Past Programs

Michael Mann

Professor, Penn State University

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars

Monday, April 22, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.
A book sale and signing will follow

Mann will discuss the topic of human-caused climate change through the prism of his own experiences as a reluctant and accidental public figure in the societal debate over global warming.

This event is jointly sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs and co-sponsored by the Departments of Earth Sciences and Environmental Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Penn State University faculty, holding joint positions in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).

Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth’s climate system.

Dr. Mann was a Lead Read more

Joan Steitz – “Joseph Priestley Award Lecturer”

Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University

Lupus and Snurps: Bench to Bedside and Back Again

Thursday, April 18, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

This talk will trace the origins of our understanding of how small cellular particles contribute to the critical process of splicing and relate this knowledge to today’s quest for treatment of splicing diseases, such as Lupus.

The Joseph Priestley Award recipient is chosen by a different science department each year. This year the recipient was selected by the Department of Biology. The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Student Senate and co-sponsored by and the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Psychology, Physics & Astronomy and Environmental Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Joan Steitz is a Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; and Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University.

Steitz earned her B.S. in chemistry from Antioch College in 1963. Significant findings from her work emerged as early as 1967, when her Harvard PhD thesis with Jim Watson examined the test-tube assembly of a ribonucleic acid (RNA) bacteriophage (antibacterial virus) known as R17.

Steitz spent the next three years in postdoctoral studies at Read more

Angela Stent

Professor, Georgetown University

U.S.-Russia: The Second Obama Term

Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

The U.S-Russian relationship faces new challenges as President Barack Obama embarks on his second term. Both countries will have to reassess the relative priority of interests versus values as they seek to move forward.

This event is jointly sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs, and the Constance and Rose Ganoe Memorial Fund for Inspirational Teaching, courtesy of Professor Russell Bova.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Angela Stent is director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University. She is also a senior fellow (non-resident) at the Brookings Institution and co-chairs its Hewett Forum on Post-Soviet Affairs. From 2004-2006 she served as National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. From 1999 to 2001, she served in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State.

Stent’s academic work focuses on the triangular political and economic relationship between the United States, Russia and Europe. Her publications include: Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, Read more

Scott Silverstone

Professor, United States Military Academy at West Point

Preventive War and American Democracy

Monday, April 15, 2013
Althouse Hall, Room 106, 7:00 p.m.

Ten years after the United States launched the first preventive war in its history – against Iraq in 2003 – American leaders are once again wrestling with the preventive war temptation, this time directed at Iran and its nuclear program. This lecture will explore and explain this profound shift in American thinking about preventive war over the past sixty years.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Mellon Foundation Project on Civilian-Military Educational Cooperation. It is also part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in a Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Silverstone is professor of international relations in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he has been on the faculty since 2001. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, and has also served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and Williams College. Dr. Silverstone is a research fellow with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and is Read more

Bill McKibben

Schumann Distinguished Scholar, Middlebury College; Recipient of The Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism

Front Line of the Climate Fight

Thursday, April 11, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.
A book signing will follow the lecture

McKibben will highlight the ways in which environmental groups are working around the country and the world to scientifically and politically challenge the power of the fossil fuel industry before it breaks the planet.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and The Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism and co-sponsored by the Department of Environmental Studies. It is also part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and the faculty seminar series titled, Living in a World of Limits.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries Read more

Beatriz Diaz

Professor, University of Havana

U.S. Role and Image in the World: A Cuban’s Perspective

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 (rescheduled from November 27, 2012)
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

This lecture focuses on the paradoxes that characterize U.S. role and image in the world: U.S. culture, technological development, civil society, economic influence and military power will be discussed and evaluated.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Center for Global Study and Engagement and co-sponsored by the Departments of Economics and Spanish & Portuguese.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Beatriz Diaz is a full professor at the University of Havana, and at the Cuban Program of the Latin American Social Sciences Faculty (FLACSO). She was the director of the Cuba FLACSO Program (2001-2008) and at present chairs the research group on Rural Development and the Environment at FLACSO. She obtained her BA in psychology at the University of Havana, followed by graduate work at the University of Paris X and Geneva. She obtained her Ph.D. at the Soviet Academy of Educational Sciences in Moscow.

Her main research interests focus on Cuban Social Development and Sustainable Development. She has conducted research on rural, urban and Read more

Kris Perry

Executive Director, First Five Years Fund

Same-Sex Marriage & the Supreme Court: A Plaintiff’s Story

Monday, April 8, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

In May 2009, two California couples—Kris Perry and Sandy Stier of Berkeley, and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank—filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging California’s Proposition 8 under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Represented by distinguished attorneys Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who famously faced-off in Bush v. Gore, the plaintiffs and their case, now known as Hollingsworth v. Perry, have forever changed America’s legal and political landscape surrounding marriage equality.

On March 26, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument in Perry to review the judgment of the federal court of appeals that upheld the decision of the federal district court that found Proposition 8 unconstitutional. A decision from the Supreme Court, which is expected by June 2013, could result in marriage equality nationwide.

In this lecture, Kris Perry will discuss her personal experience as one of the plaintiffs in this landmark civil rights lawsuit. From testifying at trial and watching oral argument at the Supreme Court, to seeing her twin boys Read more

Peter Lev

Professor, Towson University

The Politics of an Entertainment Company

Thursday, April 4, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Twentieth Century-Fox has always been involved in local, national, and international politics. This lecture will describe Fox’s political activism in the 1940s and then fast-forward to the present.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by Judaic Studies, The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life, Film Studies, Middle East Studies, and the Departments of Political Science, American Studies, English, French & Italian and History.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Peter Lev is professor of electronic media and film at Towson University. His research and teaching focuses on American film history, European film history, and film adaptations of literature. He is the author of five books on film history and the co-editor of a book on film adaptation: selected titles include Twentieth Century-Fox, the Zanuck-Skouras Years 1935-1965 (March 2013); The Literature/Film Reader (co-edited with Jim Welsh, 2007); Transforming the Screen: The Fifties (History of the American Cinema series, 2003);and American Films of the 1970s: Conflicting Visions (2000). The Twentieth Century-Fox book was supported by an Academy Scholars Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts Read more

Corinne Moss-Racusin

Postdoctoral Associate, Yale University

Gender Stereotypes in Academic Science Contexts

Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Despite persistent gender disparity, no experimental research has investigated whether subtle gender bias may be contributing to the underrepresentation of women within the academic science community. In this talk, Moss-Racusin will discuss research providing the first evidence of such bias against female students, and highlight implications for academic meritocracy, diversity, and gender parity across science fields.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Corinne Moss-Racusin is a postdoctoral associate at Yale University in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and the Department of Psychology. Before coming to Yale, she earned her Ph.D. in social psychology from Rutgers University and also studied psychology as an undergraduate at New York University. Dr. Moss-Racusin’s research focuses on understanding and ameliorating inequality within institutions. She studies the ways in which gender and racial stereotypes shape people’s own behavior and their social judgments, and how these in turn impact broader institutional diversity.

Video of the Lecture

Interview for WDCV Radio, Dickinson College

Author and Fox News Contributor

More Guns, Less Crime

Monday, April 1, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

The talk will argue that crime rates fall when law-abiding citizens are given the chance to defend themselves.

The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues has sponsored and planned this event in partnership with the Student Senate Public Affairs Committee. Please note that college policy prohibits the possession of firearms on college premises.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
John R. Lott Jr. is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice and was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission during 1988 and 1989. He has published over 100 articles in academic journals. He also is the author of seven books of which his newest is At the Brink: Will Obama push us over the edge? His past books have included three editions of More Guns, Less Crime and Freedomnomics. Lott is a FoxNews.com contributor and a weekly columnist for them. Opinion pieces by Lott have appeared in such places as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Read more

Richard Wilkinson – “Morgan Lecturer”

Professor Emeritus, University of Nottingham; Co-founder, The Equality Trust

Morgan Lecture

Inequality: The Enemy Between Us?

Thursday, March 28, 2013
Weiss Center, Rubendall Recital Hall, 12:00 p.m.

Since before the French Revolution, many people have believed that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. Now that we have data allowing us to compare inequality within countries, we find that this intuition is more true than we thought. Countries like the USA, with relatively large income gaps between rich and poor, suffer much more from a wide range of social ills.

The event is sponsored in partnership with The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Student Senate Public Affairs Committee, and co-sponsored by Health Studies, the Departments of American Studies, Sociology and Economics and the Community Studies Center.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Richard Wilkinson has played a formative role in international research on the social determinants of health and on the societal effects of income inequality. He studied economic history at London School of Economics before training in epidemiology. He is professor emeritus of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School, honorary professor at University College London and a visiting professor at the University of York. Richard Read more

David Orr

Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College

Designing Resilience in a Black Swan World

Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Black Swan events are those with low or unknown probability, but high, long-lived and often global impacts. Orr will discuss how we should design communities, regions, and nations to improve resilience and prosperity in the context of such events, with a focus on the Oberlin Project and the National Sustainable Communities Coalition.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Office of the President, and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education and the Department of Environmental Studies. It is also part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in a Age of Uncertainty Series and the faculty seminar series titled, Living in a World of Limits.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

David Orr the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and senior adviser to the president at Oberlin College. He is the author of seven books, including Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford, 2009) and co-editor of three others. He has authored nearly 200 articles, reviews, book chapters, and professional publications. In Read more

Fallou Ngom

Associate Professor, Boston University

Africa’s Sources of Knowledge in Ajami Scripts

Thursday, March 21, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

This talk will address the myth of illiteracy in Islamized areas of Africa. It uncovers important sources of African knowledge written in the modified classical Arabic script known as Ajami.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by Middle East Studies and the Departments of Africana Studies, History, and French and Italian.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Fallou Ngom is an associate professor of anthropology and director of the African Language Program at the African Studies Center at Boston University. His research interests include the interactions between African languages and non-African languages, the Africanization of Islam in the Sahel, and Ajami literatures, records of West African languages written in Arabic script.

Relevant Links
http://www.theworld.org/2010/09/africa-ajami-writing/
http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/summer09/ajami/

Video of the Lecture

Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University

Japan 1959: The Socioeconomic Effects of Television

Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

In this talk, Igarashi will gauge television’s often-underestimated socioeconomic effects on Japanese society by revisiting the late 1950s, when this new technology was introduced into Japan.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Yoshikuni Igarashi, associate professor at Vanderbilt University is a specialist in modern Japanese cultural studies. He is the author of Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970 (Princeton University Press, 2000) and Haisen to sengo no aidade: okurete karerishi monotachi (Homecomings: The Belated Return of Japan’s Lost Soldiers) (Chikuma-shobô, 2012). The radical transformation of Japanese society in the late 1960s and the 1970s has been the focus of his recent research.

Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Extraction – Panel Discussion

Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists:

Peter Bechtel ’81 – Andorinha Azul Ambiental
Tim Kelsey, Penn State University
Veronica Coptis, Center for Coalfield Justice
Erika Staaf, PennEnvironment
Moderated by Julie Vastine, ALLARM

Natural resource extraction has been at the heart of economic growth and, for that reason, remains a source of considerable political and economic controversy. Both Pennsylvania and Mozambique are currently experiencing a boom in natural gas exploration while they yet confront the economic, social, and environmental consequences of previous forms of resource extraction. The panel will discuss and compare the two locations, identify commonalities, and see what lessons have been learned.

This event is part of the faculty seminar series titled, Living in a World of Limits and is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Global Study and Engagement, Center for Sustainability Education, Career Center, Department of Religion, Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, Department of International Business and Management, Health Studies, Department of Environmental Studies, Community Studies Center, Department of Africana Studies and ALLARM.

Biographies

Peter Bechtel, an ’81 Dickinson graduate, worked with the World Wildlife Fund in Mozambique on Read more

Guns USA : A Teach-In

* Breaking Issue *

Thursday, February 28, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

The purpose of this teach-in, which is sponsored by Penn State University Dickinson School of Law, U.S. Army War College and the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues on behalf of Dickinson College, is to elevate and broaden the ongoing national discussion about gun safety and gun violence in the United States for the benefit of the faculty, students, and members of the local Carlisle community. It will focus in particular upon the three following questions: 1) What is the difference, if any, between military weapons and civilian weapons? 2) What are the current limits on the right to bear arms? 3) What are the costs/benefits associated with guns?

Participants:

Thomas Place, professor, Penn State University Dickinson School of Law
Col. David Dworak, professor, U.S. Army War College
Harry Pohlman, professor, Dickinson College (filling in for Stephanie Gilmore, professor, Dickinson College)
William Nelligan ’14 (moderator), student, Dickinson College

The event is co-sponsored by the Student Senate Public Affairs Committee.

Biographies

Thomas Place is a professor of law at Penn State University Dickinson School of Law where he teaches courses on criminal procedure, constitutional law, Read more

Peter Bechtel ’81 and Ruth Mkhwanazi-Bechtel

Peter Bechtel ’81, director, Andorinha Azul Ambiental, a company specializing in sustainable development
Ruth Mkhwanazi-Bechtel, program director, Vanderbilt University’s Friends in Global Health in Mozambique

Sustainable Development in Mozambique

Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

For many years, Mozambique has been near the bottom of the UN Human Development Index, but recent discoveries of gas, coal, and mineral deposits have created opportunities for rapid economic development. While the government places some importance on sustainability, there are ongoing problems related to transparency, top-down decision-making, urbanization and climate change.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Global Study and Engagement, Center for Sustainability Education, Career Center, Department of Religion, Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, Department of International Business and Management, Health Studies, Department of Environmental Studies, Community Studies Center and the Departments of Africana Studies, International Studies, Earth Sciences and Economics.

This event is also part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and the faculty seminar series titled, Living in a World of Limits.

Biographies

Peter Bechtel ’81, a graduate of Dickinson College, traveled to Africa with the US Peace Read more

Jordan Motzkin

CEO, Big Box Farms

Farming by Design: Cleantech Urban Agriculture

Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Big Box Farms is a disruptive, revolutionary hybrid that combines the benefits of small-scale farming and large-scale agribusiness. Motzkin, the company’s co-founder, will discuss entrepreneurship, technology, and the future of sustainable urban agriculture.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of International Business and Management. It is also part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Jordan Motzkin is the co-founder and CEO of Big Box Farms, a NYC-based start-up. The company was started at the College of the Atlantic Sustainable Venture Incubator and seed funded through the National Science Foundation and US Department of Agriculture. Big Box Farms developed a breakthrough technology for the production of salad greens resulting in fresher, safer, and nutritious produce. The company’s technology centers on producing its crops inside industrial warehouses that are located near food distribution facilities, allowing the company to bring sustainable local agriculture to densely populated areas.

Prior to founding Big Box Farms, Jordan Motzkin co-founded a partnership in the ESCO and energy Read more

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Senior Editor, The Atlantic

The 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

Thursday, February 14, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.
Reception will follow

One hundred fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation, acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the Civil War and its legacy for contemporary American social and racial dynamics.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by Student Senate, Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, and the Departments of Africana Studies, English and Sociology.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the most original and perceptive voices in black America — and one of America’s best young writers, period.” Walter Mosley calls him, “The young James Joyce of the hip hop generation.” Eloquent, opinionated, and immediate, Coates writes about politics, race, black history and pop culture, often in the same stunning article. His critically hailed memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, is a tough and touching memoir of growing up in Baltimore during the age of crack. It’s also a vivid portrait of his father, a former Vietnam Vet and Black Panther who started his own underground black press, had seven children with four women, and dedicated his life to carrying Read more

Jay Michaelson

Award-Winning Author

God vs. Gay? Common Ground in the Culture Wars

Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.
A book sale and signing will follow

Are there ways to have better conversations about homosexuality and religion? Michaelson, an award-winning LGBT religious activist, will move this conversation forward by discussing relevant biblical texts and “best practices.”

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life and the Office of LGBTQ Services.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Jay Michaelson is the author of four books and two hundred articles on the intersections of religion, spirituality, sexuality, and law. His most recent book, God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon), was an Amazon.com bestseller and Lambda Literary Award finalist. Jay is a contributing editor to the Forward newspaper and associate editor of Religion Dispatches magazine, and his work has appeared in The Daily Beast, Salon, Newsweek, Tikkun, The Huffington Post, and other publications. Jay is also a longtime LGBT activist who has worked closely with HRC, GLAAD, and other organizations, and is the founder of Nehirim, a national LGBT Jewish community. Jay’s advocacy on Read more