Past Programs

Charles Brown

holocaust posterLeonard and Sophie Davis Genocide Prevention Fellow, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Thursday, April 16, 2015 – 7 p.m.
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium

Holocaust: Justice and Accountability

Following World War II, the Nuremburg trials convicted 22 principal Nazi leaders, sentencing 12 to death and seven to various terms in prison. Hundreds of lower-level concentration camp officials were also tried, but the total number convicted and sentenced was relatively small in comparison to the number who implemented the Final Solution, the Nazi term for the Jewish Holocaust. In response to this unprecedented attempt to exterminate an entire group based on racial, ethnic, and religious criteria, the United Nations unanimously adopted the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948. The pursuit of Nazi criminals continues to this day even though the passage of time and fading memories make successful prosecutions difficult.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum Contemporary Issues and the  Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) of the U.S. Army War College.

The PKSOI is distributing relevant essays about the Holocaust each week in preparation of this event. Here are links to these essays:
Week One – The Holocaust and Rule Read more

Akbar Ahmed

Ahmed posterAmerican University

Islam & the West: A Clash of Civilizations?

Wednesday, April 15 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Ahmed will explore Samuel Huntington’s thesis of a clash of civilizations and challenge it in light of his own research examining relations between the West and the World of Islam after 9/11.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science,  Middle East Studies, Sociology and the Churchill Fund. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home, and the Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

akbar ahmed hi resBiography (provided by the speaker)

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. He has served as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and was the first distinguished chair of Middle East and Islamic studies at the U.S Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Ahmed belonged to the senior Civil Service of Pakistan and was the Pakistan High Commissioner to the U.K. and Ireland. Previously, Ahmed was the Iqbal Fellow (Chair of Pakistan Studies) and Fellow of Selwyn College at the University of Cambridge. He Read more

Catherine Clinton

Clinton PosterUniversity of Texas at San Antonio

Mary Lincoln’s Assassination

Monday, April 13, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Live Stream Link

Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865 proved a momentous evening for the people of Washington, for the people of the American nation – and its impact would be felt across the world. But perhaps the person most affected by this epic tragedy was Abraham Lincoln’s widow, Mary Lincoln– whose fate would be forever transformed by the death of her husband that Easter Saturday.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the House Divided Project and the Digital Humanities Advisory Committee.

Catherine ClintonBiography Forthcoming (provided by the speaker)

Catherine Clinton earned her undergraduate degree in African American studies from Harvard, her master’s in American studies from the University of Sussex and received her doctorate in history from Princeton in 1980. She now  holds the Denman Chair of American History at the University of Texas San Antonio and is an international research professor at Queen’s University Belfast. She has written and edited over two dozen books to date, including three biographies, Fanny Kemble Civil Wars (2000), Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom (2004)–which was named as one Read more

Paul Mayewski

Mayewski PosterUniversity of Maine

The Limits of Climate Change

Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

To understand and predict climate change requires more perspective than is available from a short instrumental climate record.  To expand the climate record in time and space, Mayewski and his teams have recovered ice cores from some of the remotest high and cold places on Earth.  These records tell us a great deal about where we are today in the climate system and enable us to chart the pathways for future mitigation, adaptation and sustainability in the decades ahead.

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)

MayewskiCroppedDr. Paul Andrew Mayewski is director and professor of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine and has academic affiliations with the university’s School of Earth and Climate Sciences, School of Policy and International Affairs, and School of Marine Sciences. He is an internationally acclaimed scientist and explorer, leader of more than 55 expeditions to some of the remotest reaches of the planet Read more

Stephen Ortiz

Ortiz PosterBinghamton University (SUNY)

Comrades in Arms: The Politics of War, 1939-1941

Monday, March 23, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This talk will explore how the two major veterans organizations, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, became part of the political battle over the Roosevelt Administration’s involvement in World War II during the two-plus years between the onset of World War II and the entry of the United States into this conflict.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science, English, Film Studies and History. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

DSCNStephen R. Ortiz is an associate professor of history at Binghamton University (SUNY). He is the author of Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (NYU Press, 2010) and editor of Veterans’ Policies, Veterans’ Politics: New Perspectives on Veterans in the Modern United States (University Press of Florida, 2012). Ortiz is currently working on a new book project titled Comrades in Arms: Veterans Organizations and the Politics of National Security, 1919-1961. Read more

Dan Berger

Berger PosterUniversity of Washington

Prisons, State Violence, and

the Organizing Tradition

Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This lecture explores the central role that people in prison played during the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that today’s mass incarceration began as a response to the mass mobilization of prisoners and neighborhoods.

A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

DB headshotDan Berger is an assistant professor of comparative ethnic studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell and an adjunct assistant professor of history at the University of Washington Seattle. He studies race, prisons, and social movements in U.S. history. A widely published author, Berger’s most recent book is Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida in 2003 and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. He was the George Gerbner Postdoctoral Fellow Read more

Sean Maloney

Maloney posterFormer Executive Vice President of Intel Corporation

Life’s Challenges

Monday, March 2, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Livestream

Maloney will discuss the challenges that Intel and the Silicon Valley high-tech industry overcame during its formative period, the challenges China currently poses to the semiconductor sector of the U.S. economy, the challenges of revolutionizing the health care industry through the application of new technologies, as well as his own personal challenges as a stroke survivor.

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.

Sean MaloneyBiography

Sean Maloney is a former executive vice president of Intel Corporation, general manager of the Sales and Marketing Group, and chief sales and marketing officer. He had been with Intel since 1982. During his tenure he was Andy Grove’s chief of staff, and successfully led the growth of Intel into the Chinese and Asian markets. He was the chairman of Intel China from May 2011 until he retired from Intel in Jan 2013.

Related Links
Heart Across AmericaWall Street Journal
Intel Official
Anatomy of a Comeback: The Sean Maloney Read more

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Gilmore PosterCity University of New York

Understanding Mass Incarceration Today

Thursday, February 26, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

A two year decline in the number of people locked in prisons and jails prompted a so-called “bipartisan consensus” to declare victory in the fight to end mass incarceration. Year 2013 reversed the trend; how, why, and to what end?

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Life, the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity, and the Departments of American Studies, Political Science, Sociology, Africana Studies, and Economics.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Ruth Wilson Gilmore PhotoRuth Wilson Gilmore is professor of earth & environmental sciences, and American studies, and director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She received a B.A. and M.F.A. in dramatic literature and criticism from Yale, and a Ph.D. in geography from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She has many publications, invited lectureships, honors, and awards. Her prize-winning book is Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, published in 2007. In a front-page review, the San Francisco Chronicle said “Now, Read more

James Calvin Davis ’92 – “Mary Ellen Borges Memorial Lecturer”

James Calvin Davis PosterMiddlebury College

Churches and Colleges: Schools of Civility

Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

The absence of civility in American politics has become a national crisis, one we revisit every election cycle. This talk will explore the concept of civility, its importance to our public well-being, and the essential role religion and the liberal arts might play in satisfying this national need.

This event is sponsored by St. John’s Episcopal Church on the Square and 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)

IMGJames Calvin Davis is a professor of religion at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he has taught ethics and American religious history for nearly fifteen years. An expert on the role of religion in American political and public life, he is the author of In Defense of Civility: How Religion Can Unite America on Seven Moral Issues that Divide Us (Westminster John Knox Press, 2010). In this book, Davis considers religion’s impact on various moral debates in America’s past and present, arguing that the participation of theological perspectives Read more

Michael Wessells

Wessells posterColumbia University

Children and Armed Conflict

Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Armed conflicts worldwide have profound effects on children, yet simplistic portrayals of these effects have provided poor guidance on how to support vulnerable children in wartime situations. Drawing on field experience throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, this lecture gives a holistic understanding of children amidst armed conflicts and points toward a set of contextualized supports that will improve the resilience and well-being of affected children.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the health studies program. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

WessellsphotoMichael Wessells, Ph.D. is a professor at Columbia University in the Program on Forced Migration and Health. A long time psychosocial and child protection practitioner, he is former co-chair of the IASC Task Force on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings. He has conducted extensive research on the holistic impacts of war and political violence on children, and he is author of Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection (Harvard University Press, 2006). Currently, he Read more

Kristen Miller

Miller poster for WebClass of 2006

Curiosity on Mars

Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

The geologic and geochemical analyses of sediments from Gale Crater by the Curiosity rover has given us unprecedented insight into the history of Mars and suggests a formerly habitable environment.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. Kristen MMillerK Headshotiller recently concluded a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working on mineral/organic interactions in Mars analogue soils in collaboration with NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission. Kristen earned a B.S. in geology from Dickinson College in 2006 and was the recipient of the William W. Vernon Prize for Excellence in Geology. While at Dickinson she completed a senior honors thesis with Professor Marcus Key on the use of oxygen and carbon stable isotopes from bryozoans as a proxy for sea temperature change. After Dickinson, Kristen went on to earn her PhD in Geochemistry from the University of Maryland College Park in 2012. Her dissertation focused on biological, chemical, and environmental responses to repeated glacial events Image used to advertise event to Marcus Key classesas recorded by molecular fossils (biomarkers) and stable isotopes in an ~1 billion year old sedimentary formation from Read more

U.S. War Powers

UThursday, February 12, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Amy Gaudion, Penn State Dickinson School of Law
Douglas Lovelace, United States Army War College
Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin College
Douglas Stuart (moderator), Dickinson College

Following the beheading of two Americans, the Obama Administration unleashed an air war against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, without a declaration of war or any explicit congressional authority. This panel will explore domestic and international legal and political questions related to recent and current U.S. military operations.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the Department of Political Science.

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

gaudion eAmy Gaudion is the assistant Dean for Academic Affairs at Penn State Dickinson School of Law. Gaudion’s scholarly and teaching interests focus on national security and constitutional law. She also serves as a legal advisor to World on Trial, a public television and multimedia project. Prior to joining Penn State she was an associate with Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin, where her practice focused on antitrust and complex litigation matters, and a clerk for the Honorable William H. Yohn of the U.S. District Court Read more

Catherine Lutz

Lutz Final PosterBrown University

The Costs of War

Thursday, February 5, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

What have been the consequences, short and long term, of the wars launched by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of 9/11? This talk reports on the efforts of a large group of scholars and practitioners to assess the human, social, political, and economic impact of these wars on the two countries as well as on the United States.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology and International Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, War at Home.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Lutz head shotCatherine Lutz is the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at Brown University. Her research has variously focused on war, gender, photography, and emotions, as well as the US car system. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, and numerous book awards. She is past president of the American Ethnological Society.

Video of the Lecture

 

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Leonid Gozman

Gozman posterNational Endowment for Democracy

Russia after Crimea

Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Gozman, president of the Union of Right Forces, will discuss what is happening in contemporary Russia, how the deepest crisis in Russia’s post-Soviet history came about, where this crisis is going, why Russia is so negative towards the United States, why do Russians support the annexation of Crimea, and what can be done to make Russia free and democratic and stop the war in the Ukraine.

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.

IMGBiography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. Leonid Gozman is president of the Union of Right Forces and former co-chairman of the Right Cause Party (2008–2011). From 2008 to 2013, he served as director of humanitarian projects at RUSNANO, a state-owned enterprise that commercializes innovations in nanotechnology, and from 1999 to 2008, he was executive board member and representative for governmental and NGO relations at Unified Energy System of Russia (RAO UES). An active participant in Russia’s democratic movement who has served as political advisor Read more

Charlie Hebdo Tragedy: An International Perspective

Charlie Hebdo Poster** Breaking Issue **

Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panel Discussion

Neil Diamant, professor of East Asian studies, Dickinson College
Kristine Mitchell (moderator), assistant professor of political science and international studies, Dickinson College
Dominique Laurent, associate professor of French, Dickinson College
Edward Webb, associate professor of political science and international studies, Dickinson College

A panel discussion that will address, from international perspectives, some of the causes and effects of the recent attacks on the French satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

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

Biography (provided by the panelists)

NJDNeil J. Diamant is professor of Asian law and society and chair of the East Asians studies department at Dickinson College. He is author of Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949-1968 (2000), Embattled Glory: Veterans, Military Families and the Politics of Patriotism in China, 1949-2007 (2009) and co-editor of Engaging the Law in China: State, Society and Possibilities for Justice (2005) Before joining the Dickinson faculty in 2002, he taught at Tel Aviv University in Israel. He teaches classes on various Read more

EBOLA

Ebola PosterThursday, December 4, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Dickinson Faculty Panelists:

Michael Beevers, environmental studies
Marie Helweg-Larsen, psychology
John Henson (moderator), biology

The ongoing Ebola epidemic in West Africa is a World Health Organization classified public health emergency that has caused anxiety around the world, including here within the United States. This panel discussion will focus on the nature and effects of the disease, the perceptions of risk it has generated, and the sociological and public health challenges associated with containing the virus in the source countries.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

Beevers MichaelMichael D. Beevers is an assistant professor of environmental studies at Dickinson College. His research examines links between environment, conflict and peacebuilding and how natural resources can be managed in war-torn societies to increase the likelihood of a sustainable peace and development. Dr. Beevers has lived and worked in West Africa for many years and conducts ongoing research in Liberia and Sierra Leone—two Ebola-inflicted countries. He has served as a research associate at Princeton University and as a consultant for the United Nations Environment Programme and World Resources Institute. He holds a Ph.D. Read more

Brett Walker

Walker PosterProfessor, Montana State University

3/11, Asbestos, and the Unmaking of Japan’s Modern World

Wednesday, December 3, 2014 (Rescheduled from 11/18/14)
Allison Great Hall, 7 p.m.

Walker explores the role asbestos has played in the construction and, more importantly, the destruction of Japan’s environment, with a focus on the natural and the unnatural disasters of the 3/11 disaster and the later clean up.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Studies.

walker brettBiography (provided by the speaker)

Brett L. Walker is Regents Professor and Michael P. Malone Professor of History at Montana State University, Bozeman. His research and teaching interests include Japanese history, world environmental history, and the history of science and medicine. He is author of The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590-1800, The Lost Wolves of Japan, Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan, and the forthcoming A Concise History of Japan, from Cambridge University Press. He has also co-edited two volumes. He spends most of his time in southwestern Montana and the San Juan Islands, where he enjoys the outdoors.

Video of the Lecture

 

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Judge John E. Jones III ’77

Jones PosterU.S. Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

Blindfolds Off: How Judges Decide

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Link to Live Stream

A conversation with Judge Jones, U.S. District judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and a Dickinson trustee, about the nature of judging and the role that judges play in American political, social, cultural, and economic life.  Gary Gildin, interim dean and professor of law, The Dickinson School of Law of Penn State University, and Harry Pohlman, professor of political science, Dickinson College, will participate in the discussion.

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

Join the conversation on Twitter with #clarkeforum and #howjudgesdecide.

 Biography 

Independent from the Ground Up – Video and Dickinson Magazine Article about Judge Jones

Jones JohnJudge John E. Jones III commenced his service as a United States District Judge on August 2, 2002. He is the 21st judge to sit in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Judge Jones was appointed to his current position Read more

John Baugh

Baugh Final PosterProfessor, Washington University

Linguistic Relativism: Language, Culture, and Thought

Thursday, November 20, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This presentation draws upon evidence from linguistics, anthropology, and psychology to explore the ways in which human language and corresponding thought processes have been influenced by cultural circumstances.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of English, American Studies, Spanish and Portuguese.  This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Language.

BaughBiography (provided by the speaker)

John Baugh is the Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts & Sciences and former director of African and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he holds academic appointments in psychology, anthropology, education, English, linguistics, African and African American studies, American culture studies, philosophy-neuroscience-psychology and urban studies. Prior to his tenure at Washington University, Dr. Baugh taught at Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin, and Swarthmore College.

Dr. Baugh has published award-winning books in the fields of anthropology, education, legal affairs, linguistics, sociology and urban studies. His work bridges theoretical and applied linguistics, with particular attention to matters of policy and social equity in the fields of education, Read more

The Death Penalty: Beyond the Numbers

Death Penalty PosterMonday, November 17, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Kathleen Lucas (moderator), director, Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
Shujaa Graham, death row exoneree
Spero Lappas, criminal defense attorney
Vicki Schieber, murder victim’s family member

This panel will bring the voices of experience to a conversation about capital punishment. You’ll hear from a man who was exonerated after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to die; the mother of a young woman who was murdered in Philadelphia; and a criminal defense attorney who has represented defendants in death penalty cases. Reality is more complicated than the statistics can communicate adequately. These are the personal stories of those who have been impacted directly by our death penalty system.

Join the conversation on Twitter with #clarkeforum and #deathpenalty.

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

Biographies (provided by the panelists)

kalredKathleen Lucas has been active in human rights work for over 30 years with organizations including Amnesty International, the Pennsylvania Prison Society and the World Organization for Human Rights. Her professional background includes corporate and nonprofit management and consulting specializing in change management and strategic planning. She earned both her B.S. Read more