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Providing Safe Shelter When Home is Not a Haven From Crisis

Haven Crisis Poster Version Final scaledThursday, April 2, 2020 – 7 p.m.
Live Stream Event

Panelists

Jason Brode, AMEND Program
Sonya Browne, Domestic Violence Services of Cumberland and Perry Counties
Colleen Kinney, YWCA Carlisle
Scott Shewell, Safe Harbour

Around the world people are being told to stay home to help flatten the curve against the spread of Covid-19. But what happens if your home is not safe to shelter-in-place? According to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 123 victims lost their lives to domestic violence last year in Pennsylvania. How is COVID-19 and government recommendations to stay at home, impacting members of our community who are at risk? Representatives from Domestic Violence Services for Cumberland and Perry County, Safe Harbour, YWCA and the AMEND Program will talk about what their organizations and programs are doing to support survivors in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and what resources are available for individuals and families who are not safe (or at risk) at home.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Jason BrodeJason Brode is the executive director of Diakon Youth Services where he directs and administrates all Diakon Youth Read more

Mayor Tim Scott and His Team Explain How Carlisle is Responding to the Pandemic

Updated Tim Scott Panel MediaWednesday, March 25, 2020 – 7 p.m
Virtual Presentation

Participants:

Tim Scott, Mayor
Sean Shultz, Deputy Mayor
Susan Armstrong, Borough Manager
Jeffrey Snyder, Carlisle Fire Chief

Please join us for our first live-streamed event with our local officials concerning Carlisle’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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

Video of the Presentation

  Read more

Update on this Semester’s Programming

Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, Dickinson College has made the decision to complete the semester online. The college is following federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance that all gatherings of 50 or more people should be suspended for eight weeks. In accordance with this guidance, all Clarke Forum /programs on campus are postponed. We are, however, organizing more live-streaming events so stay tuned. You can take advantage of past programming by viewing our lecture videos or listening to interviews of our guest speakers. Read more

Yes, We’re Engaged in Critical Thinking

Our Spring semester programming began last week with a brilliant talk by Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. She spoke passionately about the important role liberal education must play in the health of our democracy. Pasquerella emphasized central role “educating for democracy” must play in maintaining the health of our society. Democratic societies are by no means unbreakable; the practices, institutions and shared values that sustain them must be continually cultivated and renewed. And this can be achieved, Pasquerella argues, only by a citizenry trained in critical thinking. At the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues we strive to center our work around critical thinking. I was thinking about this earlier today as I was reading Ibram X. Kendi’s acclaimed How to be an Antiracist. Early in the book, Kendi makes the simple but quite astute observation that “Definitions anchor us in principles.” He goes on to say that, “This is not a light point: If we don’t do the basic work of defining the kind of people we want to be in language that is stable and consistent, we can’t work toward stable, consistent goals.” No doubt Kendi’s talk on Thursday will be grounded Read more

Denise Sekaquaptewa (Event Cancelled*)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

* The event was cancelled due to the college’s response to COVID-19.

Effects of Stereotyping and Implicit Bias on Underrepresented Minorities in STEM

Thursday, April 16, 2020
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

This talk will describe social science research findings regarding the experiences of White women and underrepresented racial/ethnic minority (URM) people in STEM fields.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of earth sciences; educational studies; mathematics & computer science; environmental studies; biology; physics & astronomy; and  women’s, gender & sexuality studies, the Women’s & Gender Resource Center, the Inclusivity in STEM committee, the Neuroscience Club, the Anthropology Club and the Women of Color Summit. This event is initiated by the Clarke Forum student project managers.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

dsekaquaptewaDr. Denise Sekaquaptewa is University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.  Her research program in experimental social psychology focuses on stereotyping, implicit bias, and the experiences of women and underrepresented minorities in science and engineering.  Her research program has been supported by the National Science Foundation, and the National Center for Institutional Diversity.  Read more

Environmental Scarcity and Instability in the West African Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin (Event Cancelled *)

Thursday, April 2, 2020
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

* The event was cancelled due to the college’s response to COVID-19.

The Bechtel Lecture

Panelists:

Michael Beevers, Dickinson College
Guy Feldman, former Israel Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States)
Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob (moderator and panelist), Dickinson College
Other Panelists: TBD

The West African Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin currently face two major threats: increasing environmental degradation and violence. This forum discusses the destabilizing interactions between declining renewable natural resources (such as fresh water and arable soil), ecological marginalization, resource capture, population growth, the rise of violent extremist networks and weakened governing institutions in the region.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

IMG rotatedMichael Beevers is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Studies, and contributing faculty in the Department of International Studies at Dickinson College.  Beevers specializes in global environmental politics with an emphasis on the linkages between the environment, security, conflict and peace. Beevers was a peace scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington DC, and has served as a research associate at Princeton University and Read more

David Nirenberg – “The Molly and Wayne Borges Memorial Lecture” (Event Cancelled *)

Nirenberg Poster scaled

* The event was cancelled due to the College’s response to COVID-19.

University of Chicago

The Molly and Wayne Borges Memorial Lecture

What the History of Anti-Semitism Tells Us about Hate Today

Monday, March 23, 2020
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

From their earliest origins to the present moment, Christians and Muslims have given shape to their faiths by interacting with and thinking about Jews and Judaism.  How has that long history of thought contributed to anti-Semitism in the past and present?  And what can the study of that history offer the future?”

This event is a joint venture sponsored by St. John’s Episcopal Church on the Square and the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Nirenberg HeadshotDavid Nirenberg has written widely about the ways in which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures interrelate with each other.  He is the author of, among other books, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages;  Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition; Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism Medieval and Modern; and Aesthetic Theology and its Enemies: Judaism in Christian Painting, Poetry, and Politics.  His essays have appeared in the London Review of Books, the Read more

Bread and Puppet Theater (Event Cancelled *)

* The event was cancelled due to the college’s response to COVID-19.

Bread and puppet poster scaledDiagonal Life: Theory and Praxis

Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Allison Great Hall, 6 p.m.

Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater returns to Dickinson College with a new show examining humanity’s current precarious (diagonal) condition: on the verge of collapse, yet always capable of uprising. This show animates the humorous, tragic and bewildering possibilities of diagonality with song, dance, magic, mechanism, and stunning cardboard and paper maché puppets painted in Peter Schumann’s exuberant expressionist style.

After the show Bread and Puppet will serve its famous sourdough rye bread with aioli, and Bread and Puppet’s “Cheap Art” – books, posters, postcards, pamphlets and banners from the Bread and Puppet Press – will be for sale.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of Theatre and Dance. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Information about the Theater (taken from their website)

Bread and PuppetThe Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City’s Lower East Side. Besides rod-puppet and hand puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first productions Read more

Tom Brier ’14

Brier Poster scaledAttorney and Author

While Reason Slept: Recapturing the Founders’ Vision of a Rational Republic

Monday, March 2, 2020
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

How did we get to our current state of political acrimony?  Brier, the author of While Reason Slept, will walk us through the beginning of our national politics to the present day before offering a solution for recapturing our Founding Fathers’ path to a rational Republic.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Brier PicThomas F. Brier Jr. is a native of Hershey, Pennsylvania, growing up as the oldest of three boys. He is a Dickinson College graduate with a degree in philosophy. Brier went on to Penn State Law, received a juris doctor in 2017 and was selected as commencement speaker by his classmates. After graduation, he served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit before joining an international law firm in Philadelphia.  At the firm, in addition to working on several multi-million-dollar lawsuits, he worked closely with the SeniorLAW Center and other pro bono legal assistance organization to help low-income families.  As a volunteer “Reader” in the Philly Reads Read more

Protests Around the World

Protests World Poster scaledWednesday, February 26, 2020
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium – 7 p.m.

Panel of Dickinson Faculty

Heather Bedi, environmental studies
Angela DeLutis-Eichenberger, Spanish & Portuguese and Latin American, Latino & Caribbean Studies
Nicoletta Marini-Maio,  Italian and film studies
Mireille Rebeiz, French & Francophone and women’s, gender & sexuality studies
Ed Webb,  political science and international studies

Protests are breaking around the world, and people are demanding immediate action and calling for changes in governmental, political, and environmental policies. What sparked these protests, and what is next for many of the countries involved? Panelists will address world-wide environmental activism as well as political protests in Algeria, Chile, Iraq, Italy, and Lebanon.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Heather Bedi is an assistant professor of environmental studies at Dickinson College. Funded by the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust, she completed a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of Cambridge. Bedi’s research examines how civil society and socio-environmental movements experience and adapt to natural resource and landscape modifications related to energy processes, climate change, industrialization, and agricultural transitions. Her broader research and teaching interests include environmental and social Read more

Rick Doblin ‘P21

Doblin Poster scaledMultidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

Psychedelics: Science, Medicine and Politics

Monday, February 24, 2020
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

This lecture will discuss the politics of psychedelic research from the 1960s to today. Doblin will explore the history of MDMA, mechanisms of actions of psychedelics, and efforts to medicalize psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, depression and other indications.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of philosophy and psychology, the anthropology club, the neuroscience club, the Health Studies Program and the Program in Policy Studies.  This program was initiated by the Clarke Forum student project managers and is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speakers)

MAPS Rick Doblin HeadshotRick Doblin, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He received his doctorate in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he wrote his dissertation on the regulation of the medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana and his master’s thesis on a survey of oncologists about smoked marijuana vs. the oral THC pill in nausea control for cancer patients. His undergraduate thesis Read more

Bill Durden ’71

Durden Poster scaledInternational University Alliance (IUA)

An Anticipatory Memoir: Aging on the Diagonal

Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Advanced age – or what is commonly called “The Third Chapter” – arguably remains without operative definition, although so many citizens globally are entering that phase of life. Based upon personal reflection, a definition is proposed for debate – a definition that could lead to a “Good Life.”

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is part of our The Good Life series. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Durden William

William G. Durden is President Emeritus of Dickinson College, where he served for 14 years (1999-2013). During his tenure at Dickinson he was both a professor of German and a professor of Education. He is currently president of the International University Alliance (IUA), a non-profit association of top-tier U.S. research universities committed to international education (sponsored by Shorelight), chief global engagement officer at Shorelight, a courtesy professor (research) in the School of Education, Johns Hopkins University and an operating partner of Sterling Partners, a diversified investment management platform founded Read more

Rwanda at 25

Rwanda Panel Final PosterMonday, December 2, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists

Margee Ensign, Dickinson College
Mathilde Mukantabana, Embassy of the Republic of Rwanda to the U.S.
Jean-Pierre Karegeye (moderator), Dickinson College
Nelly Teta Ntwali ’22, Dickinson College

In 1994 more than a million people were murdered in Rwanda over the course of about 100 days in one of the century’s most brutal and shocking instances of genocide. Since that time, Rwanda has not only recovered but has become a beacon in Africa for thoughtful and equitable development.  In the words of President Paul Kagame: “In 1994 there was no hope, only darkness. Today, light radiates from this place. How did it happen? Rwanda became a family again.” This panel discussion will address the nature of the new Rwandan “family,” how Rwanda has achieved its remarkable recovery, and what we can all learn from its truly remarkable successes.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

formargeeMargee Ensign is the 29th president of Dickinson College, which was chartered in 1783—the first college established in the new United States of America. Dickinson is a recognized leader in global education and Read more

Where to with masculinity?

We are looking forward to welcoming Thomas Page McBee to campus next week. He is the author of the award-winning memoir Man Alive and also the first trans man to ever box in Madison Square Garden. McBee’s visit is part of this semester’s Clarke Forum theme, Masculinities. One of my early memories related to masculinity is of when I was probably nine or ten years old and one of my older sisters told me to clear the dinner table and start washing dishes. Because we were going to engage in some consciousness raising! (It was the late sixties.) That was the start of a parallel education, led by my sisters and, increasingly over time, my mother. Some of this education was challenged years later when my then future mother-in-law (a very traditional Spanish woman) strongly reprimanded me for trying to help clear the dinner table. She wasn’t having it. (We worked it out, and she came eventually came to accept and appreciate that detail.) It seems to me those experiences and many similar ones I have lived through were of a low-stakes quality compared to those lived by boys and young men today. And that is a good thing, Read more

Surviving the avalanche

Political drama is in high gear this autumn. We certainly have a full schedule of it right now in Washington. In London, too. (Now, if you stop to think about it, there is political drama going on all over the world, but being attuned to most stories requires reaching beyond the main storylines provided by major media.) As part of our “Breaking Issues” series, on Wednesday the Clarke Forum is sponsoring the panel discussion “Brexit: Where it Stands, What it Means”. This will be an informative event and we are privileged to have three outstanding scholars participate (Mark Duckenfield, from the US Army War College, Oya Dursun-Özkanca, from Elizabethtown College, and Ed Webb, from Dickinson). The news on Brexit changes daily, and sometimes hourly. Years ago, it made sense to talk about the “news cycle” but for some time now the cycle has evolved into a ceaseless avalanche. For many of us, the news avalanche can sometimes overwhelm us, to such an extent that we either take a break or suffer the negative health consequences. In this context, the Clarke Forum can offer a truly important counterbalance. Some brief time to stop consuming news so we can start to reflect Read more

The Dreamers, Stress, and the American Dream

Today the Clarke Forum welcomes professor Kathy Abrams from UC Berkley School of Law. Abrams will speak this evening about her research on undocumented immigrants in Phoenix, Arizona. The many uncertainties faced by undocumented immigrants no doubt produces a great deal of stress. Just two days ago, we learned  about the negative health consequences of stress from professor Zaneta Thayer of Dartmouth College. Thayer’s research focuses on the negative health impacts of inequality and how these impacts are passed on from one generation to the next. The article (link below) below illustrates quite well the intersection of these two issues in the lives of dreamers who risk everything to become doctors. As Abrams will show tonight, narrative is a great tool for understanding complex issues.

https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/daca-students-risk-everything-become-doctors Read more

Deepfake

Deepfake posterWednesday, November 20, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Tim Hwang, lawyer, writer, and researcher
Amy McKiernan, Dickinson College
James Sias, Dickinson College

Deepfake, a term coined in 2017, is an artificial intelligence technique which uses generative adversarial networks to create fake videos. Deepfakes have been used in pornography (both to fake the presence of public figures in pornographic videos, typically well known actresses, and in “revenge porn”). Those examples illustrate clearly the threat posed by deepfakes to privacy and human rights. To date their use in politics has been very limited, but the threat to democratic institutions is quite real.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of mathematics & computer science, political science, the Program in Policy Studies and the Order of Scroll and Key. It was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

hwangt fullresTim Hwang is a lawyer, writer, and researcher working at the intersection of emerging technologies and society. He was formerly director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, a philanthropic project working to ensure that machine learning and autonomous technologies are researched, Read more

Fallout from the American Military Withdrawal from Northern Syria

Syria PosterThursday, November 14, 2019
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Chris Bolan, U.S. Army War College
David Commins, Dickinson College
Larry Goodson, U.S. Army War College
Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob (moderator), Dickinson College

The recent abrupt withdrawal of United States military forces from the Syrian side of the border with Turkey immediately and drastically altered the balance of power in that volatile region. The panel will explore the ramifications of the U.S. withdrawal: Turkey’s military intervention, the dismantling of the Syrian Kurds’ autonomous zone, Russia’s ascent as the main powerbroker in Syria, the decline of American influence, and the prospect of a revival of the Islamic State.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Chris Bolan picChris Bolan is professor of Middle East security studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College where he researches, publishes, and teaches graduate level courses on U.S. national security, foreign policy, and the Middle East.  He served as a foreign policy advisor on Middle East and South Asia affairs for Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney from 1997-2003.  He is a retired U.S. Army colonel with overseas tours in Korea, Read more