DEBATE: IS CONSCIOUSNESS A FUNDAMENTAL
FEATURE OF THE UNIVERSE?

Presenter: Dr. Philip Goff, Dr. Sean Carroll

When: September 8, 2023 @ 7 p.m.

Where: Nelly Goletti Theatre

Dr. Goff is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University (UK). He is the author of the
books, Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023), and the trade book, Galileo’s Error (Vintage 2019). He hosts the Mind Chat podcast with Keith Frankish (Open University).

Dr. Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and is Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion (Dutton 2022). He hosts the Mindscape podcast.

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP
WORRYING AND LOVE PANPSYCHISM

Presenter: Dr. Michael Tye

When: September 9, 2023 @ 3:30 p.m.

Where: Student Center 3101

Dr. Tye is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas-Austin. He is a leading figure working on consciousness in the philosophy of mind today. He is the author of nine monographs on various problems in the philosophy of mind, with a special focus on the problem of consciousness. His most recent book is Vagueness and the Evolution of Consciousness (Oxford University Press, 2021).

EXPLORATIONS IN SOCIAL JUSTICE CONFERENCE
FILM SCREENING - CRIP CAMP: A DISABILITY RIGHTS REVOLUTION

When: September 20, 2023 @ 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Where: Murray Student Center

The Explorations in Social Justice Conference aims to bring together students, faculty, staff, alumni, administrators, and community members in an examination of social justice in the Marist and Mid-Hudson Valley community. All are welcome to engage in conversations about constructing justice and promoting ally-ship to build a more inclusive community. This year’s theme, Ability and Access: Making the Marist Campus Welcoming to All, highlights the Netflix Documentary, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.

About the Film
In the early 1970s, teenagers with disabilities faced a future shaped by isolation, discrimination and institutionalization. Camp Jened, a ramshackle camp “for the handicapped” (a term no longer used) in the Catskills, exploded those confines. Jened was their freewheeling Utopia, a place with summertime sports, smoking and make-out sessions awaiting everyone, and campers experienced liberation and full inclusion as human beings. Their bonds endured as many migrated West to Berkeley, California—a hotbed of progressive activism where friends from Camp Jened realized that disruption, civil disobedience, and political participation could change the future for millions.

HANDEL-KROM LECTURE IN HUDSON RIVER VALLEY HISTORY
NETWORKS OF SLAVERY: HOW BONDAGE SHAPED HUDSON RIVER VALLEY CULTURE

Presenter: Dr. Nicole Maskiell

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When: September 28, 2023 @ 7 p.m.

Where: Nelly Goletti Theatre (virtual option available)

The Hudson River Valley Institute is excited to invite you and your students to the 2023 Handel-Krom
Lecture in Hudson River Valley History, which will be held as both an in-person AND virtual event. The program “Networks of Slavery: How Bondage Shaped Hudson River Valley Culture,” will be given by Dr. Nicole Saffold Maskiell on Thursday, September 28, at 7PM. The event will take place in the Nelly Goletti Theatre at Marist College and live on Zoom. Pre-registration is required for in-person AND virtual attendees.

Dr. Nicole Maskiell is an Associate Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, and the author of Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry (2022). She has appeared on CSPAN, the podcast Ben Franklin’s World, and in a Historic Hudson Valley documentary film about the life and legacy of Margaret Hardenbroeck Philipse, an early female trader and enslaver. She is series editor for the upcoming book series Black New England from the University of Massachusetts Press, which highlights research on the history of African-descended people in New England from the colonial period through the present day.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR
COMMON READ LECTURE

Presenter: Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Author of Braiding Sweetgrass

When: October 4, 2023 @ 12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Where: McCann Center

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.

HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH

Presenter: Leila Cobo, Chief Music Content Officer at Billboard Espanol, Writer, Novelist

When: October 26, 2023 @ 6 p.m.

Where: Hancock Center 2023

A Fulbright scholar from Cali, Colombia, Leila Cobo is the Chief Music Content Officer of Billboard Español. Considered one of the world’s leading authorities in Latin music, Leila was the first U.S. based journalist to prominently cover Latin music daily and has been instrumental in transforming its coverage and perception in the U.S. Leila also programs the yearly Latin Music Week, the most prestigious and largest gathering for the Latin music industry. Last year she spearheaded the launch of Billboard Español, Billboard’s all-Spanish website, as well as the inaugural Latin Women In Music, which aired on Telemundo. Prior to Billboard, she worked at the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times.

Leila is a classical pianist, novelist, and biographer. Her most recent book, Decoding Despacito: An Oral History of Latin Music (Penguin Random House), was featured in the New York Times’ summer reading list. She has published two award-winning novels with Grand Central Publishing/Hatchette, and biographies on Jenni Rivera and Ednita Nazario with Penguin. Leila is also the host of “In-Tune With Leila Cobo,” her in-depth interview show seen on all U.S. airports via Reach TV.

Leila has degrees in journalism from Bogotá’s Universidad Javeriana and in piano performance from Manhattan School of Music, as well as a master’s in communication management from The Annenberg School at USC.

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH AMERICAN DEMOCRACY?

Presenter: Jamelle Bouie, Columnist for the New York Times

When: November 2, 2023 @ 7 p.m.

Where: Fusco Music Hall, Murray Student Center

The missing ingredient in American democracy is political equality, the idea that all citizens are of equal weight, even if they aren’t of equal voice. It’s not just that political equality is essential if Americans ever hope to realize the potential of their democracy, but that the absence of political equality from our institutions is part of what has warped our political system into something which struggles to express our democratic values.

Jamelle Bouie, a columnist for the New York Times and former political analyst for CBS News, covers U.S. politics, public policy, elections, and race.

Jamelle’s political instincts provide audiences with unique insight on the past, present, and future of our national politics, policy, and the state of race relations. As he did while writing for Slate and the Daily Beast, Jamelle shares eye-opening perspectives on issues concerning the issues at play in America today.

Jamelle Bouie appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation. His writings have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, TIME, and The New Yorker. Jamelle uses his unique perspective to take audiences to the front lines of the nation’s most significant news events, from civil unrest to political partisanship. He has emerged as a leading voice on the national scene, being named to Forbes “30 Under 30 in Media” in 2015.

Jamelle stimulates provocative, much-needed thinking on critical national affairs issues. He helps audiences analyze current events through the lens of human history and in the age of social media. He deftly illustrates how the past reveals itself in the present, and how policy-makers, citizen activists and cultural influencers can seize the power of information to make a difference.

ANNUAL WILLIAM AND SADIE EFFRON LECTURE IN JEWISH STUDIES BETWEEN WORLDS: JEWISH LIFE IN THE ITALIAN GHETTOS DURING THE EARLY MODERN AGE

Presenter: Dr. Frederica Francesconi

When: November 6 @ 7 p.m.

Where: Fusco Music Hall, Murrary Student Center (virtual option available)

Federica Francesconi is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Judaic Studies Program at the University at Albany, SUNY. Her research and publications address the social, religious, and cultural aspects of the early modern history of Jews in Italy, focusing on the multifaceted politics and dynamics of ghetto life. She has held fellowships in Europe, Israel, and the United States. She served as Viterbi Visiting Professor in Mediterranean Jewish Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been a fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

Her recent book, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), is the 2022 Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize Winner, granted by the American Historical Association and the 2021 National Jewish Books Awards Finalist for the JDC-Herbert Katzki Award for Writing Based on Archival Material. Among her other publications, there are two coedited volumes: From Catalonia to the Caribbean: The Sephardi Orbit from Medieval to Modern Times (2018) and Jewish Women’s History from Antiquity to the Present (2021). The latter is the 2021 National Jewish Books Awards Finalist for the Barbara Dobkin Award in Women Studies. She is currently at work on a new monograph, provisionally titled “The Jewish Home in Early Modern Venice: Cosmopolitan Intimacy, Global Networks, and Diasporic Material Culture.” This project has received the 2012-14 Gladys Krieble Delmas Grant.