Themes

Suzanne Cusick

Professor of Music, New York University

Acoustemology & the “War on Terror”

Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Based on interviews with released detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere, this lecture analyzes the ways that regimes of sound and silence were used to attack the subjectivities of prisoners detained in U.S.-run prison facilities during the so-called “global war on terror.” More information.

The event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of Music.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Suzanne G. Cusick is a professor of music at New York University. Her writing on music in relation to gender, sexuality and cultural history has appeared in such journals as the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music, Musical Quarterly, Repercussions, Perspectives of New Music, Early Modern Women, TRANS, and the Journal of the Society for American Music. Her monograph “Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court” will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2009. She is currently working on a book about the uses of sound and silence in U.S.-run detention camps in the so-called “global war on terror.”

Video of the

Dean of the School of Business, George Washington University

China’s Capitalism: A Model For U.S.?

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

One of the great ironies of our time is this: today, the largest Communist society in the world is also the world’s most dynamic and business-friendly capitalist economy. To examine this seemingly paradoxical circumstance, this lecture will analyze the economic reforms that have been sweeping across China for over three decades. As we view the changes in China through the prism of media representations, political rhetoric, and the many other distortions that have shaped perceptions of the reform process in China, the picture is murky at best. We will examine the changes that have actually occurred in China and the forces that have brought about this process of change. As it turns out, China’s course of building a market economy can teach the world’s capitalist powers a great deal about healthy market economies.

This event was initiated by The Clarke Forum Student Project Managers and is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Department of Political Science and Department of International Business and Management. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership Read more

Eisenhower National Security Series

A Visit by U.S. Army War College Eisenhower Fellows

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Eisenhower program is an academic outreach designed to encourage dialogue on national security and other public policy issues between students at the U.S. Army War College and students/faculty at academic institutions. The fellows will be visiting classes and participating in events throughout the day.

Each year a few students at the U.S. Army War College participate in the Eisenhower National Security Series and travel outside Carlisle Barracks to engage in discussions with other students, academics, and the public about national security issues and the employment of military assets.

* This program is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State University Dickinson School of Law, School of International Affairs and the Churchill Fund.

Schedule of Programs:

9 – 10:30 a.m. – Open Class Visit

Ethics and International Security
Captain Stephen C. Krotow, U.S. Navy and Lt. Col. Curtis Mason, U.S. Marine Corps to visit Professor Bova’s class.
Denny Hall, Room 211

Noon – 1:30 p.m. – Lunch Panel Discussion

The Arab Spring
Panelists: Eisenhower National Security Series Fellows, with Prof. Read more

Daniel Drezner

Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

International Politics and Zombies

Thursday, March 22, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Addressing timely issues with analytical bite, Drezner looks at how well-known theories from international relations might be applied to a war with zombies. He boldly lurches into the breach and “stress tests” the ways that different approaches to world politics would explain policy responses to the living dead. Drezner examines the most prominent international relations theories–including realism, liberalism, constructivism, and neoconservatism –and decomposes their predictions. Exploring the plots of popular zombie films, songs, and books, Theories of International Politics and Zombies predicts realistic scenarios for the political stage in the face of a zombie threat and considers how valid–or how rotten–such scenarios might be.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a senior editor at The National Interest, and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy. Prior to Fletcher, he Read more

Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt

Pentagon Correspondents, The New York Times and Co-authors of Counterstrike

Counterstrike

Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.
A book signing will follow.

Schmitt and Shanker explore the Pentagon’s secretive and revolutionary new strategy to fight the war on terrorism. This new strategy will have game-changing effects in the Middle East and in the United States.

This event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law, the School of International Affairs and Betty R. ’58 and Dan Churchill.

Biographies (provided by the speakers)
Eric Schmitt is a senior writer for The New York Times who covers domestic and internationalism terrorism issues. For nearly 20 years, he has covered military and national security affairs for the newspaper. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, he has made ten reporting trips to Iraq and five trips to Afghanistan to cover American military operations there. In the past year, he has also reported on counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan, Mali and Southeast Asia.

Previously, Mr. Schmitt reported on demographic and national immigration issues for The Times and covered Congress for five years. During that time, he one of newspaper’s main reporters assigned to the 2000 Read more

Michael Granoff

Head of Oil Independence Policies, Better Place

The End of the Oil Monopoly

Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 6:30 p.m.

For 100 years, virtually all of global transport has been the domain of a single, depleting, polluting commodity to the detriment of the global economy, security and environment. But the trend is beginning to change in 2012 as the convergence of technology and creative business modeling has led to the creation of a less expensive and more convenient alternative to gasoline-driven automobiles. Pioneered in Israel, Denmark and Australia, this radical new approach has the potential to turn two giant industries upside down.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life and is part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Michael Granoff has been head of oil independence policies for Better Place since its founding in 2007. In that capacity, he helps stakeholders of all types calibrate policies consistent with the Better Place approach to ending the corrosive effect of oil dependence on economy, environment and security. Stakeholders with which Granoff works include governments on every Read more

Heidi Hartmann

President, Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Lifting the Floor and Achieving Gender Equality

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 *
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m

Trends in women’s labor force participation, the gender wage gap, and job segregation by sex indicate that women’s progress has hit a plateau after improvement for several decades. Hartmann will discuss the policies that are needed to lift the floor of the labor market of women, resolve troubling work/family issues, and achieve gender equality between women and men.

The event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Churchill Fund, the Departments of Economics, Sociology, International Business and Management and the Women’s Center.

* This program is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Heidi Hartmann is the president of the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), a scientific research organization that she formed in 1987 to meet the need for women-centered, policy-oriented research. She is an economist with a B.A. from Swarthmore College and M. Phil and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University, all in economics. Dr. Hartmann is also a research professor at The George Washington University.

Dr. Hartmann has published numerous Read more

Charles W. Cole Jr. – “Benjamin Rush Award Lecturer”

Former President and CEO, First Maryland Bankcorp and The National Bank of Maryland

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 **
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Cole will analyze and discuss the state of the U.S. economy from a global perspective, with a special focus on both the strengths and weaknesses of current financial markets, including how they might affect future job opportunities of college graduates. Cole will also have some suggestions regarding the shaping of an investment portfolio.

This program is part of the The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Charles W. Cole Jr., is a retired Baltimore Banker and Community leader. He was born in Baltimore, son of a lawyer. Cole is a graduate of Gilman School and Washington and Lee University with a degree in economics and earned his LL.B. from the University of Maryland School of Law.

Mr. Cole spent 34 years with First Maryland Bankcorp and the First National Bank of Maryland. He served as President (1977-1994) and Chief Executive Officer (1984-1994). He was also Chief Administrative Officer and a Director of First Maryland Bankcorp. During the 10 years after Mr. Read more

Panel Discussion: Bird Flu Dilemmas: Balancing Science, Security, & Free Speech

Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Panelists

Andrew Pekosz, associate professor, W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Thomas Place, professor of law, Penn State Dickinson School of Law
Anthony Williams, visiting professor of political science and security studies, Dickinson College
David Kushner, associate professor of biology, Dickinson College, moderator

In December 2011 the US government asked scientists who had recently created a possibly dangerous airborne strain of H5N1 (avian influenza) not to publish all the genetic details of their research. The government’s request highlights the tensions that can arise between scientific inquiry, security, and freedom of speech.

Event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum Contemporary Issues.

Click here for campus-only video Read more

Ronald Deibert

Professor of Political Science and Director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto

A Perfect Storm in Cyberspace

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

What was once a domain characterized by openness and the free exchange of ideas, cyberspace is being re-shaped by technological changes, a growing underworld of cyber crime, a burgeoning cyber security industrial complex that feeds a cyber arms race, and an increasingly intense geopolitical contest over the domain itself.

Together, these driving forces are creating a kind of “perfect storm” in cyberspace that threats to subvert it entirely either through over-reaction, the imposition of heavy-handed controls and through partition or cantoning.

To restore cyberspace as an open global commons will require a multi-layered strategy, from the local to the global.

Drawing from the research and other activities of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto — including the OpenNet Initiative and the Information Warfare Monitor — Ron Deibert discusses the “Coming Perfect Storm in Cyberspace” and what is to be done to prepare for it.

The event is jointly sponsored by Read more

Harold Koh

Chief Legal Counsel for the U.S. Department of State

A Smart Power Approach to International Law and National Security

Thursday, January 26, 2012
Apfelbaum Auditorium, Lewis Katz Hall, Penn State Law, Carlisle, 5:00 p.m.

Koh, a leading expert on public and private international law, national security and human rights, will discuss the threats, responses and accountability mechanisms that will define the future national security configuration.

The event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College and the Penn State Dickinson School of Law. Link to Penn State Dickinson School of Law for additional information. This program is also supported by Betty R. ’58 and Dan Churchill.

Biography (from Yale Law School)
Harold Hongju Koh is the Martin R. Flug ’55 Professor of International Law (on leave, 2011-2012). On June 25, 2009, the U.S. Senate confirmed Professor Koh as Legal Adviser to the United States Department of State.

He began teaching at Yale Law School in 1985 and served from 2004 until 2009 as its fifteenth Dean. From 1998 to 2001, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and previously had served on the Secretary of State’s Read more

Paul B. Olsen

Colonel, U.S. Army

Natural Selection & War

Thursday, November 17, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Today’s advances in evolutionary biology are unifying competing theories of natural selection and serve as a timely call for a similar unification of competing theories of war. This lecture explores the relationship between war and natural selection by first examining war’s biological origins, and then placing them within a multidisciplinary framework called the Nature of War Theory.

This theory, as its name implies, reconciles natural selection and war to reveal a shared overarching and paradoxical duality, displaying that war is characterized by the simultaneous violent interplay of evolutionary individual-level and group-level adaptations, manifested by individualist and altruistic wars, respectively, and highlighted by trends and insights recognizable to both students of war and evolutionary biology.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Biology and Psychology.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Colonel Olsen was commissioned in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers upon graduation from the University of Wisconsin where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Geography. He has held leadership positions in Army engineer units in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Read more

Arab Spring

Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Protest movements continue to spread in the Arab world, taking different shape according to local political structures and social dynamics and posing knotty challenges to U.S. policymakers to keep up with the breakneck speed of developments.

Panelists

P.J. Crowley – Omar N. Bradley Joint Chair in Strategic Leadership
Ed Webb -Professor of political science and international studies, Dickinson College
Sherifa Zuhur – Director of the Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Strategic Studies
David Commins (moderator) – Professor of history and Middle East studies, Dickinson College

Biographies
David Commins is a professor of history and the Benjamin Rush Distinguished Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College. He teaches courses in the Middle East studies program and the history department. His publications include Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (Oxford University Press, 1990), Historical Dictionary of Syria (Scarecrow Press, 1995, revised edition 2004), and The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (IB Tauris, 2006).

P.J Crowley, former United States assistant Secretary of State for public affairs, is the 2011-2012 recipient of the General Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership. While in residence, Crowley conducts Read more

Michael Klare

Five College professor of Peace and World Security Studies

The Great Struggle Over Energy

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

This lecture will explain how the world’s existing energy system, based on oil and other fossil fuels, will have to be replaced by a new one over the next 30 years or so due to resource scarcity and climate change. But as no known alternative can replace fossil fuels at the present time, there will be an intense struggle over the various contenders for this role – a struggle that will have immense consequences for the major energy firms, the major energy producers and consumers, and all human beings.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Michael T. Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, a joint appointment at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Professor Klare has written widely on world security affairs, the arms trade, and global resource politics. His most recent books include Resource Wars (2001), Blood Read more

Bernardino León Gross

E.U. Special Representative (EUSR) for the Southern Mediterranean

Arab Spring: A European Perspective

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room – 12:30 p.m.

Protest movements and uprisings continue to spread in the Arab world, taking different shape according to local political structures and social dynamics. The trend poses knotty challenges to European Union policy makers as they try to keep up with the breakneck speed of developments.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Bernardino Leon is the European Union Special Representative (EUSR) for the Southern Mediterranean.

He was born in Malaga, where he obtained a degree in Law focusing his studies in public international law. He got a diploma in international studies from the CEI, University of Barcelona. He became a Spanish diplomat in 1989. He was first posted to Liberia in 1990-1991, where the devastating civil war focused his professional interest in understanding the underpinning causes of ethnic violence.

Since then, his political and diplomatic career has been mainly devoted to the Arab world. In 1991, he was part of a short mission to Libya in the context of establishing the Read more

Dennis Blair

Former United States Director of National Intelligence, Commander in Chief of U.S. Pacific Command, and Retired United States Navy Admiral

The Challenges of China

Thursday, November 3, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

* This event is part of The Clarke Forum’s series on Leadership in an Age
of Uncertainty.

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

Lecture Description (provided by the speaker)
To outsiders, China seems to be on a roll these days. The 2008 Olympics were an impressive coming-out party; it weathered the 2007-2008 world economic crisis better than most other countries, and has resumed double-digit economic growth; it has shown the world an advanced stealth aircraft, is about to launch an aircraft carrier, and has sent ships to join the international anti-piracy patrol in the Indian Ocean. Yet in many ways China does not act like a powerful, confident country. It squabbles with its neighbors to the East and South; it is in the midst of a mostly secret succession process; Chinese search engines will not accept “jasmine”; labor unrest and inflation are growing. Admiral Blair will describe Read more

P. J. Crowley – General Omar N. Bradley Lecture

Former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs

General Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership

WIKILEAKS: One Year Later

Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Penn State University Dickinson School of Law
Lewis Katz Hall Auditorium, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Crowley will explore the impact that Wikileaks has had on global politics and the media as well as the implications it has had for relevant national security policies.

This event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State University Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs, and the U.S. Army War College.

Biography
Philip J. “P.J.” Crowley, former United States assistant secretary of state for public affairs, is the 2011-2012 recipient of the General Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership. While in residence, Crowley conducts classes at Dickinson College, the U.S. Army War College and Penn State University Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs.

President Barack Obama nominated Crowley to be assistant secretary of state for public affairs in the U.S. Department of State in 2009. Previously, he served as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director of public affairs for the National Read more

Rita King

Founder and Creative Director of Dancing Ink Productions

Nothing to Hide?

Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

While Facebook has served as a catalyst for discussions about privacy issues, it’s only one aspect of a major shift permeating the world. Platforms come and go but privacy issues continue to influence and shape modern life. Perceptions of what privacy is and what it’s worth are changing. In addition to internet privacy issues, urban environments are increasingly filled with surveillance cameras. Nearly everybody on the street is carrying a mobile device, maybe capturing some fragment of your story arc in the form of an image or overheard snippet of conversation. Digital algorithms can piece together the puzzle of your life by recognizing your patterns, habits and even your face. How will the construction of identity and society be affected? How will *you* be affected?

This event is co-sponsored by the Departments of American Studies, Math and Computer Science and Sociology.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Rita J. King is a writer, conceptual artist and entrepreneur. As the executive vice president of business development at Science House and founder of Dancing Ink Productions, her work centers on the development Read more

Brian Haig

Bestselling Author and Former Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Fiction Explains Things Nonfiction Can’t

Friday, September 23, 2011
Stern Center, Great Room, **3:30 p.m.**
Book Sale/Signing will follow the lecture.
The Capital Game and Man in the Middle will be available for purchase.

Haig will discuss the impact of fiction on how readers understand their political and social worlds and how this understanding can shape their conduct and hence our future. For example, Tom Clancy introduced us to military technology, Dan Brown made us re-think religion, Steig Larsson made us see Sweden in a whole new way. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped launch a civil war to end slavery; Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War kicked off the World War Two craze; Leon Uris’s Exodus shaped how Americans see Israel; and Alex Haley’s Roots explained the black experience in America.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Brian Haig P’12 and P’13 graduated from West Point in 1975, spent 22 years on active duty, his last four as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After retiring from the Army, he was president of two companies before becoming a writer. Read more

Michael Chertoff – Constitution Day Address Lecturer

Former Federal Judge and Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Understanding Today’s Threat Environment

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 *
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, **5:00 p.m.**

Despite recent counterterrorism successes, including the death of Osama bin Laden, our world remains threatened by terrorist organizations whose members hate freedom, justice and liberty for all. Ten years after September 11, 2001, former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff discusses why we must not take our attention away from these significant dangers and the threat they pose to our future.

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

* This event is part of The Clarke Forum’s series on Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty.
Biography (provided by speaker)

As Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009, Mr. Chertoff led the country in blocking would-be terrorists from crossing our borders or implementing their plans if they were already in the country. He also transformed FEMA into an effective organization following Hurricane Katrina. His greatest successes have earned few headlines – because the important news is what didn’t happen.

At Chertoff Read more