Themes

Winona LaDuke – “Morgan Lecturer”

Final LaDuke PosterExecutive Director, Honor the Earth

Morgan Lecture

The Next Energy Economy: Grassroots Strategies to Mitigate Global Climate Change & How We Move Ahead

Wednesday, March 22, 2017 
(Rescheduled from Fall 2016)
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Native American writer and activist Winona LaDuke will draw from her grassroots experiences, including the #NoDAPL movement at Standing Rock, to explore how we can move forward to create a new energy economy. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education, the Churchill Fund and the Departments of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Environmental Studies, American Studies, Anthropology & Archaeology and Political Science.  It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s  Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and part of the Clarke Forum’s Fall 2016 semester theme, Food.

laduke winonaBiography (provided by the speaker)

Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two-time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Read more

Lila Abu-Lughod – “Morgan Lecturer”

Abu Lughod Poster finalProfessor, Columbia University

Morgan Lecture

Muslim Women and the Freedom to Choose

Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

What can we learn from public debates about Muslim women that hinge on a right – the “right to choose freely”- that has been enshrined in international feminist conventions and that animates the popular American imagination about such practices as veiling and arranged marriage?  Anthropologist Abu-Lughod will examine the everyday lives of young women in one Egyptian village to open up new ways of thinking about choice and to expose the politics of common fantasies about this right. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Morgan Lecture Fund and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Abu Lughod Publicity c Martyn Gallina JonesLila Abu-Lughod is the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia University where she teaches anthropology and women’s studies.  A leading voice in the debates about culture, gender, Islam, and global feminist politics, her books and articles have been translated into 14 languages. Her scholarship, mostly ethnographic and based Read more

Sonya Renee Taylor

Author/Poet

These events are part of “Love Your Body Week”

Your Body is Not an ApolTaylor Posterogy

Thursday, February 23, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

This performance by author/poet Sonya Renee Taylor uses popular education, performance poetry and media examples to introduce participants to the concepts of body terrorism and radical self-love.

Workshop: 10 Tools for Radical Self Love

Friday, February 24, 2017
(Open only to Dickinson community. RSVP to clarkeforum@dickinson.edu  – Space is limited)
TIME & LOCATION CHANGE: Noon – 1:30 p.m. in Althouse 106

Can you re-imagine a relationship with your body and your life that is not adversarial? In this two-hour workshop get practical tools and a step by step action plan that can dramatically shift your relationship with your body from enemy to gorgeous partner in creating your most unapologetic life of radical self-love!

These events are sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Churchill Fund, the Division of Student Life, the Women’s and Gender Resource Center, the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity, the Office of LGBTQ Services, and the Departments of Sociology, Psychology and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Read more

Lester Spence

Spence Final PosterJohns Hopkins University

Trump, Race, and the Slow Death of Democracy

Thursday, February 16, 2017
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m. (New Location)

Spence will talk about the causes and the potentially stark consequences of Donald Trump’s election. While some point solely to racial politics, Spence examines the role of the neoliberal turn.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity, the Division of Student Life, and the Departments of American Studies, Political Science, Sociology, and the Program in Policy Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series. This event was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

NWKLester Spence is an associate professor of political science and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University and the Center for Emerging Media Scholar in Residence. Spence  specializes in the study of black, racial, and urban politics. Over the past decade Spence published articles on American institutional legitimacy in the wake of the contentious 2000 Presidential election, the effects of long-term black political empowerment on black participation, the role of media Read more

Thomas Palley

Palley PosterSenior Economic Policy Adviser to the AFL-CIO

Inequality and Stagnation by Policy Design

Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

This talk will survey competing hypotheses explaining the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing stagnation. How we explain these events is of critical significance since it influences how economic policy and society respond.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the Departments of Economics, International Business and Management, and the Program in Policy Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Thomas Palley is senior economic policy adviser to the AFL-CIO. He was foThomas Palley Head shotrmerly chief economist with the US – China Economic and Security Review Commission. Dr. Palley is the author of numerous journal and magazine articles and several books, including From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: The Destruction of Shared Prosperity and the Role of Economics (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism (Princeton University Press, 1998). He holds a B.A. degree from Oxford University and a M.A. Read more

Kristen Leslie – “Wesley Lecturer”

Leslie PosterEden Theological Seminary

Wesley Lecture

Noisy Believing: Ethical and Spiritual Responses to Sexualized Violence

Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Allison Great Hall, 7 p.m.

Transformative responses to sexualized violence reflect an early Methodist ethic that connects faith to public action.  This spirituality encouraged followers to “do all the good you can… for as long as ever you can.”  Holding communities accountable to such a public ethic and teaching the silenced to speak are basic building blocks to changing the nature of sexualized violence on college campuses.

This lecture is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Office of the President and the Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice with special thanks to the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. This event is also co-sponsored by the Prevention, Education and Advocacy Center, the Department of Religion, the Women’s and Gender Resource Center, Dickinson Christian Fellowship and the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

The Rev. Kristen Leslie, Ph.D., is a feminist pastoral theologian who addresses issues of resilience in survivors of sexualized violence on college campuses and in the military.  Read more

James McWilliams

McWilliams PosterTexas State University

Bringing Animal Welfare to 21st Century Agriculture

Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Stern Great Room, 7 p.m.

McWilliams will explore the many ways in which alternatives to industrial animal agriculture–pastured, cage-free, and grass fed systems, for example–do not live up to their promised welfare reforms, before outlining a future agricultural system that can more effectively attend to animal welfare concerns.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education. This program was initiated by the Clarke Forum’s student project managers. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Food.

imgresBiography (provided by the speaker)

James McWilliams is an historian and writer based in Austin, Texas. His books include The Modern Savage: Our Unthinking Decision to Eat Animals (Thomas Dunne Books), Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly (Little, Brown) and A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America (Columbia University Press). His writing has appeared in The Paris Review daily, The New Yorker.com, The New York Times, Harper’s, The Washington Post, Slate, The American Scholar, Texas Monthly, and The Atlantic. He writes Read more

Psyche Williams-Forson

Forson posterUniversity of Maryland College Park

Eating While Black: A Case Study on Food Shaming and Policing

Monday, October 10, 2016
Allison Great Hall, 7 p.m.

This talk will examine how the current changing food world affects and is affected by African American people. In particular, it will focus on how the legacies of surveillance that surround black people have now extended to our food cultures.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education, the Departments of Africana Studies, American Studies, Anthropology & Archaeology, English, Environmental Studies and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Food.

Biography (provided by the speaker)Psyche

Psyche Williams-Forson is associate professor and chair of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park. She is an affiliate faculty member of the women’s studies and African American studies departments, as well as anthropology/archaeology. She is an associate editor of Food and Foodways journal, co-editor (with Carole Counihan) of Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World (Routledge 2011) and author of Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (2006).  Her new book Read more

Jennifer L. Lawless

Lawless Final PosterAmerican University

Women on the Run

Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

A widely held belief – often encouraged by politicians and political commentators – is that that the political landscape is more challenging for women. Lawless argues that, for the most part, it’s not. When women run for office, they have very similar experiences to men. The problem is that women don’t run in the first place.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Women’s and Gender Resource Center and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and the stream on the 2016 Presidential Election.

jen croppedBiography (provided by the speaker)

Jennifer L. Lawless is professor of government at American University, where she is also the director of the Women & Politics Institute. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 2003 and her B.A. from Union College in 1997. Professor Lawless’ research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, focuses on representation, political ambition, and gender in the electoral process.

Lawless is the author of Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition Read more

Raj Patel

Patel PosterUniversity of Texas, Austin and Rhodes University, South Africa

The World That Food Made

Thursday, September 8, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

We hear a great deal about the food system, about how it’s broken or – indeed – that it’s working exactly as it ought. But it’s not exactly clear what that system is. Once you learn to think systemically, it becomes clear that the most important things the food system has made are things you can’t eat.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, First Year Seminars, the Center for Sustainability Education and the Departments of Environmental Studies, International Business & Management, Anthropology & Archaeology, Biology and the Program in Policy Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Food and the Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist and academic. He is a research professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and a senior research associate at the Unit for the Humanities at the university currently known as Rhodes Read more

Barry W. Lynn ’70 – “Constitution Day Address Lecturer”

Lynn PosterExecutive Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Celebrating a Dead Letter or a Living Document?

Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Watch Live Stream

“Originalism” in Constitutional interpretation is often characterized as the only legitimate way to understand the Constitution. If that were true, the “Constitution” would be a dead letter by now, unable to protect the rights of Americans in rapidly changing times.

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

Barry Lynn photoBiography (provided by the speaker)

Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution’s religious liberty provisions.

In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues.

An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer Read more

Karen Nakamura

NakamuraposterfinalHaas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and professor of anthropology, University of California Berkeley

Disability Rights in Global Perspective

Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Grassroots disability movements such as mad pride and crip pride have pushed themselves to the forefront of conversations across the world about diversity and inclusion, but there has also been considerable setbacks in recent years. Nakamura discusses disability rights social movements and how they have fundamentally changed the social contract and fabric in various countries.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Office of Global Study and Engagement and the departments of East Asian studies and women’s,  gender and sexuality studies.  It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Disability.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Karen Nakamura is the Haas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and professor of anthropology at the University of California Berkeley. Her first monograph was tiNakamura Picturetled Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity (2006). Her next project resulted in two ethnographic films and a monograph titled, A Disability of the Soul: An Ethnography of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan (2014). She is Read more