Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 14, 2006|Volume 34, Number 26

Visiting on Campus

National Resources Defense Council leader will speak

Frances Beinecke, president of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), will discuss her career of public service and social activism on Monday, April 17.

Beinecke will speak at noon in the Dwight Hall chapel, 67 High St. The talk is free and open to the public.

Beinecke is visiting Yale as a Dwight Hall Distinguished Mentor. In that capacity, she will consult with Dwight Hall student member groups in addition to giving a public lecture.

After graduating Yale College in the first class that included women and then earning a master's degree at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (F&ES) in 1974, Beinecke joined the NRDC. She has spent her entire career at the NRDC, becoming the organization's second president in January 2006. Today the NRDC is one of the nation's most influential and effective environmental organizations, with approximately 650,000 members and 300 employees working on critical issues concerning energy, pollution, land use and resource-conservation.

In her role as executive director of the NRDC for the past seven years, Beinecke has also been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's environmental policies.

Beinecke co-chairs the Leadership Council of F&ES, serves on the advisory board of Yale's Institute of Biospheric Studies and is a member of the steering committee of the Energy Future Coalition. She also serves on the boards of the World Resources Institute and New York League of Conservation Voters. Beinecke is a former member of the Yale Corporation.

Yale alumnus William Curran endowed the Distinguished Mentor Program at Dwight Hall in memory of his wife Jane. The program gives students access to role models who, in their professional lives, have embodied Dwight Hall's mission of public service and social activism.

'On the Side of Angels' is focus of Storrs Lectures

Nancy L. Rosenblum, the Senator Joseph S. Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government at Harvard University, will give the 2005-2006 Storrs Lectures on the topic "On the Side of Angels" on Monday and Tuesday, April 17 and 18.

Rosenblum will discuss "Glorious Traditions of Anti-Partyism and Moments of Appreciation" on April 17, and "Partisanship and Independence: The Moral Distinctiveness of 'Party ID'" on April 18. Both talks will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Sterling Law Buildings, 127 Wall St. The lectures are free and open to the public.

Rosenblum joined the Harvard Government Department in 2001 and became chair of the department in 2004.

Her fields of study are the history of modern political thought and contemporary political theory.

She is the author of "Membership and Morals: The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America," which was awarded the David Easton Prize by the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association in 2002. She is also the author of several other books and the editor of "Thoreau: Political Writings, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought." Among her other edited volumes are "Obligations of Citizenship and Demands of Faith: Religious Accommodation in Pluralist Democracies," "Civil Society and Government" and "Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: Memory, Law and Repair."

The associate editor of the Annual Review of Political Science, Rosenblum is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Storrs Lectures, one of Yale Law School's oldest and most prestigious lecture programs, was established in 1889. These annual lectures are given by a prominent scholar within the broad topic of fundamental problems with law and jurisprudence.

Newspaper journalism is the topic of Straus Lecture

David Wessel, Washington deputy bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, will give the Straus Lecture on Tuesday, April 18.

Wessel's talk, titled "Can Newspaper Journalism Survive Blogs, Fox News and Karl Rove?" will begin at 11:45 a.m. in Horchow Hall, 55 Hillhouse Ave. The talk is part of the R. Peter Straus '44 Distinguished Lecture Series at the Yale School of Management. The lecture is open to the public free of charge. Light refreshments will be served.

Wessel writes the "Capital" column, a weekly look at the economy and forces shaping living standards around the world. He also appears frequently on CNBC and National Public Radio.

He began his career with The Wall Street Journal in 1984 in Boston and moved to Washington in 1987. In 1999 and 2000, he served as the newspaper's Berlin bureau chief. He previously worked for the Boston Globe, the Hartford Courant and Middletown Press.

Wessel has shared two Pulitzer Prizes, one for Boston Globe stories in 1983 on the persistence of racism in Boston, and the other for stories in The Wall Street Journal in 2002 on corporate wrong-doing. He is the co-author of "Prosperity," a book that argues that the next 20 years will be better for the American middle class than the previous 20.

The R. Peter Straus Endowed Fund was established in 1987 by Eric Straus '81 B.A. and Jeanne Straus Tofel with her husband Richard J. Tofel, in honor of their father, R. Peter Straus '44.

Author of 'God: A Biography' to give Franke Lecture

Jack Miles, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "God: A Biography," will speak on Tuesday, April 18.

The talk, titled "The Monstrous in Fiction and Biography," will be held at 5 p.m. in the auditorium of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. A reception will follow in Rm. 108. Both events are free and open to the public. The talk is the third and last of the semester's Franke Lectures on biography. The series celebrated biography as a literary genre and method of history. For information contact Manana Sikic at (203) 432-0673 or e-mail manana.sikic@yale.edu.

Miles, a senior adviser to the president at the J. Paul Getty Trust, is presently a visiting scholar at Occidental College and a senior fellow with the Pacific Council on International Policy. He is also serving as general editor of the forthcoming "Norton Anthology of World Religions."

"God: A Biography" was followed by a sequel in 2001, "Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God."

The Franke Lectures are made possible by the generosity of Richard and Barbara Franke, and are intended to present important topics in the humanities.

Former drama school dean is next Maynard Mack Lecturer

The Maynard Mack Lecture will be given by Robert Brustein, former dean of the Yale School of Drama and founding director of both the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University, on Wednesday, April 19.

The topic of Brustein's lecture is "Drama as a Secular Religion." The talk will begin at 5:15 p.m. in Sudler Hall, 100 Wall St. The lecture is open to the public free of charge.

Until his retirement in 2002, Brustein served as professor of English at Harvard University. Drama critic of The New Republic, he is the author of 14 books on theater and society, including "Reimagining American Theatre," "The Theatre of Revolt," "The Siege of the Arts," and "Letters to a Young Actor: A Universal Guide to Performance."

He has supervised over 200 productions, acting in eight and directing 12, including his own adaptations of many modern European classics, most notably works by Ibsen and Pirandello.

Brustein's plays have been staged in Boston, Moscow and Singapore. His play, "Spring Forward, Fall Back" will be produced this summer at the Vineyard Playhouse, and in the fall at Theatre J. A new play about Shakespeare, titled "The English Channel," will have a staged reading by the Shakespeare Society in May.

Brustein's many honors include Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships, and the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism (twice). A member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was recently inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Since 1989, the Maynard Mack Lecture has been given annually by an eminent theater practitioner in honor of Maynard Mack, late Sterling Professor of English and former chair of the English Department at Yale.

Acclaimed novelist to deliver Woodward Lecture

German novelist Ulrich Peltzer will give a Woodward Lecture on Thursday, April 20.

Peltzer will read from and discuss his work at 5:30 p.m. in Rm. 309, William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. The event is open to the public free of charge.

Peltzer is the author of "Die Sünden der Faulheit," "Stefan Martinez," "Alle oder keiner" and his latest novel "Bryant Park," for which he was awarded the Bremer Literaturpreis.

The novel is concerned with "the (im)possibilities of literary re-working of history and attempts to register the event of September 11, which made the author interrupt the course of the narrative."

Peltzer is also the recipient of the Anna-Seghers-Preis and the Preis der SWR-Bestenliste.

ISS lecture will focus on Israeli-Palestinian relations

Ron Pundak, director general of the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv, Israel, will speak in the International Security Studies' Grand Strategy Lecture series on Thursday, April 20.

Pundak's talk, titled "Israeli-Palestinian Relations: Can Peace Be Achieved?" will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 101, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 63 High St. The talk is free and open to the public.

Pundak has served as director general of the Peres Center since 2001. Prior to that time, he served as project director (1992-1995) then executive director 1995-2001 of the Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF). The ECF is a non-profit organization established in 1991 in response to the need to break the deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian relations by searching for new and innovative approaches to conflict-resolution and cooperation projects on both bilateral and multilateral levels. In his position as the executive director of EDF, Pundak dedicated his activities to promoting cooperation and coordination between Israelis and Palestinians in the economic, political and social realms, through civil society and people-to-people dialogues.

Pundak also serves as co-director of the executive committee of the Palestinian-Israeli Environmental Secretariat, a joint Israeli-Palestinian umbrella organization for environmental activities, and as a member of the Israeli core team of the Lousiana Process and the Copenhagen Group, a joint Israeli-Palestinian-Egyptian-Jordanian umbrella for the promotion of peace activities in the four partner countries.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

It's Official. President of China to speak April 21

As HHMI Professor, Strobel will take students 'bioprospecting'

Scientists find gene linked to drug dependence

Program puts FOCUS on communication

Joan Steitz, Thomas Pollard win prestigious international prize spirit

Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai to explore the link between faith and . . .

Renowned poet W.S. Merwin to read from and discuss his work

A heroine's determination prevails in 'All's Well That Ends Well'

Event will examine how to preserve access to knowledge

Performances and workshops will explore 'theatrical bodies' . . .

Symposium on human rights will focus on memorializing atrocities

Talk, exhibit explore lessons learned from past flu outbreaks

SOM conference will examine globalization and technology

India's road to independence is topic of film, panel discussion

Dwight Hall fundraiser to include inaugural social justice award

Symposium to look at 'Success with Learning Differences'

Impact of bird-borne infections on wildlife conservation is topic of forum

Panel discussion will focus on 'Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa'

Trainer describes biker Lance Armstrong's winning ways

Tsunami Awareness Week raised funds and refocused humanitarian efforts

Campus Notes