Author

Mary Ellen Borges Memorial Lecture

The Good Lord Bird: Faith & American Slavery

Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

In this presentation, which is based on his National Book Award winning novel, The Good Lord Bird, McBride shares the story of John Brown, using gospel and spiritual music of the time to frame his life and how it is presented in the book. He will be accompanied by his band, The Good Lord Bird Band. A book sale will follow.

This event is a joint venture sponsored by St. John’s Episcopal Church on the Square and the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Division of Student Life and the Department of Religion.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

James McBride is a renaissance man and a born storyteller. He is the author of The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, a moving narrative about his mother, a white Jewish woman from Poland who married a black man, founded a Baptist church and put 12 children through college.

The Color of Water is an American classic, read in colleges and high schools Read more

Yale University

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars Program

Frederick Douglass: On Photography

Thursday, November 10, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

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.  This lecture engages with his critical thought in the context of his time, and ours.

The event is sponsored by the  Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Phi Beta Kappa.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Laura Wexler, co-director of the Yale Public Humanities Program, is professor of American studies, professor of film & media studies, and professor of women’s, gender & sexuality studies at Yale University, and she holds an affiliate position in ethnicity, race & migration.  She is also founder and director of the Photographic Memory Workshop at Yale.  She is former chair of the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and former co-chair of the Yale Women Faculty Forum.

Professor Wexler has received numerous Read more

Professor Emerita, Temple University

Albion W. Tourgée and the Interracial Campaign Against Lynching

Thursday, November 3, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This lecture focuses on 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. A book sale and signing will follow.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Writing Program, the Women’s and Gender Resource Center and the Department of Africana Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Carolyn L. Karcher is professor emerita of English, American studies, and women’s studies at Temple University, where she taught for twenty-one years and received the Great Teacher Award and the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2002.  She is the author of Shadow over the Promised Land: Slavery, Race, and Violence in Melville’s America (1980); The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child (1994); and A Refugee from His Race: Albion W. Tourgée and His Fight against White Supremacy (2016).  She has also edited scholarly reprints of works by several 19th-century writers, including Tourgée’s novel about Black Read more

Agoge Group LLC

The Cyber Presidential Campaign of 2016

Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

In this talk, Tomarchio will analyze how cyber breach and cyber security has influenced our national presidential election.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is co-sponsored by Library and Information Services as part of their programming during Cyber Security Awareness Month. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s stream on the 2016 Presidential Election.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Jack Thomas Tomarchio is a principal with the Agoge Group, LLC, an international strategic advisory firm based in Wayne, Pennsylvania. He is also executive vice president for Cyber Strategy with Xero Day Cyber, a cyber solutions firm based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  He concentrates on developing business processes for technology companies, many of them in the defense, homeland security, cyber security and intelligence fields. He is also an active entrepreneur and has been involved in numerous early and mezzanine stage companies as an investor and a principal. In 2005 Tomarchio was appointed by President George W. Bush to be the first principal deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis. In 2007 he Read more

Thursday, October 13, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Dickinson Panelists

Kathleen Marchetti, assistant professor of political science
Sarah Niebler (moderator), assistant professor of political science
David O’Connell, assistant professor of political science
Eric Vázquez, visiting assistant professor of American Studies

A panel of Dickinson professors will 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.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is part of our stream on the 2016 Presidential Election.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Kathleen Marchetti is an assistant professor of political science at Dickinson College. She holds dual degrees in political science and women’s studies from Penn State University and Gettysburg College. Her research and teaching interests focus on gender and politics, interest groups, intersectionality, state politics, and political methodology. Her research on these topics has been published in State and Local Government Review, Interest Groups & Advocacy; Gender, Place & Culture; Politics, Groups and Identities, the Washington Post‘s Monkey Cage, and the London School of Economics’ American Politics and Policy blog. Read more

Thursday, October 6, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists

David Commins (moderator), Dickinson College
Marybeth Ulrich, U.S. Army War College
Ed Webb, Dickinson College

Marred diplomatic relations and religious differences between Iran and Saudi Arabia have flared up into proxy conflicts across the Middle East. Our panelists will discuss the factors and offer insight into what the future will hold for the Middle East.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life, the Departments of International Studies, Judaic Studies, Military Science and Political Science and the Security Studies Certificate Program. This event was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s Student Project Managers

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

David Commins is professor of history and the Benjamin Rush Distinguished Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College. His publications include Islam in Saudi Arabia, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia, The Gulf States: A Modern History, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria, and Historical Dictionary of Syria. He earned his B.A. at the University of California, Berkeley and his Ph.D. from the University of Read more

University of Bremen

The Populist Challenge: Germany and the United States before the Elections

Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 8 p.m.

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.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Max Kade Foundation and the Department of German. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s stream on the 2016 Presidential Election.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lothar Probst is a German political scientist who recently retired from a professorship at the University of Bremen. At Bremen University he was the managing director of the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies and chair of the Department of Research in Elections, Political Parties and Participation at the Institute of Political Science. His central research and teaching interest lies in the area of party and election research. Beyond that he works on theories of democracy, political culture research and the development Read more

Exonerated Death Row Inmates

Innocent on Death Row: The Story of Sunny and Peter

Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Two former death row inmates will discuss how they work together promoting human rights and in opposition to injustice and the death penalty.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Penn State’s Dickinson Law and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Life, the Department of Sociology and the Program in Policy Studies. It was also initiated by the Clarke Forum Student Project Managers.

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

Sonia “Sunny”Jacobs was wrongfully tried, convicted and sentenced to death in Florida, USA in 1976. She spent five years under sentence of death in solitary confinement before her death sentence was overturned. Her practice of yoga and meditation sustained her through her ordeal. She then spent a further 12 years among the general prison population to whom she began to teach yoga. Her partner, Jesse Tafero, who was also wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death was executed on fourth of May 1990, two years before evidence of their innocence was made known. With the help of lawyers who worked for many years without Read more

Thursday, September 22, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Mark Duckenfield, U.S. Army War College
Oya Dursun-Ozkanca, Elizabethtown College
Kristine Mitchell (moderator), Dickinson College
This panel of three experts will discuss 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.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues.

Panelist Biographies (forthcoming)

Dr. Mark Duckenfield is chair of the Department of National Security and Strategy at the Army War College.  He has written numerous academic articles on the European Union, British politics and international political economy.  He is the author of the book Business and the Euro: Business Groups and the Politics of Economic and Monetary Union in Britain and Germany (Palgrave, 2006). He has also served as editor/general editor of the volumes The History of Financial Disasters, 1763-1995 (Pickering&Chatto, 2006); and Battles over Free Trade: Anglo-American Experiences with International Trade, 1776-2006 (Pickering&Chatto, 2008). Dr. Duckenfield has given invited lectures on topics ranging from European economic policy, the euro, and financial crisis in the United States, Europe and Asia. He has held teaching appointments at the Read more

Author

Mother’s Day: Song of a Sad Mother

Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

In this talk, German-Romanian author Carmen-Francesca Banciu will read from and speak 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.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Max Kade Foundation and the Department of German.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Carmen-Francesca Banciu was born in Lipova, Romania and studied Byzantine art and foreign trade in Bucharest. As a result of being awarded the International Short Story Award of the City of Arnsberg for the story “Das strahlende Ghetto” (“The Radiant Ghetto,” 1985), she was banned from publishing her work in Romania. In 1991 she accepted an invitation extended by the DAAD Berlin Artists-in-Residence program and came to Germany. Writer-in-Residence at Rutgers University from 2004-2005 and University of Bath in 2009, Banciu currently lives in Berlin and works as a freelance author and co-editor/deputy director of the transnational, interdisciplinary and Read more

Monday, April 25, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

After decades of war and oppressive Taliban regime, four Afghan photojournalists face the realities of building a free press in a country left to stand on its own.  Comments by Baktash Ahadi, associate producer and translator for Frame by Frame and Noorjahan Akbar ’14, women’s and human rights’ activist.           

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues.

Frame by Frame Trailer

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

Noorjahan Akbar is an out-spoken women and human right’s advocate from Afghanistan. She has worked with several Afghan and global organizations focusing on women’s social and economic empowerment and ending gender-based violence. She has also led nation-wide campaigns and protests in defense of human rights and continues to write and advocate for equality. Noorjahan has been published on Al Jazeera, and New York Times among other outlets. In the summer of 2013, she published a collection of Afghan women’s writings in a book that was distributed in several provinces in Afghanistan. Currently, she runs a national blog with over 100 Afghan contributors who advocate for gender equality and social justice. Noorjahan is also a keynote speaker on issues relating Read more