2008-2009 Contemporary Issues Lecture Series

The College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is once again offering the Contemporary Issues Lecture Series.

"We strive to bring in speakers that will discuss contemporary issues in a provocative way to create an academic discussion that begins before the speaker arrives and continues after he or she has left," said Susan Johnson, associate professor of political science and lecture series committee chairperson. Faculty across campus have embraced the series and students are encouraged to attend the lectures.

All lectures will be in the Young Auditorium at 7 p.m. and are free and open to the public.  Contact Susan Johnson (johnsons@uww.edu or 472-4766) for further intormation.

 Fall 2008

SUSAN JACOBY
"The Age of American Unreason"
Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Susan Jacoby is program director of the Center for Inquiry-New York City, a rationalist think tank.  In her latest book, The Age of American Unreason, she challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what our descent into intellectual laziness and our flight from reason have cost us as individuals and as a nation.  Her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Newsday, Harper's, The Nation, Vogue, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones.  Jacoby has been the recipient of grants and awards from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities.

ALAN WEISMAN
"The World Without Us"
Monday, October 27, 2008

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman imagines what might happen to the Earth if humans vanished.  The book explores humanity's true impact on the environment in a wholly original way and challenges each of us to re-imagine our planet -- and our place within it.  The book was chosen by both Time magazine and Entertainment Weekly as the #1 non-fiction book of 2007.  He is an award-winning journalist whose reports have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Discover, and on NPR, among others.  His essay for Discover, "Earth Without People" was selected for Best American Science Writing 2000 - 2007.

CRISTINA GARCIA
COMMUNITY READING INITIATIVE
(Co-sponsored by Young Auditorium)
"A Handbook to Luck"
Monday, December 1, 2008

In A Handbook to Luck, Cristina Garcia tells the story of three teenagers from around the globe making their way in the world.  The book follows them through the years, surviving war, disillusionment, and love, as their lives and paths intersect.  Born in Havana, Cuba and raised in New York City, Garcia has become one of the most important Latin American writers of our time.  Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, was nominated for a National Book Award.  She also served as Time magazine's bureau chief for Florida and the Caribbean and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton, and the Whiting Writers Awqrd.

Spring 2009

KEVIN SITES
"One Man. One Year. A World of Conflict" 
Monday, February 16, 2009

Kevin Sites, a pioneer of solo journalism, was labeled by Time magazine as "the web's best war correspondent."  In November 2004, as an NBC News correspondent, he filmed and reported on one of the defining moments of the Iraqi war when he videotaped a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded Iraqi insurgent in a Fallujah mosque.  Sites was honored with the Payne Award for ethics in journalism for his coverage of this event.  As Yahoo!'s first news correspondent, he spent an entire year covering every major global conflict for the award-winning documentary "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone".  His website won a 2007 Webby for Best News/Documentary/Public Affairs site for its coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah War.

MiINNIJEAN BROWN TRICKEY
"Return to Little Rock: Minnijean Brown Trickey of the Little Rock Nine"
Monday, March 9, 2009

On September 25, 1957, under the gaze of 1,200 armed soldiers and a worldwide audience, Minnijean Brown Trickey faced down an angry mob and helped to desegregate Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas.  During the Clinton Administration she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior responsible for diversity.  She has spent her life fighting for the rights of minority groups and the dispossessed.  For her work, she has received the U.S. Congressional Medal, the Wolf Award, the Spingarn Medal, and many other citations and awards.

KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR AWARD
"Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers"
Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Kwame Anthony Appiah is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.  Appiah's book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, challenges readers to look beyond the boundaries that divide us to see our common humanity.  It was the 2007 winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award.  He has also published widely in African and African-American literary and cultural studies.  Appiah has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  He is also a trustee of Ashesi University College in Accra, Ghana.