Miriam Cohen and Mark G. Seidl

November 4, 2020.

Miriam Cohen, Professor of History on the Evalyn Clark Chair at Vassar College, and Vassar Special Collections Librarian and Cataloger Mark G. Seidl will discuss the exhibition entitled Votes for Women: Vassar and the Politics of Women's Suffrage, sponsored by the Vassar College Libraries to celebrate the centenary of the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in the United States.

Video of Robyn Muncy Lecture, Nov. 12 at 5:30 p.m.

Listen

Tobias Armborst

February 28, 2018. 

Tobias Armborst, Professor of Art and Urban Studies at Vassar College and Principal Architect of the award winning design and planning firm Interboro Partners, discusses his book The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion (Actar 2017).

"The Arsenal comes at a critical time when interest in the urban realm has moved beyond the innocence of tactical urbanism, with its ubiquitous vocabulary of parklets and bike lanes, and now includes protest movements to fight the perceived agents of gentrification.... The text ultimately embraces history over how-to. The Arsenal, then, could be thought of as an urbanist’s I Ching, but rather than divining the future, each entry tells us about where we have been and where we are right now." --Metropolis Magazine

Ellen Condliffe Lagemann

January 31, 2018.

Ellen Condiffe Lagemann, Levy Institute Research Professor at Bard College and Distinguished Fellow in the Bard Prison Initiative, discusses her book Liberating Minds: The Case for College in Prison (New Press, 2017) in the next installment of our series on The Role of the Liberal Arts in Contemporary Society.

“An excellent new book that makes a compelling case. Lagemann’s is a reasoned, knowledgeable, and compassionate voice for higher education as a means to achieve the goal of prison as a place for rehabilitation.” —  Vartan Gregorian, president, Carnegie Corporation of New York
,

Martha C. Nussbaum

September 28, 2016.

Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, discusses her book Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice, just published by Oxford University Press.

"Written with her usual mix of grace, precision, passion, and breathtaking scope, Nussbaum probes two seemingly polar emotions underlying our notions of justice-anger and forgiveness. She finds them part of the same vindictive drama, and each problematic. Her call is to move beyond them to become 'strange sorts of people, part Stoic and part creatures of love.' The book offers an important and timely challenge, a most worthwhile and enlightening read for those interested in philosophy, psychology, law, politics, religion-or simply living in today's world." -- C. Daniel Batson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Kansas

45:14 minutes.

Listen

Eileen Leonard

April 13, 2016:

Eileen Leonard, Professor of Sociology at Vassar College, talks about her book Crime, Inequality, and Power published in 2015 by Routledge.

‘In Crime, Inequality and Power, Leonard offers a powerful critique of our current system of justice and the underlying socially constructed biases that continue to focus upon specific types of criminal behavior, while minimizing others. Central to her thesis is that "…power and persistent inequality in America has more to do with our understanding of crime and our punishment of it, rather than the harm that behavior inflicts". Crime, Inequality and Power is an important addition to the discipline of criminology and an essential read for students, policymakers and scholars interested in this complex topic.’

 -- David Polizzi, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Indiana State University, 

38:47 minutes.

Listen

Michael S. Roth

November 25, 2015. 

In the second edition of our series on the value and uses of liberal arts education in contemporary society, intellectual historian Michael S. Roth,  President of Wesleyan University, talks about his book Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, published in 2014 by Yale University Press.

"Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future. "

41:50 minutes.

Listen

Mary-Kay Lombino

October 21, 2015.

Mary Kay Lombino, Emily Hargroves Fisher 1957 and Richard B. Fisher Curator of Collections at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, discusses the exhibition on view at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center September 25 - December 13, 2015 entitled “Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument."

“Gordon Parks was one of America’s most significant social photographers, filmmakers, and writers of the twentieth century, and the first African-American photographer to work for Life magazine. In 1948, he began a professional relationship with Life that would last twenty-two years when he proposed a series of pictures about the gang wars that were then plaguing Harlem. Parks gained the trust of one group of gang members and their leader Red Jackson, producing photographs of them that are artful, emotive, poignant, and sometimes shocking. From this larger body of work, twenty-one pictures were selected for a photo essay in Life. The exhibition comprises forty-five prints alongside contact sheets, issues of the original publication, and related ephemera that both contextualize the images chosen for the story and suggest the ways in which the editorial process shapes the narrative arc."

37:40 minutes.

Listen 

 

Grace G. Roosevelt

October 7, 2015. 

In the first of a series of episodes to be aired this season devoted to the value and uses of the liberal arts and liberal arts education in contemporary society, Grace G. Roosevelt, intellectual historian and Associate Professor of History and Education at Metropolitan College of New York, returns to the show to talk about pragmatism, service learning, and the liberal arts and her book Creating a College That Works: Audrey Cohen and Metropolitan College of New York (SUNY, 2015).

 “In 1964 educational activist Audrey Cohen and her colleagues developed a unique curricular structure that enables urban college students to integrate their academic studies with meaningful work in community settings.  Creating a College That Works  chronicles Cohen’s efforts to create an innovative educational model that began with the Women’s Talent Corps, evolved into the College for Human Services, and finally became, in 2002, what is now Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY), a fully accredited institution of higher education that offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees."

48:46 minutes.

Listen

Maria Höhn

April 2, 2014.

Maria Höhn, Professor of History and International Studies on the Marion Musser Lloyd Chair  at Vassar College, talks about her most recent book, co-authored with Martin Klimke, entitled: A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany, published by Palgrave in 2010.

"Depicting the African American GI as the unheralded keystone of the civil rights movement in America during the post-WWII era, this book exhilaratingly exposes the two-facedness of America denazifying Germany while practicing Jim Crow segregation in its own military. With a thorough analysis of the African American press’s role in disclosing this hypocrisy, it reveals the many ways in which subsequent civil rights leaders owe their success to the groundwork laid by African American GIs. Together, they forged the space to launch a civil rights revolution in America." -- Calvin Robinson, President, NAACP

58:23 minutes.

Listen 

View the new film based on the book.
View the project website.