Past Programs

Alexander Heffner – “Constitution Day Address Lecturer”

Journalist, Writer and Civic Educator

Winfield C. Cook Constitution Day Address

Civil Discourse in an Uncivil Age

Monday, September 18, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

WATCH LIVE

Heffner will discuss the millennial citizen, the space of old and new media, and the character of contemporary political discourse. How can we restore faith in democracy?

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Penn State’s Dickinson Law and co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost, Division of Student Life and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Alexander Heffner is the host of The Open Mind on PBS. He has covered American politics, civic life and Millennials since the 2008 presidential campaign. His work has been profiled in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Medium, and on NBC News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, CNN, BBC and NY1, among other media outlets. His essays, reviews and op-eds have appeared in TIME, Reuters, RealClearPolitics, NYT’s Room for Debate Read more

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – “Morgan Lecturer”

American historian, writer and feminist

Morgan Lecture

The Genocidal Foundation of the United States

Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Dunbar-Ortiz will provide a history of settler colonialism and genocidal war that she argues forms the foundation of the United States. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma. As a veteran of the Sixties revolution, she has been involved in movements against the Vietnam War and imperialism, union organizing, and was one of the founders of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the late 1960s. Since 1973, she has worked with Indigenous communities for sovereignty and land rights and helped build the international Indigenous movement. With a doctorate in History, she professor emerita at California State University East Bay, and author of numerous scholarly Indigenous related books and articles, including Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico and The Great Sioux Read more

Breaking Issue: North Korea Today

Thursday, September 7, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Jina Kim, Dickinson College
Richard Lacquement, U.S. Army War College
Jeff McCausland, Dickinson College
Douglas Stuart (moderator), Dickinson College

This panel of experts will share their ideas regarding the current North Korean political situation, including such perspectives as the relationship between North Korea and South Korea, tactics to control the nuclear threat, and U.S. policy.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science, International Studies and East Asian Studies.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Jina E. Kim is visiting assistant professor of East Asian Studies with a focus on modern Korean history, literature, and media. Her research and teaching areas include Korea under Japanese colonial rule, transnational Asian studies, Korean diaspora, and Korean War, all of which pay close attention to the history of North Korea and North Korean relations with its East Asian neighbors. Her writings on these topics have appeared in Journal of Korean Studies, Review of Korean Studies, and Harvard Asia Quarterly, among others.

Richard A. Lacquement Jr. is the dean of the School of Strategic Landpower at Read more

H. Andrew Schwartz

Stony Brook University

The Power of Big Social Media Data

Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Schwartz will focus on what large-scale social media data can reveal about the users generating it and how this is changing social science.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science and the Department of American Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Big Data.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

H. Andrew Schwartz is an assistant professor of computer science at Stony Brook University (SUNY), where he runs the HLAB: Human Language Analysis Beings, and teaches courses in data science. His interdisciplinary research focuses on large and scalable language analyses for health and social sciences. Utilizing natural language processing and machine learning techniques he seeks to discover new behavioral and psychological factors of health and well-being as manifest through language in social media. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Central Florida in 2011 with research on acquiring lexical semantic knowledge from the Web, and he was previously a visiting assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Read more

Marie Tessier

The New York Times

Suffragist 3.0: Women and Democracy Online

Thursday, April 27, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room 7 p.m.

As civic conversations move increasingly online, women’s voices are outnumbered by men’s voices by large margins. New York Times comment curator Marie Tessier addresses the dearth of women’s voices in comment sections, outlines the causes for it, and offers a call to action to bring women’s voices to equality in the 21st Century.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Departments of American Studies, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Media, Technology and Civic Engagement and also part of its Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Marie Tessier leads the team moderating comments to the Opinion pages of NYTimes.com and contributes to opinion blogs. Tessier has worked at The New York Times since 2007, when the company first rolled out its moderation system. Before joining the Times, Tessier was a regular contributor to the Women’s eNews and Women’s Media Center news sites, specializing in violence against women. She was an adjunct professor of Read more

Lance Freeman

Columbia University

The End of the Ghetto? Gentrification in Black Neighborhoods 1980-2015

Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

In the first decades of the 21st century gentrification has accelerated in black neighborhoods across a number of cities. This talk examines the prevalence of this trend, some possible causes and the implications for the Black Ghetto.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Black Student Union, the Departments of Political Science, Economics, and Sociology and the Program in Policy Studies. This is a Clarke Forum student project manager initiated event.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lance Freeman is a professor in the Urban Planning Program at Columbia University in New York City. His research focuses on affordable housing, gentrification, ethnic and racial stratification in housing markets, and the relationship between the built environment and well being. Freeman teaches courses on community development, housing policy and research methods. He has also taught in the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Delaware. Prior to this, Freeman worked as a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, a leading social policy research firm in Washington D.C. Freeman holds a Read more

Aynne Kokas

University of Virginia

Hollywood Made in China

Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Using contemporary case studies, this talk will demonstrate how the growth of China’s media market is transforming Hollywood from the inside out.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Media, Technology, and Civic Engagement.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Aynne Kokas is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. Kokas’ research broadly examines Sino-U.S. media and technology relations. Her book, Hollywood Made in China (University of California Press, 2017) argues that Chinese investment and regulations have fundamentally altered the landscape of the U.S. commercial media industry, most prominently in the case of major conglomerates that rely on leveraging global commercial brands. Her next project Networked Chinawood examines the cybersecurity and policy implications of digital media in the Sino-U.S. relationship. Kokas has been a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She is also a current term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Read more

Robert Deitz

George Mason University

Thoughts on Cybersecurity in an Age of Trump

Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Cybersecurity is an increasingly hot topic in public policy, particularly since the CIA has identified Russia as an intruder into the U.S. presidential election. Cyberattacks threaten our economy and our national security. This talk will discuss ways to address cyber intrusions.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Department of Political Science. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Media, Technology and Civic Engagement and also part of its Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Robert L. Deitz is a professor of public policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. He grew up in Gettysburg, Pa., and graduated from Middlebury College, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. After serving in the U.S. Army, he received his MPP from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. He then clerked for Justice William O. Douglas and, after Read more

Eiko Otake

Renowned Performance Artist

Residency: Sunday, April 2 – Saturday, April 8, 2017

During her residency, renowned performance artist Eiko Otake will bring her new solo project, A Body in Places, to several unexpected sites; engage students and faculty from different disciplines; and “occupy” campus for a magical week of immersion in new ways of seeing. Look for Otake around campus during the week.

Performances

Monday, April 3, 2017
Waidner-Spahr Library, 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
A Body in Places

Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Holland Union Building, 1 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
A Body in Places

Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Bosler Memorial Library, 12 p.m. – 12:45 p.m.
A Body in Places

Lecture

Thursday, April 6, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
A Body in Fukushima

Using her body as a conduit, Eiko Otake tries to make the distance between here/now to the Fukushima meltdowns malleable.

This residency is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, supported by the Cecil Andrew and Adeline Ewing Fund, and co-sponsored by the Departments of Theatre & Dance, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and East Asian Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Media, Technology and Civic Engagement Read more

Kevin Sanson

Queensland University of Technology

Location, Location, Location: Hollywood’s Precarious Mobility

Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Drawing from interviews with location managers in Atlanta, London, and Budapest, among other key production hubs, this talk moves past abstract discussions of ‘runaway production’ to map the transformations mobile film and television production engenders within the work worlds of key local crew positions.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Global Study and Engagement and the Department of International Business & Management. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Media, Technology and Civic Engagement.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Kevin Sanson is a senior lecturer in the creative industries faculty at Queensland University of Technology. Previously, he was the research director of the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Media Industries Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Sanson also is a founding member and current managing editor of Media Industries, the first peer-reviewed, open access journal for media industries research.

His current research examines the spatial dynamics of screen media production, focusing especially on working conditions and practices of local hires in global production hubs. Read more

Kelly Brownell – “Joseph Priestley Award Recipient”

Duke University

Joseph Priestley Award Celebration Lecture

Harnessing Academic Work to Make a Difference: Food Policy as an Example

Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

With the goal of more tightly connecting work in academic settings with the real world of social and policy change, a model of strategic scholarship will be described. Examples will be drawn from work on food policy (e.g., menu labeling, food marketing, soda taxes).

The Joseph Priestley Award recipient is chosen by a different science department each year. The Department of Psychology has selected this year’s recipient, Kelly Brownell. The event is supported by the College’s Priestley Fund and is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of biology, chemistry, earth sciences, environmental studies, math & computer science, psychology, and physics & astronomy.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Kelly Brownell is dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, where he is also Robert L. Flowers Professor of Public Policy and professor of psychology and neuroscience.

In 2006 Time magazine listed Kelly Brownell among “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” in its special Time 100 issue featuring those “.. whose power, talent Read more

Winona LaDuke – “Morgan Lecturer”

Executive Director, Honor the Earth

Morgan Lecture

The Next Energy Economy: Grassroots Strategies to Mitigate Global Climate Change & How We Move Ahead

Wednesday, March 22, 2017
(Rescheduled from Fall 2016)
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Native American writer and activist Winona LaDuke will draw from her grassroots experiences, including the #NoDAPL movement at Standing Rock, to explore how we can move forward to create a new energy economy. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education, the Churchill Fund and the Departments of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Environmental Studies, American Studies, Anthropology & Archaeology and Political Science. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and part of the Clarke Forum’s Fall 2016 semester theme, Food.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two-time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Read more

Erin Hudson

Documentary Filmmaker

Residency: Tuesday, March 7 – Thursday, March 9, 2017

Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.
Film Screenings: Afloat and Our Time is Now

Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
Keynote: Inviting Empathy through Documentary Filmmaking

Documentary filmmaker and community artist Hudson will share her process of storytelling exploring how she finds, receives, shares and engages stories based in human dignity, vulnerability, and emotional truths.

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 Departments of English and German, and the Film Studies Program. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Media, Technology and Civic Engagement.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Passionate about sharing stories with depth, dignity, and respect, Erin Hudson founded the documentary film production studio, Rotation Films. She works as an independent director, producer, editor, and cinematographer. Her films have been screened in festivals world-wide, including Telluride Film Festival, Full Frame, and True/False. Her most recent feature film, Our Time is Now, was broadcast locally and nationally through the PBS program, American Graduate. Read more

Kristen Warner

Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media, University of Alabama

Black Women Defense Squads in Online Fandom

Thursday, March 2, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

A predominantly online phenomenon, defense squads are the domain of female fans who vigilantly watch for mentions of their loved character and who respond to criticisms as a collective force. Warner will examine Black women fans of the CW’s The Flash to explore their devotion and protection of female character Iris West.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of English and Sociology, and the Film Studies Program. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Media, Technology and Civic Engagement.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Kristen Warner is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at The University of Alabama. She is the author The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting (Routledge, 2015). Kristen’s research interests are centered at the juxtaposition of televisual racial representation and its place within the media industries, particularly within the practice of casting. Warner’s work can be found in Television and New Media, Camera Obscura and Read more

Bees and Beekeeping Today

Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Olivia Bernauer, graduate student, University of Maryland
Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, beekeeper and professor, Rhode Island College
Rodney Morgan, beekeeper
Samuel Ramsey, doctoral student, University of Maryland
Marcus Welker, (moderator), projects coordinator, Center for Sustainability Education, Dickinson College

This panel explores the significance of bees and beekeeping from a variety of perspectives, including the recent entomological research, the growth of beekeeping, and the work we are doing here at Dickinson.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education, the Department of Biology and the Food Studies Certificate Program.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Olivia Bernauer is currently a second-year Masters student at the University of Maryland, College Park working in the vanEngelsdorp bee lab. Her ongoing research combines citizen science with a specimen collection to determine the most valuable pollinator plants for the native pollinators in the state of Maryland. Previously, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she worked to understand the response of bumble bee colonies to fungicide both in the field and in a controlled cage experiment.

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban is a professor emerita of Read more

Lila Abu-Lughod – “Morgan Lecturer”

Professor, Columbia University

Morgan Lecture

Muslim Women and the Freedom to Choose

Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

What can we learn from public debates about Muslim women that hinge on a right – the “right to choose freely”- that has been enshrined in international feminist conventions and that animates the popular American imagination about such practices as veiling and arranged marriage? Anthropologist Abu-Lughod will examine the everyday lives of young women in one Egyptian village to open up new ways of thinking about choice and to expose the politics of common fantasies about this right. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lila Abu-Lughod is the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia University where she teaches anthropology and women’s studies. A leading voice in the debates about culture, gender, Islam, and global feminist politics, her books and articles have been translated into 14 languages. Her scholarship, mostly ethnographic and based Read more

Sonya Renee Taylor

Author/Poet

These events are part of “Love Your Body Week”

Your Body is Not an Apology

Thursday, February 23, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

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.

Workshop: 10 Tools for Radical Self Love

Friday, February 24, 2017
(Open only to Dickinson community. RSVP to clarkeforum@dickinson.edu – Space is limited)
TIME & LOCATION CHANGE: Noon – 1:30 p.m. in Althouse 106

Can you re-imagine a relationship with your body and your life that is not adversarial? In this two-hour workshop get practical tools and a step by step action plan that can dramatically shift your relationship with your body from enemy to gorgeous partner in creating your most unapologetic life of radical self-love!

These events are sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Churchill Fund, the Division of Student Life, the Women’s and Gender Resource Center, the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity, the Office of LGBTQ Services, and the Departments of Sociology, Psychology and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Read more

Yoga for Every Body

Tuesday, February 21, 2017
HUB, Dance Studio, Noon – 1 p.m.

Our spectacular, local yoga instructor Michele Landis, owner of Simply Well Yoga, will conduct a yoga class for everyone–all levels, all bodies, all ages. Mats are provided or bring your own!

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is part of Love Your Body Week.

Biography of Michele Landis

Michele Landis is the owner of Yoga at Simply Well. Michele teaches yoga and works as a one-on-one holistic health coach in Carlisle, PA. She graduated with honors from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York, NY. The Institute for Integrative Nutrition is the only nutrition school integrating all of the different dietary theories, combining the knowledge of traditional philosophies with modern concepts such as the USDA food guidelines, the glycemic index, the Zone and raw foods. Michele’s passion is helping her clients cook more and buy and eat local, seasonal foods. She earned her teacher certification in Kripalu Yoga from the Karma Yoga Lifestyle Program of the renowned Kripalu Institute in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. At the Kripalu Institute, where she studied and served on staff for almost two years, Read more

Lester Spence

Johns Hopkins University

Trump, Race, and the Slow Death of Democracy

Thursday, February 16, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m. (New Location)

Spence will talk 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.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity, the Division of Student Life, and the Departments of American Studies, Political Science, Sociology, and the Program in Policy Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series. This event was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lester Spence is an associate professor of political science and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University and the Center for Emerging Media Scholar in Residence. Spence specializes in the study of black, racial, and urban politics. Over the past decade Spence published articles on American institutional legitimacy in the wake of the contentious 2000 Presidential election, the effects of long-term black political empowerment on black participation, the role of media Read more

Community Responses to Anti-Muslim Hatred

Monday, February 13, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Joyce Davis (moderator), founder and president, World Affairs Council
Samia Malik, director of education, Council on American-Islamic Relations Harrisburg chapter
Ikram Rabbani ’17, student, Dickinson College
Ann M. Van Dyke, Community Responders Network

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.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Middle East Studies Program.

Biographies
Joyce M. Davis is director of communications for the City of Harrisburg and supervisor of WHBG Channel 20, the region’s government and public affairs television station. She also is founder and president of The World Affairs Council of Harrisburg. A former foreign correspondent and foreign editor for National Public Radio and Knight Ridder Newspapers, Davis is author of many articles, broadcasts and two books: Between Jihad and Salaam: Profiles in Islam and Martyrs: Innocence, Vengeance and Despair in the Middle East. Davis is a member of several boards, including the World Affairs Councils of America, United Way of the Capital Read more