News from SUNY Cortland

For more information contact: Jean Palmer, 607-753-2232

SUNY Cortland to Hold Series of Lectures on Inequality

CORTLAND, NY (08/26/2008; 1436)(readMedia)-- Beginning this fall, SUNY Cortland will focus a yearlong series of lectures and cultural events on the theme of inequality.

The series, titled "Inequality," starting Sept. 9, will feature five lectures by leading scholars, authors and activists who will explore the impact of global, national and local imbalances in wealth, race, culture, education and gender. All events are free and open to the public.

"Nothing could be more timely than a frank and penetrating discussion of the inequalities we see around us," said Kevin Sheets, associate professor of history. "The obvious economic inequalities, both here and around the world, exacerbate other inequalities - racial, gender, cultural - that deprive so many of the world's people from achieving what Thomas Jefferson so long ago claimed as a birthright, our individual pursuits of happiness. Our campus and community needs to have this conversation and we are excited by the qualities of individuals who will visit campus in the upcoming year to help us puzzle through the challenges we face."

"Inequality" is the fourth yearlong series of lectures and cultural events organized around a single theme at SUNY Cortland.

The first speaker, Jonathan Kozol, is an activist and author whose first book, Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools (1967), drew upon his experiences as a fourth-grade teacher. In 1988, Kozol examined the lives of people deprived of the raw necessities in Rachel and her Children: Homeless Families in America. His most recent book, Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995), is a study about schoolchildren in the South Bronx. Kozol will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9, in Corey Union Function Room.

Other events in the "Inequality" series include:

• Julia Scheeres, author of the memoir, Jesus Land, will speak at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25, in Sperry, Room 105. In her book, Scheeres chronicles the upbringing of herself and her adopted African-American brother, David, who were raised in a mid-west fundamentalist Christian family. She lives in San Francisco, Calif., and is working on a novel.
• Earl Shorris, a pioneering educator, activist and author, will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 15, in Sperry, Room 105. He has earned praise for his work teaching the humanities to the world's poor and disenfranchised people. In his book, Riches for the Poor, Shorris describes his Clemente courses, which are based on the premise that the insights and skills offered by study of the traditional humanities disciplines can provide people with tools for gaining control over their lives. He has inspired communities across the globe, including one in Darfur, to use these courses to transform lives.
• Suad Joseph '66, professor of anthropology and women and gender studies at the University of California, Davis, will speak at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 22, in Brockway Hall Jacobus Lounge. Joseph, also the director of the Middle East and South Asia studies program, will discuss women in the Middle East. Her research has focused on her native Lebanon, the politicization of religion, women in local communities, women, family and state and on questions of self, citizenship and rights. Her current research is a long-term longitudinal study on how children in a village of Lebanon learn their notions of rights, responsibilities and citizenship in the aftermath of the Civil War.
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, a professor and author, will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 4, in Old Main Brown Auditorium. Appiah's career ranges across academic disciplines and engages contemporary issues. His recent work, the prize-winning Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006), will be the topic of his talk at SUNY Cortland. Currently, Appiah is the Laurance S. Rochefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His early work was in the specialized field of language and logic, but it was as a scholar of African and African-American studies that he came to the attention of a wider audience.
• Award-winning filmmaker Jennifer Fox will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, March 18 and 19, in Old Main Brown Auditorium. Fox has traveled the globe to create compelling stories. Her documentaries have brought light to the lives of families living in war-ravaged Beirut and to the complexity of interracial families living in America. Her recent project and the subject of her talk at the College, Flying: Confessions of Free Woman, is a six-part documentary that offers a portrait of women's experiences as they struggle against gender inequalities that limit their lives.

Sponsored by the College's Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee, the series is funded by the Offices of the President and the Provost. Joseph's lecture is supported by the Research and Sponsored Programs Office, Women's Studies, Intercultural and Gender Studies Center, Asian and Middle East Studies Committee, International Studies Program and the Clark Center for International Education.

For more information on the series, contact Sheets at (607) 753-2060. For further information about Joseph's talk, contact Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science Henry Steck at (607) 753-4807.

-30-