Events

Inaugural Lecture in Black Studies–“Breonna’s Song: Protest Music Epistemologies of the Right Now.”

Wednesday, September 30, 2020 | 6:00 pm
Zoom
Open to the Public

Daphne Brooks, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of African American Studies at Yale University, will give the inaugural lecture to launch Middlebury’s Black Studies program.  To attend, please register here or via go/inaugural or go.middlebury.edu/inaugural.

Sponsor:  Black Studies Program

1619 or 1776: Was America Founded on Slavery?

Thursday, October 1, 2020| 4:45 pm
Zoom
Open to the Public

At this counterpoint-style event, Leslie Harris and Lucas Morel will offer contrasting views and field questions from you.   Leslie Harris is a professor of History at Northwestern University and author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863.  She served as a fact-checker for the 1619 Project, a subject she addressed in a recent Politico article.    Lucas Morel is the John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University.  He is author of Lincoln and the American Founding and Lincoln’s Sacred Effort: Defining Religion’s Role in American Self-Government, and editor of two volumes on Ralph Ellison.

The Zoom link may be found at go.middlebury.edu/AHF.

Sponsored by the Hamilton Forum

Come and See: From Reflection To Affiliation To Anti-Racist Pedagogy 

Tuesday, October 6, 2020| 3 pm
Zoom
Open to the Public

Join us for a talk with Frankie Condon, author of numerous books on anti-racism, including I Hope I Join the Band: Narrative, Affiliation, and Antiracist Rhetoric.  To join: 3 pm zoom lecture open to all

In her talk, Condon will explore the significance of moments in the lives of teachers when we might call ourselves to see inherited white and whitely orientations and perspectives that both shadow us as we move through our teaching lives and shape for us the teaching spaces in which we make those lives. This talk is about the significance of critical self-reflection and actionable commitments in the design and development of anti-racist pedagogies across a variety of disciplines. Participants should expect both an exploration of critical race theory as it pertains to teaching and examples of what that theory might look like in action in the college classroom.

Frankie Condon is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature at University of Waterloo and a frequent speaker at colleges and universities across the country. For more info, please see her full event description here, or contact James Sanchez, Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, jcsanchez@middlebury.edu.

A workshop will follow: 4:15 pm workshop with limited spaces, RSVP required.

Organizer: Writing and Rhetoric Program; co-sponsors:  The Center for Teaching, Learning & Research and the Engaged Listening Project

Nell Irvin Painter:  “The History of White People and What It Means for Now”

Friday, October 9, 2020| 4:30 pm
Zoom
Open to the Public

Nell Irvin Painter is Professor Emerita of History at Princeton University.  One o the country’s most distinguished historians, she wrote The History of White People in 2010.

For the Zoom link see go/nellpaintertalk/

Organizer: Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies/Chellis House; co-sponsors: Black Studies Program, Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, Axinn Center for the Humanities, and Office of the President

Clifford Symposium–“The Rise of Big Data”

Thursday & Friday, September 24 & 25, 2020
Zoom
Open to the Public

This year’s Clifford symposium, named after the late Nicholas Clifford, an outstanding teacher, scholar, and administrator at Middlebury for many years, will feature Middlebury faculty and students in an exploration of one of the most important phenomena of our times. Through a series of sessions, the symposium will explore what Big Data means, its history, its ubiquity, and its future. It will also examine why Big Data is so important to how we live and learn at Middlebury and highlight how Middlebury students and faculty are using Big Data in innovative and productive ways.

For a full symposium schedule and Zoom links to the individual sessions, please visit https://www.middlebury.edu/office/clifford-symposium or go/clifford.

This Crisis and the Next One: What the Pandemic Suggests About the Century to Come

Friday, September 11, 2020 | 3:00pm
Livestreamed
Open to the Public

Bill McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar, a founder of 350.org (a climate-change organization with deep Middlebury roots), and acclaimed author, including of the recent book, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?, and the New Yorker article, “What Vermont and Its History Might Teach the Nation About Handling the Coronavirus,” will be speaking on “This Crisis and the Next One: What the Pandemic Suggests About the Century to Come” at 3 p.m. (EDT) on Friday, September 11.  His talk can be viewed on the Middlebury live stream:

You can watch this event via live stream, beginning a few minutes before the official start time.

“Anxieties of Empire: New Contexts, Shifting Perspectives”–Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs Annual Conference

Friday-Saturday, March 6 & 7
Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room, Robert A. Jones ’59 House
Open to the Public

Sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs

“Black is the Body: Writing about Race in America”–Emily Bernard

Thursday, March 5 | 4:30pm
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Open to the Public

Racial identity is a construction. But just because it is a fiction does not make it untrue. In this talk, Emily Bernard  discusses the complex and central role of storytelling as a source of power, meaning, and beauty in her life as a writer, reader, and scholar of African American experience.

Emily Bernard is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont.  In addition to Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine, her books include Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, and Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs.

You can watch this event via live stream, beginning a few minutes before the official start time.

Sponsored by the Axinn Center for the Humanities

“The Long Shadow of the Great War and the Paris Peace Conference”–Margaret MacMillan

Tuesday, March 3 | 7:30 pm
Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center
Open to the Public

Margaret MacMillan, one of the most well-known historians of our time, will deliver the next Charles S. Grant Memorial Lecture on Tuesday evening, March 3, 2020.  Professor MacMillan teaches at the University of Toronto, and she is the emeritus Professor of International History and former Warden of St. Anthony’s College at the University of Oxford.   Her books include Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (which won the Samuel Johnson prize), The Uses and Abuses of History, History’s People: Personalities and the Past, and the prize-winning The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914.

Sponsored by the Charles S. Memorial Lecture Committee

Through the Fog: Towards Inclusive Anti-Racist Teaching

Tuesday, March 3, 2020 | 4:30 pm
Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center
Open to the Public

In this interactive lecture, Professor Tara Affolter, Education Studies, will read selections from her book, Through the Fog: Towards Inclusive Anti-Racist Teaching and invite audience members to engage in some crucial self-reflection. Resisting racism, agitating for change, and walking an inclusive anti-racist path requires a commitment to unflinchingly look at one’s failures and examine silences. Drawing from over 20 years of teaching experience in the U.S., ranging from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate, Affolter’s work illustrates personal, practical, and theoretical ways for teachers to grapple with the complexities of race and racism within their own schools and communities and develop as inclusive anti-racist teachers.

Sponsored by the Education Studies Program and the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity

“1619 and the Legacy That Built a Nation”– Nikole Hannah-Jones

Tuesday, February 25, 2020 | 7:00pm
Mead Chapel
Open to the Public

Nikole Hannah-Jones is the creator of the New York Times’s “1619 Project” and an award-winning investigative reporter covering civil rights and racial injustice for the New York Times Magazine.

“The 1619 Project” began on August 20, 2019, the 400th anniversary of the start of American slavery, with the publication of a special issue of the New York Times Magazine devoted to the goal of re-examining the legacy of slavery in the United States. Now an ongoing effort, the initiative includes a multi-episode podcast hosted by Hannah-Jones.

The event is one in a series on race and racism. More information is available here.

Sponsored by the Office of the President, MCAB, the Critical Conversations program, and the Black Studies program

“Ultimate Allies: America and Israel, 1620 to the Present”–A Talk by, & Conversation with, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren

Monday, February 24| 7:00pm
Dana Auditorium, Sunderland Language Center
Open to the Public

This event will occur in Dana Auditorium with additional overflow seating available in Warner Hemicycle where the event will be live-streamed.

Moderator: Prof. Felicia Grey (Political Science)

Statesman, historian, and parliamentarian, Ambassador Michael Oren has devoted his life to serving Israel and the Jewish people around the world.

For nearly five years, he served as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States. He was instrumental in obtaining US defense aid, especially for the Iron Dome system, and American loan guarantees for Israel’s economy. He built bridges with diverse communities across the nation, wrote dozens of op-eds and conducted hundreds of media interviews, fortifying the U.S.-Israel alliance.

More recently, as a Member of the Israel’s parliament (Knesset) and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, he continued to interact with foreign leaders and to defend Israel in the media. He spearheaded efforts to strengthen Israel-Diaspora relations, to develop the Golan Heights, and to fight BDS. As Chairman of a classified subcommittee, he dealt with some of Israel’s most sensitive security issues.

A graduate of Princeton and Columbia, Dr. Oren has served as a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown.  His last three books—Six Days of War; Power, Faith, and Fantasy; and Ally: My Journal Across the American-Israel Divide—were all New York Times bestsellers. He received the Los Angeles Times History Book of the Year Award, a National Humanities prize, and the Jewish Book Award.

Frequently interviewed by the U.S. and international press, he has had appeared on the Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher shows, 60 Minutes, and The View. He was the Middle East analyst for CBS and CNN. Michael Oren was named by Politico as one of the fifty most influential thinkers in America.

Sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Forum and the Department of Political Science

“Do We Need a Green New Deal?”

Thursday, February 20| 4:30 pm
Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center)
Open to the Public

A Hamilton Forum Dialogue

Arguing NO: Oren Cass, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Mr. Cass’s work addresses issues ranging from the labor market to environmental regulation to trade and immigration to education and organized labor. He also writes extensively on the nature and implications of climate change and on the process of formulating and evaluating public policy. Cass has written for publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, and he regularly speaks at universities and testifies before Congress. His 2018 book, The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America, has been called “the essential policy book for our time” by National Affairs. Previously, he served as the domestic policy director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and a management consultant with Bain & Company. He earned a B.A. in political economy from Williams College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Arguing YES: Robert Pollin, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Dr. Pollin is Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) and the founder and President of PEAR (Pollin Energy and Retrofits), an Amherst, MA-based green energy company operating throughout the United States. His books include The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (co-authored 1998); Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (2003); An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa (co-authored 2007); A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (co-authored 2008), Back to Full Employment (2012), Green Growth (2014), Global Green Growth (2015) and Greening the Global Economy (forthcoming 2015). He has worked recently as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and numerous non-governmental organizations in several countries on various aspects of building high-employment green economies. He was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the “100 Leading Global Thinkers for 2013,” and is author of several state-level “Green New Deals.” A graduate of UW-Madison, he earned his PhD at the New School for Social Research.

Sponsored by Hamilton Forum

“Who Owns Religion?”  An Open Discussion with President Laurie Patton on her new book

Tuesday, February 18, 2020| 4:30 pm
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Open to the Public

Scott A. Margolin ’99 Lecture in Environmental Affairs–Naomi Klein

Thursday, February 13| 7:00 pm
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Open to the Public

HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship

Tuesday, January 28 | 4:30 pm
McCardell Bicentennial Hall 216
Open to the Public

Nadine Strossen, Past President of the ACLU and John Marshall Harlan Professor of Law at NYU Law School

Prof. Strossen seeks to dispel misunderstandings plaguing our perennial debates about “hate speech vs. free speech,” showing that the First Amendment approach promotes free speech and democracy, equality, and societal harmony. “Hate speech” censorship proponents stress the potential harms such speech might further: discrimination, violence, and psychic injuries. However, there has been little analysis of whether censorship effectively counters the feared injuries. Citing evidence from many countries, Strossen argues shows that “hate speech” are at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive. The best way to resist hate and promote equality is not censorship, but rather vigorous “counterspeech” and activism.

————-

Nadine Strossen is John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law at New York Law School and the first woman national President of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she served from 1991 through 2008. A frequent speaker on constitutional and civil liberties issues, her media appearances include 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The Daily Show, and other news programs on CNN, C-SPAN, Fox, Al-Jazeera, and in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Her op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and USA Today, among others. Her talk will draw on her most recent book published in 2018 by Oxford.

The League of Nations: 100 Years Since Its Founding

Friday, January 24, 2020 | 12:30 pm
Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room, Robert A. Jones ’59 House
Open to the Public

Future of the Past panel “The League of Nations: 100 Years since its founding” with Susan Pedersen, Gouverneur Morris Professor of History, Columbia University, and Nicholas Sambanis ’90, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania.
Lunch is free for current Middlebury College students/faculty/staff; $5 for others; RSVP by 1/20 to rcga@middlebury.edu.

Sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs

Alison Bechdel–“First Wednesdays” Talk

Wednesday, December 4, 2019 | 7 pm
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Open to the Public

Alison Bechdel is Cartoonist Laureate for the State of Vermont. Her self-syndicated Dykes to Watch Out For (1983 to 2008) became a countercultural institution. Her 2006 book Fun Home was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award and has been adapted into a Tony-Award-winning Broadway musical. Her talk at Middlebury will follow the speaker format of the Engaged Listening Project and is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s “First Wednesdays” lecture series.

Sponsored by the Engaged Listening Project and the Vermont Humanities Council

Race or Class? An Affirmative Action Debate Featuring: Richard Kahlenberg and Randall Kennedy

Wednesday, November 20, 2019 | 4:30 pm
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Open to the Public

Many Americans are of two minds on the issue of affirmative action in college admissions. On the one hand, they recognize that the United States has an egregious history of racial discrimination that needs to be addressed. They also believe that all students learn more—and society benefits—when colleges bring together people of diverse backgrounds. On the other hand, many Americans are uncomfortable with the idea that the racial box an applicant checks has a large impact on his or her chances of admission. They worry that racial preferences stigmatize beneficiaries, breed resentment, and encourage everyone— including whites—to identify by race. And many other Americans think it’s unfair when a wealthy African American or Latino applicant receives a preference over a low-income white or Asian student. Should affirmative action be reimagined? Or, is race-based affirmative action still an optimal tool for cultivating a diverse student body?

Sponsored by the Hamilton Forum

Special Screening of Human Nature

Monday, November 11, 2019 | 7:00 p.m.
Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center)
Open to the Public

Please join us for a pre-theatrical screening of a documentary about gene editing and CRISPR entitled Human Nature.  Middlebury graduate Dr. Sarah Goodwin (’04) and her organization, iBiology/Wonder Collaborative are producers of the documentary that will air on Monday, November 11, 2019 in Dana Auditorium at 7:00pm.  Dr. Goodwin will also appear via video conference for a Q&A session after the screening.

Currently, Human Nature is only playing at film festivals and a few special pre-theatrical screenings before it appears in theaters in early 2020 (and iBiology is working on a TV broadcast and streaming for later in 2020).  The documentary has already aired in theaters in Canada, and the press around it has been outstanding, thus far. The film dives into the discovery of CRISPR, and features interviews with many of the scientists who were involved in adapting this technology for genome editing.  The societal and ethical issues borne out of this technology are also heavily emphasized in the film.

Should the Democratic Party Have a Centrist or Radical Future?

Wednesday, November 6, 2019 | 4:30 – 6pm
Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center)
Open to the Public

A Hamilton Forum Dialogue

FOR A CENTRIST FUTURE:
William A. Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. Prior to January 2006, he was the Saul Stern Professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. From 1993-1995, he was Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy. He has participated in 6 presidential campaigns and served as Executive Director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal. He is the author of more than 100 articles and nine books, including Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (Yale, 2018). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal.

FOR A RADICAL FUTURE:
Michael Kazin is Professor of History at Georgetown University and editor of Dissent, the leading magazine of the American Left since 1954. His most recent book is War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 (Simon and Schuster, 2017), which was named an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review. His previous books include American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation (Knopf, 2011), named a Best Book of 2011 by The New Republic, Newsweek/Daily Beast, and The Progressive. He is currently writing a history of the Democratic Party, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Sponsored by the Hamilton Forum

The Evolving Role of Business in Society, and When Companies Should Take a Stand:   A Conversation with Dan Schulman ’80, President and CEO of PayPal

Thursday, October 10, 2019| 6:30 pm

Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center

Open to the Public

A Livestream Event: A Visit with Congressman John Lewis and Co-Author Andrew Aydin

Monday, October 7, 2019| 6:45 – 9pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall
Open to the Public

PLEASE NOTE: this is a livestream of an event happening at the Flynn Center in Burlington, VT

Almost sixty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. edited a 16-page comic book about the Montgomery Bus Boycott that dramatized the fledgling movement and its tactics to a generation of future leaders, including a young John Lewis. Today, Congressman Lewis is continuing that legacy, using comics to educate and inspire a new generation. Congressman Lewis and his co-author Andrew Aydin will visit the Flynn Center to discuss their transformative and award-winning graphic novels, bringing Lewis’ memories of the civil rights movement to urgent new life as a catalyst for vital discussions about diversity, society, and active engagement in one’s community, in ways that are not just historical, but directly relevant to today’s world.

Political Polarization and the Road to the Trump Presidency

Thursday, October 3 | 4:30 – 6pm
Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center)
Open to the Public

As this year’s Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecturer, Julian E. Zelizer, Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and CNN Political Analyst, will explore the roots of our turbulent political scene. Professor Zelizer is one of the country’s leading political historians and the author and editor of more than a dozen books.

Co-sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa and the History Department

Ofelia Zepeda–A Public Talk

Thursday, October 3 | 4:30 – 6pm
Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room
Open to the Public

“From her birth in Stanfield, Ariz., in 1952 to her current stature as an academic, linguist and a leading poet of the Tohono O’odham of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and northern Mexico, Zepeda is a master of language, both English and O’odham (the language spoken by the Tohono O’odham, Akimel O’odham and Hia C-ed O’odham). Likewise, she is a fierce advocate for the reclamation and preservation of indigenous tongues. She has been honored as a MacArthur Fellow and, earlier this year, with a Distinguished Service award from the Modern Language Association. But her life and work is firmly rooted in himdag, the Tohono O’odham way of life that permeates the cultural, spiritual and physical realms.” *www.americanindianmagazine.org…

Is Civility a Sham? Speech and the Limits of Tolerance

Wednesday, October 2 | 4:30 – 5:45pm
Axinn Center Abernethy Room
Open to the Public

A Lecture with Q & A

Teresa Bejan
University of Oxford

Politicians and intellectuals today warn that we face a crisis of civility, with partisan hatreds and wars of words polluting our public sphere. In liberal democracies committed to tolerating diversity as well as active, often heated disagreement, the loss of this conversational virtue appears critical. But is civility really a virtue? Or is it, as critics claim, a covert demand for conformity that silences dissent?

Bringing the insights of early modern political thought to bear on this contemporary problem, Dr. Bejan’s lecture will explore a path forward, one that challenges assumptions about what a tolerant and civil society should look like today.

TERESA BEJAN is Associate Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College at the University of Oxford. Her first book, Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration (Harvard University Press, 2017) was called “penetrating and sophisticated” by the New York Times, and her work has been featured on PBS, WNYC, CBC radio, Philosophy Bites and other podcasts. In addition to her many articles in academic journals and edited volumes, she has written on free speech and civility for The Atlantic and The Washington Post. Dr. Bejan received her PhD with distinction from Yale in 2013.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the Alexander Hamilton Forum

Sigal Ben-Porath

Wednesday, September 11, 2019 | 4:30 PM
Hillcrest 103 (The Orchard)
Open to the Public

Sigal Ben-Porath received her doctorate in political philosophy from Tel-Aviv university in 2000, after which she joined Princeton University’s Center for Human Values as a post-doctoral fellow. In 2004 she moved to the University of Pennsylvania where she is currently a professor of education, philosophy and political science. Her most recent books are Free Speech on Campus (Penn Press, 2017) and Making up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About (with Mike Johanek, University of Chicago Press 2019). Her previous books include Citizenship Under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict (2006) and Tough Choices (2010), both from Princeton University Press. She serves on the board of the Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, as well as the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia. She has been chairing Penn’s Committee on Open Expression since 2015.

Co-sponsored by the Dean of the Faculty and the Dean of Students

Human and Environmental Microbial Health: A Global Perspective

Thursday, February 21, 2019 | 7:00 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the public

Jack Gilbert is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. Dr. Gilbert earned his Ph.D. in 2002 at Unilever and Nottingham University in the UK and was a senior scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK from 2005 until 2010, when he moved to the University of Chicago and became a Professor of Surgery and the Director of The Microbiome Center there. Professor Gilbert also cofounded the Earth Microbiome Project and the American Gut Project, and has authored more than 250 publications on microbial ecology. In 2014 he was on the Crain’s Business Chicago’s 40 Under 40 List, and was listed as one of the 50 most influential scientists by Business Insider in 2015, as well as on the Brilliant Ten by Popular Scientist.

Professor Gilbert will discuss the human microbiome as a part of the human ecosystem, and how ecology can be used to understand this ecosystem and changes within it. He will present research on how changes in the human ecosystem as related to atopy, neurological disorders, metabolic disorders, and other complex conditions and disease states. He will also discuss the distance we have created between children and the microbial world and how this may be impacting their physiological, immunological, neurological and even endocrinological development.

Sponsored by the Office of the President, the Biology Department, and Atwater Commons.

Pursuing Peace and Justice: a Conversation with Nadia Murad

Tuesday, February 12, 2019 | 7:00 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the public in overflow locations

Author and activist Nadia Murad, a 2018 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner, is a survivor of the Yazidi genocide in northern Iraq by ISIS fighters. She is one of thousands of Yazidi women who were abducted by ISIS in August of 2014 and forced into the ISIS sex slave trade. Losing six of her nine brothers and her mother in the Kocho massacre, she escaped after a month in captivity.

Murad is the founder of Nadia’s Initiative, a nonprofit “aimed at increasing advocacy for women and minorities and assisting to stabilize and redevelop communities in crisis.” She is also the author of the memoir The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight against the Islamic State (2017, Tim Duggan Books) and the recipient of numerous awards and honors for her humanitarian work.

She will be joined on stage by Febe Armanios, associate professor of history, who will speak to her about her work as a human rights activist for the Yazidi community and her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, and Abid Shamdeen, who will help interpret.

Conversations with Frank Bruni

Wednesday, January 9, 2019 | 7:00 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Public

Frank Bruni is a renowned columnist for the New York Times. During this event, which is part of the Middlebury First Wednesdays talk series organized by the Vermont Humanities Council, Bruni will engage with the audience over a wide range of topics, including identity politics, free speech, and how these issues play out on campuses and in communities. Find the VHC’s page on this event here.

This event features a new listening & speaking discussion format, developed by the Engaged Listening Project at Middlebury College. To view the event, click here. This requires a Middlebury sign on.

Co-sponsored with the Vermont Humanities Council and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in partnership with Middlebury College.

Bill Kristol, “Can the Republican Party be Saved? Can America?”

Tuesday, November 27, 2018 | 4:30 PM- 6:00 PM
Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center) | Map
Open to the Middlebury College Campus

Bill Kristol is founder and editor at large of The Weekly Standard, a Washington, D.C. journal of politics and ideas. He is a regular on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos and has appeared frequently on other leading political commentary shows. During the 2016 elections, Mr. Kristol became known as, and he continues to be, a prominent critic of president Donald Trump.

Mr. Kristol was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s Political Science Department from 1979 to 1983, and then worked at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government until he moved to Washington in 1985. He worked as Chief of Staff for Vice President Dan Quayle under the first Bush Administration, and for Education Secretary William Bennet under the Reagan administration. Before founding The Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, contributing to the 1994 Republican congressional victory.

Bill Kristol received both his A.B. and PH.D. from Harvard University, and is a widely published author and editor in several fields, ranging from foreign policy to constitutional law to political philosophy.

Trauma and the U.S. Immigration System: Immigrant Detention, Family Separation, and Undocumented Work

Thursday, November 15, 2018 | 7:30 PM- 9:30 PM
Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center) | Map
Open to the Public

Featuring Sarah Rogerson, J.D., LL. M., Andrea Green, M.D., Hannah Krutiansky ’19, and Meron Benti ’19, this panel will bring together migrant advocates who offer witness to injustices that migrants face on both the institutional and individual levels to talk about responding to current immigration policies.

Sarah Rogerson and Andrea Green are two practitioners and experts in immigration fields. Sarah Rogerson is a Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Immigration Law Clinic, and Director of the Law Clinic & Justice Center at Albany Law School, and she represents immigrant detainees at the Albany County Jail. Dr. Andrea Green is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the New Americans Clinic at the UVM Larner College of Medicine in Burlington, and she will speak about the effects of family separation and immigration policies on children’s and family health. Hanna Krutiansky and Meron Benti are two Middlebury Seniors who will also speak on the panel. Meron is an asylum recipient and advocate, and Hannah has worked with RAICES, an organization that helps detained immigrant families.

Co-sponsored with American Studies, the Center for Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity, Juntos, Alianza, the History Department, the GSFS (Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies) Department, and Latin American Studies/ IGST.

DeRay McKesson, “Political Activism and the Case for Hope”

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 | 7:00 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Public

DeRay McKesson is a Black Lives Matter activist and graduate of Bowdoin College. Mr. McKesson will speak during this interactive program, centered around political activism, about how his liberal arts education has informed his work. This program is part of the First Wednesdays talk series organized by the Vermont Humanities Council as part of the “Democracy and the Informed Citizen” Initiative. Find the Vermont Humanities Council’s page on this event here.

This event features a new listening & speaking discussion format, developed by the Engaged Listening Project at Middlebury College.

Co-sponsored with the Vermont Humanities Council and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in partnership with Middlebury College.

Engaged Listening Project Open House

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 | 4:00 PM- 5:30 PM
Axinn Center 229, Axinn Center Reading Room | Map
Open to Students, Faculty, and Staff of Middlebury College

The Engaged Listening Project is a new initiative at Middlebury College to change the way that we interact with visiting speakers, as well as each other, on this campus. Come engage in conversation, ask questions, and discuss topics around listening and designing new ways to talk with one another. All are welcome to bring their ideas. Light refreshments will be provided.

This event is a part of the Engaged Listening Project event series.

“We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria”

Monday, November 5, 2018 | 12:15 PM- 1:45 PM
Axinn Center 229, Axinn Center Reading Room | Map
Open to the Public

How have Syrians lived the uprising and war transforming their country? What can their personal stories teach us about both tragedy and resilience? Wendy Pearlman, the Martin and Patricia Koldyke Outstanding Teaching Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern and a core faculty member of the MENA Program, will explore these questions in this presentation of her acclaimed new book, We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria. Based on interviews that Pearlman conducted with more than 300 Syrian refugees across the Middle East and Europe since 2012, the book is a mosaic of first-hand stories and reflections that chronicle the Syrian conflict exclusively through the words of people who have lived it.

This event features a new listening & speaking discussion format, developed by the Engaged Listening Project at Middlebury College.

The Courts in the Age of Trump

Thursday, October 25, 2018 | 4:30- 6:00 PM
Dana Auditorium | Map
Open to the Public

President Trump has appointed a record number of judges to the federal courts and has nominated two judges to the U.S. Supreme Court. These jurists may reshape the courts for a generation or more. Do they pose a threat to fundamental rights and equality under law? Will Trump-appointed judges take the courts in the wrong direction? Two of the nation’s leading legal minds will provide contrasting answers to this question and take questions from the audience.

John O. McGinnis is the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern University and served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President George H. W. Bush. He is a recipient of the Federalist Society Paul Bator Award and the author of several books. He holds an MA from Balliol College, Oxford, and a BA and JD from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

James E. Fleming is The Honorable Paul J. Liacos Professor of Law at the Boston University School of Law. One of the country’s leading theorists of constitutional interpretation, he is the author of six books and has also authored dozens of articles in leading law reviews. Mr. Fleming has previously held posts at Fordham University School of Law and served as a litigation attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he also holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Nadia Murad, “Victims of Ethnic and Religious Violence in the Middle East”

Friday, October 5, 2018 | 7:00 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Public

Nadia Murad, a survivor of the Yazidi genocide in northern Iraq, will be sharing her story here at Middlebury. Her talk is entitled, “Hope Has an Expiration Date: Exploring the Plight of Victims of Ethnic and Religious Violence in the Middle East.” Here is an excerpt a speech Ms. Murad made in May of 2018:

“My survival came with purpose, responsibility, and hope. I hoped… travelling the world and describing in detail what we had seen and experienced would mobilize governments, organizations and individuals to act and fight the persecution that minorities face. What I have learned is hope is dangerous. For years now, the Yazidi people have only had hope… But, hope has an expiration date. Years of advocacy, years of telling the Yazidi experience to world leaders, has been met with expressions of sympathy and outrage. But, when expressions of sympathy and outrage are not transformed into action to rebuild and protect – hope expires. Hope requires action to survive.”

This event is free and open to the public. There will be a livestream of the event available in Dana Auditorium in the case that overflow seating is necessary.

Sponsored by the Office of the President as part of the Critical Conversations series.

Refugees in the USA- Law and Politics

Friday, May 4, 2018 | 12:15 PM- 1:30 PM
Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room | Map
Open to the Public

Rebecca Hamlin, an Assistance Professor of Legal Studies in the political science department at UMass Amherst, will be giving this International and Global Studies Colloquium lecture on the laws and politics surrounding refugees in the United States. Dr. Hamlin has written a book, Let Me be a Refugee, as well as many journal articles and other works on her topics of interest.

Lunch will be provided for Middlebury College ID holders, and there is a suggested donation of $5 without a Middlebury ID. Kindly RSVP by 4/26 to rcga@middlebury.edu.

Sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs and the Department of Political Science.

Scott Saul, Reckoning with Richard Pryor- Seventies Comedy Explosion in the Wake of #BlackLivesMatter & #MeToo

Wednesday, May 2, 2018 | 4:30 PM- 6:00 PM
Axinn Center 229 | Map
Open to the Public

Scott Saul is an author, poet, critic, historian, and a Professor of English at UC-Berkeley, where he teaches American Literature and history. An expert on Richard Pryor’s comedy, he is the author of Becoming Richard Pryor and the creator of the book’s digital compliment, Richard Pryor’s Peoria. He also writes for The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, Bookforum, and other publications, and hosts Chapter & Verse, a podcast out of UC-Berkeley’s Center for the Humanities. He will be speaking about the works of Richard Pryor in the context of modern social justice movements. Light refreshments will be served.

Sponsored by the Davis Educational Foundation Curricular Grant, the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative, and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research.

Campus Protest in the Trump Era: Where it’s Coming From, Where it’s Going

Friday, April 20, 2018 | 7:30 PM- 8:45 PM
Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room | Map
Open to the Public

Angus Johnston, a history professor at the City University of New York, will be the AALAC (Alliance for the Advancement of Liberal Arts Colleges) Conference Keynote Speaker this year. An expert in student activism and organizing, he will be speaking about protesting on campuses in this day and age. Professor Johnston has recently published several articles on student activism, such as, There’s no College PC Crisis: In Defense of Student Protesters, and, Student Protests, Then and Now, as well as a podcast titled, Is Free Speech in a State of Emergency?

Sponsored by the AALAC (Alliance for the Advancement of Liberal Arts Colleges).

Why Free Speech is the Only Safe Place for Minorities

Thursday, April 19 | 4:30 – 6:30 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Public

This lecture by and Q&A session with Jonathan Rauch will address minority viewpoints and how minorities benefit from free speech. Rauch is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a widely known writer on public policy, culture, and government, both as a contributing editor at The Atlantic and as the author of six books. He has received many awards, such as the 2005 National Magazine Award, the 2010 National Headliner Award, and the 2011 National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association prize for excellence in opinions writing.

Sponsored by the Open Campus Initiative, the Institute for Humane Studies, Ross Commons, and the Political Science Department.

“Where Do We Go From Here?”: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Unanswered Question

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 | 7:30 PM
Dana Auditorium | Map
Open to the Public

The annual Charles S. Grant lecture will be given this year by Clayborne Carson, the founding director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. Professor Carson oversaw the King Papers Project in 1985 as per the request of the late Coretta Scott King, and has written several books, such as In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, which won the OAH’s Frederick Jackson Turner Prize, and Martin’s Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., published in 2013.

Free Speech and Inclusion on College Campuses: A Discussion with Dr. Robert Post

Wednesday, April 11, 2018 | 7:00 PM
Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room | Map

Dr. Robert Post is a Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where he served as the dean from 2009 to 2017. His foci are constitutional law, legal history, equal protection, and the First Amendment, and he has written and edited many books, such as, Citizens Divided: A Constitutional Theory of Campaign Finance Reform. Dr. Post will be discussing the difficulties of applying the social purposes, such as the importance of democratic self- government, of the First Amendment on college campuses. He will present the theory of academic freedom as another way to look at freedom of speech on college campuses. This discussion will be introduced by Dr. Roberto Lint Sagarena and will include a Q&A moderated by Dr. Erik Bleich.

Sponsored by the Center for the Comparative Study of Race & Ethnicity, the Office of the Dean of Students, and the Political Science department.

Mismatch: Does Affirmative Action Hurt More than it Helps?

Tuesday, April 3 | 4:30 – 6:15 PM
Kirk Alumni Center | Map
Open to Middlebury College ID holders

Richard Sander, an author and professor at the UCLA School of Law, will be speaking about what he calls “mismatch theory.” This theory is introduced in his book Mismatch, in which he argues that there are unintended consequences of preference programs in college admissions departments. He will be presenting data from UCLA admission and graduation statistics before and after racial preferences in admission to the Universities of California were banned, which showed in his analysis a higher graduation rate among historically underrepresented groups. These highly contested views will be engaged in a conversation moderated by Professor Caitlin Myers.

Is Civility Dead? Religion, Political Virtue, and Deliberative Democracy in the Age of Trump

Wednesday, April 4, 2018 | 4:30 PM
The Orchard (Room 103), Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest | Map
Open to the Public

Speaker: James Davis, Department of Religion. Professor Davis has authored several books and teaches courses on Ethics and Christian studies at Middlebury, as well as serving as co-director of the Privilege and Poverty Academic Cluster.

Part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

The Many Sides of History: Reflections on the Vietnam War with Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Mike Heaney

Wednesday, March 21, 2018 | 7:30 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Middlebury College Community, and the public if space permits

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick have collaborated on some of the most highly acclaimed documentary films of our time, such as The War, Jazz, Baseball, and, most recently, The Vietnam War. As a retired attorney and history professor, Vietnam veteran Mike Heaney ’64 offered one of many diverse perspectives presented in this 10-part film series that recently aired on PBS.

Now, all three are coming to screen clips from the film before holding a panel discussion and Q & A session with audience members. Middlebury College ID holders will be able to enter at 7:00 pm, and doors open for the public at 7:15. There will be overflow seating nearby in Crossroads Café with a live feed of the conversation. Join us for this special event, made possible with the Robert P. Youngman ’64 Roundtable Fund, which is committed to engaging in discourse around free speech and challenging topics in the public sphere.

First Food Justice: Why Infant Feeding Is a Central Social and Environmental Equity Issue in the United States

Wednesday, March 21, 2018 | 4:30 PM
The Orchard (Room 103), Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest | Map
Open to the Public

Speaker: Erica Morrell, Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Erica Morrell is a Mellon C3 Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at Middlebury. She led Middlebury students in research and generating a report this year on charitable food efforts in the Addison County area and how these efforts may be affected by the new recycling and composting laws in Vermont.

Part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Climate Change: Communicating Across Divides, with Dr. Katherine Hayhoe and Bill McKibben

Tuesday, March 20, 2018 | 4:30 PM
Davis Family Library room 105 | Map

Dr. Katherine Hayhoe is a professor, atmospheric scientist, and the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. She will be giving a virtual presentation with remarks in-person by Bill McKibben, a Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury. The two will discuss the process of communication between people of different backgrounds and perspectives surrounding the pressing issue of climate change.

Sponsored by Franklin Environmental Center, ES Program, Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life, Office of Digital Learning and Inquiry, Office of Advancement, and Addison County Interfaith Climate Action Network.

To “construct a virtuous…community in Africa”: Extending the Great Redeemer’s Kingdom through the American Colonization Society

Wednesday, March 14, 2018 | 4:30 PM
The Orchard (Room 103), Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest | Map
Open to the Public

Speaker: Bill Hart, Department of History. Professor Hart has played a role in the production of several documentaries, such as, “Black Indians: An American Story,” and PBS’s “The War that Made America,” as well as published several essays “on the intersection of race, religion, and identity in 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century Indian country,” and held several fellowships at universities around the country.

Part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Rethinking Thoreau: Race, Religion, and Renewal

Wednesday, February 28, 2018 | 4:30 PM
The Orchard (Room 103), Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest | Map
Open to the Public

Speaker: Rebecca Gould, Program in Environmental Studies. Professor Gould is an environmental advocate and the author of several books, including At Home in Nature. Now in Environmental Studies, she also served in the Religion department for eight years as well.

Part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Jill Lepore, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Jonathan Haidt

Wednesday, February 21, 2018 | 7:30 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Middlebury College Community

What does a robust and inclusive public sphere look like? Why is it important to American society and global citizenship? How should we construct it? How can a liberal arts education prepare students to engage it? Jill Lepore is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a professor of American History at Harvard University. Kwame Anthony Appiah is a novelist and professor of law and philosophy at NYU. Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and also a professor at New York University, as well as the author of the recent bestseller The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Join this trio of distinguished scholars and public intellectuals in engaging these questions in a discussion open to all members of the Middlebury community.

The PEN Convening

January 11–12, 2018

PEN—an organization dedicated to promoting free expression and literary culture—will lead a closed-door discussion on January 11 for 30 faculty members, students, and administrators, in which the participants discuss free speech issues and their relation to matters of inclusivity. That conversation will be followed by a public presentation on January 11, at 5:00 P.M.

What Is Hate Speech?

Wednesday, November 8, 2017| 4:30 PM
The Orchard (Room 103), Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest | Map
Open to the Public

Part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Speaker: Erik Bleich, Department of Political Science

How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood

Thursday, October 26 | 7:00 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Public

In 1968, three black girls entered the all-white, sixth grade classroom at Alex H. White Elementary School in Pollocksville, North Carolina. Their presence left a lasting impact on Jim Grimsley, a white boy in that classroom, who found himself confronted with his own ideas about race and difference. Now, nearly 50 years later, Jim Grimsley and those three classmates—Donnie Meadows, Fernanda Copeland, and Rose Bell—gather for a conversation about the history that they lived through when Jones County integrated its public schools. Sponsored by the Alliance for an Inclusive Middlebury

Teaching Controversial Issues

Monday, October 16, 2017| 4:30 PM
The Orchard (Room 103), Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest | Map
Open to the Public

Professor Noddings is a co-author of the recent book, Teaching Controversial Issues: The Case for Critical Thinking and Moral Commitment in the Classroom. Over her distinguished career, she has authored many books, including Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education and Education and Democracy in the 21st Century. She is the past president of the National Academy of Education. There will be a book signing following the lecture. This event is sponsored by the Center for Teaching, Learning & Research, the Philosophy Department, the Education Studies Program, Wonnacott Commons, and the Academic Enrichment Fund.

Speaker: Nel Noddings, Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, emerita, of Stanford University

Finding Common Ground: Economic Progress in the Trump Era

Wednesday, October 11 | 4:30–6:00 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Public

What does economic progress in the Trump era look like? Former Congressman Barney Frank(D-MA) and former Republican Governor of New Hampshire John Sununu discuss the possibilities. Moderated by Gail Russell Chaddock, former correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. Opening remarks by former Governor of Vermont and Middlebury College Executive in Residence Jim Douglas ‘72. Sponsored by the Common Ground Committee, Christian Science Monitor, Political Science Department, and the Center for Community Engagement

Representing Trauma: From Testimony to (Post)memory in My Own Artistic Practice

Wednesday, October 4 | 4:30 PM
The Orchard (Room 103), Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest | Map
Open to the Public

Part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Speaker: David Miranda-Hardy, Department of Film and Media Culture

Panel Will Explore ‘What Can Feminism Speak To?’

Wednesday, September 27 | 4:30 PM
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center | Map
Open to the Public

Writer Katha Pollitt and scholar Janell Hobson will examine what feminism can—and cannot—speak to.

Speakers: Katha Pollitt, and Janell Hobson

Discourse and Discord at Middlebury: A Way Forward

Wednesday, September 20 | 4:30 PM
Dana Auditorium | Map
Open to the Public

Part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Speaker: Jonathan Miller-Lane, Education Studies Program