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.

Mon, March 24, 2025
Lunch Program
Angela Vossmeyer

Join us as we celebrate Angela Vossmeyer's installation as the Rothacker Family Associate Professor of Economics and George R. Roberts Fellow. Vossmeyer will discuss her research on the economic consequences of financial crises and her work developing econometric methodologies that incorporate regulator and firm decision structures to uncover answers to financial stability questions. 

Registers here for this special event.

Read more about the speaker

Angela Vossmeyer is the Rothacker Family Associate Professor of Economics and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. Vossmeyer has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve and other central banks. She is the articles' editor for the Journal of Financial Crises and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research, with the help of numerous student researchers at the Financial Economics Institute and Lowe Institute of Political Economy, has been published in highly regarded journals in economics, finance, and statistics, and widely cited by academic, news, and policy outlets.

She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Irvine. 

Register here for this special event.

Read less

To register for this event, please go to https://events.cmc.edu/e/faculty-installation-of-angela-vossmeyer/

Mon, March 24, 2025
Dinner Program
Omar Dajani

Part of “The Middle East: What Now?” series, Omar M. Dajani, professor of international law at McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, a former legal adviser to the PLO in peace talks with Israel, and the joint board co-chair of A Land for All, an Israeli-Palestinian peace organization, will discuss ways forward from the catastrophe in Gaza, the promise of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation, and the lessons the international community must learn if peace is to be achieved.

Read more about the speaker

Omar Dajani is the Carol Olson Professor of International Law at McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific and co-director of the law school’s Global Center for Business & Development. He is recognized as a leading expert on legal aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In 1999, Dajani was recruited to serve as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel, ultimately participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba. He then joined the office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), where he worked on peacebuilding initiatives and played a lead role in marshaling and organizing international efforts to support Palestinian legal and political reforms. Dajani has continued since that time to work as a consultant on a variety of legal infrastructure development and conflict resolution projects in the Middle East and elsewhere – for institutions including the U.S. Department of State, the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center (NOREF), and the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue.

Widely published in legal and policy journals, Dajani ’s scholarly work explores the links between international law, legal and political history, and contract and negotiation theory. His current research focuses on what’s next for the states of the Middle East. He is exploring the status and protection of ethnic and religious minorities and considering the extent to which federalism and other forms of decentralization offer solutions to ethno-national conflicts in the region.

Dajani holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Before he began his work as legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team and his academic career at McGeorge School of Law, he clerked for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked as a litigation associate at the Washington D.C., office of Sidley & Austin. 

Professor Dajani's Athenaeum presentation is part of the “Middle East: What Now?” series, co-sponsored by the President’s Leadership Fund.

Read less
Tue, March 25, 2025
Dinner Program
John Kani

“The love of theatre was infused in us… Things called the arts could also be used as a weapon for change,” recalls Tony-award winning actor, director, and playwright John Kani when he reflects on his youth under apartheid in South Africa. Although perhaps best-known today for playing King T’Chaka in Marvel’s Black Panther, Kani is a classically trained actor, whose work in protest theater drew international attention to South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Kani reflects on theater as a tool for liberation and the imperative for artists to stand up, speak, and make change.

Read more about the speaker

According to the Washington Post (February 14, 2025), John Kani is “Perhaps most famous now for playing T’Chaka in the movies “Captain America: Civil War” and “Black Panther,” [but] Kani has been a theatrical force for over half a century. Born in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, he gravitated to acting, joining forces in the 1960s with playwright Athol Fugard.” His celebrated acting career stretches five-plus decades, from his native South Africa to across the world. 

Onstage, he gave Tony and Obie Award-winning performances in the plays Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island — which he also co-wrote. Both shows enjoyed American and South African revivals. Kani also received an Olivier Award nomination for My Children! My Africa!

Among Kani’s dozens of films are Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Murder Mystery, and Disney’s 2019 remake of The Lion King (voicing Rafiki).

As a playwright, Kani’s art has also traveled the world. Nothing But the Truth — a play that is now studied in South African schools — won three Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, an Excellence in International Theatre Award, five Naledi Theatre Awards, and the Olive Schreiner Prize, with productions mounted around the world.

Countless awards and honors have been bestowed on Kani throughout his career, among them honorary doctorates from the University of Durban Westville, Rhodes University, The University of Cape Town, and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University; the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation Award; and the Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for lifetime achievement. In 2005, he received the Order of Ikamanga from the President of the Republic of South Africa, recognizing his contribution to the struggle for the liberation of his country through his work in the arts.

Kani is a patron of the Market Theatre Foundation; in 2015, the Foundation named the main theatre in his honor. In 2017, Whites Road in Port Elizabeth, South Africa’s city center was renamed John Kani Road. The following year, he took home a gold medal from the Kennedy International Committee on the Arts. Kani is also the recipient of the prestigious Sortugui Afrique Cinema Honor in Burkina Faso. Most recently, he was awarded the Voices in Freedom Award by Shared Interest, in New York. Previous recipients include Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Adapted from: https://mlasa.com/actors/john-kani/

Read less

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.

Wed, March 26, 2025
Dinner Program
Steven Pressman

Filmmaker and author Steven Pressman will screen and discuss his documentary film based on his book which tells the previously unknown story about an American couple who traveled into Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1939 to bring a group of Jewish children to the safety of the United States. At the time, 67% of Americans polled opposed a bill in the US Congress to admit refugee children. Yet leaving behind their own young children, the Krauses devised a plan, gathered paperwork, raised money, and traveled to Europe on a rescue mission of a lifetime. 

SPECIAL SCHEDULE: Dinner will be served at 5:50 pm. Film will be screened during dinner starting at 6:00 pm and will be followed by comments from Steven Pressman and audience Q & A. 

Read more about the speaker

Steven Pressman was born and raised in Los Angeles and received an undergraduate degree in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked as a newspaper and magazine journalist for many years, both as a reporter and editor at a variety of publications in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and San Francisco.

As a filmmaker, Pressman directed and produced 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, which premiered on HBO in 2013 and received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Historical Programming. His following film, Holy Silence, premiered on PBS in 2020. Pressman’s third film, The Levys of Monticello, has won numerous awards while screening at more than 100 film festivals around the country since its release in 2022.  His latest film, Moses Ezekiel: Portrait of a Lost Artist, began playing at film festivals in 2024. Pressman is currently in production on his next film Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie.

Mr. Pressman’s Athenaeum lecture is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College.

SPECIAL SCHEDULE: Dinner will be served at 5:50 pm. Film will be screened during dinner starting at 6:00 pm and will be followed by comments from Steven Pressman and audience Q & A. 

Read less
Mon, March 31, 2025
Dinner Program
Beth Murphy

Award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author, and changemaker Beth Murphy has built her career on the belief that empathy fuels action—and that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools to inspire both. Her documentary, Afghan Dreamers (MTV Films/Paramount+), tells the remarkable story of teenage girls who defy expectations, mastering robotics, competing on the global stage, and becoming a powerful symbol of resilience and hope in Afghanistan and around the world. Her impact work with this film is ongoing—from leading dramatic evacuations during the United States’ chaotic withdrawal to today’s collaboration with CMC alum William Menard '09, a leading immigration attorney. 

SPECIAL SCHEDULE: Dinner will be served at 5:45 pm. Film will be screened during dinner starting at 6:00 pm and will be followed by comments from Beth Murphy and audience Q & A. 

Read more about the speaker

Beth Murphy’s connection to Afghanistan spans over two decades. She first filmed in the country in December 2001, just after the fall of the first Taliban regime, and has since chronicled both the struggles and triumphs of Afghan women and girls through the critically acclaimed documentaries Beyond Belief (Tribeca Film Festival, Sundance Channel, Netflix) and What Tomorrow Brings (HotDocs, PBS-POV), as well as through reporting for many national and international news outlets. Following the most recent Taliban takeover, Murphy returned to Afghanistan to document the rapidly unfolding crisis, bearing witness to the devastating impact on women and girls.

Murphy is founder of Principle Pictures. Her honors include: Emmy Awards, World Press Photo Award, Overseas Press Club Award, Scripps Howard Award, National Headliner Award, Webby Award, RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, AWRT’s Gracie Allen Award, One Shared World International Outreach Award, and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.

Her podcast series with UNICEF, Hidden Heroes, is about women and girls finding solutions and saving lives.

Ms. Murphy is the keynote speaker for the 2025 Women and Leadership Alliance.

SPECIAL SCHEDULE: Dinner will be served at 5:45 pm. Film will be screened during dinner starting at 6:00 pm and will be followed by comments from Beth Murphy and audience Q & A. 

Read less
Tue, April 1, 2025
Lunch Program
Beth Murphy and Izzy Murphy
Join us to explore the power of social impact storytelling in conflict and post-conflict societies with case studies of Beth Murphy’s media campaigns that move audiences from outrage and inspiration to action. One powerful example is young changemaker IzzyMurphy, whose work in rural Afghanistan through her organization GLAM - the Global Local Athletic Movement - fosters hope and resilience for girls navigating life under Taliban rule.
Read more about the speaker

Award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author, and changemaker Beth Murphy has built her career on the belief that empathy fuels action—and that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools to inspire both. She is founder of Principle Pictures. Her honors include: Emmy Awards, World Press Photo Award, Overseas Press Club Award, Scripps Howard Award, National Headliner Award, Webby Award, RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, AWRT’s Gracie Allen Award, One Shared World International Outreach Award, and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.

Read less
Tue, April 1, 2025
Dinner Program
David Farber

David Farber, distinguished professor of history at the University of Kansas, author of Crack and editor of The War on Drugs, explores the tragic consequences of Richard Nixon's 1971 declaration of a war on drugs. Looking at two key hinge points in this "war," Farber examines the conflict in the policymaking process between imperfect expertise and tempestuous political demands, and then the impact of that conflict on the lives of Americans, especially those most at risk of falling prey to drug abuse. Since 1971, Americans have traveled a hard road as they seek to balance the mass demand for the recourse drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, and opioids provide with the dangers of drug abuse and dependency. Even now, as the war on drugs has deescalated, Americans continue to fight over how drug use and abuse can and should be managed.

Read more about the speaker

David Farber is the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago after which he spent a year working on Capitol Hill. Since then, he has been a professor of history and has published numerous books on American political culture, social change movements, democratic practice, and the history of capitalism. He has been a visiting scholar or lecturer in Japan, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Lebanon, Australia, China, Russia, Indonesia and elsewhere.

Professor Farber will deliver the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies' 2024-25 Lerner Lecture on Hinge Moments in History.

Read less
Wed, April 2, 2025
Lunch Program
Sir Malcolm Evans, KCMG OBE

How big a problem is torture? Are the right things being done to prevent it? Why does the United Nations appear at times to be so impotent in the face of it? Drawing on his ten plus years of experience as Chair of the UN expert body visiting places of detention in countries around the world in order to ‘tackle torture,' Sir Malcolm will tell the story of torture prevention under international law, setting out what is really happening around the world. Challenging assumptions about torture’s root causes, he will give a frank account of what has been done, what can be done and – most importantly and controversially, what is not being done, and why.

 
Read more about the speaker

Sir Malcolm Evans, KCMG (Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George) and OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire), is the Principal of Regents Park College at Oxford University. 

Prior to his role at Oxford University, Sir Malcolm was Professor of International Law at the University of Bristol, where previously he had been Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. His research interests center on the international protection of human rights, with particular focus on the prevention of torture and the freedom of religion in recognition of which he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2015. He also works extensively on issues concerning the international law of the sea, including in particular questions concerning maritime boundaries and the protection of human rights at sea. Among his many roles, Sir Malcolm has served as a member and, from 2011-2020, Chair of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture. In 2015 he was appointed a Member of the Panel of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales, then the largest and most wide-ranging public inquiry yet undertaken, which concluded its work in late 2022. He has also served as a member of the Advisory Panel on Freedom of Religion and Belief of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Sir Malcolm read Law at Regent’s Park College (1979-82), returning for doctoral research (1983-87) for which he was awarded the degree of DPhil.  Sir Malcolm holds an Honorary Doctorate from Bangor University and is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. 

 

Read less
Wed, April 2, 2025
Dinner Program
Rob Henderson, in conversation with Jon Shields

How do childhood adversity, social class, and elite institutions shape the trajectory of an individual’s life? Growing up in foster care, enlisting in the U.S. Air Force, and later attending Yale and earning a Ph.D. at Cambridge University, Rob Henderson has lived a life that defies expectations. His bestselling memoir Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class explores these questions through the lens of his own remarkable journey. In a moderated conversation with Jon Shields, professor of government and chair of the government department at CMC, Henderson will examine the structural and cultural forces that influence social mobility, the role of family instability in shaping life outcomes, and his concept of “luxury beliefs”—status-signaling ideas embraced by the privileged that often impose real costs on those with fewer resources. 

Read more about the speaker

Rob Henderson is a writer and social commentator whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and more. He is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a columnist for The Free Press and The Boston Globe. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he earned his undergraduate degree from Yale and completed a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar. His research focuses on social class, psychology, and cultural divides.

Shaped by his firsthand experiences, Henderson's memoir has sparked national discussion on class and opportunity, with The Wall Street Journal highlighting his critique of how affluent individuals often promote ideals they do not live by, and The Washington Post describing Troubled as “a mystifying book about hypocrisy.” 

Jon Shields, moderator, teaches American politics and chairs the government department at CMC. He has authored many books on American conservatism including Trump’s Democrats and Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University. Notably, his American Culture Wars class dives deep into matters of marriage, sex, and gender.

Mr. Henderson’s Athenaeum program is co-sponsored by the Dreier Roundtable at CMC.

Read less
Mon, April 7, 2025
Dinner Program
Murhaf Jouejati

The unexpected fall of the Assad regime at a time that many observers believed it had survived Syria’s long and bloody civil war have raised questions about old assumptions and about both Syrian politics and the distribution of power in the region, elevating both hopes and concerns. Part of "The Middle East: What Now?" series, Murhaf Jouejati, professor of international relations and Middle East studies, will discuss the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, its regional and international consequences, and what might lie ahead.

Read more about the speaker

Murhaf Jouejati, Ph.D., specializes in Syrian and Middle East political affairs—both as an academic and as a practitioner. He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Middle East studies and Global Affairs and Chair of the Class of ’55 (both History and Political Science departments) at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Jouejati taught International Relations and Middle East studies at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi (2015-2020); the National Defense University’s NESA Center for Strategic Studies (2005-2015); the George Washington University (2000-2015), and the American University in Washington DC (2003-2005). He was the resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (1998-2000).

As a practitioner, Jouejati served as political advisor to the European Commission Delegation in Damascus (1998-2000); National Program Officer for Syria with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); Presidential envoy to the Syria-Israel peace talks; and previously advisor to the Syrian peace delegation.

Jouejati holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Utah and an M.A. in Arab area studies from Georgetown University. He is the author of several book chapters and journal articles on Syrian foreign policy and other related Middle East security issues. 

Professor Jouejati's Athenaeum presentation is part of the “Middle East: What Now?” series, co-sponsored by the President’s Leadership Fund.

Read less

This event is not yet open for registration.

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

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

Contact

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