Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC

 

Welcome to The Athenaeum

Unique in American higher education, the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum (the “Ath”) is a signature program of Claremont McKenna College. Four nights a week during the school year, the Ath brings scholars, public figures, thought leaders, artists, and innovators to engage with the CMC and Claremont College community. In addition, the Ath also hosts lunch speakers, roundtables, and smaller presentations in its two auxiliary dining rooms.

For decades, the Ath has hosted a spectrum of luminaries with expertise and insight on a wide range of topics, both historical and contemporary. In the Ath’s intimate yet stimulating setting, students, faculty, staff, and other community members gather to hear the speaker, pose questions, and to build community and exchange ideas over a shared meal.

At the core of the Ath is a longstanding commitment to student growth and learning. Central to the Ath are its student fellows, selected annually to host, introduce, and moderate discussion with the featured speaker. Priority is given to students in attendance during the question-and-answer session following every presentation. Moreover, speakers often take extra time to visit a class, meet with student interest groups, or give an interview to the student press and podcast team.

Wed, November 13, 2024
Dinner Program
John K. Roth

How shall I teach the Holocaust this time, in the United States, in the autumn of 2024? In his most recent books called Warnings: The Holocaust, Ukraine, and Endangered American Democracy and Stress Test: The Israel-Hamas War and Christian-Jewish Relations, John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, explores key issues about Holocaust studies and education after the most decisive American election in decades and during the current destructive and divisive Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  

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John K. Roth is the Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Claremont McKenna College, where he taught for more than forty years and was the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights (now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights). In the mid-1980s, he joined Gordon Bjork and the late Ward Elliott to establish CMC’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program. In 1988, Roth was named U.S. National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 

Roth is the author or editor of more than fifty books, including The Failures of Ethics (2015), Sources of Holocaust Insight (2020), Warnings: The Holocaust, Ukraine, and Endangered American Democracy (2023), and Stress Test: The Israel-Hamas War and Christian-Jewish Relations (forthcoming 2025). He has been Visiting Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel, and his Holocaust-related research appointments have included a Koerner Visiting Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in England as well as an appointment as the Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

An honorary member of the Claremont McKenna College Alumni Association, Roth has received its George C. S. Benson Distinguished Achievement Award. The holder of several honorary degrees, he has also received the Holocaust Educational Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award for Holocaust Studies and Research.

Professor Roth’s presentation is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights where he remains an active and engaged advisory board member.

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This event is full and is no longer accepting registrations for dinner. You can still attend the talk only (without dinner) at 6:45 pm.

Mon, November 18, 2024
Dinner Program
Andrew Sinclair '08

There is a dilemma of contemporary American political reform.  On one hand, widespread concern about American democracy prompts calls for changing American political institutions.  On the other hand, a great deal of recent scholarship paints a very negative picture of the effectiveness of much of that reform agenda over the last century. So, is there a path forward, particularly in light of the recent election?  

In the Progressive Era reform advocates battled the “Tiger” of Tammany Hall in New York and the “Octopus” of the Southern Pacific railroad in California, developing two different models of reform, resulting in contrasting political institutions in these large and Democratic-leaning states today.  But the agenda was only partially implemented in each state, and some combination of those ideas might help address the challenges of our own time.  This talk uses recent survey data from 2021, 2022, and 2024 to walk through the prospects for this reform agenda—what looks more or less promising, and more or less well-adapted to the political behavior we observe in the Trump Era of American politics.

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Andrew Sinclair ‘08 is an Assistant Professor at Claremont McKenna College.  He completed his PhD at Caltech before teaching at NYU and returning to CMC.  He has conducted extensive research on primary election reforms and serves as the polling director at CMC’s Rose Institute.

Professor Sinclair's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at CMC. 

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Tue, November 19, 2024
Dinner Program
Claire Messud

Join Guggenheim- and Radcliffe Fellow-winning writer Claire Messud for a reading of her latest fiction, followed by a discussion with CMC's own Professor of Literature Leland de la Durantaye. 

Her latest novel, This Strange Eventful History, was one of Oprah Daily's Most Anticipated Books of 2024, and one of New York Magazine's "23 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2024." Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family’s strangeness; of François’s union with Barbara, a woman so culturally different they can barely comprehend one another; of Chloe, the result of that union, who believes that telling these buried stories will bring them all peace.

Inspired in part by long-ago stories from her own family’s history, Claire Messud animates her characters’ rich interior lives amid the social and political upheaval of the recent past. As profoundly intimate as it is expansive, This Strange Eventful History is “a tour de force…one of those rare novels that a reader doesn’t merely read but lives through with the characters” (Yiyun Li).

Read more about the speaker

Claire Messud is the author of six works of fiction. A recipient of a Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her family.

Messud's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Literature Department and the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World at CMC.

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Wed, November 20, 2024
Lunch Program
Andrew P. Miller

Andrew P. Miller, former deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, will discuss the current status of the crisis in the Middle East, risks and opportunities for the United States, and what to expect from the next president.

Attendance at this event is limited to CMC students, faculty, and staff. A CMC ID card is required for admission.

(Lunch served at 12:00 noon, program begins at 12:20 PM)

Read more about the speaker

Andrew P. Miller is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other Middle East issues. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs from 2022 to 2024 and worked at the National Security Council on Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinians during the Obama Administration.

Prior to this, he served as a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, covering the Middle East and North Africa, counterterrorism, political-military affairs, and intelligence. From 2017 to 2020, Miller was the Deputy Director for Policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and a Nonresident Scholar in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program.

Miller’s previous government assignments included serving as the Director for Egypt and Israel Military Issues on President Obama’s National Security Council from 2014 to 2017, where he was involved in deliberations regarding U.S. security assistance to Egypt and Israel and Middle East Peace, among other issues. He also worked at the U.S. Department of State in a variety of intelligence and policy roles, including in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff, and at the U.S. Embassies in Cairo and Doha. Miller earned a B.A. in Political Science from Dickinson College and an M.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Mr. Miller's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at CMC.

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Wed, November 20, 2024
Dinner Program
Floris van der Veken and Marlies Hollevoet

The 2024-2025 Athenaeum Concert Series continues, featuring acclaimed saxophonist Floris van der Veken and composer and pianist Marlies Hollevoet, and the world premiere of a piece specially commissioned for the Athenaeum!

This year's series, In Freundschaft – In Friendship, celebrates music that recognizes the value of our collaborative human existence, including music dedicated to friends, music that depicts loneliness and companionship, and collaborative music-making.

Van der Veken and Hollevoet will explore the variety with which current or recent composers translate rituals into practice in their music and, subsequently, how their translation is passed on to the performer. This can result in elaborate collaborations where the end result is almost a co-creation between both. Be it physical movement, melodic shaping, or the underlying idea, each of these works took inspiration from ritual practices and put the musical material in dialogue between artists. They will invite you to compare these results and contemplate which ones resonate more with you and, more importantly, why.

Putting theory into practice, they will debut the world premiere of a new composition by Marlies Hollevoet written specifically for this occasion, inspired by the other pieces in the program and exploring music rituals.

Read more about the speaker

Marlies Hollevoet (°1997) is a Belgian composer, currently residing in the USA. Their music has been performed by numerous ensembles and musicians, including the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, the Virago Symphonic Orchestra, Brightwork Ensemble, and the Lilith ensemble. They were recently awarded with the prestigious B.A.E.F Music Fellowship 2022-2023 and the University of Rochester’s Sproull Fellowship to pursue their doctoral studies in composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.
Marlies’ music is often based on obsessive rhythms and abstract structures, but never without a sense of humor. They are currently exploring extramusical aspects of performances and how to integrate them into the composition and score and try to create music in an openness to different genres, disciplines and artforms.
Marlies has studied under the guidance of composers Wim Henderickx, Steven Prengels, Bob Morris, Carlos-Sanchez Gutierrez, David Liptak and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.

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Floris Van der Veken (°1998) is a Belgian saxophonist and performance artist currently residing in Rochester, NY. Commended by Augusta Read Thomas for “his deep musicality and a kaleidoscope of characters and moods,” his performances are characterized by a strong emphasis on contemporary repertoire and interdisciplinary collaboration. The search for new repertoire has led Floris to premiere concertos by composers such as Augusta Read Thomas, Marlies Hollevoet, and Wim Henderickx.

Besides performing, Floris is an active researcher and improviser. His research includes the use of extramusical elements by Boulez and Stockhausen, providing theoretical background for interdisciplinary collaborations and improvisations. Floris is currently pursuing a PhD in Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music, after having obtained the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in saxophone performance, studying there under Dr. Chien-Kwan Lin. For his work with his saxophone students, Floris was awarded the 2022-2023 Graduate Teaching Assistant Prize.
 

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Thu, November 21, 2024
Dinner Program
Melvin Rogers

James Baldwin offers a radical reimagining of racial justice, calling for atonement over redemption. Challenging the evasive optimism of racial liberalism, Baldwin insists that America face its history of white supremacy without retreating into innocence.

Join Melvin Rogers, a scholar of democratic theory and the history of African American political thought, and Director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Brown University, for a discussion of Baldwin's enduring perspective on history, responsibility, and atonement.

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Melvin Rogers is the Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Brown University. He is the author of The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality and the Ethos of Democracy (Columbia University Press) and the award-winning book The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought (Princeton University Press). He is also the editor of John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Ohio University Press), co-editor of African American Political Thought: A Collected History (University of Chicago Press), and co-editor of the book series: Oxford New Histories of Philosophy. He received the 2023 James W. C. Pennington Award from Heidelberg University for his scholarship.

Professor Rogers' Athenaeum presentation kicks off CMC's "Baldwin at 100" conference, and is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies and the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World at CMC.

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Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

Claremont McKenna College
385 E. Eighth Street
Claremont, CA 91711

Contact

Phone: (909) 621-8244 
Fax: (909) 621-8579 
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