White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our RacialDivide Monday, February 11, 2019 6:00 pm, McCosh Hall, Room 10 Throughout our history, as African American have advanced towards full participation in our democracy, White reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim
An Evening with Alison Bechdel Tuesday, October 9, 2018 McCosh 10; 6:00 pm Alison Bechdel is an internationally beloved cartoonist whose darkly humorous graphic memoirs, astute writing and evocative drawing have forged an unlikely intimacy with a wide and disparate range of readers. She will explore her artistic process; describe her unlikely road to activism; and share insight into her
Rock-and-Roll, Progressive Politics, and the Dirty South An evening of conversation and music with thelead singers of the Drive-By-Truckers, Michael Cooley and Patterson Hood with Jonathan Rieder. Wednesday, March 7, 2018 McCosh Hall, Room 50; 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm The two co-founders of the Drive-By Truckers, Patterson Hood and Michael Cooley, will join Barnard Sociologist Jonathan Rieder for a
American History From Beginning to End Thursday, November 30, 2017 McCosh Hall, Room 50; 6:00 pm Jill Lepore will discuss the challenge of writing American history during a time of division. Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2005. Her books include The Name of War (1998),
Field Notes From An Ethical Minefield Wednesday, November 8, 2017 McCosh Hall, Room 50; 6:00 pm In the second annual Distinguished Teaching Lecture in Service and Civic Engagement, journalist and author Katherine Boo will discuss some lessons learned in 25 years of investigating injustice in dis-empowered communities. Katherine Boo’s 2012 book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a
Public Events, Private Lives – Literature and Politics in the Modern World Wednesday, May 10, 2017 McCosh Hall Room 50; 6:00 pm Acclaimed author Sir Ahmad Salman Rushdie is the author of twelve novels, as well as memoirs, short stories, and essays. A Fellow of the British Royal Society of Literature, Salman Rushdie has received, among other honors, the Whitbread
Whose Story? Re-centering the Mainstream Wednesday, March 23, 2016 McCosh 50, 6:00 pm Tony Award winning playwright, librettist and TV writer David Henry Hwang (M. BUTTERFLY, CHINGLISH, AIDA, THE AFFAIR) shares his journey as a kid from Los Angeles who discovered theatre, and what it means to be an Asian American writer in a country where people of color are rapidly
What does it mean to be the First to See the Light? When Financier Ted Forstmann was seeking a partner to spin-off Next Level Communications from General Instrument, he turned to Spencer Trask to unearth and polish its underlying value. The result was one of the most successful venture deals of all time. As a small division of a much larger
How would it feel to make medical history? By helping in the creation of Myriad Genetics – the world’s first genomics company. Co-founders and first investors felt how exhilarating it can be when they became the first genomics company to make one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century, the discovery of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Spencer Trask enabled its network to
We argue that Mr. Spencer Trask may lay claim to that title. nn the 1870s, Mr. Trask financed Thomas Edison’s invention of the lightbulb, today the very symbol of a bright idea. He launched the modern age of electricity as the first President of the first electric company. ConEd and was majority shareholder and first Chairman of The New York Times,