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.

Thu, March 28, 2024
Lunch Program
Hicham Bou Nassif

Hicham Bou Nassif, currently the Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East at Claremont McKenna College, is a distinguished scholar with a Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University, a Research Doctorate from Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, an MA in political science and government from Saint Joseph University of Beirut, and a master’s degree in public law, all after obtaining his bachelor’s degree in law from Lebanese University.

His expertise spans various fields, including authoritarianism, civil-military relations, and Middle East politics. With a rich academic background, he has contributed significantly to the field, publishing the book Endgames: Military Response to Protest in Arab Autocracies (Cambridge University Press) and numerous peer-reviewed articles. He is currently writing a second book on America's policy in the Middle East under Reagan. Nassif's teaching experience encompasses a range of courses, from international relations to comparative politics. Proficient in Arabic, English, and French, he brings a multicultural perspective to his work. Beyond academia, he has undertaken extensive fieldwork in various countries in the Middle East, showcasing a hands-on approach to research, specifically focused on military politics in authoritarian contexts. Even before coming to the US to pursue his graduate studies, Hicham worked as a journalist in his home country of Lebanon. His career is marked by grants and fellowships obtained from Carleton College and Claremont McKenna College.

Professor Bou Nassif's Athenaeum presentation celebrates his installation ceremony as the Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College.

TO REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT, PLEASE GO TO https://events.cmc.edu/e/faculty-installation-of-hicham-bou-nassif/ - REGISTRATIONS ARE NOT ACCEPTED ON THE ATHENAEUM WEBSITE. 

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This event is full and no longer accepting registrations for the dinner. You can still attend the talk only (no dinner) at 6:45 pm.

Thu, March 28, 2024
Lunch Program
Vernon C. Grigg III and John J. Pitney, Jr.

Join the Kravis Lab for another installment of Civitas Sessions, an Athenaeum lunch series designed to build real-world civic skills and the knowledge needed to live thoughtful, productive lives as responsible community members and leaders. Each session will deliver practical knowledge and discuss the application of the subject matter to important current issues. With a welcoming ‘come-as-you-are’ atmosphere, the Civitas Sessions focus on the stuff you need to know before it becomes the stuff I wish I had known… 

In this session Vernon C Grigg III, J.D., Executive Director of the Kravis Lab, and John J. Pitney Jr., the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Politics at CMC, will discuss "Super Tuesday" and the complexities of the American electoral system.

(Parents Dining Room - lunch served at 12:00 noon, program begins at 12:15 PM, but feel free to come a little late if you're getting out of class)

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Civitas Sessions is organized by the Kravis Lab and moderated by Executive Director Vernon C. Grigg III, JD. A lawyer by training, Grigg holds degrees from Yale Law School (J.D.), the London School of Economics (G.SC.), and the University of Michigan (BA).  Vernon comes to the Kravis Lab from his role as CEO & President of Up with People, a fifty-five-year-old international nonprofit education and arts organization. He managed a global team of 50 employees across three continents as he led the nonprofit to sustainability and health despite the challenges of the worldwide pandemic.

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 (2000), The Politics of Autism (2015) and Un-American: The Fake Patriotism of Donald J. Trump (2020). 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. 

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This event is no longer open for registrations.

Thu, March 28, 2024
Dinner Program
Zongyuan Zoe Liu

No other country in history has so rapidly transformed its economy from being among the world’s poorest and most isolated to one of the world’s largest economies, at the heart of the global supply chain, and a leading source of international investment capital. For the last two decades, China’s sovereign funds have played a significant role in China’s economy, mitigating financial crises and tempering exogenous shocks. In this talk, Dr. Zongyuan Zoe Liu, the Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, will discuss how sovereign funds have supported China’s industrial policies by financing the state’s procurement of strategic overseas assets, bankrolling Chinese enterprises’ mergers and acquisitions abroad, and sponsoring the development of indigenous Chinese technology startups. As Liu makes clear, sovereign funds are not just for oil exporters. The Communist Party of China is a leader in both foreign exchange reserves investment and economic statecraft, using state capital to encourage domestic economic activity and create spheres of influence worldwide.
 

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Zongyuan Zoe Liu is Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She researches issues in the areas of international political economy, global financial markets, and energy security in East Asia and the Middle East. Dr. Liu is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press, 2023). She is also a columnist at Foreign Policy. Dr. Liu received her PhD in international relations from Johns Hopkins University and she is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.

Dr. Liu's visit to the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at CMC.

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This event is no longer open for registrations.

Mon, April 1, 2024
Dinner Program
Ambassador Dennis Ross and Ghaith al-Omari

Join two experts who have both been involved in peace negotiations in the Israel-Palestine conflict for a conversation about the current war in the Middle East. Ambassador Dennis Ross has played an important role in shaping US foreign policy towards the Middle East under multiple presidential administrations, and Ghaith al-Omari has served in a variety of positions within the Palestinian Authority, including as advisor to the negotiating team during the 1999-2001 permanent status talks. Together, they will share their insight on how we got to the current war, what comes next, what peace between Israelis and Palestinians might look like, and what needs to happen to reach that point.

This is the third and final event in the Athenaeum's three-part series, "Perspectives on Israel and Palestine." We encourage attendees to remain open to listening and seeking to understand multiple viewpoints by registering for all three events. The other events are: the Yousef Munayyer talk on Monday, March 18, "Israel's Genocide in Gaza and Our Complicity," and the CMC faculty panel on Tuesday, March 26, "Talking About Israel and Palestine: Faculty Perspectives." 

**ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED TO ATTEND THIS TALK – This is a "flipped Ath" event, in conjunction with the Open Academy: the reception will be held at 5:30 PM as usual, followed directly by the presentation at 6:00 PM. Dinner (and conversation!) will follow at 6:45 PM, and then Q&A at 7:30 PM.** Dates and water will be provided for those observing iftar. Those breaking their fast may also request a boxed vegetarian dinner to be provided - please reply to your registration confirmation with this request.

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Ambassador Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He served two and half years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, spending the first 6 months of the Administration as the special advisor on Iran to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ghaith al-Omari, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute's Irwin Levy Family Program on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Relationship, is the former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine. He served as advisor to the negotiating team during the 1999–2001 permanent-status talks in addition to holding various other positions within the Palestinian Authority.

Ambassador Ross and Mr. al-Omari's visit to the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by Hillel International.

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Tue, April 2, 2024
Lunch Program
Anoush Tamar Suni

Before the 1915 Genocide of Ottoman Armenians, the region of Van, in contemporary southeastern Turkey, held hundreds of active Armenian churches and monasteries. After the destruction of the Armenian community, these ruined structures took on new afterlives as they became part of the evolving environments and communities around them. These ruined spaces play a role in the everyday lives of the people who live among them and shape their historical understandings and relationships with the local history and geography. In this talk, Dr. Suni interrogates the afterlives of one abandoned monastery and examines how local Kurds imagine, narrate, and enact the politics of the past and the present through that space of material ruin.

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Anoush Tamar Suni is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Promise Armenian Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to coming to UCLA, she was the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, and a Manoogian Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Armenian Studies Program and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. She earned her PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2019. She is currently working on her book project, which investigates questions of memory and the material legacies of state violence in the region of Van with a focus on the historic Armenian and contemporary Kurdish communities. Her research was recently published in the journals Comparative Studies in Society and History and Anthropological Quarterly.

Dr. Suni's visit to the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by the History Department at CMC, the Anthropology Department at Pomona, and the Anthropology Department and MENA Studies Program at Scripps.

 

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Tue, April 2, 2024
Dinner Program
Shaun Harper, Aya Waller-Bey, and Devon Westhill, panelists
Ken Miller, moderator

In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (and 6-3 in its companion case, Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina) that the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions decisions was unconstitutional. This ruling effectively overturned the 2003 decision Grutter v. Bollinger, which had previously permitted the consideration of race in admissions decisions. Both supporters and critics of the ruling believe that it will have far-reaching implications within American higher education and beyond, even as colleges and universities attempt to maintain racially diverse student bodies without explicitly considering race. Join a panel of experts on higher education, race, and admissions, for a discussion of the impact of the decision, how it may affect the content of admissions essays, and the broader implications for American higher education and society.

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Shaun Harper is one of the nation’s most highly respected racial equity experts. He is a Provost Professor in the Rossier School of Education, Marshall School of Business, and Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. Dr. Harper also is the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership, founder and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, and a Forbes contributor. He served as the 2020-21 American Educational Research Association president and the 2016-17 Association for the Study of Higher Education president. He was inducted into the National Academy of Education in 2021. Professor Harper has published 12 books and over 100 academic papers. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and several thousand other news outlets have quoted Dr. Harper and featured his research. He has interviewed on CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, and NPR. He also has testified twice to the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Aya M. Waller-Bey is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Michigan, examining trauma narratives in college essays. A researcher, writer, and storyteller, Aya’s work critically informs growing discourse about the commodification of racialized trauma by postsecondary institutions, non-profits, and foundations, and a growing concern about how institutions of higher education entice minoritized groups to place their trauma and struggle on display for access and rewards. She's authored op-eds for Forbes and the Atlantic on trauma in college essays and affirmative action, with interviews and citations in publications like The New York Times, The Guardian, MarketWatch, and Slate. She’s also given dozens of local and national invited talks, including Aspen Center for Physics, TEDxDetroit, The New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas, the National Association of Fellowship Advisors and SXSW EDU. She is a decorated scholar selected as a Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Dissertation Fellowship awardee—a prestigious fellowship awarded by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine aimed to increase the diversity of the national college and university professoriate. Aya holds a B.A. in Sociology from Georgetown University and earned the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship in 2015, completing her Master of Philosophy in Education at the University of Cambridge. She also holds an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. Aya is a proud Detroiter, first-generation college student, and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

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Devon Westhill is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, and is an attorney focused on matters of constitutional and civil rights. He researches, speaks, and writes about civil rights, civil liberties, and related issues such as race relations, social change, and equal opportunity.

Mr. Westhill's writing has been published in numerous outlets including Newsweek, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio programs, and has appeared on cable television channels including Fox News, Newsmax, and CSPAN. Mr. Westhill has also provided expert testimony to both houses of the U.S. Congress, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Mr. Westhill led the civil rights office at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Trump administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. He has also worked at the U.S. Department of Labor, Federalist Society, and as a criminal trial lawyer in private practice. Mr. Westhill is a U.S. Navy veteran with degrees from UNC at Chapel Hill and the University of Florida.

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This panel will be moderated by Ken Miller, the Rose Professor of State and Local Government and Director of the Rose Institute at CMC.

This event is co-sponsored by the Jerome H. Garris Dialogue Series at CMC with additional support from the Presidential Initiative on Anti-Racism and the Black Experience in America, all at CMC.

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Wed, April 3, 2024
Dinner Program
Fabrice Guerrier

How do we imagine the future in the context of addressing, navigating, and transforming environmental, social, and cultural challenges, seeking innovative ways to create inclusive and sustainable futures? Join sci-fi and fantasy publishing visionary Fabrice Guerrier on an exploration of worldbuilding in fiction and imagination. By embracing the notion of 'creolization,' Guerrier will investigate how the blending of diverse cultural, intellectual, and social elements can forge new, resilient pathways for humanity.

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Fabrice j. Guerrier is the award-winning founder of Syllble Studios, a pioneering sci-fi and fantasy production and publishing house that develops diverse writing talent through collaborative worldbuilding. At Syllble, Guerrier leads a radically new process of creating unique fictional worlds by connecting underrepresented creative writers, visual artists and inspired creators from different countries, backgrounds, and cultures through artist collectives. Drawing from his cultural heritage and his interests in syncretism, creolization, Haitian futurism, African spiritual traditions, and worldbuilding, Guerrier's science-fantasy shared-world "Ayitiverse" aims to unraveled the universal history of the world’s first modern Black nation, Haiti.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1991, Guerrier moved to the United States at the young age of 13 in 2004. He holds a Bachelor’s in International Affairs and a Leadership Studies Certificate from Florida State University, as well as a Master’s in Conflict Transformation at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP). While at CJP, he helped found a local chapter of Coming to the Table (CTTT), a national racial reconciliation organization founded by descendants of the enslaved and enslavers from the same plantation in the United States. He then went on to become the youngest national president of CTTT's board of directors.

Guerrier’s TED Talk, “Gone are the days of the lone genius,” illuminates future transformation and the need for collective thinking. He is the author of No More Vagabonds, No More Obscure Wars: Poems (2023), Medusa’s Descendant (2023), Breaking Free From Mass-Produced Consciousness: A Little Book for Artists, Entrepreneurs, and the Leaders of Tomorrow (2021) and Golden Veins: A Collection Of Stories (2019). He was selected as a 2022 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow finalist and a PEN Haiti Fellow by PEN America. Guerrier was inducted into Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Art & Style and named to The Root Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential African-Americans. He lives in Los Angeles, CA. 

Guerrier will deliver the 2024 Golo Mann Lecture, sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC.

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Thu, April 4, 2024
Dinner Program
Cate Taylor

“The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives”, wrote three Supreme Court Justices in 1992. Cate Taylor's research investigates the degree to which this is true. In summer of 2022, the Supreme Court overturned a nearly fifty-year precedent of Roe v. Wade, which mandated the constitutional right to abortion, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Consequently, abortion is now illegal, or very difficult to access, in at least twenty-four states. Taylor will share her new research showing the consequences of millions of people losing access to abortion since summer of 2022. Such consequences include negative impacts on women’s ability to get an education and keep themselves and their families out of financial precarity. Losing access to abortion also means that pregnant people lose access important medical care during pregnancy—even during wanted pregnancies.
 

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Cate Taylor is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UCSB, in Santa Barbara, CA. Formerly, she was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana with a joint appointment in the Department of Gender Studies and a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at Columbia University. She earned her PhD at Cornell University. Her main research and teaching areas are gender, work, health, reproduction, social psychology, and social inequality.

Professor Taylor's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Berger Institute for Individual and Social Development at CMC.

 

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Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

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

Contact

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