Past Programs

Yair Teller

Chief Scientist and Founder, HomeBiogas

The Business of Peace through Green Energy: The HomeBiogas Story

Thursday, March 31, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Teller will discuss how he is using his company, HomeBiogas, as a mechanism for peace building, sustainable development, women’s empowerment, and improvement of the quality of health and life for citizens of developing countries.

Yair Teller is chief scientist and co-founder of the HomeBiogas Company based in Netanya, Israel. HomeBiogas produces a household renewable energy appliance that recycles kitchen waste into cooking gas and organic fertilizer. Profits from sales to suburban customers and a successful crowd-funding campaign are used to support donation of HomeBiogas units to economically disadvantaged Bedouin, Palestinian, and Ugandan families for alleviation of poverty. The work of HomeBiogas has been recognized by the UN and the Peres Center for Peace.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Student Senate, and co-sponsored by the departments of Judaic studies, Middle East studies and earth sciences, the Center for Sustainable Education, the Treehouse, J Street U, and the Geology Club.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Yair Teller is a visionary and entrepreneur committed to the cause of sustainability, and driven Read more

George Lipsitz

Professor of Black Studies and Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara

The Ferguson Conjuncture: Why the Humanities Matter Now

Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

The killing of Michael Brown and the callous and cruel responses to it by legally constituted authorities have rightly been perceived as evidence of failures of the criminal justice system and the political system. In addition, the events, actions and ideas emerging from the crucible of conflict in Ferguson also reveal a betrayal of the promise of the humanities to teach discernment, judgment and empathy as tools for envisioning a common and creative human existence.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Life, the Churchill Fund and the departments of American studies, sociology and history. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

George Lipsitz is professor of black studies and sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His publications include How Racism Takes Place, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, A Life in the Struggle, Time Passages and The Fierce Urgency of Now Read more

Lance Wahlert

Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Disability Studies and Contemporary Bioethics for HIV-Positive Persons

Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

In this talk, Wahlert will discuss the prominence of HIV-positive persons in the history of medicine, paying special attention to their impact by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of women’s and gender studies, American studies, biology and the health studies certificate program. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

An historian of medicine and literary/cinema/queer studies scholar by training, Dr. Lance Wahlert is assistant professor of medical ethics & health policy and director of the Master of Bioethics (MBE) program in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds affiliated standing-faculty appointments in Penn’s departments of: Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies; English; Cinema Studies; and, the History and Sociology of Science.

Dr. Wahlert’s scholarly interests include narrative medicine, clinical ethics, the history of LGBTQ medicine, disability theory, cinema studies, and Irish and Norwegian literature. Accordingly, he has held residential Read more

Dancing in Jaffa – Film Showing Followed by Comments and Dance Class by Pierre Dulaine

This film showing is part of the Movement Matters Film Series. It includes three documentaries that explore dance as a vehicle for social change and personal transformation.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Mathers Theatre, 7 p.m.

Pierre Dulaine, an internationally renowned ballroom dancer, takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa. Pierre teaches Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli children to dance and compete together. The film explores how the future might unfold if the art of movement and dance could triumph over the politics of history and geography. Comments by Dulaine. A dance class with Dulaine will follow.

This film showing is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issue and co-sponsored by the Department of Theatre & Dance and the Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life.

Dancing in Jaffa Trailer

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Pierre Dulaine was born in Jaffa, Palestine. His Irish Protestant father married his Palestinian Catholic mother while serving with the British army. Being Palestinian meant being uprooted and fleeing with his family in 1948 at the creation of the State of Israel when he was four – with nowhere else to go his family landed in Amman, Jordan and as a teenager Read more

Bassem Eid

Palestinian Human Rights Advocate and Political Commentator

Palestinians’ Internal Politics and Conflicts

Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Since 2007, Palestinians have become so divided that reconciliation is in the interest of neither Hamas nor Abbas. Eid will discuss the internal politics and significance of this divide.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of Judaic Studies, Middle East Studies and the Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Bassem Eid is former director of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG). Born in Jerusalem, he spent the first 33 years of his life in the Shuafat Refugee Camp on the outskirts of the city. He became a prominent figure during the first Intifada, the Palestinian uprising, as senior field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. He publicly condemned the widespread killing of Palestinian collaborators, often for reasons unrelated to the Intifada. In 1995, following his report about the Palestinian Preventative Security Service, he came under attack by some Palestinian leaders for revealing human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority. He continued Read more

Shake the Dust – Film Showing

This film showing is part of the Movement Matters Film Series. It includes three documentaries that explore dance as a vehicle for social change and personal transformation.

Monday, March 7, 2016
Mathers Theatre, 7 p.m.

From executive producer and rapper Nasir “Nas” Jones and journalist-turned-filmmaker Adam Sjöberg, Shake the Dust chronicles the influence of breakdancing, exploring how it strikes a resonant chord in the slums, favelas and ghettos of the world. Patricia van Leeuwaard Moonsammy, professor of Africana studies, will offer comments following the film-showing.

This film showing is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issue and co-sponsored by the Department of Theatre & Dance and the Department of American Studies.

Vice President and Director of Landmark College Institute for Research and Training (LCIRT) and Associate Professor at Landmark College

Universal Design and Diverse Learners

Thursday, March 3, 2016
Holland Union Building, Social Hall West, 7 p.m.

This presentation will address issues, experiences, challenges and alternatives in pedagogical practice for today’s diverse population of college students. Starting with an overview of neurodiversity and learner differences, the presenter will share practical hand-on techniques, eTools, and strategies as guided by the Universal Design mindset.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, American Studies, Kappa Delta Pi, the Wellness Center and the Office of Disability Services (ODS). It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Manju Banerjee, Ph.D., is vice president and director of Landmark College Institute for Research and Training (LCIRT) and associate professor at Landmark College. Dr. Banerjee has over 29 years of experience in the field of learning disabilities and postsecondary education, and is a certified diagnostician and teacher-consultant on learning disabilities. She has published and presented extensively, both nationally and internationally, on topics including Universal Design Read more

Steven Pifer

Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine

The Ukraine-Russia Crisis and U.S. Policy

Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Pifer will address how the crisis between Ukraine and Russia has developed, what it means for the West and the U.S. policy response.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of international studies, political science, history, Russian and the security studies certificate program.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Steven Pifer is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he focuses on arms control, Ukraine and Russia. A retired Foreign Service officer, his more than 25 years with the State Department included assignments as deputy assistant secretary of state with responsibilities for Russia and Ukraine, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council.

Video of the Lecture

Interview with Steven Pifer and Rehoboth Gesese’ 17, Clarke Forum Student Project Manager

This film showing is part of the Movement Matters Film Series. It includes three documentaries that explore dance as a vehicle for social change and personal transformation.

Monday, February 29, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 6 p.m.

Choreographer Allison Orr finds beauty and grace in garbage trucks, and in the unseen men and women who pick up trash. Filmmaker Andrew Garrison follows Orr as she rides along with Austin sanitation workers to observe and later convince them to perform a most unlikely spectacle. On an abandoned runway, two dozen trash collectors and their trucks deliver a stunningly beautiful performance. Following the film showing, Andrew Garrison and crane operator Donald Anderson will offer comments and answer questions via Skype.

This film showing is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issue and co-sponsored by the Department of Theatre & Dance and the Center for Sustainability Education.

Trash Dance Trailer

Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics, New York University

Poverty as a Childhood Disease

Thursday, February 25, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This talk will look at what poverty does to children, through lenses ranging from fairy tales to health statistics, and discuss the ways in which we can look at childhood poverty as a disease, stunting and depriving children’s minds and bodies–and use that perspective to find ways to think about mitigating the damage and reducing the disease itself.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, department of economics, educational studies 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.

A children’s book drive is associated with this program and it runs from February 18 – February 25. New and gently used children’s books are being accepted. Bins are located at the Clarke Forum, Waidner-Spahr Library and the Whistlestop Bookshop (Whistlestop is offering a 10% discount on books being donated for this drive.)

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Perri Klass, MD, is professor of journalism and Read more

Kimberly Dark

Storyteller

This event is part of “Love Your Body Week” and “Let’s Eat!” Click here for LYBW Schedule.

Becoming the Subject of Your Own Story

This event is only open to Dickinson community members.
RSVP required to clarkeforum@dickinson.edu by Thursday, February 18.

Monday, February 22, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 5 p.m.

This spoken word performance uncovers the various ways women (and men) cheat the world of their fabulous human potential by focusing too often on appearance, sweetness and popularity. The show does not preach or instruct. Rather, audience members discover their own empowerment through Dark’s funny and personal tales.

Yoga for Every Body

Tuesday, February 23, 2016
HUB Dance Studio, Noon – 1 p.m.

These events are sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Resource Center, Student Senate and the Psychology Club.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Kimberly Dark is a writer, storyteller and speaker who helps audiences discover that we are creating the world, even as it creates us. She’s the author of five award-winning performance scripts and a number of educational programs regarding the body in culture — how appearances and identities influence our experiences in Read more

John Englander ’72

Oceanographer

Melting Ice, Rising Seas, Shifting Shorelines…The New Reality

Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Sea level rise is now unstoppable. Englander will explain the latest science, put sea level rise into historic perspective, and explain what we can expect and how we should plan for the future.

A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Center for Sustainability Education and the departments of earth sciences, biology, international business and management, international studies and policy studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

John Englander is an oceanographer, consultant and leading expert on sea level rise. He brings the diverse points of view of an industry scientist, entrepreneur and CEO to this critical issue. For over 30 years, he has been a leader in both the private sector and the non-profit arena, serving as CEO for such noteworthy organizations as The Cousteau Society and The International SeaKeepers Society.

Englander graduated Dickinson College with a double major in geology and economics. His bestselling book, Read more

Emma Kaufman

Researcher, University of Oxford Border Criminologies Project

Prisons Built to Expel

Monday, February 15, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Kaufman will examine the rise and consequences of the “all-foreign” prison in the U.S. Is it legal to segregate American prisons by citizenship status? How are non-citizens treated inside prison systems in the US and Europe? What can we learn—about punishment, ethics, and immigration policy—by studying prisons that are built to expel?

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

Emma Kaufman received her J.D. from Yale and her Ph.D. from Oxford, where she was a Marshall and Clarendon Scholar. Her new book, Punish and Expel, draws on a year of research inside men’s prisons to examine the treatment of incarcerated non-citizens. Emma has published articles on American immigration imprisonment, the relationship between gender and punishment, and British prison policy.

Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Professor of English, Disability and Human Development, and Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Morgan Lecture

The Americans with Disabilities Act: Civil Rights Then, Now, and in the Future

Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

The Americans with Disabilities Act recently reached its 25th year anniversary. This lecture looks at the history of how the most encompassing civil rights act of the 20th century, affecting the largest US minority, came to be passed; what its effects were and are; and what more work remains to be done. A book sale and signing will follow.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lennard J. Davis is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and teaches in the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he had also served as the department’s Head. In Read more

Sandra L. Steiner Ball ’84 – “Wesley Lecturer”

Bishop, West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church

Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Wesley Lecture

We Are More Than We Have Become:

John Wesley’s Call to Holiness and Service

In this lecture, the first woman bishop of the United Methodist Church’s West Virginia Conference, Sandra Steiner Ball, will address Wesley’s desire to reform the Church and to move women and men from a passive connection with the Divine, to an active, relational, and accountable life of holiness and service to God. This subject is relevant for today as it was in the 18^th Century.

This lecture is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice, and the Office of the President, and co-sponsored by the Department of Religion, Women’s and Gender Resource Center, Dickinson Christian Fellowship 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)

Sandra L. Steiner Ball, the daughter of Edward J. and Marjorie W. Steiner, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and raised in Milford, Delaware. She is a graduate of Dickinson College, (B.A. in Religion, 1984), Read more

Zach Leverenz ’01

Founder and CEO, EveryoneOn

Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Allison Great Hall, 7 p.m.
(Reception to follow)

Launch for New Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) Certificate

Business as Unusual: Shared Strategies for Accelerating Change

Leverenz will apply a practitioner’s lens to examine how social entrepreneurs can design shared-value strategies and build cross-sector partnerships that accelerate social impact with immediate scale and sustained success.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) Certificate Program, and the Office of Provost and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Zach Leverenz serves as founder and CEO of EveryoneOn, and has led the growth of the organization into a national force for social impact and inclusion.

With a singular focus on providing access to opportunity for all, the organization has adopted a broad, integrative agenda that harnesses the collective expertise and scale of more than 250 cross-sector partners to accelerate meaningful technology adoption for all segments of the unconnected population, including students, families, adults, and seniors.

Through the work of EveryoneOn, Leverenz has become a Read more

Silvia Pedraza

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Cuba and its Exile: Political Generations

Thursday, December 3, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Using the concept of political generations, Pedraza traces the evolution of the Cuban exile, mostly in Miami, and the Cuban revolution, in the island. Political generations refers to young people that in their transition from adolescence to adulthood experienced dramatic historical events that marked their consciousness. Pedraza identifies several major political generations that developed during the course of the Cuban revolution and its exile.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the department of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Silvia Pedraza is professor of sociology and American culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was born and raised in Cuba, from where she immigrated with her family at the age of 12. Her research interests include the sociology of immigration, race, and ethnicity in America, and the sociology of Cuba’s revolution and exodus. She places particular stress on comparative studies, both historical and contemporary. Her work seeks to Read more

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Dickinson Panelists:

Alex Bates, associate professor of Japanese language and literature
Shawn Bender, associate professor of East Asian studies
Claire Seiler, assistant professor of English
W. Evan Young, assistant professor of history
Shogo Nishikawa, exchange student from Japan

In this panel of four faculty members and a student will each draw from their own research and experience to respond to the questions of how we remember the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How do these memories shape our contemporary understanding of the past and of current struggles regarding nuclear energy and war?

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

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

Alex Bates is associate professor of Japanese language and literature at Dickinson College. He is a specialist in modern Japanese literature and film. In addition to survey courses in these areas, he has taught courses in Japanese youth culture, ecocriticism, East Asian film, and World War II in Japanese literature and film. Professor Bates’ book on representations of the 1923 earthquake that destroyed Tokyo will be out later this year from the University of Michigan, Center for Read more

Kimberlé Crenshaw – Constitution Day Lecturer

Columbia Law School & UCLA

Black Girls Matter

Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Across the country, women and girls of color face barriers in completing education, accruing wealth, and living free from public and private violence. However, the unique challenges facing women and girls of color are largely invisible in dominant discourses of racial and gender justice. In this talk, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw will explore historical and contemporary instances of intersectional erasure which have led to neoliberal attacks on the wellbeing of women and girls of color as well as initiatives that increase awareness of challenges facing Black women and girls, such as #SayHerName, #Black Girls Matter, and #WhyWeCantWait.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Penn State Dickinson School of Law and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Life, the Women’s and Gender Resource Center, and the departments of American studies, economics, sociology, and women’s and gender studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority on civil rights, Black Read more

Elizabeth Hinton

Harvard University

Federal Policy, Urban Policing, and the Roots of Mass Incarceration

Thursday, November 19, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Shedding light on the devastating outcomes and the deep racial disparities within American law enforcement and penal institutions, Hinton traces the development of the War on Crime from its origins in the War on Poverty through the rise of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs in the 1980s. Hinton’s historical account situates the punitive policies of Ronald Reagan not as a sharp policy departure but rather as the full realization of the shift towards surveillance and confinement implemented by previous administrations.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of American studies, history, philosophy and sociology. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Inequality and Mass Incarceration in the United States.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Elizabeth Hinton is assistant professor in the Department History and the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Hinton’s research focuses on the transformation of domestic social programs and urban inequality in the 20^th century United States. She is the author of a forthcoming history Read more

Chief Scientist and Founder, HomeBiogas

The Business of Peace through Green Energy: The HomeBiogas Story

Professor of Black Studies and Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara

The Ferguson Conjuncture: Why the Humanities Matter Now

Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Disability Studies and Contemporary Bioethics for HIV-Positive Persons

This film showing is part of the Movement Matters Film Series. It includes three documentaries that explore dance as a vehicle for social change and personal transformation.

Palestinian Human Rights Advocate and Political Commentator

Palestinians’ Internal Politics and Conflicts

This film showing is part of the Movement Matters Film Series. It includes three documentaries that explore dance as a vehicle for social change and personal transformation.

Vice President and Director of Landmark College Institute for Research and Training (LCIRT) and Associate Professor at Landmark College

Universal Design and Diverse Learners

Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine

The Ukraine-Russia Crisis and U.S. Policy

Video of the Lecture

Interview with Steven Pifer and Rehoboth Gesese’ 17, Clarke Forum Student Project Manager

This film showing is part of the Movement Matters Film Series. It includes three documentaries that explore dance as a vehicle for social change and personal transformation.

Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics, New York University

Poverty as a Childhood Disease

Storyteller

This event is part of “Love Your Body Week” and “Let’s Eat!” Click here for LYBW Schedule.

Becoming the Subject of Your Own Story

This event is only open to Dickinson community members. RSVP required to clarkeforum@dickinson.edu by Thursday, February 18.

Yoga for Every Body

Oceanographer

Melting Ice, Rising Seas, Shifting Shorelines…The New Reality

Researcher, University of Oxford Border Criminologies Project

Prisons Built to Expel

Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Professor of English, Disability and Human Development, and Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Morgan Lecture

The Americans with Disabilities Act: Civil Rights Then, Now, and in the Future

Bishop, West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church

Wesley Lecture

We Are More Than We Have Become:

John Wesley’s Call to Holiness and Service

Founder and CEO, EveryoneOn

Launch for New Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) Certificate

Business as Unusual: Shared Strategies for Accelerating Change

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Cuba and its Exile: Political Generations

Dickinson Panelists:

Columbia Law School & UCLA

Black Girls Matter

Harvard University

Federal Policy, Urban Policing, and the Roots of Mass Incarceration

This event is only open to Dickinson community members.
RSVP required to clarkeforum@dickinson.edu by Thursday, February 18.