Trayvon Martin and the Political Imagination

Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

The murder of Trayvon Martin has captured the nation’s interest. Many have used his murder to examine and complicate our understanding of the contemporary “post-racial moment”. However I suggest that the construction of the Trayvon Martin narrative as well as the resulting political events that stem from it truncate rather than expand our political possibilities. How might we use this tragic event to not only complicate our understanding of what it means to be a citizen in the Obama era, but to take more “personal moral responsibility for democracy” as Ralph Ellison says?

This event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Office of Diversity Initiatives, Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, the Women’s Center and the Department of Sociology.

About the Speaker
Link to Lester Spence’s webpage

Foreign Policy: Israel the Ultimate Ally

Noon – Rubendall Recital Hall, or overflow seating in Weiss 235, Althouse 106 and on Channel 17

John Dower, Emeritus Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cultures of War

7:00 p.m. – Stern Center, Great Room

The Tea Party

Thursday, April 19, 2012 (originally scheduled for March 1)
Althouse Hall, Room 106, 5:00 p.m.
Reception to Follow

Puig will address the nature of the Tea Party and the impact that it has had in the early Republican primaries and the role she anticipates it will play in the 2012 presidential election.

This event was initiated by The Clarke Forum Student Project Managers and is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Ana Puig’s Biography

._Tea_Party _4_19_2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 – **Event Cancelled Due to Travel Issues**
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Dr. Latifa will share her experience about starting a woman-owned business in Afghanistan and her viewpoint on current events in her country. Her thesis is that women-owned businesses can be a viable route to peace in Afghanistan.

Bpeace is a non profit organization providing pro bono business consulting to entrepreneurs in Afghanistan with a focus on women. Each year, with the assistance of the U.S. Dept of State, small groups of Afghan business owners travel to the US to learn best practices and apprentice in their field. Dr. Latifa has been in this program for 3 years.

Dr. Latifa graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy of Kabul in 1992. In 1996, she immigrated to Iran as a refugee from the Taliban and began producing kitchen accessories with other family members. When Dr. Latifa returned to Afghanistan she saw a need for modern, efficient and sanitary kitchens. In 2010 she founded Kitchen Kween. Kitchen Kween designs and provides cabinets as well as wire shelving and storage.

Don’t miss a rare opportunity to experience the news from Afghanistan Read more

Charles_Cole_2_21_2012

Elyse_Fenton_2_16_2012

Professor of Music, New York University

Acoustemology & the “War on Terror”

Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Based on interviews with released detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere, this lecture analyzes the ways that regimes of sound and silence were used to attack the subjectivities of prisoners detained in U.S.-run prison facilities during the so-called “global war on terror.” More information.

The event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of Music.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Suzanne G. Cusick is a professor of music at New York University. Her writing on music in relation to gender, sexuality and cultural history has appeared in such journals as the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music, Musical Quarterly, Repercussions, Perspectives of New Music, Early Modern Women, TRANS, and the Journal of the Society for American Music. Her monograph “Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court” will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2009. She is currently working on a book about the uses of sound and silence in U.S.-run detention camps in the so-called “global war on terror.”

Global Order After the Financial Crisis

Thursday, April 5, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Today there exists a real possibility of deglobalization, not so much because of trade protectionism (that was a principal driving force of the last big episode of deglobalization in the 1920s and 1930s) but from the response to the character of the current crisis, which is primarily a financial one, and which will prompt a new financial nationalism that brings very different policy approaches to those of the past quarter century. In the 1990s, the most dynamic and richest states were generally small open economies: Singapore, Taiwan, Chile, New Zealand, and in Europe the former communist states of Central Europe, Ireland, Austria, and Switzerland. In the world after the financial crisis, the center of economic gravity will shift to really large agglomerations of power. Does this mean that the new world order will inevitably be a China-centered world?

This event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School Law, the School of International Affairs and Betty R. ’58 and Dan Churchill.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Harold James Read more

The Economic Crisis and Economics

Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Since the outset of the economic crisis in 2008 Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz and other economists have indicted the economics profession for its failure to predict the crisis. They argue rightly that the profession became overcommitted to economic models that prevented economists from worrying about the possibility of economic crisis. Indeed, leading economists continued to express confidence in the financial system even after warning signs were indicating that a crisis was imminent. But the critics have failed to appreciate the ethical obligations of the profession, and the way in which the profession’s historic refusal to engage its professional ethical responsibilities led economists to advocate policies that were far too dangerous, and that contributed to the crisis. The crisis in economics that has resulted from the economic crisis poses a new challenge and opportunity: to inaugurate the new field of professional economic ethics.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Departments of Economics, Philosophy and Policy Studies.

Biography (provided by the speaker) Read more

Cultures of War

Thursday, March 29, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Historian John W. Dower draws on Cultures of War, his most recent book, to place 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq in a broader historical and comparative context that challenges the familiar canards of clash-of-civilizations thinking, and treats war-making as a congeries of cultures in and of itself. Drawing on his expertise in modern Japanese history and World War II in Asia, Professor Dower’s lecture will
focus on wars of choice, failures of intelligence and imagination, groupthink and wishful thinking, strategic imbecilities, and the deliberate targeting of civilians to destroy enemy morale that became standard operating procedure in the U.S. air war against Japan in 1945, culminating in the first “Ground Zeros” of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of East Asian Studies, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and the School of International Affairs.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
John W. Dower is an emeritus professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-director of MIT’s innovative online Read more

Foreign Policy: Israel the Ultimate Ally

Thursday, March 29, 2012 – Noon
Rubendall Recital Hall, Weiss Center for the Arts *College or Valid ID Required*

Event will be simulcast to overflow seating in Althouse 106 & Weiss 235 and on Channel 17

No backpacks or large bags will be allowed into Rubendall Recital Hall (RRH) and all small bags will be subject to search.  No cameras, video equipment, or signs will be permitted inside RRH.

This event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) – Central Pennsylvania Chapter, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Harrisburg-Pennsylvania.

Ambassador Oren’s Biography
A graduate of Princeton and Columbia, Dr. Oren has received fellowships from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and from the British and Canadian governments. Formerly, he was the Lady Davis Fellow of Hebrew University, a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel-Aviv University, and the Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown.

Ambassador Oren has written extensively for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The New Republic, Read more

**Event is Postponed until 9/27/12***

God is Not One

Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Are the world’s religions different paths up the same mountain? This is doubtless the prevailing sentiment. But, as Stephen Prothero persuasively argues, this sentiment is naive, dangerous, and untrue. In this talk, he provides a timely and indispensable guide to understanding the great religions, from Islam (which he ranks as the most influential) to Daoism (the least). What makes each tick? What are the similarities between them? But more importantly, what are the differences? It’s on this last point — the differences — that Prothero offers the greatest illumination. He is convinced that the way to real and enduring interreligious understanding, especially after 9/11, lies not with “pretend pluralism,” but with a clear-eyed knowledge of religious difference. Prothero has appeared on the Colbert Report, taught a course about religion on Twitter, and routinely uses New Yorker cartoons to get his point across. In other words, he can speak, with both deep intelligence and broad accessibility, about religion for a mass audience.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Though America is one of the most Read more

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 6:00 p.m. ** Note Time Change **
A book sale and signing will follow

Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, will read from her work A Visit from the Goon Squad and discuss the novel, the characters and her writing process.

The event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Student Senate, Department of English, Office of Student Development, Department of American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Women’s Center, and the Department of Political Science and the Belles Lettres Literary Society.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Jennifer Egan is the author of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Published by Knopf in 2010, the book soared to the top of many publications’ Best of 2010 lists, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Slate, Salon, and People. In addition to being awarded the Pulitzer, A Visit from the Goon Squad won the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction, was nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction and for the Pen/Faulkner award, and was short listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Read more

China’s Capitalism: A Model For U.S.?

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

One of the great ironies of our time is this: today, the largest Communist society in the world is also the world’s most dynamic and business-friendly capitalist economy. To examine this seemingly paradoxical circumstance, this lecture will analyze the economic reforms that have been sweeping across China for over three decades. As we view the changes in China through the prism of media representations, political rhetoric, and the many other distortions that have shaped perceptions of the reform process in China, the picture is murky at best. We will examine the changes that have actually occurred in China and the forces that have brought about this process of change. As it turns out, China’s course of building a market economy can teach the world’s capitalist powers a great deal about healthy market economies.

This event was initiated by The Clarke Forum Student Project Managers and is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Department of Political Science and Department of International Business and Management. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Read more

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Eisenhower program is an academic outreach designed to encourage dialogue on national security and other public policy issues between students at the U.S. Army War College and students/faculty at academic institutions. The fellows will be visiting classes and participating in events throughout the day.

Each year a few students at the U.S. Army War College participate in the Eisenhower National Security Series and travel outside Carlisle Barracks to engage in discussions with other students, academics, and the public about national security issues and the employment of military assets.

* This program is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State University Dickinson School of Law, School of International Affairs and the Churchill Fund.

Schedule of Programs:

9 – 10:30 a.m. - Open Class Visit

Ethics and International Security
Captain Stephen C. Krotow, U.S. Navy and Lt. Col. Curtis Mason, U.S. Marine Corps to visit Professor Bova’s class.
Denny Hall, Room 211

Noon – 1:30 p.m. – Lunch Panel Discussion

The Arab Spring
Panelists: Eisenhower National Security Read more

Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

International Politics and Zombies

Thursday, March 22, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Addressing timely issues with analytical bite, Drezner looks at how well-known theories from international relations might be applied to a war with zombies. He boldly lurches into the breach and “stress tests” the ways that different approaches to world politics would explain policy responses to the living dead. Drezner examines the most prominent international relations theories–including realism, liberalism, constructivism, and neoconservatism –and decomposes their predictions. Exploring the plots of popular zombie films, songs, and books, Theories of International Politics and Zombies predicts realistic scenarios for the political stage in the face of a zombie threat and considers how valid–or how rotten–such scenarios might be.

This event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and the School of International Affairs.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a senior editor at The National Interest, and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy. Prior to Read more

Counterstrike

Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.
A book signing will follow.

Schmitt and Shanker explore the Pentagon’s secretive and revolutionary new strategy to fight the war on terrorism. This new strategy will have game-changing effects in the Middle East and in the United States.

This event is jointly sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, Penn State Dickinson School of Law, the School of International Affairs and Betty R. ’58 and Dan Churchill.

Biographies (provided by the speakers)
Eric Schmitt is a senior writer for The New York Times who covers domestic and internationalism terrorism issues. For nearly 20 years, he has covered military and national security affairs for the newspaper. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, he has made ten reporting trips to Iraq and five trips to Afghanistan to cover American military operations there. In the past year, he has also reported on counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan, Mali and Southeast Asia.

Previously, Mr. Schmitt reported on demographic and national immigration issues for The Times and covered Congress for five years. During that time, he one of newspaper’s main reporters Read more

The End of the Oil Monopoly

Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 6:30 p.m.

For 100 years, virtually all of global transport has been the domain of a single, depleting, polluting commodity to the detriment of the global economy, security and environment. But the trend is beginning to change in 2012 as the convergence of technology and creative business modeling has led to the creation of a less expensive and more convenient alternative to gasoline-driven automobiles. Pioneered in Israel, Denmark and Australia, this radical new approach has the potential to turn two giant industries upside down.

This event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life and is part of The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Michael Granoff has been head of oil independence policies for Better Place since its founding in 2007. In that capacity, he helps stakeholders of all types calibrate policies consistent with the Better Place approach to ending the corrosive effect of oil dependence on economy, environment and security. Stakeholders with which Granoff works include governments Read more

Lifting the Floor and Achieving Gender Equality

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 *
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7:00 p.m

Trends in women’s labor force participation, the gender wage gap, and job segregation by sex indicate that women’s progress has hit a plateau after improvement for several decades. Hartmann will discuss the policies that are needed to lift the floor of the labor market of women, resolve troubling work/family issues, and achieve gender equality between women and men.

The event is co-sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Churchill Fund, the Departments of Economics, Sociology, International Business and Management and the Women’s Center.

* This program is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Heidi Hartmann is the president of the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), a scientific research organization that she formed in 1987 to meet the need for women-centered, policy-oriented research. She is an economist with a B.A. from Swarthmore College and M. Phil and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University, all in economics. Dr. Hartmann is also a research professor at The George Washington University.

Dr. Hartmann has Read more

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Tuesday, February 21, 2012  **
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

Cole will analyze and discuss the state of the U.S. economy from a global perspective, with a special focus on both the strengths and weaknesses of current financial markets, including how they might affect future job opportunities of college graduates. Cole will also have some suggestions regarding the shaping of an investment portfolio.

This program is part of the The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Charles W. Cole Jr., is a retired Baltimore Banker and Community leader. He was born in Baltimore, son of a lawyer.  Cole is a graduate of Gilman School and Washington and Lee University with a degree in economics and earned his LL.B. from the University of Maryland School of Law.

Mr. Cole spent 34 years with First Maryland Bankcorp and the First National Bank of Maryland. He served as President (1977-1994) and Chief Executive Officer (1984-1994). He was also Chief Administrative Officer and a Director of First Maryland Bankcorp. During the 10 years after Read more

Clamor: The Poetics of Wartime

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.
A book signing will follow.

Fenton will read from her poetry collection, Clamor, which focuses on love, loneliness and grief in the context of the Iraq War, and discuss how her investigation of the language of wartime found its poetic form.

The event is co-sponsored by the Belfer Creative Writing Lectureship, The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and the Department of English.

Biography (provided by speaker)
Elyse Fenton is the author of the poetry collection, Clamor, which won the 2010 University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize and Cleveland State University Press’s First Book Award. She has published poetry and nonfiction in The New York Times, Best New Poets, The Massachusetts Review and Pleiades, and has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. She received a BA from Reed College and an MFA from the University of Oregon and has worked in the woods, on farms and in schools in the Pacific Northwest, New Hampshire, Mongolia and Texas.

Related Links
Poetry Society of America

The Belfer Creative Writing Lectureship
The Belfer Creative Writing Lectureship was established in 2001 Read more