Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Peter Wagner is an attorney and the executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, based in Northampton, Massachusetts. He co-founded the Prison Policy Initiative in 2001 to spark a national discussion about the collateral effects of mass incarceration. From ending "prison gerrymandering," to taking on the exploitative prison and jail telephone industry, the Prison Policy Initiative strives to show how mass incarceration effects our entire society, not just those behind bars.

Read more about Peter Wagner and the Prison Policy Initiative. 

Mr. Wagner's Athenaeum talk is part of the Race and Law Enforcement in America series.

View Video: YouTube with Peter Wagner

Food for Thought: Podcast with Peter Wagner

 

Yolo Akili Robinson known as (Yolo Akili) is a writer, organizer, and yoga teacher who has written extensively on emotional health and issues of gender, sexuality, and race. He has worked with black men and boys for over 10 years on issues such as violence, homophobia, and emotional health.

Akili is the author of Dear Universe: Letters of Affirmation & Empowerment for All Of Us (2013) and has written for the Huffington Post, Ebony, The Good Men Project, TheBody.com, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Everyday Feminism. His work has been featured on BET.com, Huffington Post Live, The Daily Princetonian, and The Feminist Wire. His most well known work is on gay men and sexism, African-Americans and emotional health, masculinity and emotional peace.

He has been awarded the Creative Leadership Award by the Feminist Women’s Health Center Atlanta, a ZAMI award, and the Unity in Community Award from Unity in Christ Fellowship Church.

Mr. Akili’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored with the OBSA.

View Video: YouTube with Yolo Akili Robinson

Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of the novels Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2006), which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award; Secret Son (2010), which was on the Orange Prize long list, and The Moor’s Account (2015), which won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was on the Man Booker Prize long list and was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, the Guardian, The New York Times, and in many anthologies. A graduate of Université Mohammed-V in Rabat, she also attended University College in London, and the University of Southern California, where she earned a Ph.D. in linguistics. She is the recipient of a British Council Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside.

Lalami speaks on immigration, the Middle East and North Africa, Islam, Muslim women, and Arab uprisings. She also discusses race in America, especially forgotten histories, exploration, and cross-cultural encounters.

An inspirational speaker, Kyle Cease aims to transform audiences through his unique blend of comedy and motivation. Following his successful Comedy Central Hour special, Weirder, Blacker, Dimpler (2007) and a #1 ranking on the network's Standup Showdown, Cease began speaking at colleges, universities, summits and Fortune 500 conferences about his use of comedy to overcome life's obstacles. 

Cease speaks on ways to let go, get out of your head, end stage fright, enhance relationships, accomplish what you want, play, make money, have an impact, get into alignment with your own intention. He works on himself by speaking in public about what he is learning, as he is learning it right there. 

Memphis actor/author Phil Darius Wallace, a native of Flint Michigan, began his acting career with the Michigan Shakespeare Festival as Caliban in the Tempest. He has traveled across the United States performing as Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, and Frederick Douglass as a solo performer. He is currently with the Tennessee Shakespeare Company and the Orpheum Theater in Memphis Tennessee.

His television credits include ABC's Nashville. His film credits include Nothing But The Truth (2008). He is the voice of the documentary The Invaders (2016), and his first Off-Broadway run with Self Made Man: The Frederick Douglass Story (2014), received its world premiere at the ArcLight Theatre in New York.

View Video: YouTube with Phil Darius Wallace

Jack Rakove is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of political science at Stanford University. His principal areas of interest include the origins of the American Revolution and Constitution, the political theories and practices of James Madison, and the role of historical knowledge in constitutional litigation.

He is the author of four books, including Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (1996), which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1997. In this work, Rakove argues that originalism, the practice of interpreting the Constitution by a fixed set of the original framers’ intentions, should not be the only approach to settling today's judicial questions.

Active supporters of "originalist" interpretations of the Constitution, like Justices Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, hold that this mode of constitutional interpretation is essentially linguistic in nature. According to Rakove, the point of being an originalist is not to explain what the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution thought they were adopting, in political terms. Rather, the idea is to produce the best understanding of what the language in question would have meant to an informed reader. In his Athenaeum lecture, Rakove will challenge that point of view, and argue that the best form of originalism is one that should take political concerns and purposes much more seriously.

A graduate of Haverford College, Rakove earned his Ph.D. in 1975 from Harvard University. He taught at Colgate University from 1975 to 1980, and was a visiting professor at NYU School of Law. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1980.

Professor Rakove’s Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Salvatori Center’s Lofgren Program in Constitutionalism.

Photo Credit: Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service

View Video: YouTube with Jack Rakove

Food for Thought: Podcast with Jack Rakove

Born in Washington D.C., Eddie Huang grew up in Orlando, Florida in an immigrant family from Taiwan. Growing up, he watched his mother cook at home and also learned techniques from chefs of different cultural backgrounds and cuisine styles working in his father’s restaurants.

Celebrated as a chef, restaurateur, food celebrity, and clothing designer, Huang is also a lawyer and writer. His memoir, Fresh Off the Boat (2013), was reviewed by The New York Times as “... a surprisingly sophisticated memoir about race and assimilation in America ....” An ABC sitcom based on the memoir is the first Asian-American family-centric TV series in nearly 20 years.

A colorful figure, Huang is not without controversy. He speaks about appropriation of ethnic cuisines and yet has faced criticism for cultural appropriation himself, particularly of hip-hop culture. The New York Times described him January 2013 as “walking mix-tape of postmodern cultural appropriation.”

Huang’s new book, Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China, was published in May 2016.

Food for Thought: Podcast with Eddie Huang

James Braxton Peterson is the director of Africana Studies and associate professor of English at Lehigh University. He is the author of several books, The Hip Hop Underground and African American Culture: Beneath the Surface (2014), Prison Industrial Complex for Beginners, and Hip Hop Headphones: A Scholar’s Critical Playlist (2016). Peterson hosts “The Remix” on Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate, WHYY. “The Remix” is a podcast that engages issues at the intersection of race, politics, and popular culture. Peterson has written for Newsweek.com, The Guardian, the LA Times, Reuters, and The Daily Beast. He is a media commentator and has appeared on MSNBC, Al-Jazeera, CNN, HLN, Fox News, and other networks as an expert on race, politics, and popular culture.

Professor Peterson is the keynote speaker and facilitator for the Day of Dialogue at CMC.

Katherine Hayes is the director of heath care policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in Washington, DC. She will discuss how pressing issues and campaign promises could put health care on a back burner, despite Congress's need to find common ground on “must pass” health legislation such as including extending funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, expiring Medicare provisions, the looming “Cadillac” tax on high-cost health plans, and reauthorization of drug and device user fees that fund the FDA approval process. 

Prior to her work at BPC, Hayes was an associate research professor in the department of health policy at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and also served as vice president of health policy for Jennings Policy Strategies, Inc. Her government experience includes serving as legislative counsel to former Senator Evan Bayh, legislative assistant to former Senator John H. Chafee and former Representative Mickey Leland, and as a program consultant for the State of Missouri Medicaid agency. She also worked as a health and education policy advisor for the State of Texas, Office of State-Federal Relations.

View Video: YouTube with Katherine Hayes

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. 

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

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.

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. 

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.

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