Themes

The Eisenhower Series College Program

Topic: U.S. Security Policy

Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Participants

Lt. Col. Robert Borcherding, U.S. Army
Capt. Jim Boswell (Facilitator), U.S. Navy
Lt. Col. Paul Brooks, U.S. Army
Cmdr. Anthony Conley, U.S. Navy
Col. Michael Daniels, U.S. Army
Col. Kelly Ivanoff, U.S. Army

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 other academic institutions.

This program is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund.

Biographies (provided by the speakers)

Captain Jim Boswell (facilitator of the event) was born at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida and grew up on Air Force bases in Europe and the Far East. He attended high school and college in the great state of Florida and holds a bachelor’s of science in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida and a master’s of science in Computer Science from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California. He is also a graduate of the Read more

Catherine O’Reilly

Professor, Illinois State University

Global Consequences of Current Lake Warming

Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Current climate change significantly affects water quality and fish production in freshwater ecosystems with potentially dire consequences for developing countries. This talk explores global patterns in recent lake warming, and describes how these changes are related to climate, geography, and lake shape.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Water.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Catherine O’Reilly is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography-Geology at Illinois State University. Her research focuses on nutrient cycles and freshwater biogeochemistry, with an interest in human impacts and climate change. Much of her initial work focused on Lake Tanganyika, East Africa, where her research was among the first to show ecosystem-scale impacts of current climate change. Dr. O’Reilly is involved in the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) and the Global Lake Temperature Collaboration (GLTC). She has been the recipient of several National Science Foundation awards and given scientific presentations around the world. Dr. O’Reilly has a B.A. from Carleton College and a Ph.D. from the University Read more

Andrew Hyde ’81

Partnership Manager, CSO, Department of State

Putting out the Fires

Thursday, November 14, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

New forms of politics and new types of technologies have unleashed new kinds of conflicts in disparate parts of today’s world. Hyde, a Metzger-Conway Fellow, will explore how U.S. foreign policy must evolve to confront these challenges and seize the opportunities they present.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

A twenty-year veteran of the foreign service, Andrew Hyde is currently the partnership manager at the Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). In that position he designs and manages the Bureau’s outreach to other governments, multilateral institutions and NGOs including think tanks. The Bureau, created in 2012 as a result of the State Department’s first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, identifies regions in the world prone to conflict and instability and devises programs and solutions to disrupt cycles of violence.

Previously, Hyde served as the deputy coordinator for Regional Command East at Embassy Kabul’s Office of Interagency Provincial Affairs where he was responsible Read more

James Hansen – Joseph Priestley Award Lecturer

Former Director, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies

White House Arrest and the Climate Crisis

Thursday, November 7, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

A scientist’s view of the climate crisis: why the public does not see it, why governments fail to address it effectively, and options for how young people might respond to the intergenerational injustice of human-made climate change.

The Joseph Priestley Award recipient is chosen by a different science department each year. The Department of Environmental Studies has selected this year’s recipient, James E. Hansen. The event is supported by the College’s Priestley Fund and is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and Student Senate and co-sponsored by the Department of Environmental Studies, Center for Sustainability Education, and the Departments of Biology, Earth Sciences, Psychology, Physics & Astronomy, Chemistry and Math & Computer Science.

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. James Hansen, formerly the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs a program in Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. He was trained in physics Read more

Michael McDevitt

U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Asia’s Looming Hotspot

Thursday, October 31, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Rear Admiral McDevitt will discuss the increasingly contentious dispute between China and Japan concerning sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea and the implications this dispute has for U.S. foreign policy. This talk is one of a series on “Hidden Dangers: Emerging Global Issues of the 21st Century” sponsored with the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg 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)

Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, U.S. Navy (ret) is a senior fellow associated with CNA Strategic Studies, a division of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA); a not-for- profit federally funded research center in Washington D.C. During his 16 years at CNA, as both a manager and vice president and now as a fellow, he has had a number of papers published. His most recent research focus has been the maritime security issues along the Indo-Pacific littoral, the Read more

Janice Perlman

Founder and President, The Mega-Cities Project: Innovations for Urban Life

The Bruce R. Andrews Lecture

FAVELA: Four Decades of Research in Rio

Thursday, October 10, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Perlman, author of the recent book FAVELA, will share her experience, findings, and photographs from field research in Brazil, starting as a student and continuing until the present.

The event is sponsored in partnership with The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Student Senate Public Affairs Committee. The event is also co-sponsored by the Bruce R. Andrews Fund, Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Center for Sustainability Education and the Departments of Sociology, Policy Studies and the Community Studies Center. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Dr. Janice Perlman is among the world’s foremost experts on urbanization, innovation and informal settlements. Her most recent book, Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro (Oxford University Press, 2010; paperback, 2011) won the 2010 PROSE Award for best book of the year in two categories: “Excellence in the Social Sciences” and “Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Sociology and Social Work”. The Read more

Jenny Reardon

Director, Science & Justice Research Center, UC, Santa Cruz

The Anti-Racist Democratic Genome?

Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

The opening decade of this millennium witnessed genome scientists, policy makers, critical race theorists and world leaders proclaiming the anti-racist democratic potential of human genomics. These views stand in stark contrast to the 1990s concern that genomics might create new forms of racism. This lecture explores this shift, both why it happened and what it reveals about emerging challenges for understanding issues of race and racism in the genomic age.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of American Studies, Anthropology, and Spanish & Portuguese. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, The Meanings of Race.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Jenny Reardon is an associate professor of sociology and faculty affiliate in the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also founded and directs the UCSC Science and Justice Research Center. Her book, Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics, was published with Princeton University Press in 2005. Reardon is

Professor, University of Pennsylvania

African Genomic Variation

Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Tishkoff will discuss the results of recent analyses of genome-scale genetic variation in geographically, linguistically, and ethnically diverse African populations for the purpose of reconstructing human evolutionary history in Africa and the genetic basis of adaption to diverse environments.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of Biology and Anthropology. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, The Meanings of Race.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Sarah Tishkoff is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor in Genetics and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, holding appointments in the School of Medicine and the School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Tishkoff studies genomic and phenotypic variation in ethnically diverse Africans. Her research combines field work, laboratory research, and computational methods to examine African population history and how genetic variation can affect a wide range of practical issues – for example, why humans have different susceptibility to disease, how they metabolize drugs, and how they adapt through evolution. Dr. Tishkoff is a recipient of an NIH Pioneer Award, a David and Read more

David Eng

Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Absolute Apology, Absolute Forgiveness

Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Eng will address how the atomic bombing of Japan and the postwar politics of reparations are both connected to a longer history of native dispossession in the New World, uranium mining of indigenous lands, and more recent colonial violence and militarism in the Cold War transpacific.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of American Studies and East Asian Studies. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, The Meanings of Race.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
David L. Eng is Richard L. Fisher Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also a member in the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory as well as the Program in Asian American Studies. After receiving his B.A. in English from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley, Eng taught at Columbia and Rutgers before joining Penn in 2007. His areas of specialization include American literature, Asian diaspora, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, queer studies, and visual culture. Eng has held Read more

James A. Baker – Constitution Day Address Lecturer

Former Counsel for Intelligence Policy and Associate Deputy Attorney General, Justice Department

Surveillance Post-Snowden

Thursday, September 12, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7 p.m.

Baker will reflect on the recent disclosures of government surveillance activities. Formerly in charge of representing the government before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Baker will provide his perspective on the challenging security and privacy issues facing us today.

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

Biography

James A. Baker has worked on numerous national security matters during his career. A former federal prosecutor, he worked on all aspects of national security investigations and prosecutions, including in particular the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), during his 17 year career at the U.S. Department of Justice. From 2001-2007, Mr. Baker served as Counsel for Intelligence Policy at the Justice Department, where he was head of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. In that position, he was responsible for developing, coordinating, and implementing national security policy with regard to intelligence and counterintelligence matters for the department. Mr. Baker provided the Attorney General, the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the White House with Read more

Robert Bilheimer

President, Worldwide Documentaries, Inc.

Not My Life (Film Showing and Discussion with Film Director)

Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 6:15 p.m.

Not My Life is a film that depicts the cruel and dehumanizing practices of contemporary human trafficking. Bilheimer, who directed and produced the film, will make general remarks and conduct a question-and-answer session at the end of the film. This event is one of a series on “Hidden Dangers: Emerging Global Issues of the 21st Century” sponsored with the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

This event is sponsored jointly by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg and co-sponsored by the Office of Institutional & Diversity Initiatives, and the Departments of Sociology and Economics. It is also part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in a Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)

Robert Bilheimer, president of the nonprofit company Worldwide Documentaries, is one of the most influential documentary filmmakers working in the world today.
In 1989, Robert was nominated for an Academy Award for Cry of Reason, a feature-length documentary that profiles the South African anti-apartheid leader Beyers Naude. Since that time, he has made Read more

Gail Dines

Founding Member, Stop Porn Culture

Sex, Identity and Intimacy in a Porn Culture

Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

In this multi-media presentation, Dines explores how masculinity and femininity are shaped by a consumer-driven image-based culture and how pornography reproduces a gender system that encourages social and economic inequality and promotes a rape culture. Note: This presentation contains explicit images.

A book sale and signing will follow.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Development, Women’s and Gender Resource Center and the Departments of American Studies, Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Gail Dines is a professor of sociology and women’s Studies at Wheelock College in Boston, where she is also chair of the American Studies department. She has been researching and writing about the porn industry for well over twenty years. Dr. Dines is co-editor of the best-selling textbook Gender, Race and Class in Media and she has written numerous articles on pornography, media images of women and representations of race in pop culture. She is a recipient of the Myers Center Award for Read more

Michael Mann

Professor, Penn State University

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars

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

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

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

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

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

Dr. Mann was a Lead Read more

Bill McKibben

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

Front Line of the Climate Fight

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

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

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

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

David Orr

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

Designing Resilience in a Black Swan World

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

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

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

Biography (provided by the speaker)

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

Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Extraction – Panel Discussion

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

Panelists:

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

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

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

Biographies

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

Peter Bechtel ’81 and Ruth Mkhwanazi-Bechtel

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

Sustainable Development in Mozambique

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

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

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

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

Biographies

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

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

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