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C A L E N D A R O F E V E N T S

LETTER FROM
THE DIRECTOR
Fall 2013 is a big semester for the Higgins School. The New Commons will be in full swing considering the theme of freedom not only through the Dialogue
Symposium and the Higgins Faculty Fellowship but also in three new teamtaught courses: Freedom’s Battle: The Quest for Self-Determination in the Age of Empire with Professors Doug Little (History) and Kristen Williams (Political
Science); Suburbia and the Rhetoric of Personal Freedom with Professors Deb
Martin (Geography) and Kristina Wilson (Art History); and Freedom Dreams:
Global Freedom Struggles from Decolonization to the Present with Professors
Stephen Levin (English) and Ousmane Power-Greene (History). The New
Commons courses, like the ongoing Dialogue Seminar offerings, reflect the
School’s commitment to curricular innovation and community engagement.
This semester also marks the launch of Mindful Choices, a guided, intensive arts immersion experience for sophomores and juniors. Professors Sarah Buie and Toby Sisson are each offering a section of this course in which students consider disciplinary commitments and career possibilities through creative practice and personal reflection.
Other noteworthy developments this fall include Professor Walter Wright’s first-year intensive Talking Freedom, the first such course planned to take up a symposium theme and Professor Barbara Bigelow’s “Don’t Bite Your
Tongue” dialogues and dinners (see calendar for times and locations). Also, in keeping with our symposium theme, we will be opening the Higgins Lounge up for “free time” in October and November. And thanks to the work of Sarah
Buie, the Higgins School will be part of a sustained dialogue on the Uncertain
Human Future supported by the Mellon Foundation (more in News and Notes).
I hope you will spend some time with the calendar; we have a full schedule of speakers, community conversations, and faculty talks “framing freedom” in and across a variety of disciplines, media, and vantage points. Thanks to all who contributed ideas and helped plan this semester’s programming, including Mary-Ellen Boyle, María Acosta Cruz, Eric DeMeulenaere, Gino
DiIorio, Patty Ewick, Beth Gale, Betsy Huang, Stephen Levin, Doug Little,
Mikaela Luttrell-Rowland, Deb Martin, Ousmane Power-Greene, Juan Pablo
Rivera, Shelly Tenenbaum, Alice Valentine, Kristen Williams, Kristina Wilson, and Walter Wright.
I look forward to seeing many of you at Higgins events throughout the semester.
All best,
AMY RICHTER
Director, Higgins School of Humanities
E X C E R P T E D F R O M
(1958)
By Isaiah Berlin
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This excerpt is taken from
Isaiah Berlin ’s influential
“Two Concepts of Liberty,” originally delivered as a lecture at Oxford University in 1958. In it, Berlin famously distinguished between negative and positive freedom with the former emphasizing free choice and an optimistic understanding of humanity and the latter privileging selfmastery and the need to control the baser aspects of human nature. Although many have refined and revised Berlin’s ideas, this distinction between
“freedom from” and “freedom to” continues to inform contemporary discussions of political freedom.
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NEWS & NOTES FROM
HUMANITIES FACULTY
Wes DeMarco (Philosophy) delivered
“Better than Ethics?” (a comparison of Daoist ethics and metaphysics with his own Neosocratic account) to the Metaphysical Society of America in March, and “The Separation of
Moral Powers” (an approach to moral pluralism) to the Northern New England
Philosophical Association in November.
Fern Johnson (English) presented
Transracial Foster Care and
Adoption: Issues and Realities at the State House in Boston in
March, as part of the Mosakowski
Institute’s Massachusetts Family Impact
Seminar Series. In June she presented a paper with Marlene Fine titled,
10 Years after Sheltered Immersion in Massachusetts: Failures of the Press in Framing the Bilingual Education
Debate , at the International Society for Language Studies conference in
San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Lisa Kasmer (English) was awarded a Davis Educational Grant to pursue a digital humanities project through coursework at the Digital Humanities
Institute, University of Victoria, BC in
June 2013. For Fall 2013, she has been asked to participate in a panel on the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice for the New York-Metro Jane
Austen Society of North America and to present on “Jane Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice at 200” by the Friends of
Goddard Library.
Stephen Levin (English) has a forthcoming essay in the journal Critique:
Studies in Contemporary Fiction , entitled
Is There a Booker Aesthetic? Iterations of the Global Novel.
The research for this essay was supported by a Higgins grant that enabled Professor Levin to conduct research at the Booker Prize Archive in Oxford.
Meredith Neuman (English) gave a talk entitled Crumbling, Collating, and Enabling; or, How to Write Puritan
Literature at Fordham University in
April in the midst of archival research travel to New York and Virginia. The lecture was drawn from her first book,
Jeremiah’s Scribes: Creating Sermon
Literature in Puritan New England , which came out in May with University of Pennsylvania Press.
Robert Tobin (Foreign Languages and Literatures) completed his term as Fulbright-Freud Visiting Scholar of
Psychoanalysis at the Sigmund Freud
Museum and the University of Vienna.
His research project there focused on
Freud and human rights. In 2012, three articles appeared in print and he was an invited lecturer at the University of
Graz in Austria and Eurovision Studies
Conference in Malmö, Sweden.
Judith Wagner DeCew (Philosophy) has published a review of “Unpopular
Privacy: What Must We Hide?” by Anita
L. Allen, in “Notre Dame Philosophical
Reviews” (2012) and she presented her paper “Connecting Informational, Fourth
Amendment, and Constitutional Privacy,” at the Information Ethics and Policy
Conference, University of Washington,
Seattle, Washington, on April 25, 2013.
Kristina Wilson (V&PA) is publishing
“‘Fearing a Conservative Public’:
Worcester, The Dial Collection, and the
Curious Pathways of Modern Art in
1920s America” in a special issue of
American Art (Fall 2013) celebrating the centennial of the 1913 Armory
Show in New York.
Clark is a beneficiary of a $1.2 million Mellon grant received in December 2012 by the Consortium of Humanities
Centers and Institutes (CHCI) based at the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University. As co-founder of the CHCI Humanities for the Environment network, the Higgins School has been funded to support a sustained dialogue on issues of climate change and sustainability among a select group of humanities scholars, writers, artists and climate scientists in a series of meetings to take place in 2014.
Members of this Council on the Uncertain Human Future will include anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, nature writer Gretel Ehrlich, environmental ethicist Kathleen Dean Moore (Oregon State), Buddhist teacher and scholar Lama Willa Miller, conservationist Estella Leopold, and others. Questions to be addressed include: What is the nature of the problem, seen deeply and accurately? What are the prospects of human survival? How do we as humans wish to conduct ourselves in the face of grave danger and the unknown?
Sarah Buie (Senior Associate and Past Director, Higgins School) directs the project in collaboration with Diana
Chapman Walsh (former president, Wellesley College), Susanne Moser (climate scientist), E. Ann Kaplan (SUNY
Stony Brook), and Pauline Phemister (University of Edinburgh).

—MAHATMA GANDHI, FREEDOM’S BATTLE (1922)
THE NEW
COMMONS new commons
DIALOGUE SYMPOSIUM FALL 2013
Almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, the meaning of this term is so porous that there is little interpretation that it seems able to resist.
— Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958)
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THE NEW
COMMONS new commons
THE NEW
COMMONS
FRAMING FREEDOM TOGETHER: ASKING THE BIG QUESTIONS
Freedom and liberty are regular topics in public discourse, and people usually assume that they are well understood. However, big questions surrounding these terms suggest that this may not be true. What exactly does the word “freedom” mean? When, and under what conditions, do we experience freedom? Is it a single thing or does it take different forms? How far does freedom extend and is it synonymous with liberty? Are people really free, or are we all determined by physical, biological, or social forces? If our thoughts and actions are to some degree constrained by external factors, is liberation possible? How? new commons
From the moment we arrived in Lashkar Gah, I was transfixed by Little
America, its history and its meaning. At enormous cost, a sweeping American cold war effort had temporarily eased the destitution of one corner of
Afghanistan but failed to achieve its loftier, long-term goals. Surveying the town, I desperately hoped America could do better now.
— David Rohde in Beyond War
Please join us for a dialogue facilitated by Walter Wright , Professor of Philosophy. Suspend your assumptions, listen to others, and together discover something new.
Thursday September 19 @ 7:30pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Since George W. Bush invaded Iraq, many Americans have scoffed at the notion of the United States spreading democracy in the Middle East. The region and its people, they argue, are not interested in — nor ready for — western-style democracy. Yet over the last four years popular uprisings — from Iran’s
Green Revolution to Egypt’s repeated Tahrir Square protests — have centered on popular demands for individual rights, transparency and accountable government. Journalist David Rohde will discuss whether a fear of following in the footsteps of George W. Bush is causing liberal Americans to ignore popular movements in the region that they should be praising. Can the United States do more to understand and support these calls for basic rights?
FIREARMS AND FREEDOM: STORIES OF GUNS AND AMERICAN LIFE
What happens when we start a conversation about guns and the second amendment from a place of dialogue and curiosity rather than from one of rights and public policy? Might our own stories and experiences with firearms suggest nuances excluded from the easy “right and wrong” of the current political debate? For example, what do you think about when you think of guns? Times of family bonding and personal accomplishment? Shootings and community danger? Urban crime or childhood play? How do your experiences affect your perspective on the proper role of firearms in American life?
Tuesday September 24 @ 7pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
We will tell our stories and raise these and other questions together in a community conversation facilitated by John Sarrouf of The Public Conversations Project.
This event is co-sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the College and the Mosakowski
Institute for Public Enterprise. Additional support has been provided by the Public
Conversations Project, a non-profit organization that builds capacity for conversation across differences in higher education and other settings by offering dialogue design and facilitation skills.
Tuesday November 5 @ 7pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Co-sponsored by the Political Science Department
David Rohde is a foreign affairs columnist for Reuters and The Atlantic.
A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, he worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and The Christian
Science Monitor and covered the conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel-
Palestine, Kosovo and Bosnia. In 1996, his stories for The Christian Science Monitor helped expose the mass executions of
8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the town of
Srebrenica and won the Pulitzer Prize for
International Reporting. In 2009, he was a member of an eight-reporter team from
The New York Times that won the Pulitzer
Prize for International Reporting for its
Afghanistan and Pakistan coverage. A series of stories he wrote for The New York
Times on his seven-month captivity with the Taliban won the 2010 Michael Kelly,
George Polk and ASNE awards.
His latest book, Beyond War: Reimagining
American Influence in a New Middle East was published in April 2013. He is also the author, with Kristen Mulvihill, of A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides and Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of
Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre since
World War II.
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THE NEW
COMMONS
My perfect day, week, month, or more, is to load the cameras into the truck and head out. I’m in search of images that speak of man’s influence on the landscape, and the effects of time. My subjects are at times whimsical, obscure, and transitory. They are not hidden, but they are seldom noticed by the passer-by. I seek that which has been abandoned and allowed to decay with the passage of time. I photograph to understand, from things seen to things known.
— Frank Armstrong
Frank Armstrong has been making photographs for over 50 years. His images speak to the freedom of the open road and also capture many fundamental freedoms that shape contemporary American life: freedom of speech, freedom of commerce, the freedom to fashion ourselves with the objects we acquire. Yet few of Armstrong’s subjects are picturesque or pleasant in a conventional way, and none of the advertisements or goods on display are ideal and intact. Instead, he delights in the decay and serendipity that the passage of time brings to the life of all things. Occasionally we might wonder if his photographs are more powerful statements about freedom from things rather than the freedom promised by things. He seeks the ironic iconic. Ultimately, his photographs embody an even deeper freedom: the freedom to find poetry and beauty in the objects our society would prefer to forget, the freedom to see that which we are told not to value.
The exhibition will run from October 9 through December 16.
Opening reception Wednesday October 9 @ 4pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons photo by Louie Despres
Born and raised in East Texas, Frank
Armstrong first turned to photography as a Navy Radioman in Alaska so he could send pictures home. He then taught photography at University of Texas Austin before becoming a full-time photographer with the University’s News Service. He took up fine art photography when he was awarded a Dobie Paisano Fellowship in
1979 but returned to teaching, working with Oliver Gagliani at Zone and Fine
Print Workshops in Nevada before becoming a partner in the South West
Photographic Workshops (SWPW). After moving to Worcester in the early 90’s, he concentrated on his fine art career and in
1999 was asked to join the Clark Visual &
Performing Arts Department as an adjunct lecturer. He has an extensive exhibition record spanning forty years, and has several publications, including a monograph of his work, titled ROCK , RIVER ,
& THORN: The Big Bend of the Rio
Grande (2001). He is represented in many private and permanent collections including MoMA in New York City; The
Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh; and the Worcester Art Museum. He is represented by the Panopticon Gallery,
Boston, and the Stephen L. Clark Gallery in Austin.
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A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N I N T E L L E C T U A L C U L T U R E S E R I E S
Ring out the news! The world can laugh again.
This day–we’re free! We’re equal in every way….
Lift up thy voice like a trumpet.…
Blow Satchmo, Blow Satchmo!
Can it really be, that you set all people free?
— “Swing Bells, Blow Satchmo” in Penny Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World
At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the U.S. State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism. Historian Penny Von Eschen will focus on the early years of the tours, as Dizzy
Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and other jazz luminaries spread their music and their ideas further than the State Department anticipated. Her talk explores the freedom afforded by creativity, music, and mobility and how jazz both served and challenged political notions of freedom. Both in concert and after hours, through political statements and romantic liaisons, these musicians broke through the government’s official narrative and gave their audiences an unprecedented vision of the black American experience. In the process, new collaborations developed between Americans and the formerly colonized peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East — collaborations that fostered greater racial pride and solidarity.
Wednesday October 23 @ 7pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Co-sponsored with the Office of the Provost.
Penny M. Von Eschen is Professor of History and American Culture, The
University of Michigan. Her book Race against Empire: Black Americans and
Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 ( 1997) won the 1998 Stuart L. Bernath book prize of Historians of Foreign Relations and the Myers Outstanding Book Award of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North
America. Other awards and fellowships include the Dave Brubeck Institute 2008
Award for Distinguished Achievement and a National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellowship, 2007–2008. She is the author of Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz
Ambassadors Play the Cold War (2004).
She co-curated “Jam Sessions: American’s
Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World,” a photography exhibition with Meridian
International Center, Washington D.C that has traveled within the U.S and internationally to 38 host venues in 27 countries in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Central
Asia, East Asia, Europe, and Eurasia. Von
Eschen is currently working on a book titled: “Rebooting the Cold War: Popular
Culture, Nostalgia, and Global Disorder
Since 1989.” www.clarku.edu/higgins/
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— WALTER LIPPMANN, THE INDISPENSABLE OPPOSITION (1939)
The narrative that came out was that these young men were guilty.
And it was almost unquestioned.
—Natalie Byfield in The Central Park Five
How do negative representations in the mainstream news media shape the lives of black males in the United States? In this talk, Natalie Byfield will suggest the ways in which a “free press” is often undermined by its own unexplored assumptions and, in turn, compromises the freedom of others. The talk will focus on the use of negative racialized representations in the news coverage of a single event: the 1989 sexual assault of a white woman in New York’s Central Park and the subsequent wrongful conviction of five black and Latino teens. Almost immediately after the attack, the “Central Park
Jogger” case dominated local newspapers and quickly became a symbol for urban crime out of control.
Headlines described the alleged assailants as a “wolf pack” and named the violence “wilding.” Byfield will consider the history of such representations and expose the likely cultural impact of the Central Park jogger case, drawing connections to the recent shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida and the New York
Police Department’s current “Stop and Frisk” policy.
Wednesday October 30 @ 7pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Natalie Byfield is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology at St. John’s University in
Queens. Her overall research focuses on the role of language in society, including the media in society, cultural studies, social theory, and the co-determined nature of race, gender, and class formations. Byfield has served as a visiting research fellow at the Research and
Evaluation Center of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and was a 2011 recipient of the Carla B. Howery Teaching
Enhancement Grant awarded by the
American Sociological Association. She is a past recipient of a Charles H. Revson
Fellowship at Columbia University and a
National Science Foundation Fellowship.
For close to a decade she worked as a journalist in New York City. Her work has appeared in the New York Daily News , Time
Magazine , The American Lawyer, New York
Law Journal , and New York Woman . Her forthcoming book Savage Portrayals: Race,
Media & the Central Park Jogger Story will be published by Temple University Press in
October 2013.
THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE
Want to know more? Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns’s
The Central Park Five (2013) tells the story of the Central Park Jogger case from the perspective of the five black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. The film’s running time is 2 hours and each screening will be followed by a conversation cafe.
Tuesday October 22 @ 6:30pm and Thursday October 24 @ 4:30pm
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons www.clarku.edu/higgins/
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It all begs the question: “How much space do you really, truly need to live well?”
— Derek Diedricksen in Humble Homes, Simple Shacks
Think “American Pickers” on caffeine, with a heavy twist of small space design and you almost capture the work of micro-architect Derek “Deek” Diedricksen.
Made from free and recycled goods, his artistic and functional micro-shelters — with names like “Hicksaw,” “Boxy Lady,” and “Gypsy Junker” — challenge conventional assumptions about the American home and consumerism with humor, thrift, and imagination. In this presentation, he will share images of his work and discuss his path to a more independent life through creative re-purposing of “free, found, and funky junk.” (Weather permitting, he may even bring a tiny house on wheels for us to tour.)
Tuesday November 12 @ 7pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Designer and builder Derek “Deek”
Diedricksen is the author of Humble
Homes, Simple Shacks (Lyons Press,
2012), the host of the upcoming HGTV series “Extreme Small Spaces,” and the host/director/producer of the YouTube series, “Tiny Yellow House.” He has spoken and had his work displayed at
M.I.T., Walden Woods, and NYC’s Maker
Faire (where he won a “Best In Show”).
Diedricksen’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Salon, NPR,
Readymade and MAKE Magazine. He also appears in “TINY,” a documentary about the small house movement. He tours the country teaching workshops to those eager to learn about building small dwellings, both through The Tumbleweed Tiny House
Company, and his own Relaxshacks.com workshops.
www.clarku.edu/higgins/
S P E C I A L E V E N T
Free Time in the Higgins Lounge
What makes time feel “free”? Come explore the possibilities of unstructured time. Sit alone or with friends. Will you check your technology at the door? Bring a book? Stare out the window? How will your vision of free time complement, complicate or transform the experience of those around you?
October and November Times TBA
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
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THE NEW
COMMONS new commons
M O D E R N P O E T R Y S E R I E S
…and what good are more poems against war the real subject of which so often seems to be the poet’s superior moral sensitivities? I could be mailing myself to the moon or marrying a pine tree, and yet what can we do but offer what we have?
and so I spend this cold gray milky morning trying to write a poem against the war that perhaps may please my daughter who hates politics and does not care much for poetry, either.
— Katha Pollitt, Trying to Write a Poem against the War
American feminist poet, essayist and critic, Katha Pollitt will read poems from her most recent collection,
The Mind-Body Problem (2009). Stirred by conflict and juxtaposition, by the contrast (but also the connection) between logic and feeling, between the real and the transcendent, between our outer and inner selves Pollitt takes the ordinary events of life — her own and others’ — and turns them into brilliant, poignant, and often funny poems that are full of surprises and originality. The reading will frame a conversation about poetry and freedom as we explore writing as a tool for emancipation, both personal and political.
Wednesday November 20 @ 7pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Katha Pollitt has published two books of poetry, Antarctic Traveller (1982), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and
The Mind-Body Problem (Random House,
2009). As a poet, Pollitt has received a
National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her poetry has most recently been anthologized in The
Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006).
Katha Pollitt’s “Subject to Debate” column debuted in The Nation in 1995 and is frequently reprinted in newspapers across the country. Many of her contributions to The Nation are compiled in three books: Reasonable Creatures: Essays on
Women and Feminism (Knopf), which was nominated for The National Book Critics
Circle Award; Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and
Culture (Modern Library); and Virginity or Death! And Other Social and Political
Issues of Our Time (Random House).
She is also the author of a collection of personal essays entitled Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories (Random House,
2007). In 2003, “Subject to Debate” won the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary and in 2010 Pollitt was awarded The American Book Award for
Lifetime Achievement.
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www.clarku.edu/higgins/

DEPORTED/A DREAM PLAY
A staged reading of a new play about the Armenian genocide first produced in 2012 at the Modern
Theatre in Boston by Boston
Playwrights’ Theatre in association with Suffolk University. Playwright
Joyce Van Dyke based the play on the story of two friends, her
Armenian grandmother and the mother of Dr. H. Martin Deranian
(’47) of Worcester. Seven actors play a cast of over 20 characters in this dream play that spans a century and ends in the future. Directed by Judy Braha. For more about the play, visit www.deportedplay.org.
Sponsored by the Theatre Arts Program, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies, Higgins School of Humanities, and the Departments of History and Sociology.
Tuesday September 10 @ 7pm | Little Center, Michelson Theater
$5, free with college ID
DON’T BITE YOUR TONGUE
Many of us were told from a young age that we should not discuss politics, gender, religion, race, or any potentially contentious issue at the dinner table. The Don’t Bite
Your Tongue dinners are all about breaking this convention. On the second Tuesday of each month we will gather for dinner and dialogue on these and other topics with the intent of listening and learning from one another in ways that challenge our underlying assumptions about ourselves and others.
Don’t Bite Your Tongue will be held on the second Tuesday of each month in different residence halls. Dinner will be provided. Participants need only bring themselves and a willingness to be open to anything!
Tuesday September 10 @ 5:30pm | Bullock Hall 3rd Floor Lounge
Tuesday October 15 @ 5:30pm | Johnson Sanford Center 1st Floor Lounge
Tuesday November 12 @ 5:30pm | Maywood Hall 1st Floor Lounge
Tuesday December 10 @ 5:30pm | Wright Hall 2nd Floor Lounge
Co-sponsored by the Difficult Dialogues Initiative and Residential Life and Housing www.clarku.edu/higgins/
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R O O T S O F E V E R Y T H I N G S E R I E S
SEEING LIKE THE POLICE:
Surveillance, Power and the Cross Index
With surveillance cameras, data mining, and the Patriot Act, agents of the state have both the ability and the authority to watch the public like never before. But this practice is not new. In her talk,
Professor Nina Kushner (History) will discuss the evolution of covert domestic surveillance as it emerged in eighteenth-century Paris, examining how and why the state and the police began to spy and keep secret files on its own people. Professor Patty Ewick (Sociology) will offer a commentary.
The Roots of Everything is a lecture series sponsored by
Early Modernists Unite (EMU) — a faculty collaborative bringing together scholars of medieval and early modern England and America
— in conjunction with the Higgins School of Humanities. The series highlights various aspects of modern existence originating in the early modern world and teases out the connections between the two.
Thursday September 26 @ 4pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
H I G G I N S F A C U L T Y S E R I E S
DREAM NATION:
Puerto Rican Culture & the Fictions of Independence
In a world in which Chechen, Catalan, Scottish and Sri Lankan nationalists, among others, command significant attention calling for national liberation, Puerto Ricans have perplexingly rejected political independence while choosing dependent status options: commonwealth or statehood.
Professor María Acosta Cruz (Foreign
Languages and Literatures) explores Puerto Rico as a nation that has consistently chosen a dual path: the cultural expression and yearning for national sovereignty is counterbalanced with the economic and political dependency on the U.S preferred by voters on the island and by their brethren in the States. Given that political reality, why are themes of independence still so powerful in Puerto
Rican culture? How does the dream of an independent nation enhance what being a Puerto Rican means ?
Tuesday October 29 @ 4pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Nina Kushner received her
B.A. in history and religion from
Dartmouth College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia
University. She specializes in eighteenth-century French social and cultural history, with an emphasis on women and sexuality.
Her forthcoming book, Unkept
Women: Mistresses, Madams, and
Elite Sexual Culture in Enlightenment
Paris uses records complied by
Parisian police and other archival evidence to reconstruct the world of elite illicit sexuality in the mid eighteenth century.
Born and raised in Cabo Rojo,
Puerto Rico, María Acosta Cruz received a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Her research interests are Caribbean and Latino cultures including the making and marketability of identities, Puerto Rican cultural history, and national and genderbased stereotypes. Her book Dream
Nation: Puerto Rican Culture & the Fictions of Independence is forthcoming from Rutgers
University Press and is part of the
American Literatures Initiative from
NYU, Fordham, Temple and Virginia
University Presses. www.clarku.edu/higgins/
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strassler foreign languages
S T R A S S L E R C E N T E R F O R G E N O C I D E S T U D I E S F O R E I G N L A N G U A G E S A N D L I T E R A T U R E S
A GENDERED AFTERMATH: THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
AND ITS WOMEN
Professor Lerna Ekmekçiog˘lu (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology) will discuss Ottoman government policy toward
Armenian women and children during the World War I era. She will focus on the ways the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul located, retrieved, categorized, rehabilitated, and “recycled” formerly kidnapped women and their children conceived in Muslim households during the post-genocide years, from 1918 to 1922.
Tuesday September 17 @ 4pm | Rose Library, Cohen-Lasry House
Co-sponsored by the Women and Gender Studies Program and the Political Science Department
THE CHALLENGE OF POWERLESSNESS: WRITING HISTORY
FROM THE VICTIMS’ PERSPECTIVE
Israeli scholar Professor Amos Goldberg (Hebrew University) will discuss his award-winning book Diary Writing During the Holocaust, laying bare the writers’ search for meaning and their (non) understanding of the ever-changing situation they faced.
Thursday October 3 @ 4pm | Rose Library, Cohen-Lasry House
THE FREUDIAN AND THE LIBERAL ARTS
Michael Roth
Michael Roth is president of Wesleyan University and the author of numerous publications on psychoanalysis, history and the liberal arts. He will speak on how psychoanalytic approaches to memory and trauma relate to contemporary discussions of liberal education.
Prior to assuming the presidency of Wesleyan University in 2007, he was president of California College of the Arts, associate director of the Getty
Research Institute, director of European Studies at Claremont Graduate
University, and founder of the Scripps College Humanities Institute. He is the author of Psycho-Analysis as History: Negation and Freedom in
Freud (Cornell, 1987, 1995); Knowing and History: Appropriations of
Hegel in Twentieth Century France (Cornell, 1988); The Ironist’s Cage:
Trauma, Memory and the Construction of History (Columbia, 1995); and Irresistible Decay: Ruins Reclaimed , with Clare Lyons and Charles
Merewether (Getty Research Institute, 1997). His current book Memory,
Trauma, and History: Essays on Living With the Past was published in the fall of 2011 by Columbia University Press.
He is currently preparing his next book, Why Liberal Education Matters .
Thursday November 7 @ 4:15pm | Location TBA
Organized by the Henry J. Leir Chair in Foreign Languages and Cultures THE NATURE OF GERMAN ANTI-SEMITISM DURING
THE THIRD REICH
Professor Thomas Kohut (Williams College) will draw on his recent book, A German Generation: An Experiential History of the Twentieth
Century (Yale University Press), as well as his current research as he analyzes the psychological nature of German antisemitism.
Wednesday November 13 @ 4pm | Rose Library, Cohen-Lasry House
The Working Writer and the Creative Process
Novelist Ellen Cooney, M.A. ’78, will discuss her creative writing process. Ms. Cooney is the author of seven novels and many stories; and she has taught creative writing for over twenty-five years.
Wednesday October 16 @ 4pm | Rare Book Room, Goddard Library
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice at 200
Clark University Professor Lisa Kasmer will speak about Jane Austen in recognition of the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice.
Dr. Kasmer specializes in gender studies and women’s writing in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British literature and culture.
Wednesday November 20 @ 4pm | Rare Book Room, Goddard Library
ALMODÓVAR IN/AND LATIN AMERICA
Paul Julian Smith (CUNY Graduate School)
From his 1980s films (“Matador,” “Law of Desire,” and “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”) to his recent films (“The Skin I
Live In” and “I’m So Excitied”) Pedro Almodovar has infused world cinema with an exuberant, gender-bending, sexually transgressive,
Camp vision that has deep, moving and occasionally tragic insights.
What does this post-Franco Spanish director have to say specifically to Latin America and how has he been received there?
Paul Julian Smith is one of the foremost scholars in Hispanic cultural studies, particularly known for his work on Spanish and
Mexican film. A professor at Cambridge University from 1991-2010, he was elected to the British Academy in 2008 and was appointed
Distinguished Professor at the CUNY Graduate School in 2010.
His many books include Writing in the Margin (Oxford, 1988), The
Moderns: Time, Space, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Spanish
Culture (Oxford, 2000), Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro
Almodóvar (Verso, 1994 and 2000), Contemporary Spanish Culture:
TV, Fashion, Art, and Film (Polity, 2003), Spanish Visual Culture:
Cinema, Television, Internet (Manchester, 2007), and Spanish
Practices: Literature, Cinema, Television (Oxford: Legenda, 2012).
Monday October 28 @ 5pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
Organized by the Henry J. Leir Chair in Foreign Languages and Cultures
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www.clarku.edu/departments/holocaust www.clarku.edu/departments/foreign

— NADINE GORDIMER, THE ESSENTIAL GESTURE:
WRITERS AND RESPONSIBILITY (1984)
G A L L E R Y E X H I B I T I O N
CONstruct / conSTRUCT:
The Organizing Principle
The visionary work of nine exhibiting artists reimagines ordinary objects as inspired constructions. Like alchemists they transform humble materials and in doing so alter traditional ideas on art and the practice of making. Thinking about the word construct as both a verb (to make or form) and a noun (a theoretical entity or concept) we reflect on the twofold way these artists work, entering a dialogue with substance and process as well as outcome.
The exhibition runs from October 10 through November 29.
Elizabeth Duffy
Circle Reinforcement Drawing, 2011
Opening Reception Thursday October 10 @ 4:30pm | Schiltkamp Gallery, Traina Center for the Arts
MOST SINCERELY: Some Thoughts on Making
Lorri Ott ’s artwork is experimental in material and process, informed by the language of painting, the history of abstraction, chemistry, color, landscape, and grid. Favoring the fluidity of pigmented liquid plastic, she constructs physical objects that function optically as well as sculpturally, engaging both vision and touch. Using color and surface texture to differentiate the parts of elements, Ott combines opposing materials and forms (hard/ soft, organic/geometric, opaque/translucent) to further abstract the pictorial qualities of the works.
Ott currently lives and works in northeast Ohio where she teaches painting, drawing and color theory at Kent State
University (MFA 2004) and the Cleveland Institute of Art. In
January 2011, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland presented a solo exhibition of her work, Lorri Ott: Passive Voices.
Ott’s work was selected by Lisa Freiman, Senior Curator at IMA, for inclusion in the August/September 2012 publication, New
American Paintings, (Midwest Edition #101). In the fall of 2013
Ms. Ott will have her second solo exhibition with the William Busta Gallery in Cleveland.
Her work will also be included in a group show at Soil in Seattle, Washington as well as an invitational exhibition in Pont de Claix, France.
G a l l e r y h o u r s :
Schiltkamp Gallery,
Traina Center for the Arts
Monday through Friday
9am – 4pm
Lorri Ott’s work will be included in the Traina Center’s Schiltkamp Gallery group exhibition, CONstruct / conSTRUCT: The Organizing Principle .
Wednesday October 9 @ noon | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts

clarkarts
CLARK ARTS
T H E A T R E E V E N T S
DEPORTED/A DREAM PLAY
A staged reading of a new play about the Armenian genocide by playwright Joyce Van Dyke. See page 14 for details.
Tuesday September 10 @ 7pm | Little Center, Michelson Theater
$5, free with college ID
NEW PLAY FESTIVAL
The Visual and Performing Arts Department presents the 3 rd Biannual
Clark New Play Festival, featuring new works by undergraduates
Wyndham Maxwell, Ava Molnar, Frania Romulus, Clare Tassinari,
Brendan Toussaint, and Hannah Yukon. The Kennedy Center’s Theresa
Lang will serve as dramaturg on the project. The festival will be produced by Clark Professor Gino DiIorio. These six new full length plays will be performed in repertory (two plays per week).
November 5 – 23 @ 7:30pm | Little Center, Michelson Theater
$5, free with college ID
M U S I C E V E N T S
EUNMI SHIM Concert
Bach, Beethoven, and the French Overture
Pianist and musicologist, Eunmi Shim is the award-winning author of
Lennie Tristano: His Life in Music . She is currently Associate Professor of Music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This piano recital will feature works by J.S. Bach and Beethoven in the fateful key of C Minor, including Bach’s Partita, No. 2 and Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, op. 13
(Pathétique) and op. 111, his final and most profound work in the genre.
Eunmi Shim
Saturday September 7 @ 3pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
TRIO TREMONTI Concert
Saul Bitrán, Violin, Jan Müller-Szeraws, Cello, Sally Pinkas, Piano
Music by Dvorak, Beethoven, Roman & Malsky
Trio Tremonti is fast becoming one of the most sought after ensembles in New England. Violinist Saul Bitrán, cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws and pianist Sally Pinkas, each a seasoned soloist, have appeared in such venues as Marlboro, Jordan Hall, Concertgebouw, Teatro alla Scala, and many others. They were recently appointed Resident Ensemble at the
Cambridge School in Weston, MA.
The program will include the Dvorak g minor trio, Beethoven’s Archduke trio, Dan Roman’s Passing Puntos, and Clark professor Matt Malsky’s accompaniment to the 1909 silent film Princess Nicotine; or the Smoke Fairy .
Sunday September 15 @ 3pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
Pre-show talk with Mr. Roman at 2:30pm
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www.clarku.edu/clarkarts/
RITA RAFFMAN MEMORIAL CONCERT
Featuring Eliot Fisk, guitar
Works by Bach, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Relly Raffmam
Guitarist Eliot Fisk and pianist Evelyn Zuckerman join friends and family of Rita Raffman for a memorial concert. Raffman, who died in August
2012, was a member of the piano faculty of the Indiana University
School of Music and later a piano instructor at Clark University. Her husband, the late Relly Raffman, composer and jazz pianist, was
Professor of Music at Clark and founder of its Department of Visual and
Performing Arts.
Sunday September 22 @ 3pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
THE JOHN FUNKHOUSER TRIO &
JERRY SABATINI AND THE SONIC EXPLORERS Faculty Concert
The John Funkhouser Trio is an energetic, accessible blend of modern jazz, funk, blues, 20th century classical, Indian classical, and European and American folk music. The band consists of the standard jazz trio instrumentation of piano, bass and drums, but its sound is anything but standard! Featuring Clark University percussion faculty Mike Connors on drums.
Sonic Explorers is a creatively spirited and musically diverse instrumental ensemble whose repertoire focuses on the original compositions and arrangements of trumpeter and leader Jerry Sabatini.
Characterized by sensational improvisations bursting out from tight, well-crafted arrangements, Sonic Explorers soar without limits.
CD release concert for both groups, featuring original modern jazz compositions by local composers John Funkhouser and Jerry Sabatini.
Saturday, October 5 @ 7:30pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
WORCESTER CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY
The Worcester Chamber Music Society took the Worcester scene by storm with its initial concert in 2006 and is now a recognized cultural presence within the Greater Worcester area — presenting sold-out concerts, receiving consistent critical acclaim, building new young audiences, and training rising musicians through its school residency and Summer Festival programs. Program to include Jonathan Blumhofer’s String Quartet no. 1;
Semper Dowland, semper dolens, for string quartet; Four Vignettes, for flute and strings; and The Maiden Pearl, for flute, violin, cello, and piano.
Worcester Chamber Music Society
Saturday October 19 @ 7:30pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
Pre-show talk with Mr. Blumhofer at 7pm
Jonathan Blumhofer www.clarku.edu/clarkarts/ p >
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clarkarts
FOUR HANDS PIANO CONCERT
Sima Kustanovich and Pavel Nersessian
Known for his ability to play the whole palette of the piano repetoire,
Pavel Nersessian is one of the most remarkable Russian pianists of his generation. He has won prizes in every piano competition he has entered, including the Beethoven Competition Vienna,
Paloma O’Shea International Competition and the Tokyo Competition.
Sima Kustanovich is one of the Northeast’s most sought after pianists.
An esteemed teacher, she is on the faculty at Clark University, where she was appointed as Distinguished Artist in 2008. She has played around the world in acclaimed venues including France’s Courchevel
Chamber Music Festival, N.Y.’s BargeMusic, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory
Chamber Music Series, Niagra on the Lake Music Festival, Summit
Festival, Sweden’s St. Jacob’s Cathedral, Hungary’s Matthias Cathedral,
Praha’s Hlahol and major cities of Russia, Austria, Italy and Estonia.
Program to include Brahms and Schumann.
Friday October 25 @ 7:30pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
SEVEN TIMES SALT CONCERT
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor: Consorts, Songs and Diversions from the Reign of Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth I’s reign from 1558–1603 saw numerous voyages of discovery, triumph over the Spanish Armada, and an outpouring of music, poetry and plays. This program explores music of the Elizabethan court and theatre, ballads of city life and maritime adventure, and high-spirited catches and country dances. Music of Dowland, Morley,
Ravenscroft, Hume and Byrd, broadside ballads and selections from the
English Dancing Master.
Seven Times Salt
Sunday October 27 @ 3pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
BRAHMS, BREL AND BRITANNIA
Don Boothman Faculty Concert
Donald Boothman, Baritone, Clifton J. Noble, Jr., Pianist,
Volcy Pelletier, Cellist
Clark University vocal instructor and Bass-Baritone Donald Bothman’ s varied career as singer, teacher and musical commentator includes performances in opera, oratorio and concert in forty-six of the United
States and in thirty-eight countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and South
America. Through Voice of America broadcasts he has also reached audiences in eastern Europe, singing in Russian, Czech and Hebrew.
Don Boothman
Saturday November 2 @ 7:30pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
CLARK ARTS clarkarts
STUDENT CHAMBER MUSIC RECITAL Concert
Friday November 15 @ noon | The John & Kay Bassett Admissions Center
CLARK UNIVERSITY CONCERT CHOIR
Pamela Mindell, Conductor/Director
Friday November 16 @ 7:30pm | St. Peters Church, 929 Main St
CLARK UNIVERSITY CONCERT BAND Concert
Rick Cain, Director
Thursday November 21 @ 7:30 pm | Tilton Hall
PETER SULSKI, SOLO BACH RECITAL VIOLIN/VIOLA
J.S. Bach: The Complete Solo String Works, Part Five
Peter Sulski was a member of the London Symphony Orchestra for seven years. While in England he served on the faculty of the Royal College of
Music and Trinity College of Music and Drama. He is currently on the faculty as teacher of violin/viola/chamber music at Clark University and
College of the Holy Cross.
Friday November 22 @ noon | The John & Kay Bassett Admissions Center
SINFONIA Concert
Peter Sulski, Director
Saturday November 23 @ 3pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
CLARK UNIVERSITY JAZZ WORKSHOP AND COMBO Concert
James Allard, Director
Saturday November 23 @ 7:30pm | University Center, The Grind
STUDENT RECITAL Concert
Showcasing Clark’s student musicians with an afternoon of concertos, sonatas, chamber works and jazz standards.
Sima Kustanovich, accompanist
Sunday November 24 @ 3pm | Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
STUDENT CHAMBER MUSIC RECITAL Concert
Friday December 6 @ noon | The John & Kay Bassett Admissions Center p l e a s e n o t e . . .
All events are free, unless otherwise noted, and open to the public. All information is subject to change. Please call the Visual & Performing Arts
Events Office at 508.793.7356 or email clarkarts@clarku.
edu . Please look for us on the web at www.clarku.edu/ departments/clarkarts to confirm all event information.
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CLARK ARTS

SEPTEMBER
September 7 Eunmi Shim @ 3pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
September 10 Don’t Bite Your Tongue Dinner @ 5:30pm |
Bullock Hall 3rd Floor Lounge
September 10 Deported/a dream play @ 7pm |
Little Center, Michelson Theater
September 15 Trio Tremonti @ 3pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
September 17 A Gendered Aftermath | Lerna Ekmekçiog˘lu @ 4pm |
Rose Library, Cohen-Lasry House
September 19 Community Conversation: Framing Freedom @ 7:30pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
September 22 Rita Raffman Memorial Concert @ 3pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
September 24 The Problem with Democracy | David Rohde @ 7pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
September 26 Seeing Like the Police | Nina Kushner @ 4pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
OCTOBER
October 3 The Challenge of Powerlessness | Amos Goldberg @ 4pm | Rose Library, Cohen-Lasry House
October 5 John Funkhouser Trio & Jerry Sabatini and the Sonic Explorers @ 7:30pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
October 9 Most Sincerely | Lorri Ott @ noon |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
October 9 From the Corner of My Eye Exhibit Opening @ 4pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
October 10 CONstruct / conStruct Opening Reception @ 4:30pm |
Schiltkamp Gallery, Traina Center for the Arts
October 15 Don’t Bite Your Tongue Dinner @ 5:30pm | Johnson Sanford Center 1st Floor Lounge
October 16 The Working Writer and the Creative Process | Ellen Cooney @ 4pm |
Rare Book Room, Goddard Library
October 19 Worcester Chamber Music Society @ 7:30pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
October 22 The Central Park Five Screening @ 6:30pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
October 23 Jazz Embassadors Play the Cold War | Penny Von Eschen @ 7pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
October 24 The Central Park Five Screening @ 4:30pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
October 25 Four Hands Piano Concert @ 7:30pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
October 27 Seven Times Salt Concert @ 3pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
October 28 Almodóvar in/and Latin America | Paul Julian Smith @ 5pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
October 29 Dream Nation | María Acosta Cruz @ 4pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
October 30 Savage Portrayals | Natalie Byfield @ 7pm | Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
NOVEMBER
November 2 Brahms, Brel and Britannia @ 7:30pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
November 5 Community Conversation: Firearms and Freedom @ 7pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
November 5 – 23 New Play Festival @ 7:30pm | Little Center, Michelson Theater
November 7 The Freudian and the Liberal Arts | Michael Roth @ 4:15pm |
Location TBA
November 12 Don’t Bite Your Tongue Dinner @ 5:30pm |
Maywood Hall 1st Floor Lounge
November 12 Funky Junk and Frugality | Derek Diedricksen @ 7pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
November 13 The Nature of German Anti-Semitism during the Third Reich @ 4pm |
Rose Library, Cohen-Lasry House
November 15 Student Chamber Music Recital @ noon | The John & Kay Bassett Admissions Center, 5 Maywood St.
November 16 Clark University Concert Choir @ 7:30pm |
St. Peters Church, 929 Main St.
November 20 Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice at 200 | Lisa Kasmer @ 4pm |
Rare Book Room, Goddard Library
November 20 The Mind-Body Problem | Katha Pollitt @ 7pm |
Higgins Lounge at Dana Commons
November 21 Clark University Concert Band @ 7:30pm |
Tilton Hall
November 22 Peter Sulski, Solo Bach Recital Violin/Viola @ noon | The John & Kay Bassett Admissions Center, 5 Maywood St.
November 23 Sinofonia @ 3pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
November 23 Clark University Jazz Workshop and Combo @ 7:30pm |
University Center, The Grind
November 24 Student Recital @ 3pm |
Razzo Hall, Traina Center for the Arts
DECEMBER
December 10 Don’t Bite Your Tongue Dinner @ 5:30pm |
Wright Hall 2nd Floor Lounge
December 6 Student Chamber Music Recital @ noon |
The John & Kay Bassett Admissions Center, 5 Maywood St.
Events listed in color are part of the Dialogue Symposium.
THE HIGGINS SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES
All events are free, unless otherwise noted, and open to the public. All events are subject to change. For a complete listing of events at
Clark, see the Clark Calendar at www.clarku.edu/calendar.
For further information, contact
Lisa Gillingham, program coordinator, at 508.793.7479 or e-mail lgillingham@clarku.edu.
DSGraphics-
Please update this logo with the “official” logo that you have!!
H I G G I N S S C H O O L O F H U M A N I T I E S
Amy Richter director
Barbara Bigelow, Eric DeMeulenaere, Tim Downs, and Laura McKee.
dialogue core leadership team
Sarah Buie senior associate and past director
Sara Raffo assistant director for administration and communication
Lisa Gillingham program coordinator
H I G G I N S S T E E RI N G C O M M I T T E E
Judith DeCew, philosophy
Gino DiIorio, visual and performing arts
Jay Elliott, english
Beth Gale, foreign languages
and literature
Wim Klooster, history
Calendar design: Brian Dittmar ’94 and Sara Raffo
Printing: DSGraphics