Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Seth Rosenfeld is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco and author of the best-selling book Subversives:  The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Subversives traces the FBI's secret involvement with three iconic figures at Berkeley during the 1960's: the ambitious but neophyte politician Ronald Reagan, the fierce but fragile radical Mario Savio, and the liberal University of California's President Clark Kerr. 

Subversives is winner of an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; a PEN USA award for research nonfiction; a Ridenhour Award from the Nation Institute; and a national Society of Professional Journalists Sunshine Award.

Rosenfeld was a staff reporter for the San Francisco Examiner from 1984 to 2000, and for the San Francisco Chronicle from 2000 to 2009. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Harper's Magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Through rich, converging narratives, Rosenfeld's book vividly evokes the life of Berkeley in the early sixties and shows how the university community became a battleground in an epic struggle between the government and free citizens. 

Mr. Rosenfeld's Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by CMC's Gould Center for Humanistic Studies' Lerner Lectureship Fund in 1960’s Culture. 

Photo credit: Heidi Elise Benson, 2012

Geoffrey Robertson QC has been counsel in many landmark cases in constitutional, criminal, and media law in the courts of Britain and the Commonwealth and he makes frequent appearances in the Privy Council and the European Court of Human Rights. 

His recent cases include among others: appearing for the Wall Street Journal in Jameel v WSJ, the landmark House of Lords decision which extended a public interest defense for the media in libel actions; representing Tasmanian aborigines to stop Britain’s Natural History Museum from experimenting on the remains of their ancestors; arguing the Court of Appeal case which first defined “terrorism” for the purpose of British law; arguing for the right of the public to see royal wills and representing a trust for the education of poor children in litigation in Anguilla over a billion dollar bequest. 

He has also maintained a wide advisory practice and has served part-time as a United Nations appeal judge at its war crimes court in Sierra Leone. In 2008 the U.N. Secretary General appointed him as one of the three distinguished jurist members of the U.N.’s Internal Justice Council.

Robertson is also the author of Crimes against Humanity – The Struggle for Global Justice, now in its third edition; of a memoir, The Justice Game, which has sold over 100,000 copies, and of Robertson and Nicol on Media Law. He writes and broadcasts regularly on international legal issues and is the creator of Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals for television and for ethics education. His most recent book, An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians, demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the horrific events of 1915 against Armenians constituted the crime against humanity that is known today as genocide.

Geoffrey Robertson is founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers, United Kingdom’s leading human rights practice, which comprises some 80 barristers and 30 staff. He is a Bencher of the Middle Temple; and a Recorder (part-time judge) in London; an Executive Member of Justice, and a trustee of the Capital Cases Trust. He is visiting professor in Human Rights at Queen Mary College, University of London. 

Mr. Robertson’s Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights.

The Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Search Advisory Committee is proud to welcome Dr. Sharon Basso to CMC. Dr. Basso is currently the associate vice provost and dean of students at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Previously, Dr. Basso was the assistant, associate and dean of students at Lehigh, as well as a psychological counselor and director for student activities at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  She holds a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College, a master’s degree from Shippensburg University, and a doctorate in educational leadership, administration and policy from the University of Delaware. 

Cameron Shelton is the McMahon Family Associate Professor of Political Economy and George R. Roberts Fellow in the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance where he teaches courses in public economy, public choice, and public finance.

Shelton’s research addresses whether and how the institutions that structure political competition affect macroeconomic outcomes. In his Athenaeum talk, Shelton will discuss recent work in relation to three questions: First, how much is at stake for firms in an election? Second, to what extent does policy uncertainty inhibit investment by firms? Finally, how badly does cronyism between firms and politicians lead to the inefficient allocation of resources? In each case, he will highlight the difficulties inherent to non-experimental social science and how scholars address these difficulties to make statements about causality rather than mere correlation.

Shelton’s research, often with students, has been published and cited in highly regarded journals in both political science and economics. His research assistants and thesis advisees have gone on to doctoral work in political science and economics at Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and Vanderbilt. 

Shelton graduated with a double major in physics and economics from Stanford University. He earned his Ph.D. in political economy from Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Professor Shelton’s Athenaeum presentation celebrates and highlights his installation ceremony as the McMahon Family Associate Professor of Political Economy and George R. Roberts Fellow at CMC.

Through dramatic performance, students of HIST 154 (Makers of Modern India & Pakistan) tell the story of how leaders are made. They perform Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, and others from South Asia, to weave in their childhood experiences, their families, languages, and most of all, the experiences of colonialism with its mixture of good and bad.

Students also will perform scenes of everyday life to give a glimpse of how class and gender works in the countries of South Asia and give an introduction to the cultural unity of the subcontinent through a quick look at the Mughals.

View Video: YouTube with HIST 154

Barry Eichengreen is the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1987, and Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, University of Cambridge, 2014-15.

A research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London, England), in 1997-98 he was senior policy advisor at the International Monetary Fund and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (class of 1997).

Eichengreen is the convener of the Bellagio Group of academics and economic officials and chair of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. He has held Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Palo Alto) and the Institute for Advanced Study (Berlin). He is a regular monthly columnist for Project Syndicate.

His most recent books are Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, The Great Recession, and the Uses—and Misuses—of History (January 2015), From Miracle to Maturity: The Growth of the Korean Economy with Dwight H. Perkins and Kwanho Shin (2012) and Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System (2011) (shortlisted for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011).

Eichengreen was awarded the Economic History Association's Jonathan R.T. Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2002 and the University of California at Berkeley Social Science Division's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004. He is the recipient of a doctor honoris causa from the American University in Paris, and the 2010 recipient of the Schumpeter Prize from the International Schumpeter Society. He was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2011. He is a past president of the Economic History Association (2010-11 academic year).

Professor Eichengreen’s Athenaeum talk is co-sponosored by the McKenna Lecture on International Trade and Economics.