Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Professor Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service where he is also the director of both the Center for Security Studies and of the Security Studies Masters of Arts Degree Program. He has been studying terrorism and insurgency for nearly four decades. Appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, Professor Hoffman was a lead author of the commission’s final report.

Author of Inside Terrorism (2006), Hoffman’s most recent books include The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: From 9/11 to Osama bin Laden’s Death (2014), and Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 (2015) which is based on newly available documents from the British, Israeli, and U.S. Archives.

View Video: YouTube with Bruce Hoffman

Ayesha Jalal is the Mary Richardson Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at Tufts University. She also holds a joint appointment at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

A graduate of Wellesley College, she has a doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge. She was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; a Leverhulme Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge; a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C.; and Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Between 1998-2003, she was a MacArthur Fellow. She has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tufts, Columbia, and Harvard Universities.

A prolific author, her publications include The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge, 1985 and 1994); The State of Martial Rule: the Origins of Pakistan's Political Economy of Defence (Cambridge, 1990); and Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective (Cambridge, 1995). Jalal’s most recent book is The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics (Harvard University Press, 2014). 

She teaches courses on South Asia, Islam, nationalism, colonialism, and international development.

Frank Bidart is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English at Wellesley College where he has taught since 1972. Bidart is the editor of Collected Poems of Robert Lowell (2003) as well as the author of several collections of poetry, including Desire (1997), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award.

Frank Bidart’s most recent collection of poetry, Metaphysical Dog: Poems (2014), won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His other books include Watching the Spring Festival: Poems (2009) and In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965—90 (1991). His many honors include the Wallace Stevens Award, the Bollingen Prize, and The Paris Review’s first Bernard F. Conners Prize.

Professor Bidart’s Athenaeum talk is made possible by CMC's Gould Center for Humanistic Studies' Quinones Lecture Fund .

Read more about Frank Bidart...

Michael Sells is John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Civilization and professor of comparative literature at the University of Chicago where he teaches and studies Qur'anic studies, Sufism, Arabic and Islamic love poetry, mysticism (Greek, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish), and religion and violence.

In his Athenaeum talk, Sells will examine the Wahhabi doctrine and elucidate the basic doctrinal teachings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi tradition and of his contemporary successors, the religious scholars of Saudi Arabia. He will also analyze three core doctrines that have been associated with militancy and violence within and outside of Saudi Arabia that pose a dilemma for U.S.-Saudi relations and worldwide efforts to counter radical Salafi violence.

Sells has published eight books and more than 80 articles on Qur'anic studies, Arabic poetry, Sufism, mystical language, and religion and violence. His writings on religion and violence include The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (1996); The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslims Enemy (2004) which he co-edited and to which he contributed; Armageddon in Christian, Sunni, and Shi`ite Traditions (2013; and Holocaust Abuse: The Case of Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husayni (2015).

Michael Sells’ Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Kutten Lectureship in Religious Studies at CMC.

Victoria Sancho Lobis is the Prince Trust Associate Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. She is an expert in early modern European art and has been leading the museum’s efforts to develop exhibitions and strategize collection development in the field of colonial Latin American art. She organized A Voyage to South America: Andean Art in the Spanish Empire (2015), the Art Institute’s first presentation of Latin American paintings from the time of Spanish rule, and she is currently planning a large-scale, international loan exhibition featuring colonial Latin American paintings, textiles, and decorative arts.

Lobis joined the curatorial staff of The Art Institute of Chicago in 2013. Before the Art Institute, Lobis worked for four years as the inaugural curator of the print collection at the University of San Diego. Her current research engages artistic training in Europe and colonial Latin America as well as the history of collecting. Among her curatorial and administrative responsibilities, Lobis directs the Art Institute’s Latin American initiative as it engages the art of the viceregal period.

In addition to her curatorial work, Lobis has given art history courses at Columbia University, New York University, the University of San Diego, Claremont McKenna College, and the University of Chicago.

Lobis received her B.A. from Yale College, her M.A. from Williams College, and her Ph.D. from Columbia University, where she wrote her dissertation on workshop practice in the time of Peter Paul Rubens.

Dr. Lobis' Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Culture and History of the Americas grant, provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

View Video: YouTube with Victoria Sancho Lobis

William Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, contributor to ABC News, author, and chief of staff to former U.S. Vice President Qualye, is widely recognized as one of the nation's most insightful political analysts.

Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, hedge fund manager, and social critic. Thiel co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Elon Musk  and served as its CEO. He also co-founded Palantir, of which he is chairman. He was the first outside investor in Facebook with a 10.2% stake acquired in 2004 for $500,000, and sits on the company's board of directors.

Thiel will address entrepreneurship and education. Thiel and Kristol together will reflect on the current political state.

Mr. Thiel and Mr. Kristol's Athenaeum appearance is sponsored by the Salvatori Institute at CMC.

Mark Takano is the U.S. Congressman to the 41st district of California that includes Riverside, Moreno Valley, Jurupa Valley, and Perris. He serves on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the Education and Workforce Committee, and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. In 2012, he became the first openly gay person of color to be elected to U.S. Congress.

Takano’s family roots in Riverside go back to his grandparents who, along with his parents, were removed from their respective homes and sent to Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. After the war, his family settled in Riverside County to rebuild their lives.

Born and raised in Riverside, Takano attended Harvard College. After graduation, he returned to Riverside and began teaching in the Rialto Unified School District. As a classroom teacher, Takano confronted the challenges in the public education system on a daily basis. This experience drives his commitments as a U.S. Congressman.

Takano believes that the most serious challenge to the American dream is the cycle of poverty afflicting households across the country. Even as the economy emerged from the global financial crisis of 2008, many families were left behind. Takano will detail his plan to replace the cycle of poverty with one of equal opportunity so as to address income and wealth inequality and provide young people a legitimate chance at financial stability and prosperity. 

Read more about Mark Takano…

Born in Lhasa, Tibet in 1951, Thubten Samdup arrived in India as a refugee in 1959. He was recruited into the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in 1960 as a child performer; he later became a teacher there and eventually its director. In 1973, Samdup received a John D. Rockefeller III Fund Scholarship, under which he studied ethnomusicology at Brown University.

In 1980, Samdup moved to Canada where he served as president of the Tibetan Cultural Association of Quebec. In 1987, he co-founded the Canada Tibet Committee, a cross-Canada network of Tibet advocates, serving as its national president for 17 years.

Samdup was subsequently elected as the first member of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile representing Tibetans in North America. He also established and oversaw the International Tibet Network, a coalition of more than 100 Tibetan groups from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa and he initiated the Kalontripa project, which encouraged individuals to autonomously nominate candidates for election as Tibetan Prime Minister. In 2009, His Holiness the Dalai Lama appointed Samdup as his representative at the Office of Tibet in London, where Samdup served until September 2014.

Samdup is the recipient of an exceptional artist award from Harvard University, and the 2005 Hero of Compassion Award, a project of the Grace Family Foundation. He is included among the "Committee of 100" for Tibet and has served on the board of directors of several Tibet-related organizations in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

Kyong Park is professor of Public Culture at University of California at San Diego where he has taught since 2007.

Park views art as a process of inquiry, examination and articulation of cultures, and a visual language of communication rather than a commodity of productions. The Imaging New Eurasia project imagines new relations between East and West, and a renewed identity of Eurasia.

Park is active in a wide range of works on public culture, including research, documentation, and representations focused on the urban landscapes that delineate the economic, political, and cultural borders and territories of the contemporary social geography.

Working in visual arts, architecture, theory, and curatorial practices, Park incorporates text, photography, video, installation and new media into his works, a practice that is rooted in research, participation, and activism in public spaces.

His first project was the founding of StoreFront for Art and Architecture in New York, an internationally respected exhibition space that he directed from 1982-1998. He then founded International Center for Urban Ecology in Detroit, producing workshops, urban initiatives and videos, in collaboration with activists, community organizations, and universities.

Read more about Kyong Park…

View Video: YouTube with Kyong Park

Stephen Macedo will argue that both conservatives who warn of a slippery slope from same-sex marriage toward polygamy, adult incest, and the dissolution of marriage as we know it and many progressives who embrace the new law are wrong. He believes that the same principles of democratic justice that demand marriage equality for same sex couples also lend support to monogamous marriage. In his Athenaeum talk, he will explore the meaning of contemporary marriage and the reasons for both its fragility and its enduring significance.

Stephen Macedo is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the former director of the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University where he teaches and writes about political theory, ethics, American constitutionalism, and public policy.

His many books include Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (Oxford, 1990); Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Diverse Democracy (Harvard 2000); and Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage (Princeton University Press, 2015).

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and vice president of the American Society for Legal and Political Philosophy.

Professor Macedo’s Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Salvatori Institute at CMC.

View Video: YouTube with Stephen Macedo

Food for Thought: Podcast with Stephen Macedo

Please join us for a moderated panel discussion at the Athenaeum on the politics and process of replacing Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court Bench. The Dreier Roundtable is organizing a talk about how this vacancy affects the political dynamics of the Court, the Senate, and the current presidential race. Our panel of experts will also address how our polarized politics has shaped the nomination process, and how the timing of the current Supreme Court vacancy has the potential for further polarization.

Professor Amanda Hollis-Brusky of the politics department at Pomona College and Professors Kenneth Miller and George Thomas of the government department at Claremont McKenna College will serve on a panel moderated by Professor Zachary Courser, also of the government department at CMC.

View Video: YouTube with After Scalia Panel

Featured in world-wide publications including Harpers, the Village Voice, Salon.com, the Washington Post, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, Redbook Magazine, The O'Reilly Factor, and Book TV, damali ayo engages audiences to think, feel, and heal through difficult community and personal challenges ranging from race, gender, sexual assault, and sexual orientation to spirituality, chronic illness, the creative process, healing, music, and even trash. 

She is the author of two books, How to Rent a Negro (2005) and Obamistan! which are playful yet biting satirical examinations of race relations. How to Rent a Negro was acclaimed as "one of the most trenchant and amusing commentaries on contemporary race relations." It was granted a 2005 Honorable Mention in the Outstanding Book Awards from the Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. Obamistan! Land without Racism: Your Guide to the New America (2010)debunks the myth of a post-race world. 

A frequent speaker at college campuses, ayo also is a contributor to four other books, has done several stories for NPR, including as a contributor to the reboot of the historic This I Believe radio series, and she is a member of "The Black Panel" in Baratunde Thurston's How To Be Black (2012), among other activities and associations.

damali ayo’s Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the PSR Subcommittee on Campus Climate.

Food for Thought: Podcast with damali ayo

Edward Paulino is an assistant professor of history at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Paulino earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State and teaches a range of interdisciplinary courses. His research interests include: race; genocide; borders; nation-building; Latin America and the Caribbean; the African Diaspora; and New York State history. 

In his latest book, Dividing Hispaniola: The Dominican Republic's Border Campaign against Haiti, 1930-1961 (January 2016), Paulino focuses on the campaign to “Dominicanize” the Dominican border including a small and often forgotten genocide in 1937 ordered by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo – a mass murder that saw an estimated 15,000 Haitian men, women, and children slaughtered. His research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the PSC-CUNY Research Foundation, and the New York State Archives.  

Professor Paulino’s talk at the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at CMC and the Latin American Studies Draper Fund at Pomona College.

(Photo credit: John Jay College of Criminal Justice faculty page)

Clinton Bailey, Ph.D., is a world authority on Bedouin culture and history. Born and raised in the U.S., he has made Israel his home for over 50 years. Bailey has championed the cause of Bedouin rights in Israel for many years. In 1994, he was awarded the prestigious Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award, given annually by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Bailey received his B.A. degree in Islamic history and culture from Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1962) and his Ph.D. from Columbia University (1966), where he was the Honors Fellow of the Near and Middle East Institute. He has been the recipient of grants from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Dorot Foundation, and the Alan Slifka Foundation.

Since 1991, Bailey has spent 13 semesters at Trinity College as a visiting professor, teaching many courses covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, political dynamics in the Middle East, minorities in the Middle East, traditional tribal law in the Middle East, and Bedouin culture. He has also taught at Columbia, Wesleyan, and Tel Aviv Universities.

In 1991, Oxford University Press published his highly acclaimed 20-year study, Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev: Mirror of a Culture. Recent books include A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev (Yale, 2004) and Bedouin Law in Sinai and the Negev (Yale, 2009). Bedouin Culture in the Bible will be published by Yale in 2016. He is presently writing a new book about tribalism in Middle East politics.

Shahzad Bashir is the Lysbeth Warren Anderson Professor in Islamic Studies at Stanford University and an Andrew F. Carnegie Fellow during the academic year 2015-16.

He specializes in Islamic Studies with a particular interest in the intellectual and social histories of Persianate societies of Iran and Central and South Asia circa fourteenth century CE to the present. His published work studies Sufism and Shi’ism, messianic movements originating in Islamic contexts, representation of corporeality in hagiographic texts and Persian miniature paintings, religious developments during the Timurid and Safavid periods, and modern transformations of Islamic societies.

Bashir is currently at work on a book entitled Islamic Times: Conceptualizing Pasts and Futures which is to be a wide-ranging treatment that critiques the way Islamic history has been conceptualized in modern scholarship and suggests alternatives, with emphasis on the multiplicity of temporal configurations found in Islamic materials.

His publications include Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam (2011), Fazlallah Astarabadi and the Hurufis (2005), and Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nurbakhshiya Between Medieval and Modern Islam (2003).

Professor Bashir's Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Kutten Lectureship in Religious Studies at CMC.