonial Praxis

Monday, January 28, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Based on her book, The Extractive Zone, this talk explores the old and new sites of land and water defense, and artistic and activist responses to these issues. Gómez-Barris will discuss work from the Américas to argue for alternative modes of living, being, and doing from within and outside of the extractive zones.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and a Civic Learning and Engagement Initiative Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and co-sponsored by the departments of Latin American, Latino & Caribbean studies; Spanish & Portuguese; environmental studies; art & art history; and anthropology & archaeology. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Sustainability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Macarena Gómez-Barris is chairperson of the Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies and director of the Global South Center (GSC) at Pratt Institute. She is author of three books including The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives that theorizes social life, art, and decolonial praxis through five extractive scenes of ruinous capitalism upon Indigenous territories (Duke University Press, 2017). Gómez-Barris’s recent book Read more

A snapshot of our upcoming programs is listed below. Check back soon for the full programming schedule for spring 2019

Monday, January 28, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
The Extractive Zone + Decolonial Praxis
Macarena Gómez-Barris, Pratt Institute

Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.
Wesley Lecture
Church of the Wild: A New and Old Way of Experiencing Spirituality
Beth Norcross, The Center for Spirituality in Nature

Monday, February 4, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
The Bruce R. Andrews Lecture
Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories
Joanne Miller, University of Delaware

Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
The Morgan Lecture & MLK Symposium & KDP Spring Forum
Understanding the Impact of Modern Day Segregation
Nikole Hannah-Jones, award-winning investigative reporter

Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
Resilience for All: Striving for Equity Through Community-Driven Design
Barbara Brown Wilson, University of Virginia

Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
Part of Love Your Body Week
Young, Gifted and Fat
Sharrell Luckett, acclaimed theatre director, professor, actor, and scholar

Tuesday, February 19. 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
Blackness in the Dominican Americas
Dixa Ramírez, Brown University

Friday, February 22. 2019
Location: TBD, 5:45 p.m.
Part of the Read more

Feminist Sorority Women: A Place for Intersectionality in Tradition?

Thursday, November 29, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Donna Bickford (moderator), Dickinson College
Brontè Burleigh-Jones, Dickinson College
Diana Turk, New York University
Deborah Whaley, University of Iowa

Sororities can be both a place for women’s empowerment and a site that produces elitism and constructs stereotypical gender roles. This student-initiated panel of experts will address the history of sororities and the possibilities for activism within them.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of English, American studies, philosophy, sociology, women’s, gender & sexuality studies, the First Year Seminar Program, the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity, Kappa Delta Pi, 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.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Donna M. Bickford has served as the director of the Women’s and Gender Resource Center at Dickinson since January 2016. She also teaches in women’s, gender and sexuality studies and serves as co-chair of the President’s Commission on Women, Gender and Sexuality. Previously she was the director of the Carolina Read more

Jane Mt. Pleasant

Cornell University

The Paradox of Productivity: Lessons from an Indigenous Agriculture

Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) agricultural systems in the 17th and 18th centuries were three to five times as productive as their European counterparts at the same time. This lecture provides insights into this ‘paradox of productivity.’

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and a Civic Learning and Engagement Initiative Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the departments of anthropology & archaeology, American studies, environmental studies, philosophy, history and the food studies program. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and its semester theme, Indigeneity in the Americas.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Jane Mt. Pleasant, associate professor in the Horticulture Section of School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University, studies indigenous cropping systems and their productivity. Using her expertise in agricultural science, she examines agriculture from a multi-disciplinary perspective that includes history, archeology, paleobotany, and cultural/social anthropology. Although much of her work has focused on Haudenosaunee agriculture in the 16 through 18^th centuries, more recently Read more

Daniel Ziblatt

Harvard University

How Democracies Die

Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Is democracy in decline around the world? Is American democracy itself in trouble? Examining the history of democracy in the United States against a global backdrop of how democracies have died throughout history, Ziblatt comes to some surprising conclusions about the sources of vulnerability and strength in American democracy today. After Ziblatt’s presentation, Prof. David O’Connell will offer a brief scholarly counterargument that challenges certain aspects of Ziblatt’s book as they pertain to the American political system. A book sale and signing will follow the program.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of political science and international studies, and the Churchill Fund. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Daniel Ziblatt is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University and a faculty associate at Harvard’s Minda De Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He researches and teaches in European politics, democratization, and historical political economy.

He is the author of three books, including two recent books, How Democracies Die (2018) (co-authored Read more

Dovie Thomason

Storyteller and Activist

Residency: Monday, October 29 – Friday, November 2, 2017

How the Wild West was Spun

Thursday, November 1, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Thomason’s story begins in 1887, eleven years after the battle of the Little Big Horn, when Buffalo Bill Cody brought his premiere of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West to Europe, cementing Cody as one of the most famous people of his day. His show, which he called The Drama of Civilization, attracted millions and affected perceptions of history to the present day.

This residency is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and a Civic Learning and Engagement Initiative Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the departments of English, anthropology & archaeology, sociology, history, American studies, and theatre & dance.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dovie Thomason has been a storyteller and lecturer for over thirty years, sharing the importance of Indigenous narratives and arts to give voice to untold stories of Indigenous America. Her ability to craft tales that not only enchant audiences––but also
raise provocative questions about Indigenous realities ––has long made her an inspiriting contributor to schools and organizations across Read more

Eboo Patel

Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC)

Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise

Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

America is the most religiously devout country in the Western world and the most religiously diverse nation on the planet. Will America’s identity as a Judeo-Christian nation shift as citizens of different backgrounds grow in numbers and influence? In what ways will minority religious communities themselves change as they take root in American soil? In addressing these questions, Eboo Patel will explore how America’s promise is the guarantee of equal rights and dignity for all, and how that promise is the foundation of America’s unrivaled strength as a nation. A book sale and signing will follow the program.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by The Marjorie M. and Irwin Nat Pincus Fund in Honor of their Daughters, The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life, the Division of Student Life, the Center for Service, Spirituality & Social Justice, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness & Inclusivity, the Departments of Judaic Studies and Religion, the First Year Seminar Program and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Read more