Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a leading authority on freedom of speech and religion, the relation of individual rights to government structure, originalism, and various other aspects of constitutional history and constitutional law.

The framers of the United States Constitution had many models to draw on for the executive of the new American republic—most of them bad, says McConnell. But in the 240 years since the founding of the U.S., he believes we have drifted toward an understanding of the executive power none of the original framers imagined—whether for starting war or for administering peace. In his Athenaeum talk, McConnell will argue that it is time for us to think about the limits, if indeed there are any.

Professor McConnell's Athenaeum talk is the inaugural lecture of the Charles Lofgren Program in Constitutionalism through the Salvatori Center at CMC.

View Video: YouTube with Michael McConnell

Mathematics occupies a unique place among the vast variety of academic disciplines: it can be classified as both an art and a science. Its natural symmetry, elegant logic, and intrinsic beauty of arguments and constructions make it appear as a very sophisticated art form. Equally compelling, deep and seemingly abstract mathematical ideas prove to be exceptionally applicable. In modern times, the process of mathematical discovery is at the heart of both fundamental intellectual pursuit and technological innovation.

CMC mathematicians professors Asuman Aksoy P'07, Lenny Fukshansky, Blake Hunter, and Chiu-Ken Kao will explore some of the remarkable problems and ideas in several branches of modern mathematics, such as analysis, applied mathematics, statistics, and number theory. These, among other areas in math, significantly impact human activity, from natural sciences to engineering and computer science, digital communications to artificial intelligence, and many others. The panelists will also incorporate their work and research into the discussion.

View Video: YouTube with Math for the New Millennium

Henri Cole has published nine collections of poetry, including Middle Earth, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He has received many awards for his work, including the Jackson Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Lenore Marshall Award. His most recent collection, Nothing to Declare, was published by last spring. He teaches at Claremont McKenna College.

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The second annual Dreier RoundTable (DRt) will focus on the constitutional roots of political conflict in American politics. A panel of experts, including former Congressman David Dreier '75, Tom Campbell, dean of the Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University, and Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution will deliberate competing visions of the Constitution, how they contribute to our current polarized politics, and contrast this with the work of James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution. Can building a consensus on the Constitution help us to find our way out of the gridlock of hyper-partisanship, and improve trust in American institutions like Congress, the Presidency, the courts, and administrative agencies? Zachary Courser, research director of the Dreier RoundTable and visiting assistant professor of government at CMC, will moderate the discussion.

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What does the world admire about America? Science and technology, higher education, consumer products — but not, it seems, freedom and democracy. These ideals are in global retreat, contends Martha Bayles, in part because American “soft power” is itself retreating from the hostile propaganda from terrorist groups and authoritarian regimes. Bayles has explored this problem in 20 different countries and offers some striking insights.

In a turbulent world, she believes Americans cannot afford to turn inward. But neither can the U.S. rely entirely on its economic and military "hard power," says Bayles. It must also use "soft power." But to do that successfully, we need to understand how difficult—how "hard"—the use of soft power has become, in a world where U.S. adversaries are highly skilled in using propaganda and deploying 21st-century media.

Bayles is a nationally known cultural critic and the author of Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad (Yale 2014). A regular contributor to the Boston Globe, Weekly Standard, American Interest, and Claremont Review of Books, she is currently a visiting fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and an associate professor of the practice of the humanities at Boston College. (Photo credit: Kris Brewer)

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View Video: YouTube with Martha Bayles

Kyle Thiermann, pro surfer, philanthropist, environmental activist, and entrepreneur, captivates the attention of environmental and social activists by offering simple daily decisions and choices that benefit local economies. His award-winning documentary series Surfing For Change uses short, digestible documentaries to highlight specific environmental and social issues and solutions.

Thiermann graduated from Gaia University with a Bachelor's of Science in Green Business with a focus in Media. He has been featured in media throughout the world, including Outside Magazine, Discovery Channel, and Surfer Magazine. He speaks frequently to to help spread the larger message and lessons of Surfing For Change. Kyle's journalistic and environmental work has earned him the Brower Youth Award, American Clean Skies Award, Blue Vision Youth Award, and Surfrider's Pro Surfer Environmental Achievement Award. (Photo credit: Ryan Chachi Craig)

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Kris Perry & Sandy Stier were the lead plaintiffs in the landmark Supreme Court case Hollingsworth v. Perry, the federal challenge to California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Perry and Stier first tried to marry in 2004, when the city of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. But that marriage was revoked under court order. Four years later, shortly after California’s Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry, the Proposition 8 ballot initiative passed, changing the state constitution to limit marriage. When a legal team seeking to challenge Prop 8 approached Perry and Stier to be plaintiffs, they agreed, signing on to a case that would include a 12-day trial, making its way through district and appellate courts before finally appearing before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Off the legal circuit, Perry and Stier lead active professional lives. Perry is the executive director of the First Five Years Fund, which works to bring resources and support to parents, caregivers, and professionals to ensure children grow up healthy and ready to succeed in school and in life. Stier is a senior health policy advisor and advocate for delivering health care services to the public generally, and vulnerable populations in particular. She currently works at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., where she leads efforts to achieve better results in integrated health systems.

Perry and Stier will talk about their legal and personal journey toward marriage equality.

View Video: YouTube with Kris Perry and Sandy Stier

Nina Tandon is CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, the world’s first company growing living human bones for skeletal reconstruction. She is the co-author of Super Cells: Building with Biology, a book that explores the new frontier of biotech. A TED Senior Fellow and an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the Cooper Union, she holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Cooper Union and a master’s degree in bioelectrical engineering from MIT. She also holds both a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and an MBA from Columbia University.

On the cutting edge of science where sci-fi meets reality, Tandon works on growing artificial hearts and bones that can be put into the body, and studies the new frontier of biotech. She believes that the era of engineered tissues—for example, a replacement kidney grown in the lab—is just beginning. In this talk, Tandon will illustrate how we (and our bodies) have lived through most of history (Body 1.0), and then how we evolved into "cyborgs" with implants (such as pacemakers and artificial joints (Body 2.0). Now, Body 3.0 is all about growing our OWN body parts.

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Anne Fausto-Sterling is the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor Emerita of Biology and Gender Studies in the department of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry and former director of the Science & Technology Studies Program at Brown University. She participates actively in the field of sexology and has written extensively about the biology of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, and gender roles. Fausto-Sterling is the author of several acclaimed books, including Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World and Sexing the Body, that are referenced widely in feminist and scientific inquiry, as well as scientific publications in developmental genetics and developmental biology.

Dr. Fausto-Sterling's current research is currently focused on applying dynamic systems theory to the study of gender differentiation in early childhood. Using her empirical work on mother-infant interactions to develop a dynamic account of gender formation, she will talk about her view that gender is a dynamic process, not a singular trait, and contrast dynamic systems theory with standard gene-environment accounts of development.

Professor Fausto-Sterling's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Center for Public Writing and Discourse and by the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children.

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View Video: YouTube with Anne Fausto-Sterling

Mac Taylor has served since 2008 as the nonpartisan fiscal advisor to both houses of the California Legislature and oversees the preparation of annual fiscal and policy analysis of the state’s budget and programs. With more than 30 years of experience in the Legislative Analyst Office, Taylor brings a wealth of experience to analysis of California’s public policy.

With numerous proposals being debated in California to change the way people are taxed—from measures to extend the temporary taxes adopted in 2012 to major changes in the sales and property taxes—Taylor will explore the state’s tax system and analyze its major strengths and weaknesses. He will also address the issues that likely will be discussed—and voted on—in the coming year.

Mr. Taylor’s Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College.

Susan Sered is a professor of sociology at Suffolk University in Boston and a senior researcher at Suffolk University's Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights. Previously she also directed a research program in Religion, Health, and Healing at Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions. 

A prolific writer, her books include Can’t Catch a Break: Gender, Jail, Drugs, and the Limits of Personal Responsibility, Uninsured in America: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity, and Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister: Religions Dominated by Women, among others. 

Drawing on a decade of fieldwork with criminalized women in Massachusetts, Sered argues that medicalization, criminalization, and the omnipresent 12-step movement create a double-edged sword that blames individuals for societal failings. 

Professor Sered's Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children.

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View Video: YouTube with Susan Sered
 

Barbara Weinstein is Silver Professor of History and chair of the history department at New York University, where she teaches Brazilian and modern Latin American history. Her research has focused on Amazonian political economy, relations between industrialists and workers, intersections of race, gender, and class, and the problem of spatial inequalities. Her recent book, The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil (2015) studies the formation and impact of racialized regional identities. Weinstein was the 2007 president of the American Historical Association.

In her talk, Weinstein will focus specifically on how, in the case of Brazil, which is a nation with a long history of severe spatial inequalities, regional differences have become increasingly racialized and more deeply entrenched.

Professor Weinstein's Athenaeum presentation is sponsored by funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
 

View Video: YouTube with Barbara Weinstein

James Sonne is a Stanford Law School professor and founding director of the school's Religious Liberty Clinic, the nation's only program where law students learn through full-time representation of real clients in live disputes in that field. An accomplished teacher, scholar, and practitioner with expertise in law and religion, Sonne received his B.A. with honors from Duke University and his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Judge Edith Brown Clement of ­­the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

According to a cover story in California Lawyer published shortly after the clinic first opened, “As the only law school in the country with a clinic devoted exclusively to religious liberty disputes, Stanford is exposing its students to a practice area that has a rich and colorful history.” And, the story quotes Sonne as saying, "part of what [the clinic is doing] is to make clear the difference between the freedom to practice one's religion and the practice itself."

In his Athenaeum presentation, Professor Sonne will address the important task of teaching the practice of religious freedom and the abiding significance of that central constitutional principle in the American legal system.

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David Quammen is a journalist and award-winning author of several books including Spillover (2012), which explores the science, history, and human impacts of emerging diseases, especially viral diseases. More recently, he has released two short books drawn from Spillover: Ebola (2014) and The Chimp and the River (2015). 

Educated at Yale College, Quammen was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He is a three-time recipient of the National Magazine Award. Other honors include an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction and the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing.

A contributing science writer for National Geographic, Quamman travels extensively, often to wild and remote places where human encroachment clashes with centuries of virgin wilderness. 

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View Video: YouTube with David Quamman