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Author SARK Shares Her Passion for the Positive in Lawrence University Convocation
Full text linkAuthor, artist and inspirational tour de force Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy — professionally known as SARK — shares her infectious perspective on living life to its fullest Thursday, March 4 in a Lawrence University convocation.
SARK presents “Make Your Creative Dreams Real” at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. She also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in Riverview Lounge of the Lawrence Memorial Union.
With more than two million books in print, SARK is the author and illustrator of a dozen personal growth, inspiration and creativity books, including the bestsellers “Succulent Wild Woman” and 2002′s “Prosperity Pie: How to Relax About Money and Everything Else.” She’s also embraced the importance of creativity in her books “Inspiration Sandwich,” The Bodacious Book of Succulence,” “Change Your Life Without Getting Out of Bed” and “Eat Mangoes Naked.”
She has been profiled in the PBS series “Women of Wisdom and Power,” shared her passion for life in the documentary film “The World According to SARK” and is a periodic guest on National Public Radio. For more than 10 years, she has provided positive motivation via her own “Inspiration Line.”
A self-proclaimed recovering procrastinator/perfectionist, SARK grew up in Minneapolis. She studied at the Minneapolis Art Institute, the University of Tampa and the University of Minnesota, where she earned a degree in radio and television production. She makes her home today in San Francisco, where she oversees Camp SARK, a company that produces inspirational cards, posters and calendars
Lawrence University Convocation Features Cartoonist, Author Alison Bechdel
Full text linkAward-winning cartoonist and author Alison Bechdel discusses her life and career in the Lawrence University convocation “Drawing Lessons: The Comics of Everyday Life” Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. She also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema. Both events are free and open to the public.
Bechdel’s work includes the groundbreaking comic “Dykes to Watch Out For” and the graphic novel memoirs “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic“(2006) and “Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama” (2012).
Featuring a cast of quirky fictional characters navigating life’s daily struggles, “Dykes to Watch Out For,” is drawn from Bechdel’s own experiences as a politically active lesbian. It has enjoyed nearly three decades of syndication in more than 50 alternative newspapers and magazines. Ms. Magazine deemed it “one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.”
Bechdel’s national profile rose with the release of “Fun Home,” a book-length autobiographical work in which she explores her relationship with her closeted, bisexual father and his apparent suicide. It became the first graphic novel named Time magazine’s Best Book of the Year. It also was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, won the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work and has been a required text for students in Lawrence’s Freshman Studies course since 2011.
Her most recent work, “Are You My Mother,” complements “Fun Home,” with reflections on her fraught, complex relationship with her mother.
Beyond her self-syndicated comics and memoirs, Bechdel has drawn for Slate, McSweeney’s, The New York Times Book Review and U.K. literary magazine Granta. She was awarded a 2012-13 Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts and edited “Best American Comics 2011.” Other honors include a seat on the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary in 2006, a fellowship at the University of Chicago and the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, which honors LGBT writers
Conservative Author Dinesh D’Souza Celebrates America’s Greatness in Lawrence University Appearance
Full text linkNoted conservative author Dinesh D’Souza takes on the critics and defends America’s unique standing as the “freest and most decent society in existence” in an address Thursday, May 20 at Lawrence University.
Based on his 2002 book of the same name, D’Souza presents “What’s So Great About America” at 7:30 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.
Written in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, “What’s So Great About America” celebrates the United States, in D’Souza’s view as, “the best life our world has to offer” while taking on those who hate America, including radical Muslims.
Born and raised in India, D’Souza, 43, immigrated to the United States in 1978. After earning a degree from Dartmouth University, he served as the editor of Prospect magazine and spent a year as managing editor of the conservative magazine Policy Review. In 1987, D’Souza joined the Reagan administration as a senior domestic policy analyst.
In addition to “What’s So Great About America,” D’Souza is the author of six other books, including 1991′s bestseller “Illiberal Education,” in which he casts a critical eye on the state of contemporary American higher education. He has also written a biography of Jerry Falwell, “Falwell: Before the Millennium,” provided a controversial view of the role of race in American society in “The End of Racism” and argues the case why Ronald Reagan should be considered among the nation’s greatest presidents in his 1997 book “Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.”
Hailed by Investor’s Business Daily as one of the “top young public-policy makers in the country,” D’Souza’s writing also has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Harper’s and the Atlantic Monthly.
He currently serves as the Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, specializing in issues of social and individual responsibility, civil rights and affirmative action, economics and society and higher education.
D’Souza is speaking at the invitation of the Lawrence College Republicans, and his appearance is sponsored by the Class of ’65 Student Activity Fund, the Young America’s Foundation, and the Outagamie County Republican Party
Author Lynda Barry Brings Gospel of Creativity to Lawrence University Convocation
Full text linkAward-winning cartoonist and author Lynda Barry brings her message of tapping into your innate creativity to Lawrence University in the convocation “Crossing the Fox River: From Thought to Action.”
The third presentation in the college’s 2012-13 convocation series, Barry’s address on Thursday, Jan. 24 at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, is free and open to the public.
Barry has enjoyed a 35-year career as a cartoonist that began as an undergraduate at Washington State’s Evergreen State College, where she shared her comic strips with Evergreen classmate Matt Groening, the future creator of the TV hit show “The Simpsons,” who secretly slipped them into the school newspaper.
Along the way, she forged a unique path in the art world. Her weekly comic strip “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” which ran in alternative newspapers from 1979-2008, is widely credited with expanding the literary, thematic and emotional range of American comics.
A truly multidisciplinary artist, Barry is the author of 18 books, has worked as a commentator for NPR and written monthly features for a numerous magazines, among them Esquire, Mother Jones, Mademoiselle and Salon. She recorded a spoken word album called “The Lynda Barry Experience,” adapted her first novel, “The Good Times are Killing Me,” into an off-Broadway play and has been a guest of David Letterman on his television show numerous times.
A Wisconsin native who makes her home today in rural Rock County, Barry conducts more than a dozen writing workshops a year, including some specifically for non-writers in which she coaxes her students to find that part of the brain where the story-telling talent resides.
Barry has been honored with numerous awards for her work, including two Eisner Awards, which honor creative achievement in American comic books. Her illustrated novel “Cruddy” has been translated into French, Italian, German, Catalan and Hebrew and her book “One! Hundred! Demons!” was required reading in 2008 for all incoming Stanford University freshmen
Lawrence University Awarding Honorary Degree to Renowned Scholar, Author Martha Nussbaum
Full text linkLawrence University will recognize Martha Nussbaum, one of the world’s pre-eminent scholars, public intellectuals and an award-winning author, with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree Sunday, June 9 at the college’s 164th commencement.
Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, also will serve as the principal commencement speaker. This will be Nussbaum’s second speaking engagement at Lawrence. She delivered the university convocation “Global Duties: Cicero’s Problematic Legacy” in May, 2001.
Before joining the University of Chicago in 1995, Nussbaum taught at Harvard and Brown universities. At the same time, she served seven years as a research advisor at the World Institute for Development Economics Research in Helsinki, which is part of the United Nations University. .
As the holder of the Freund chair at Chicago, Nussbaum has full appointments in the philosophy department and the law school, as well as associate appointments in the political science and classics departments and the divinity school. She is also a member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies and a board member of the Human Rights Program.
“Martha Nussbaum is a great defender of the liberal arts and exemplary role model for our students,” said Lawrence President Jill Beck. “She demonstrates how to bridge effectively scholarly interests with issues of the day and with the need for taking informed positions in our lives and societies. In Dr. Nussbaum’s case, she uses her knowledge of classics to generate contemporary political critique. I’m sure the graduating students will enjoy meeting her and hearing her perspectives.”
Among the country’s most celebrated philosophers and celebrated thinkers, Nussbaum believes philosophers should act as “lawyers for humanity” to address questions of justice, basing her work on a political philosophy of human capability and functioning that has both Aristotelian and Kantian roots. Her scholarship also has focused on the transformative aspects of the connections between literature and philosophy.
“As we tell stories about the lives of others,” Nussbaum has said, “we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves.”
Award-winning scholar, author
A prolific writer with more than 350 published scholarly articles, Nussbaum is the author of nearly three dozen books, including 2010’s “Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities,” in which she argues that the humanities are an essential element for the quality of democracy. Her book “Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education,” was recognized with the Ness Book Award of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Grawemeyer Award in Education.
She has been recognized nationally and internationally with numerous awards, including 50 honorary degrees. She was the recipient of the 2012 Phi Beta Kappa’s Sidney Hook Memorial Award, which honors national distinction by a scholar in the areas of scholarship, undergraduate teaching and leadership in the cause of liberal arts education. Last year she became just the second woman to receive Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for Social Science. The award recognizes a person whose work “constitutes a significant contribution to the benefit of mankind.”
A native of New York City, Nussbaum earned a bachelor’s degree in 1969 from New York University, where she studied theatre and classics. She went on to earn master’s and doctorate degrees in classical philology from Harvard University
Lawrence Welcomes Author and Cultural Critic William Deresiewicz for University Convocation
Full text linkProvocative essayist, cultural critic and author William Deresiewicz presents “Through the Vale of Soul-Making: The Journey of the Liberal Arts” Thursday, April 19 at 11:10 a.m. in a Lawrence University convocation. The presentation, in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, will be followed by a question-and-answer session at 2:30 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema. Both events are free and open to the public.
Focusing on higher education, social media and other culture issues, Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor for The New Republic. His weekly “All Points” blog on culture and society appears in The American Scholar.
A three-time National Magazine Award nominee (2008, ’09, ’11), his essays include “Generation Sell” (the business plan as art form of our age), “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education” (what the Ivy League won’t teach you) and “Faux Friendship” (about Facebook).
“Solitude and Leadership,” an essay that encourages the practice of introspection, concentration and nonconformity he delivered as an address to the plebe class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2009, has been used as a teaching tool across the U.S. military, the corporate world, schools of business and at the Aspen Institute.
Deresiewicz spent 10 years (1998-2008) as an English professor at Yale University before embarking on a full-time writing career. He chronicled the transformative effect literature has had on his life in the 2011 novel “A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter.
Lawrence University Historian Examines Paradoxes of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation
Full text linkWas President Abraham Lincoln acting on purely moral grounds when he issued his famous proclamation that ended slavery in the United States? Lawrence University historian Jerald Podair argues Lincoln’s motivation was driven by more than repugnancy for the institution of slavery.
Podair presents “Back Door to Freedom: The Paradoxes of the Emancipation Proclamation,” Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m.in the Wriston Art Center auditorium on the Lawrence campus.
Podair’s address is in conjunction with the traveling national exhibition, “Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation,” which is on display in the Lawrence library until March 5.
Podair will explore the pragmatic reasons behind Lincoln’s decision, examining the Emancipation Proclamation not merely as a moral gesture of idealism but as a war measure to preserve the Union by destroying the Confederacy’s capacity to make war through its most important asset — slave labor. Podair argues part of the United States’ peculiar genius lies in its ability to produce leaders like Lincoln, who understood that pragmatism and self-interest may not be paradoxes after all.
A specialist on 20th-century American history, urban history and race relations and the author of the 2003 book “The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites and the Ocean Hall-Brownsville Crisis,” Podair joined the Lawrence history department in 1998. Promoted to associate professor in 2003, he earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University
Author, Educator Parker Palmer Helps Lawrence University Launch New Civic Engagement Initiative
Full text linkRenowned author, educator and activist Parker Palmer visits the Lawrence University campus Wednesday, Jan. 25 to launch the college’s newest initiative, the Civic Life Project, a program designed to stimulate engagement among Lawrence students and the Fox Cities community through short, student-made documentary films about local issues.
Palmer delivers the address “Democracy, Higher Education and Habits of the Heart: Restoring Democracy’s Infrastructure” at 7 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. A question-and-answer session will follow his presentation, which is free and open to the public.
A traveling teacher, Palmer focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He founded the Center for Courage & Renewal in Bainbridge Island, Wash., a national non-profit organization that supports people in the serving professions —education, medicine, ministry, law, philanthropy — through programs such as “Courage to Teach,” “Courage to Lead” and “Circle of Trust.”
Palmer, who lives in Madison, has written nine books, including “Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit,” which was published last August, “The Active Life,” “The Company of Strangers” and “The Promise of Paradox.”
A senior associate of the American Association of Higher Education for 15 years, Palmer was named one of “25 People Who Are Changing the World” in 2011 by the Utne Reader in its annual listing of “Visionaries.”
Palmer has been cited by the Council of Independent Colleges for “outstanding contributions to higher education,” and the American College Personnel Association named him a “Diamond Honoree” for his contributions to the field of student affairs. In 1998, The Leadership Project honored Palmer one of the 30 “most influential senior leaders” in higher education and one of the 10 key “agenda-setters” of the past decade.
Lawrence’s Civic Life Project, set to launch on a pilot basis in 2012-13, is a unique educational initiative that prompts students to participate as engaged citizens through documentary filmmaking. It is modeled on a successful program that award-winning filmmaker Catherine Tatge and her partner Dominique Lasseur created for several high schools in Connecticut several years ago.
Tatge, who is spending the current academic year at Lawrence as an artist-in-residence, will coordinate the program in collaboration with Monica Rico, associate professor of history, Pieper Family Chair of Servant Leadership and director of the Office of Engaged Learning, and assistance from Lasseur of Global Village Media in New York City.
The program, which will be open to all students, leverages several strengths of the college: community engagement, visual and musical creativity, communication skills and research abilities.
“Our goal is to encourage young people to become active participants in our democracy, to collaborate, deliberate and take the initiative to solve problems that they consider important in their communities,” said Tatge. “It centers on developing the core skills involved in producing a documentary film. In the process of researching stories and investigating all sides of an issue, students acquire valuable tools to better understand the complex workings of our society and our democracy.”
Plans call for the first short films — 8-12 minutes in length — produced by the students participating in the project to be screened for the Appleton community at the end of the 2012-13 academic year
Author, Scholar Martha Nussbaum Receiving Honorary Degree at Lawrence’s 164th Commencement
Full text linkMartha Nussbaum, one of the world’s pre-eminent scholars, public intellectuals and an award-winning author, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree Sunday, June 9 at Lawrence University’s 164th commencement
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