Speakers, Fall 2014

 

Thursday,
September 11

Robert Valenza, Dengler-Dykema Professor of Mathematics and the Humanities, CMC; author, The Best of Civilization (2007) and Linear Algebra: An Introduction to Abstract Mathematics (1999); "What We'll Do To You If You Let Us"

Monday,
September 15

Janet Mock, transgender rights activist; author, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More (2014); Nancy S.B. Williams, associate professor of chemistry, W.M.Keck Science Center, CMC; moderator; "Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More"

Tuesday,
September 16

Mary Weatherford, artist; Robert Faggen, Barton Evans and H. Andrea Neves Professor in Literature, director, Family of Benjamin Z. Gould Center for Humanistic Studies; author, forthcoming, Sparks Fly Up: The Life of Ken Kesey and co-editor, The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume 1: 1886 - 1920 (2014); "Celebration and Conversation with the Artist"

Wednesday,
September 17

Film Screening: Walesa: Man of Hope (2013); by Janusz Glowack; directed by Andrzej Waijda

Thursday,
September 18

August Kleinzahler, poet; author, The Hotel Oneira (2013) and Sleeping It Off in Rapid City (2008); "Poet Reads from His Work"

Monday,
September 22

Barbara Metcalf, professor of history emerita, U.C. Davis; president, American Historical Association (2009-2010); author, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (2014) and Islam in South Asia in Practice (2009); "Dogs Speaking and Women Writing: A Muslim Queen on Islamic Law and Empowerment in 19th Century India"

Tuesday,
September 23

John J. Pitney, Jr., Roy P. Crocker Professor of American History and Politics, CMC; co-author, American Government: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship (2011) and co-author, Private Anti-Piracy Navies: How Warships for Hire will Change Maritime Security (2013); "What's At Stake in the Mid-Term Election?"

Wednesday,
September 24

Thomas Leppert '77, president and CEO, Kaplan, Inc.; Mayor, Dallas, Texas (2007-2011); "Contrasting Leadership in Public and Private Sectors" (12:00 p.m.)

Wednesday,
September 24

Anis Mojgani, spoken word poet; National Individual Poetry Slam Champion (2005 and 2006); Individual World Cup Poetry Slam winner (2007); author, Songs From Under the River: A Collection of Early and New Work (2013) and The Feather Book (2011); "Poetry Slam!"

Thursday,
September 25

Manisha Priyam, ICSSR Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library; author, forthcoming The Contested Politics of Education Reforms in India: Aligning Opportunities with Interests (2014) and co-author, Human Rights, Gender and the Environment (2009); "Analyzing the Election in India" (12:00 p.m.)

Thursday,
September 25

Charles Ogletree, Jr., Jesse Climenko Professor of Law; founder and executive director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard University; co-editor, Life without Parole: America's New Death Penalty? (2012) and author, The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America (2010); "Race, Racism, and Discrimination in America"

Monday,
September 29

Ronald Herring, professor of government and international professor of agriculture and rural development, Cornell University; editor, Oxford Handbook on Food, Politics, and Society (2014) and contributor, Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power, and Politics (2013) ; "Genes in the Food! What’s At Stake in Global Battles over Biotechnology?"

Tuesday,
September 30

Andrew Sullivan, blogger, The Daily Dish, author, Intimations Pursued: The Voice of Practice in the Conversation of Michael Oakeshott (2008) and The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right (2007); "The Future of the Media"

Wednesday,
October 1

Robert Ross M.D., president and CEO, The California Endowment; "The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Way Forward"

Thursday,
October 2

Uri Caine, piano; Composer-in-Residence, Mannes College the New School for Music (2013-2014); artist, Sonic Boom (2012) and Siren (2011); "Uri Caine in Concert"

Monday,
October 6

Isabella Burch '16; Nadeem Farooqi '15; Timothy Plummer '17, moderator; "Claremont Colleges Debate Union: This House Would Restrict the President's War Powers"

Wednesday,
October 8

Nancy Keystone/b, playwright, AMERYKA (2010), director and founder, Critical Mass Performance Group; Critical Mass Performance Group: AMERYKA ( Bridges Auditorium 7:30 p.m.)

Monday,
October 13

Len Apcar '75, economics editor, The New York Times; Ken Greenberg '75, founder and president, Edge Communications, Inc; Michael Wilner '11, Washington bureau chief, The Jerusalem Post; David Doss '75, senior vice president for news programming, Al Jazeera America; Nicholas Owchar, Jr. '90, director of development communication and content production, CMC; former deputy book editor, Los Angeles Times; Audrey Bilger, associate professor of literature, director, Center for Public Writing and Discourse, CMC; editorial board member, Pickering, Chatto's Gender and Genre series, Burney Journal; co-editor, Here Come the Brides! Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage (2012) and co-author of An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (2003); Jeffrey Klein '75 P'08 P'11 P'14; non-executive chairman of the board, 1105 Media, Inc., moderator; "The Future of Journalism and the News Media. Is There One?"

Tuesday,
October 14

David Misch, comedian, playwright, screenwriter; author, Funny: The Book- Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Comedy (2012); "Comedy and Morality"

Wednesday,
October 15

Susan Wood, associate professor of health policy; executive director, Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, George Washington University; "Women's Health, Health Reform, and the Coverage of Contraception"

Wednesday,
October 22

Tony Quinn, political consultant; Bob Stern, president, Center for Governmental Studies; Ken Miller,associate professor of government; associate director, Edessa Rose Institute of State and Local Government; co-director, Dreier Roundtable , CMC; author, Direct Democracy and the Courts (2009) and co-editor, The New Political Geography of California (2008), moderator; "California's Choices: 2014 Ballot Initiatives"

Thursday,
October 23

Afaa Michael Weaver, 2014 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winner; Alumnae Professor of English, director, Zora Neale Hurston Literary Center, Simmons College; author, The Government of Nature (2013) and The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985-2005 (2007); "An Evening with Afaa Michael Weaver"

Friday,
October 24

Jennifer Mattson, journalist, GlobalPost Breaking News; TheAtlantic.com; USA TODAY; The Boston Globe; The Women's Review of Books; and CNN.com; "The Craft of Writing" (12:30 p.m. Parents Dining Room)

Friday,
October 24

Ivo Welsh, J. Fred Weston Distinguished Professor of Finance and Economics, UCLA; co-author, A Review of IPO Activity, Pricing, and Allocations (2002) and Portfolio Performance Manipulations, and Manipulation-Proof Performance Measures (2002); "Corporate Capital Budgeting"(12:20 p.m.)

Monday,
October 27

Ramona Vosburg, Catholic historian and theologian; Patrick Conroy '72, chaplain, United States House of Representatives; Gary Gilbert, associate professor of philosophy and religious studies, CMC; author, forthcoming Contested Empires: Roman Propaganda and the Writing of Luke-Acts and editor, The Papers of the Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology (1996); Matthew Tenney '01; Joe Fenton, Catholic chaplain, the Claremont Colleges; moderator; "Pope Francis: Can He Save the Catholic Church?"

Tuesday,
October 28

Stephen Bullock '88, Governor, Montana; "From CMC to the Governor's Mansion" (12:00 p.m.)

Tuesday,
October 28

Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland; author, The Trouble with History: Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution (2014) and In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe (2011); Jonathan Bolton, professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Harvard University; author, Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism (2012) and editor and translator, Wernisch, In the Puppet Gardens: Selected Poems, 1963-2005 (2007); "Dissidents, Then and Now" (12:00 p.m. Parents Dining Room)

Tuesday,
October 28

Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland; author, The Trouble with History: Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution (2014) and In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe (2011); "The Trouble with Democracy after Communism"

Wednesday,
October 29

Anne Shen Smith, chairman and CEO, Southern California Gas Company (2012-2014); "The Future of Leadership" (12:00 p.m.)

Wednesday,
October 29

Andrew Feldherr, professor of classics, Princeton University; author, Playing Gods: Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Politics of Fiction (2010) and editor, The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians (2009); "History in the Mist: Reviewing Visual Representation in Ancient Historiography"

Thursday,
October 30

David Sandalow P'15, Inaugural Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs; United States Under Secretary of Energy (Acting) (2009-2013); author, Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End the United States' Oil Addiction(2008) and editor, Plug-In Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington? (2009); "Can the U.S. and China Work Together to Fight Global Warming?"

Monday,
November 3

Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright; author, All the Way: A Play (2012) and The Dream Thief: A Play in Two Acts (1999); "The Great Society: Writing the 1960's in Drama" (12:00 p.m.)

Monday,
November 3

Ann Gold, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and professor of anthropology, Syracuse University; co-author, In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan (2002) and Listen to Heron's Words; Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India (1994); "Shravan Kumar Stepped Here: Myth, Morality and the Market in a Provincial Rajasthan Town"

Tuesday,
November 4

Zachary Courser '99, visiting assistant professor of government; research director, author, "Losing Faith in Elites: The Roots of Protest in the Occupy and the Tea Party Movements" (2012) and "Protest Without a Party: The Tea Party as a Conservative Social Movement" (2012), Dreier Roundtable, moderator; Tyler Finn '17; Chris Gaarder '15; Brad Richardson'15; Claire Goodrich '15; "Dreier Roundtable- Midterm Crossfire: Election Night Panel Discussion"

Wednesday,
November 5

Dan Nabel, visiting assistant clinical professor of law and interim director, Intellectual Property & Technology Law Clinic, USC Gould School of Law; "Laws of Creativity: An Overview of How Intellectual Property Laws Shape Creativity and Innovation in Our Society" (12:00 p.m.)

Wednesday,
November 5

Christopher Kelly P'18, co-author, America Invades: How We've Invaded or Been Militarily Involved with Almost Every Country on Earth (2014); "The Surprising Consequences of American Invasions"

Thursday,
November 6

Stephen Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; author, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (2005) and co-author, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007); "Follies and Fiascoes: Why Does U.S. Foreign Policy Keep Failing?"

Friday,
November 7

David Dreier '75, Distinguished Fellow, Brookings Institution; U.S. House of Representatives (R), (CA - 35th, 33rd, 28th, 26th district) (1981-2013); Chairman of the House Rules Committee (1999-2007, 2011-2013); William Antholis, Managing Director, governance studies program, Brookings Institution, moderator; Mike Murphy, political consultant; partner, Revolution Agency; Peter Skerry, professor of political science, Boston College; Nonresident Fellow, governance studies program, Brookings Institution; author, Counting the Census? Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics (2000) and Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority (1993); Jacob Goldstein, correspondent, NPR, Planet Money podcast host; "Dreier Roundtable: Immigration for the 21st Century" (12:00 p.m.)

Monday,
November 10

Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone; principal singer, Welsh National Opera; Paula Fan, piano, Tucson Symphony; Regents' Professor of Music, University of Arizona; "The Great War in Poetry and Song"

Tuesday,
November 11

J. David Velleman, professor of philosophy and bioethics, New York University; author, Foundations for Moral Relativism (2013) and The Possibility of Practical Reason (2009); "Morality Here and There: Aristotle in Bali"

Wednesday,
November 12

Peter Hayes, Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor of Holocaust Studies, professor of German, professor of history, Northwestern University; co-author, The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (2013) and Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944 (2009); "From Aryanization to Auschwitz: German Corporations and the Holocaust"

Thursday,
November 13

Edward Watts, professor of history, U.C. San Diego; author, forthcoming The Final Pagan Generation (2015) and co-editor, Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity (2012); "A Job-Friendly Education and the Humanities: The Late Antique Side of the Story"

Monday,
November 17

William Deresiewicz, essayist and book critic; author, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (2014) and A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter (2011); "Leader-sheep and Elite Education"

Tuesday,
November 18

Philipp Kaiser, visiting professor, CMC; senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) (2007-2011); co-author, Manfred Pernice: Haldensleben, Bibette Headland, Hotel Hangelar (2014) and Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 (2012); "Holes with History: Sculpture in the Late 1960s"

Wednesday,
November 19

Geoffrey Megargee, senior applied research scholar, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; author, War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941 (2007) and Barbarossa 1941: Hitler's War of Annihilation (2008); "Cataloging A World Behind Wire: The USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos"(12:00 p.m.)

Thursday,
November 20

Ashley Merryman, co-author, Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing (2014) and NutureShock: New Thinking about Children (2011); "Finding Your Inner Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing"

Monday,
November 24

Nancy Aossey, president and CEO, International Medical Corps, Los Angeles: a global first responder that delivers emergency relief and training programs on the frontlines of war, natural disaster and disease; "On the Frontlines of Ebola, War and Disaster: 30 Years as a First Responder"

Tuesday,
November 25

Yaki Lopez, Consul for Political Affairs, Consulate General of Israel, Los Angeles; "Israel's Foreign Policy Challenges" (12:00 p.m.)

Tuesday,
December 2

Charles Kamm, associate professor of music, Scripps College; conductor, Claremont chamber choir; "A Winter Holiday Concert"

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

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

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