Past Programs

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

Michael Shellenberger

President, The Breakthrough Institute

Love Your Monsters: Why Technology Will Save the World

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 *
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Environmental expert Michael Shellenberger will describe why technology is the key to dealing with the world’s toughest environmental problems from climate change to rainforest destruction and species extinction.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues 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 an Age of Uncertainty Series and the faculty seminar series titled, Living in a World of Limits.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus are leading global thinkers on energy, climate, security, human development, and politics. Their 2007 book Break Through was called “prescient” by Time and “the most important thing to happen to environmentalism since Silent Spring” by Wired. Their 2004 essay, “The Death of Environmentalism,” was featured on the front page of the Sunday New York Times, sparked a national debate, and inspired a generation of young environmentalists. They also co-authored the 2011 book titled “Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene.”

Over the years, the two Read more

Gianfranco Pasquino

Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna

U.S. Role & Image in the Eurocrisis

Thursday, November 29, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Pasquino will explore the nature and extent of the Eurocrisis and, from a European perspective, address the issue whether the U.S. has any useful role to play in resolving it.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Center for Global Study and Engagement.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Gianfranco Pasquino (1942) graduated in Political Science from the University of Torino, supervisor Norberto Bobbio, and specialized in Comparative Politics at the University of Florence under the guidance of Giovanni Sartori. After teaching at the University of Bologna and Florence, in 1975 he became full professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna. He has also been teaching for more than thirty years at the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University and for several at the Dickinson College Program in Bologna. In 1974-75 he was Lauro de Bosis Lecturer in the History of Italian Civilization at Harvard. In 1978-79 he was Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. He has been visiting Professor at the Read more

Ara Wilson

Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

The Erotic Life of Globalization

Friday, November 30, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 4:30 p.m.

This talk provides a new direction for thinking about sexuality at the transnational level. It focuses on the infrastructures of globalization, highlights the effects of intensified transnational links in the post-Cold-War period, and argues that transformations of sovereignty, labor, knowledge, and space provide the conditions for key forms of sexuality.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Ara Wilson is an associate professor of women’s studies and cultural anthropology at Duke University, where she directed the program in the study of sexualities for six years. Trained as an anthropologist, her research combines political economy, culture theory, and post-colonial, queer, and feminist frameworks to understand the operations of sexuality and gender within global capitalist modernity. She has conducted long term research on Bangkok published in The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City (UC Press 2004) and on transnational feminist and queer politics.

Video of the Program

Associate Professor of Political Science, George Washington University

The Arab Uprisings

Thursday, November 8, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.
Book Sale/Signing to Follow

Lynch sheds light on the unfinished Middle East revolutions that have so far brought down the governments of Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, and offers a framework for understanding the deeper changes still emerging from a region thoroughly and forever altered.

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 Constance and Rose Ganoe Memorial Fund for Inspirational Teaching courtesy of Professor Russell Bova and the Department of Middle East Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography(provided by the speaker)

Marc Lynch (@abuaardvark) is associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and the Project on Middle East Political Science. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and edits the Middle East Channel for ForeignPolicy.com. He has written several books including The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Read more

Dean Baker

Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

The Fiscal Cliff: New Heights of Sensationalism

Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

The media have endlessly raised fears of the government falling off the “fiscal cliff.” This talk will explain why such talk fundamentally misrepresents the short-term budget problem and how the longer term problem has been misrepresented as well.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Economics and Policy Studies and the Keystone Research Center.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He is the author of The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive, Taking Economics Seriously, False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy, Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy, The United States Since 1980, The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer, Social Security: The Phony Crisis (with Mark Weisbrot), and The Benefits of Full Employment (with Jared Bernstein). He was the editor of Getting Prices Right: The Debate Over the Consumer Read more

Anne Fausto-Sterling

Professor of Biology and Gender Studies, Brown University

From Babies to Gender Identity

Thursday, November 15 (Rescheduled from October 30 due to inclement weather)
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

How are we to understand the processes by which bodily differentiation, behavioral differentiation and gendered knowledge intertwine to produce male and female, masculine and feminine? Read more

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Women’s Center, Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, Women’s and Gender Studies and the Departments of Anthropology, Psychology, American Studies and Sociology.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling is a leading expert in biology and gender development and has achieved recognition for works that challenge entrenched scientific beliefs while engaging with the general public. Using a groundbreaking new approach to understanding gender differences, Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling is shifting old assumptions about how humans develop particular traits. Dynamic systems theory permits one to understand how cultural difference becomes bodily difference. By applying a dynamic systems approach to the study of human development, Dr. Fausto-Sterling’s work exposes the flawed premise of the nature versus nurture debate.

Radio Interview for WDCV, Dickinson College

Panel Discussion: 2012 Presidential Election: What Students Want to Know

Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Douglas Edlin – Associate Professor of Political Science
Michael Fratantuono – Associate Professor of International Studies and International Business & Management
Stephanie Gilmore – Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies
Andrew Wolff – Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies
Moderated by Andrew Chesley ’13 – President of Student Senate

A panel of Dickinson professors will discuss the important policy positions of each of the presidential candidates. The presentations will be nonpartisan and objective in nature. Topics include health care and insurance, the federal budget and the national economy, women’s rights issues, and foreign policy and national security.

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

Biographies

Douglas E. Edlin received his Ph.D. from Oxford University. He also holds a J.D. from Cornell, an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from Hobart College. His research and teaching interests are in comparative constitutionalism, the judicial process and judicial review, the legal and policy issues raised by developments in assisted reproductive technology, and the politics of race and gender in the United States. Along with a number of articles in leading journals, his Read more

H. Brian Holland

Associate Professor of Law, Texas Wesleyan School of Law

Hope, Hitler, or Heresy? The Visual Language of a Presidential Campaign

Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Depot, 7:00 p.m.

Remix politics is here. As divergent audiences engage and manipulate the carefully crafted images of presidential campaigns, competing symbols evidence a struggle for power over social convention and meaning. Read More

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 American Studies and Political Science.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Professor H. Brian Holland joined the faculty of Texas Wesleyan School of Law in 2009. Prior to his arrival, Professor Holland was a Visiting Associate Professor at Penn State University’s Dickinson School of Law.

Professor Holland received a LL.M., with honors, from Columbia University School of Law; a J.D., summa cum laude, from American University’s Washington College of Law, and a B.A. from Tufts University. Professor Holland is currently pursuing his Ph.D. studies in digital media and mass communications at Penn State University.

Prior to joining the academy, Professor Holland practiced law in New York and Washington, D.C., specializing in appellate work before Read more

Lieutenant General James M. Dubik – “General Omar N. Bradley Lecture”

Leadership Under Pressure

Monday, October 22, 2012
Katz Hall, Penn State Dickinson School of Law, 7:00 p.m.
Link to Live Webcast

General Dubik, The General Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership, will discuss the strategic mistakes made in Iraq; the myths that are partly responsible for these mistakes; the transformation that turned Iraq from a strategic failure to a strategic opportunity; and how the U.S. should incorporate its experience in Iraq in addressing current ongoing events in the Middle East and North Africa.

This event is jointly sponsored by Dickinson College, Penn State University Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs, and the U.S. Army War College. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

The Omar Bradley Chair is a joint initiative among the United States Army War College, Dickinson College and Penn State University Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs. Its objective is to advance the study of strategic leadership and enhance civilian-military dialogue by offering distinguished individuals the opportunity to contribute to the educational and research activities of the partner institutions. Previous chair-holders include former director of national intelligence and retired United States Navy Read more

Margaret Edson

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright

The Insubstantial Pageant: Writing for Performance

Thursday, October 18, 2012
Mathers Theatre, 7:30 p.m.

We are born ready to talk and listen, but it takes years to learn to read and write. What is gained and lost when the redolent swirl of human experience is consigned to the abstract, linear, preterite alphabetic code? And what ironies await when the freeze-dried code is reconstituted as live performance?

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Norman M. Eberly Writing Center and the Departments of English, American Studies and Theatre & Dance.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Margaret Edson was born in Washington, DC in 1961. Between earning degrees in history and literature, she worked on the cancer and AIDS inpatient unit of a major research hospital. Wit was written in 1991, widely rejected, first produced in 1995, and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1999. The HBO production won the Emmy Award for Best Film in 2001. Wit has received hundreds of productions in dozens of languages and was presented on Broadway in 2012. The script is used in classes ranging from AP English to medical ethics.

Ms. Edson has Read more

Richard Matthew

Founding Director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs & Professor of International and Environmental Politics, UC at Irvine

Natural Resources, Conflict and Peacebuilding

Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Based on fieldwork in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, this presentation examines the complex and evolving relationships among natural resources, violent conflict and peacebuilding.

This event is jointly sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs and is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Richard A. Matthew (BA McGill; PhD Princeton) is a professor in the Schools of Social Ecology and Social Science at the University of California at Irvine, and founding director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs (www.cusa.uci.edu). He is also a senior fellow at the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Geneva; a senior fellow at the Munk School for International Affairs at the University of Toronto; a senior member of the UNEP Expert Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding; and a member of the World Conservation Union’s Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy. He has carried Read more

Kathleen Vogel

Associate Professor of Science and Technology, Cornell University

Birds, Biology, & Bioterrorism

Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

This lecture will discuss the public and policy controversies surrounding the 2012 publication of scientific data on artificially created, mutated H5N1 avian influenza viruses by two prominent virologists. Read more

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Kathleen Vogel is an associate professor at Cornell University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Science and Technology Studies and the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Vogel holds a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Princeton University. Her research focuses on studying the social and technical dimensions of biological weapons threats, and how knowledge is produced in intelligence assessments on threats involving weapons of mass destruction. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, Vogel was appointed as a William C. Foster Fellow in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Proliferation Threat Reduction in the Bureau of Nonproliferation. Vogel has also spent time as Read more

David B. Rivkin Jr. – Constitution Day Address Lecturer

Attorney and Constitutional Commentator

A Potemkin Village: The Supreme Court’s Health Care Decision & Faux Federalism

2012 Winfield C. Cook Constitution Address
Monday, October 8, 2012
Great Room, Stern Center, 7:00 p.m.

Mr. Rivkin will analyze the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, in particular Chief Justice John Robert’s pivotal opinion, and explore the decision’s long-term political and policy implications, especially the Court’s apparent willingness to enforce structural federalism-based limitations on congressional powers only if the policy stakes are relatively low, thereby encouraging a system of faux-federalism.

This event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
David B. Rivkin, Jr., is a partner in the Washington office of Baker Hostetler LLP, and co-chairs the firm’s appellate and major motions practice. He is also a visiting fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a contributing editor of the National Review. He specializes in regulatory and litigation work, with a particular emphasis on constitutional, international law and public policy issues.

Mr. Rivkin has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. He has represented the 26 states that have Read more

John Priscu

Professor of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University

Earth’s Icy Biosphere

Thursday, October 4, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Priscu will demonstrate that the Earth’s icy systems, particularly the Antarctic ice sheet and related subglacial environments, hold a large and potentially active carbon pool, comprised of phylogenetically and metabolically diverse prokaryotic organisms. He will then relate these results to our search for life on other icy bodies in our solar system.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Biology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies and Science and The Natural History Sustainability Mosaic.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Professor Priscu received his M.S. degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1978 where he studied how the ecosystems on the lower Colorado River were influenced by large dams. He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis in 1982 for his work on high altitude lakes. Following his Ph.D. he joined a government laboratory in New Zealand where he was involved with research on the marine and freshwaters of New Zealand. It was during this period that he became interested in Antarctic Read more

Cheng Li

Director of Research and Senior Fellow, Thornton China Center, Brookings

China’s Leadership Transition & the Bo Xilai Case

Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Just as the Chinese Community Party elite is trying to smooth the way for the transfer of power to a new generation of Chinese leaders, one of its rising stars, Bo Xilai, has been ousted as party chief of Chongqing and his wife is charged with the murder of a British businessman. What are the implications of this unfolding crisis for China’s decision-making process, economic policies, social stability, and foreign relations? More information

The 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 Department of East Asian Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Cheng LI is the director of research and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center. Dr. Li currently also serves as a director of the National Committee on US-China Relations, a member of the Academic Advisory Team of the Congressional U.S.-China Working Group, Read more

Stephen Prothero – “Mary Ellen Borges Memorial Lecturer”

Professor of Religion, Boston University

God is Not One

Thursday, September 27, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.
Book Sale / Signing to Follow

Are the world’s religions different paths up the same mountain? Prothero, author of God is Not One, explains why, especially after 9/11, real and enduring interreligious understanding is achieved, not with a “pretend pluralism,” but with a clear-eyed recognition of religious difference.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Though America is one of the most religious places on Earth, in reality, its citizens know little about religion. In his provocative book Religious Literacy, Stephen Prothero addresses this national crisis, and offers solutions. One of them is mandatory academic study of world religions in public schools. The more that Americans know about religion — whether or not they themselves are religious — the less likely they will be to defer, through sheer ignorance, to politicians who often frame their actions in a religious context. In his latest book, God is Not One, Prothero looks at the differences between religions and how they have shaped the world. Read more

Pat Genovese

Head Lacrosse Coach, William Smith College

Title IX: Conception, Progression, Direction

Monday, September 24, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

In 1972, Congress enacted Title IX, which prohibited sexual discrimination in any education program or activity that received federal financial assistance. Coach Genovese will explore the origin of Title IX; the advances and setbacks that have occurred in athletics since its enactment; and where it will take us in the future.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of Athletics, Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, and the Women’s Center. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Pat Genovese’s Biography Read more

Heather Love

Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania

Gay Marriage and Its Others

Thursday, September 13, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

This lecture considers the fate of the spinster in the era of gay marriage. Through a reading of the 2006 film Notes on a Scandal, Love argues that, while monogamous gay and lesbian couples have achieved unprecedented levels of social acceptability, those who are alone or whose intimacies are unconventional are more stigmatized than ever. Read more

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies.

Biography
Heather Love is the R. Jean Brownlee Term Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches interests include gender studies and queer theory, the literature and culture of modernity, affect studies, film and visual culture, psychoanalysis, race and ethnicity, sociology and literature, disability studies, and critical theory. She is the author of Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History (Harvard, 2007), the editor of a special issue of GLQ on the scholarship and legacy of Gayle Rubin (“Rethinking Sex”), and the co-editor of a special issue of New Literary History (“Is There Life after Identity Politics?”). She has recent Read more