Past Programs

Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship

Thursday, February 21 – 7:00 p.m.
Stern Center, Great Room

Hans Dellien, Women’s World Banking
Camilla Nestor, The Grameen Foundation
Benjamin Powell, Agora Partnerships
Craig Weeks ’77, J. P. Morgan Chase (moderator)

Microfinance, the provision of small-scale loans to enterprising individuals in developing countries came into being in the latter half of the 1900s. Two organizations currently involved in channeling those types of financial resources are the Grameen Foundation and Women’s World Banking. Social entrepreneurship, represented by Agora Partnerships, developed somewhat later. Over the past two decades, the revolution in information technology and competition in the “development space” have led to much change in both microfinance and social entrepreneurship.

Careers in Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship
HUB, Social Hall West – 3:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Students are encouraged to attend. To register, visit www.dickinsonconnect.com.

Issue in Context
Microfinance consists of extending financial services to individuals, usually women, to establish or expand a small, self-sustaining business. One of the components of microfinance is microcredit – the extension of small loans to individuals who are too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Microfinance institutions often offer business advice and counseling, and facilitate peer support between clients Read more

Transnational Gender and Sexuality Symposium

Thursday, February 14, 2008
Various Times
Stern Center, Great Room

This one-day symposium offers perspectives from three scholars critically exploring sexuality and gender identities in relation to shifting cultural and national boundaries.

10:30 a.m. – Denise Brennan, Georgetown University
Love Work and Sex Work in the Dominican Republic
Suggested Readings:
1. Nicole Constable’s book: Romance on A Global Stage
2. Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild’s edited volume: Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy
3. Carla Freeman’s book: High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy
4. Faye Ginsburg and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s edited volume: Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture
5. What’s Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex, by Denise Brennan
1:00 p.m. – France Winddance Twine, University of California, Santa Barbara

Written on the Body: Hair and Heritage in Black Europe

2:30 p.m. – Karen Kelsky, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

The Personal is Personal: Predicaments of the Lesbian Feminist Subject in Japan.

4:30 p.m. – Panel Discussion

The panel will explore such questions as: How does transnationalism affect cultural reproduction in intimate areas, such as family relations (husband-wife, parent-child), inter-generational ethnic relations, and the sphere defined as

Cindi Katz

City University of New York, Graduate Center

Writing on the Wall: From Disaster to Doing Something

Thursday, February 7, 2008
7:00 p.m. – Holland Union Building, Social Hall

Hurricane Katrina scoured the political economic landscape of New Orleans revealing the toll of decades of disinvestment in and ‘hostile privatism’ toward social reproduction in a city riddled with corrosive inequalities around class, race, and gender. Business and government have failed to address the social and economic needs of poor and working people in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. The toll can be seen in the unevenness of neighborhood and infrastructural recovery, the difficulty of establishing a stable workforce of residents, and the deepening of ongoing neoliberal tendencies toward privatization in education, healthcare, and housing. Focusing on these issues, we will look at the sorts of activism these failures have spurred. The discussion will center on community based political groups working to redress this situation in New Orleans, but will also connect their work to groups working elsewhere to draw out a ‘countertopography’ of activisms that interrogate the underlying politics and policies–explicit and implicit–that have undermind the social wage and produced this situation not just in New Orleans but all Read more

Daniel Desmond

Deputy Secretary of the Office of Energy and Technology Deployment, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions

Thursday, January 31, 2008
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium – 7:00 p.m.

Keynote Speaker for “Focus the Nation”
Co-sponsored by Environmental Studies Department and Dickinson SAVES

Visit this link for more information on Dickinson’s Focus the Nation programs.

Issue in Context
Global warming is a phenomenon believed to occur as a result of the build-up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Over the past 200 years, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil has caused the concentrations of heat-trapping “greenhouse gases” to increase significantly in our atmosphere. These gases prevent heat from dissipating, somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse.
Greenhouse gases are necessary to life as we know it, because they keep the planet’s surface warm. But, as the concentrations of these gases continue to increase in the atmosphere, the Earth’s temperature is climbing above previously recorded levels. According to NASA data, the Earth’s average surface temperature has increased by about 1.2 to 1.4°F in the last 100 years. Eleven of the last twelve years rank among the warmest years recorded since 1850, with Read more

Rory Kennedy

Pandemic: Facing AIDS

Monday, December 3, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium
The scope of the global AIDS epidemic is staggering. Over the last 20 years, the disease has killed nearly 22 million people. Behind these statistics are the stories of millions of people, each of whom must face the challenge of AIDS in their own way. Rory Kennedy followed the lives of five people living with AIDS in different parts of the world–India, Russian, Thailand, Uganda and Brazil. Their experiences put faces behind the numbers, and connect audiences with the heartache and triumph of living under the extreme conditions that AIDS involves.
Co-sponsored by the Intrafraternity Council, Panhellenic, Student Activities, Dean of Students, Student Senate, The Zatae Longsdorff Women’s Center, Community Studies, Sociology, Institutional and Diversity Initiatives and Learning Communities Program, Health and Wellness Committee and MOB.

Issue in Context
AIDS is one of the most destructive epidemics in history. UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program for AIDS, estimates that there are currently 33.2 million people worldwide living with HIV. This figure has greatly increased over the past two years. The most striking increases have occurred in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa, accounting Read more

Guerrilla Girls

Monkey Business

Performance
Thursday, November 29, 2007
7:00 p.m. – The Depot
The Guerrilla Girls are feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders, like Wonder Woman and Batman. They use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture. Co-sponsored by Women’s Studies and The Zatae Longsdorff Women’s Center.

Issue in Context
Sexism and racism are pervasive throughout the world of art and popular culture. Women artists and artists of color are greatly under-represented in art museums. In the National Gallery of Art, 98% of the artists displayed are male and 99.9% are white. Galleries and art collectors generally buy art from white men and when they do buy art from women or artists of color, it often ends up hidden in the gallery’s storage facility.
Women and people of color are also under-acknowledged and under-appreciated in the film industry. A female director has never won an Oscar and only three have ever been nominated. In all of the Oscars for acting, only 3% have gone to people of color.
The film and music industries continue to portray women as sexual objects or in a stereotypical fashion without depth Read more

Karin Morin

Associate Professor, social/gender geography, Bucknell University.

Women, Religion and Space: Making the Connections

Thursday, November 15, 2007
4:30 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room

In this talk, Karen Morin ‘triangulates’ among the scholarly domains of geography, women’s studies, and religious studies, suggesting ways to draw out the geographical implications of the study of women and religion. The talk highlights the ways that religions regulate women spatially, and how religious women negotiate and define spaces and their sense of themselves in them. Co-sponsored by the anthropology and religion departments.

Issue in Context
In the 17th century, Medieval Roman Catholic nuns benefited from the mobility of being allowed to work outside of their convents and within their communities, and of participating in missionary activities. However, in 1662, laws were passed in accordance with the Counter-Reformation that restricted the nun’s movement and often imprisoned them to their cloisters. The construction of gates and high walls around convents, the grills used to separate the nuns from the laypeople, and the use of the turntable to receive goods were just some of the limitations imposed on their lives. Nuns no longer had the right to play an active part in the church or in the Read more

Lisa Sherman ’79

Metzger-Conway Fellow, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Logo TV.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room

Changing Hearts and Minds: Media as a Bridge Builder for LGBT America

For the past several decades, the media has been an important and powerful tool for humanizing LGBT Americans, gradually replacing stereotypes and caricatures with authentic portrayals and depictions of LGBT people characters. In the past several years, media specifically for the LGBT audience has come to the forefront, notably with the launch of Logo, the new 24/7 ad-supported television and broadband channel from MTV networks. Lisa Sherman will discuss gays and lesbians in the media as well as the context for Logo’s place in the media landscape and how it is helping to advance a sense of an electronic community for many LGBT Americans. Co-sponsored by the psychology department.

Issue in Context

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are frequently excluded and misrepresented. Gay men are often represented as overly ‘feminine,’ while lesbian women are depicted as ‘masculine.’ LGBTs are also classified as excessively sexual, and it is assumed that they will make advances towards all members of the sex to which they are attracted. Such Read more

Sara Lennox

Director of the Social Thought and Political Economy Program and professor of German Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Reading Transnationally: The German Democratic Republic and Black Writers

Thursday, October 25, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room

Keynote speaker for the conference of the same name. Many of the African-American authors GDR publishers prmoted after the war were deeply influenced by Soviet models of proletarian internationalism, national self-determination, and masculine subjecthood. GDR scholars could thus appropriate such Black writers texts to provide confirmation of official GDR notions about race-blind class solidarity, general-neutral revolutionary subjectivity, the GDR’s positioning of itself on the right side of history, and the role that particular kinds of literary production could play in moving history forward. Only a reading attentive to transnational influences acting upon the GDR and Black writers in their Cold War contexts can fully account for why and how East Germans were encouraged to read African-American literature. Co-sponsored by Music and German Departments.

Issue in Context
Beginning in the 1920’s, a number of African-American artists and intellectuals openly expressed their adherence to socialism as a way to gain rights for Black people under the political unity of American working classes. Read more

Yolanda Lopez, political artist

The Virgin of Guadalupe on the Road to Aztlan

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room

Artist-provocateur and activist, Yolanda Lopez, will discuss the trajectory of her work, including her famous “virgin of guadalupe” paintings, in the context of her experiences with the Chicano civil rights movement, feminism, and contemporary immigration debates. Co-sponsored by Latin American Studies, American Studies and sociology Department.

Issue in Context
The Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the most revered Roman Catholic symbols in Mexico. She is believed to be an apparition of the Virgin Mary. From the time of the Mexican War of Independence, the Virgin of Guadalupe has been assumed as an icon of Mexican culture. Each year on December 12, millions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans celebrate The Queen of Mexico with dancing, songs, fireworks, and prayers.

According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2000 there were more than 20 million Mexican Americans living in the United States. Although they represent a large portion of the U.S. population, Chicanos, or Mexican-Americans, still often find themselves marginalized and discriminated against in mainstream society. The Chicano movement addresses negative representations of Mexican-Americans. Activists in the Chicano movement have worked Read more

Julie Nemecek and Bear Bergman

Gender and the Search for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Part I – Common Hour
“Transgender Issues” – Facilitator, Prof. Christine Talbot
12:00 p.m. – Weiss Center, Rubendall Recital Hall

Part II – “Gender and the Search for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”
7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room

Julie Nemecek, consultant, former associate professor and minister and S. Bear Bergman, writer, activist, performer, will use their own compelling stories and current research to discuss the barriers gender causes for the realization of the “unalienable rights” enumerated in our country’s Declaration of Independence. They will also identify key tools and actions needed to overcome those barriers. The Clarke Forum Student Board has created this program. Co-sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students.

Issue in Context
In an article published in the September issue of the Human Relations journal, professors Stephen Linstead and Alison Pullen define “transgender” as a gender identity that goes beyond the normative binary system of male and female social representation. By this definition, transgender does not refer to sexual orientation and transgendered people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual. The American Psychological Association specifies Read more

Dana Priest

Author and National Security Correspondent with The Washington Post

The Media as Junkyard Dog: One Journalist’s Journey From Secret CIA Prisons to the Walter Reed Scandal

Wednesday, October 10, 2007
4:30 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room
Dana Priest, Pulitzer Prize winner, and the reporter who “broke the story” on Walter Reed Hospital. What is the role of the mainstream media during a time of war and growing government secrecy? Priest takes us through the obstacle course, with all its trapped doors and moral dilemmas she encounters everyday in reporting during a time of great national angst and fear of terrorism. Co-sponsored by the United States Army War College and the philosophy department.

Issue in Context
While the “War on Terror” and the debate about its constitutionality continues, concerns about the system of American democracy and its morality are at the center of our national life.
As the link between the government and the American public, the media are responsible for informing American citizens about Federal policies and practices, and the government’s actions and inactions. But what happens if the government withholds such information from the media? Does the Bush administration have the right to operate in secrecy? The treatment Read more

Carmencita "Chie" Abad

No More Suffering From Sweat

Tuesday, October 9, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room
Chie will discuss the horrible working conditions she endured in the U.S. territory of Saipan while making clothing for the Gap. In her struggle to unionize workers, she was forced to leave the island and is now working to educate Americans about inhumane factory conditions worldwide. Co-sponsored by campus academic life (first year seminars/learning communities) and the sociology department.

Issue in Context
Where did you buy the clothes you are wearing today? It is possible your clothes were made in a garment factory by underpaid women and children working in deplorable conditions. In many garment and clothing factories around the world, workers spend prolonged periods of time in dangerous settings, pressured to meet production quotas. Corporations use these “sweatshops” in their production process in order to capitalize on cheap labor costs, boost production, and pursue increased profits at the expense of the human rights and dignity of the human beings who sweat to assemble products for mass consumption.

While some limited progress has been made in establishing regulations and worker rights in some factories, a large percentage remain outside the sphere of global attention. Read more

Sister Helen Prejean

Dead Man Walking: The Journey Continues

Thursday, October 4, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium
Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and Death of Innocents: Wrongful Executions. Sister Helen is a Southern storyteller who brings you on a journey and shares her experiences involved with her death penalty ministry while working with the poor. She is the author of Dead Man Walking and Death of Innocents: Wrongful Executions. Book signing to follow. Co-sponsored by The Legislative Initiative Against the Death Penalty, Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley, community service and religious life, and the religion, philosophy, and English departments.

Join us for a student-led discussion “Continuing the Conversation” to be held on Friday, October 5, 12:30 p.m. at The Clarke Forum. Bring a bag lunch.

Issue in Context
Since 1976, there have been 1,095 executions in the United States. The death penalty has been used as a form of punishment in America since the founding of the colonies as Europeans brought the practice with them to the New World. The methods of execution have evolved over the years from hanging, to the firing squad, the electric chair in 1890, the gas chamber in 1924, and Read more

Vinton Cerf

Priestley Award

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium

Social, Technical and Economic Consequences of the Internet Evolution

Vinton Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the internet, will discuss new internet products and services that may be appearing over the next decade. He will also explore the business consequences of dramatic changes in the economics of computing, networking and international demographics. Dr. Cerf will receive the Priestley award for his key technical and managerial role in the creation of the Internet, in particular, for leading the development of the TCP/IP protocols. Co-sponsored by the mathematics and computer science department.

Issue in Context
It is difficult to identify anything that has changed our lives to the extent that the Internet has. While the 19th century industrial revolution led to manufacturing prowess, expanding GDP and an increase in per capita purchasing power, the technological revolution which so much of Dr.Cerf’s work represents has captured the essence of human evolution and has taken us places previously incomprehensible. Who would have imagined that we could one day monitor the progress of our washer/dryer from our office desk? Who would have imagined that we could one day browse BBC online Read more

Judge Marjorie O. Rendell

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 43rd First Lady of Pennsylvania

The Constitution Day Address: The Constitution and Civic Responsibility

Monday, September 24, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium
As a federal judge, First Lady and citizen, The Honorable Marjorie O. Rendell is passionate about civic learning. She has said, “We are the newest guardians of our democracy. It is important that we rededicate ourselves to the creation of those “voices of the people” proficient in understanding and willing to sacrifice for the rights and responsibilities embodied in our Constitution. We have a duty as “living” citizens to educate our youngest so that they not only know the words, “we the people…,” but fully embrace their meaning.” Co-sponsored by the department of political science.

Issue in Context
On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine men signed the U.S. Constitution, giving the people sovereignty under the American government. As the oldest written national constitution in use, the United States Constitution stands as a model of statesmanship and cooperation. September 17, 2007 marked the 220th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution; this date serves as a reminder of the Founding Father’s legacy and American citizen’s responsibility to uphold Read more

Stephanie Black

Life and Debt

StephanieBlack092007 Podcast
Thursday, September 20, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room
Film showing and discussion with the filmmaker.
The film features Jamaica, land of sea, sand and sun, and a prime example of the impact economic globalization can have on a developing country. Using conventional and unconventional documentary techniques, this searing film dissects the “mechanism of debt” that is destroying local agriculture and industry while substituting sweatshops and cheap imports. With a voice-over narration written by Jamaica Kincaid, adapted from her book A Small Place, Life and Debt is an unapologetic look at the “new world order,” from the point of view of Jamaican workers, farmers, government and policy officials who know the reality of globalization from the ground up. Co-sponsored by campus academic life (first year seminars/learning communities).

Issue in Context
At what expense comes the global economic domination of industrial capitalist countries? The globalization process currently spreading through the world has many negative effects. In developing countries like Jamaica, many economic policies are adversely affecting the lives of the population. This process is fueled by multi-national economic organizations, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Read more

Admiral Dennis Blair

Omar Bradley Chair
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room

The American Use of Military Force Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 there were hopes for a peaceful new world order and even predictions of the end of history. As it turned out, the United States has sent major military forces into action nine times in the 19 years since then. Two major conflicts are continuing today in Afghanistan and Iraq. Admiral Blair will address how the United States has used military force in recent years, successfully and unsuccessfully, and how to think about what the country should do in Afghanistan and Iraq. Co-sponsored by the department of political science.

Issue in Context
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of nearly a half-century of Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States emerged victorious, affirming its superiority in the international arena. President H. W. Bush declared grand expectations for a “new world order” – the United States would finally be able to fulfill its founding fathers’ visions of freedom. There were widespread hopes for global peace. However, Read more

Lance Simmens

Global Warming

Tuesday, September 11
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

The scientific evidence on global warming is as disturbing as it is definitive. Increasing carbon emissions challenge our planet and all who inhabit it, a challenge that is here and now and that we must both acknowledge and address. Taking off from the documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, the presentation by Simmens, special assistant to Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, speaks to the average citizen.

Issue in Context
Global warming refers to the rise of the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans and has become a prominent global issue over the last fifty years. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been found by scientists to contribute in large part to the continued increase of the earthâ€™s temperature. While some greenhouse gases are necessary to maintain a temperature suitable for life on earth, an excess of these gases can create serious problems. In the past decade, the earth has experienced some of the warmest years ever recorded. While changes in the sun’s orbit and some volcanic eruptions have contributed to global warming, scientists and environmentalists have found that the recent elevated temperatures of the planet can be attributed Read more

Jackson Katz, educator and filmmaker

Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity

Thursday, September 6
7:30 p.m. – Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium
Mr. Katz explores the relationship between the social construction of masculinity and the widespread violence in American society, including the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech, Columbine, and elsewhere. Katz will provide the audience with conceptual and practical tools for reading both negative and positive media images critically, especially those connected with masculinity and violence. Co-sponsored by the sociology and anthropology departments.

Issue in Context
The past fifty years have seen serious challenges to conventional gender and sexual relations, which have reshaped people’s identities and experiences in the United States. Diversity has become more than just a statement of gender, racial, and ethnic uniqueness. People are embracing the idea of gender equality and more women are assuming positions of power and responsibility that transcend the domestic realm. Discriminated groups have been demanding their rights and claiming acceptance and visibility in society. These social movements are perceived as a threat by some men who react violently to the challenge of their dominant role. Jackson Katz points that the only field in which men still have an advantage over women is the “area of Read more