April 26, 2012
11:30 a.m.
Mayser Gymnasium

A graduate of Bowdoin College, Hari Kondabolu is a comedian whose humor often centers on social issues such as poverty, racism, and a rejection of stereotypes seen in media. He has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live as well as appearing on a variety of national comedy festivals, including the 2007 HBO US Comedy Arts Festival.

Additionally, he has made several appearances on Comedy Central, including his own half-hour of Comedy Central Presents in 2011. He made his UK television debut on BBC3’s “Russell Howard’s Good News” and does a semi-regular show in New York City with his brother Ashok (Dap from the band “Das Racist”) called “Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Project.”

Kondabolu was a video blogger for World Compass, a joint initiative between WGBH Boston, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He holds a masters degree in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and is a former immigrant rights organizer.

For more information, see http://www.twitter.com/harithecomic

Sponsored by The Lancaster County Community Foundation whose vision/mission is to inspire and create a stronger community and advance the quality of life in Lancaster, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Asian Cultural Society, and the College Entertainment Committee.

This event is open to the public.

Van Jones, environmental advocate, civil rights activist, attorney, and co-founder of three non-profit organizations: Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green for All

Our country is in the depths of an ecological crisis and an economic recession. A clean-energy economy will move America past some of its most pressing challenges. By making us energy independent, it will improve our national and economic security. By radically reducing the pollution that causes climate change, it will improve the health of our families and neighborhoods. And by creating millions of quality jobs and careers, it will pull America out of the current recession, strengthen our middle class, and better protect us from future economic turmoil. More than that, building a clean-energy economy is a chance to reinvigorate and reinvest in the best part of the American dream: the idea that everyone gets a chance to succeed. By ensuring that every community has equal access to the new opportunities of the green economy, we can lift millions of people out of poverty.

In this moment, the progressive movement requires fresh approaches and a willingness to innovate. Van Jones has emerged as a leading champion of smart solutions for America’s middle class. As an advisor to the Obama White House, he helped run the inter-agency process that oversaw $80 billion in green recovery spending. A Yale Law School graduate, he has a 20-year track record as a successful, innovative and award-winning social entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of three successful nonprofit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green For All. He is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and American Progress Action Fund. He holds a joint appointment at Princeton University as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Jones is on the board of several organizations and non-profits, including Demos, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and the Campaign for America’s Future. TIME magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009. He is also the best-selling author of the definitive book on green jobs, The Green Collar Economy. He’s comfortable leading the charge both on the ground and on the airwaves, and his vast connections can unite organizations and high profile individuals in ways that would otherwise be difficult.

Sponsored by The Wohlsen Center for the Sustainable Environment, Center for Liberal Arts and Society, Mellon Grant for Environmental Values, Bonchek College House, and Weis College House

Author of “Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why,” and the college textbook, “Human Sexuality”; professor emeritus, Harvard University and the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences

The recording of this lecture will not be published online. It will be available at Media Services for F&M students and faculty to borrow.

What causes a person to become gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight?

Neuroscientist Simon LeVay has been at the center of this controversy since 1991, when he reported on a difference in brain structure between gay and straight men. In this lecture he provides an update on the science, and he asks whether scientific knowledge about sexuality is relevant to how sexual minorities are treated by society.

The lecture complements this semester’s team-taught course in LGBTIQ studies, WGS 275, “Constructing Sexualities” and will facilitate dialogue on the broader legal and social issues involving sexual orientation.

Sponsored by Center for Liberal Arts & Society, Office of the Provost, Office of the Dean of the College, Brooks College House, Women & Gender Studies Program, LGBTA

This event is open to the public.

Watch a 2-minute clip of highlights from this event.

Brian Norcross, instrumental conductor, leads a concert celebrating the 75th anniversary of the F&M and the 25th anniversary of the F&M orchestra. Two current ensembles, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble and F&M Orchestra will play.

Watch a 2-minute video of highlights from this event

Ryan McGonigle ’08, post-graduate fellow for Educational Outreach at Franklin & Marshall College, talks about his involvement in the Chris Campbell Memorial Field. He also introduces Noluvuyo Nkazi Dudumashe, assistant program coordinator and life-skills facilitator for AMANDLA EduFootball. The mission of AMANDFLA EduFootball is to promote the advancement of education by the provision of sports structures, training and facilities of children and young people in disadvantaged communities in Africa, specifically targeting youth who are no longer in the care of their families.

Hear also about the experiences of F&M students and alumni who have been involved in service projects in South Africa: Rebecca Green ’14, volunteer for ONE Goal and launching 100 Goals for Peace this summer, and Meaghan Mancini ’10, student at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Consortium (CPC), The Human Rights Initiative, Women’s Center, Ware Institute for Civic Engagement, Office of the Chaplain, Women’s Soccer Team, Men’s Soccer Team, International Women’s Outreach Committee, Women’s and Gender Studies.

Watch a 2-minute highlights video from this event.

Kyle Cassidy is a Philadelphia-based photographer specializing in visual ethnographies. His book Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Home (2007) received critical acclaim. Cassidy spoke about his most recent project, War Paint: Tattoo Culture and the Armed Forces (2012). Sociology major Ann Leffel ‘13 also comments on “Campus Ink: Body Art in Our Community,” a collaboration with a group of photography students which documented F&M tattoos and the narratives behind their creation. Sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies Program and The Phillips Museum.

James (Jamie) Widdoes P’12, is a current television director and producer and a former actor. As an actor, he was a lead in the 1978 movie Animal House, centered on life at a fictional college fraternity house.

In recent years he has become deeply involved with an organization called the Gordie Foundation, serving as a member of the board of trustees. The organization was formed after a dear friend, Gordie Bailey, passed away from alcohol poisoning as the result of fraternity hazing in 2004. James will discuss the culture of drinking in college from a unique perspective, combining the many, often opposing aspects of his life—three children who have attended college, his experience with Gordie, and Animal House.

He will speak to the issues raised by Gordie’s death and the movie. Although these stories are seemingly opposed, they each offer significant lessons regarding the social cultures of colleges. The questions brought on by the combination of these two personal and conflicting experiences are important to students, parents, faculty, and administration alike, as drinking has particular significance on a college campus.

Sponsored by F&M .08. This event is open to the public.

Carol Auster, professor of sociology and recipient of the 2011-12 Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, takes the audience on a journey that reveals how changes in gender expectations and in technology have influenced her own career as a teacher-scholar–from the use of punch cards for her early research on women engineers to the use of digital images for her recent research with student co-authors on popular culture.

Her research on women engineers, Disney theme parks, Mother’s and Father’s Day cards, pet cemetery memorial plaques, and the peer review process for scholarly manuscripts all have a place in this story. She hopes to inspire others to be curious enough to take advantage of unanticipated opportunities to seek answers to their questions.

Watch a short highlights video

While the Civil War has often been described as simply a Southern rebellion, historian Adam Goodheart, director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and author of the recent New York Times bestselling book 1861: The Civil War Awakening, argues that it swiftly became a revolutionary opportunity for many different groups of Americans. In his talk, Goodheart will focus on members of two ethnic communities, African Americans and German Americans, who seized upon the outbreak of war as an opportunity to seek a new birth of freedom.

As America marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began. 1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents’ faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal. It set Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness, and millions of slaves on the road to freedom.

Sponsored by Center for Liberal Arts & Society, Public Affairs Speakers’ Fund, Department of History, Department of American Studies

Watch a 2-minute highlights video of this presentation.

Jennifer Wright Knust, associate professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Boston University School of Theology will talks about biblical marriage, a topic from her recent book, Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire (HarperOne, 2011).