Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum
A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC
Open Events
Welcome to the registration page for the fall 2018 season of the Athenaeum.
Please note that this registration page is the only recognized mechanism for signing up for meals associated with Athenaeum events. Alternative registrations provided by third parties (such as Eventbrite) are not managed or controlled by the College, and unfortunately such registrations cannot be honored to allow dining with us in advance of the talk.
Events generally open for registration on a rolling basis every two weeks over the course of the semester. The CMC community has priority for dinner reservations. Space permitting, when meal spots are available for members of the other Claremont Colleges, a note is added to the event listing and registration is open for all others.
Unless otherwise noted, the talk itself is free and open to all, and no reservations are required to attend the talk only. Seating for only the talk itself is on a first-come basis.
Please click "Sign Up" under individual events to sign up for open events. If there is no button showing, the registration is currently closed either because the event is full or the reservation window has passed. Please check back later or contact the Ath at athenaeum@cmc.edu.
Unless otherwise noted, lunch begins at 11:45 a.m; speaker presentations begin at 12:15 p.m. Evening programs typically begin with a reception at 5:30 p.m.; dinner is served at 6 p.m; and the talk begins at 6:45 p.m. Reservations are required for all meals.
An explanation of the reservation process and a list of frequently asked questions is available. Additional questions may also be directed to the Ath at athenaeum@cmc.edu.
Joshua White is associate professor of the Practice of South Asia Studies and fellow at the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is also a nonresident fellow in the foreign policy program at The Brookings Institution. He previously served at the White House as senior advisor & director for South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he focused on issues pertaining to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent, and led efforts to integrate U.S. government policy planning across South and East Asia.
Involved in many policy intensive positions in and out of the government including the Pentagon, White has spent extensive time in Asia, and has written on a wide range of issues including defense policy, electoral politics, Islamic movements, and nuclear deterrence. He has held short-term visiting research fellowships at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan’s National Defence University, and the Institute for Defence and Strategic Analyses in Delhi; testified before Congress; and served on U.S.-sponsored election observer delegations to both Pakistan and Bangladesh.
He graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College with a double major in history and mathematics and received his Ph.D. with distinction from Johns Hopkins SAIS.
Professor White’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Keck Institute for Strategic and International Studies.
Julie Sze is a professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She is also the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC Davis’ John Muir Institute for the Environment. Sze's research investigates environmental justice and environmental inequality; culture and environment; race, gender and power; and urban/community health and activism
Sze has published two books and over 45 journal articles and book chapters on a wide range of topics, primarily in the fields of environmental studies and the environmental humanities, geography, and public policy. She works in collaboration with environmental scientists, engineers, social scientists, humanists and community-based organizers on a wide range of research projects in California, New York, and China.
Sze has received a number of grants for her individual research, from the UC Humanities Institute, the American Studies Association, and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). As founding director of the Environmental Justice Institute, she received two large grants to support the project from the Ford Foundation and smaller grants related to specific research projects which have had public policy impact in the State of California.
Professor Sze's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by CMC's Crown Special Events Fund, CMC's Women and Gender Leadership Fund, CMC's Roberts Environmental Center, Pitzer's Robert Redford Conservancy, and Pomona's Office of Sustainability.
John J. Pitney, Jr. is Roy P. Crocker Professor of American History and Politics at Claremont McKenna College where he teaches courses on Congress, interest groups, political parties, and mass media. A leading expert on the structure and practice of American politics, Pitney is a widely published author or co-author of six books on American politics, including The Art of Political Warfare (2001) and The Politics of Autism: Navigating The Contested Spectrum (2015). He is currently writing a book on the 1988 presidential campaign. In addition to his books, Pitney has published numerous scholarly articles and short essays, and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines. He is routinely featured on NPR and other television and radio programs.
Pitney has not only shaped the study of government at Claremont McKenna College for nearly 30 years, he has also helped shape government itself through his many roles, including as the acting director for the Research Department of the Republican National Committee (1990-1991) and as the Senior Domestic Policy Analyst for the US House Republican Research Committee, among other important appointments.
Pitney holds a B.A. in political science from Union College, where he was co-valedictorian, and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. He received the CMC Presidential Award in 2013 and was named one of the 300 best professors in the United States by the Princeton Review in 2012.
Charles Kesler is the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at CMC, and for almost two decades served as director of the College's Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World. He is the editor of the Claremont Review of Books and a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute. In 2017, he was named to the POLITICO 50, Politico magazine’s annual list of the fifty most influential “dreamers, doers, and thinkers who are reshaping American politics.” In May, Kesler was awarded a 2018 Bradley Prize by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. His edition of The Federalist Papers is the best-selling one in the country. His most recent book is I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Future of American Liberalism.
Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Before coming to Yale in 2013, he was Distinguished Professor in the department of philosophy at Rutgers University. He has also been a professor at the University of Michigan (2000-4) and Cornell University (1995-2000). He earned his Ph.D in 1995 from the department of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, and he received his B.A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1990.
Stanley has two forthcoming books: How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Penguin Random House, September 11, 2018) and The Politics of Language, co-authored with David Beaver (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Stanley has four previously published books including Knowledge and Practical Interests published in 2005 by Oxford University Press won the 2007 American Philosophical Association book prize and How Propaganda Works, published by Princeton University Press in May, 2015, was the winner of the 2016 PROSE award for the subject area of philosophy.
Professor Stanley's Athenaeum presentation is the 2018 Golo Mann Lecture and is sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies.
Follow the Athenaeum
Unless otherwise noted, lunch begins at 11:45 a.m.; speaker presentations begin at 12:15 p.m.
Evening receptions begin at 5:30 p.m.; dinner is served at 6 p.m.; speaker presentations begin at 6:45 p.m.