WESeminars

WESeminars are among Wesleyan’s most popular and well-attended educational programs. Interactive and inspiring, they provide opportunities to revisit the classroom and experience firsthand the academic excellence that is the essence of Wesleyan, with presentations by scholars, pundits, and other experts in their fields. Read more »

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Homecoming/Family Weekend, 2007 (November 2–4)

Building Bridges Between University and Community

Watch now Dr. Sonia BasSheva Mañjon and Janis Astor del Valle

“Social justice, equity and diversity.” It’s like a mantra at the Center for Art & Public Life at California College of the Arts in the progressive environment of the San Francisco Bay Area. Those values are buried deep in all the lessons CCA students are learning about art’s place in the public arena. Wesleyan students are also learning important lessons about public service and the value of community-based arts programs through a variety of service-learning projects. They have been working with many community organizations, including the Green Street Arts Center, whose mission holds “transforming lives through the arts” at its core. But just exactly how do we teach students, faculty, administration, donors, and the community to value the role of art in society? Join our presenters for a frank discussion about the successes and challenges of fusing art education with civic engagement.

Pork Chop Hill: How Movies Prepare Us to Choose War

Watch now Professor Richard Slotkin

Since the end of World War II, the United States has fought several “wars of choice,” including the present war in Iraq. Join this preeminent cultural critic and historian for a look at the ways in which movies create and use a national “war myth” to prepare us to accept certain kinds of war as necessary and good. He will focus on Pork Chop Hill, a film made in 1959, which uses a Korean War incident (1950–53) to develop an argument for fighting Asian Communism. Two years later, these same arguments would persuade Americans to support a war in Vietnam.

Lessons From Guantanamo Bay

Watch now Stephen Oleskey ’64 and Anna Cayton-Holland ’00

Beginning in January 2002, following the events of 9/11, the United States government began to send men it had seized all over the World to a new high security prison at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, on the southwest coast of Cuba. Almost six years later, the words “Guantanamo Bay” conjure up for some a place where iguanas are protected by federal law but prisoners (called “detainees”) have few rights. For others, it is still a place where “the worst of the worst” seized in the “War on Terror” should be held indefinitely, without the customary rights extended to prisoners of war. The confinement of these men and circumstances of their seizure have spawned a national and even international debate about torture, the habeas corpus rights of noncitizens held on a military base outside the United States in “war time,” and what measures may be politically and legally justified to assure our national security. Join two attorneys who are representing men imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2002 without charges or trial. Find out what drew them to the defense of these men held in this remote location, and what implications they see for our country from this far-from-resolved Guantanamo experience.

On Sacha Baron Cohen and Sarah Silverman: Third-Wave Jewish Satirists

Watch now Professor Bernard Timberg P’08

Sacha Baron Cohen, Larry David, Jon Stewart, Adam Sandler, and Sarah Silverman are five of the new Jewish comics who have taken Jewish humor into mainstream popular culture with a fresh spin. They follow a first generation of Jewish humorists who were immersed in Yiddishkeit (Jackie Mason) and a second generation that moved away from Jewish traditions and themes while maintaining a strong Jewish sensibility (Woody Allen). Sacha Baron Cohen and Sarah Silverman come from families that gave them good Jewish backgrounds (Sarah Silverman's sister is a rabbi). Both go up to the borders of good taste and then crash through them. What else do these third-wave Jewish satirists have in common? Come to a showing of clips from their work and a lively discussion by film and television scholar Bernard Timberg.

Stories and Lessons From the Climate Wars

Watch now Professor Gary Yohe

Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient, Gary Yohe, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Synthesis Report intersperses stories of his experiences with lessons derived from the latest science. The stories illuminate turf wars across scientific disciplines and idiosyncratic behaviors of certain countries during the governmental approval process. The lessons relate observed and anticipated global impacts of climate change, including impacts likely to be experienced in New England, to ongoing policy discussions on global, national, and regional levels.

Reunion & Commencement, 2007 (May 24–27)

The Relaxation Response: How to Counteract the Harmful Effects of Stress

Watch now Herbert Benson ’57, P’89, MD

After completing studies at Wesleyan 50 years ago, Herbert Benson attended Harvard Medical School and became a cardiologist. In his 35-plus year career he has dedicated himself to the understanding of stress, and is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on stress and the mind’s influence on physical health. Join him as he addresses the importance and prevalence of stress related disorders in our society today and the weaknesses of treating them with pharmaceuticals and surgery.

Crisis to Coma: An Hour With Medical Thriller Writer Robin Cook

Watch now Robin Cook ’62, MD

Robin Cook grew up in Queens believing he would become an archaeologist, but quickly decided that all the best buried treasures had already been found. It was the era of Ben Casey, James Kildaire, and Marcus Welby and he decided instead that he would make his mark by becoming a caring doctor. As a tireless young intern, he dabbled with writing and published his first novel Year of the Intern, which he considered boring and not the tension-filled format “people would want to read.” Coma followed five years later and he was onto something. Readers were gripped by the riveting story of the black market for human organs (the movie was released in 1978)—and the medical thriller was born. Over the years, Dr. Cook has built stories around everything from stem cells to egg donation, food poisoning, bioterrorism, managed care, and the competitive nature of medicine. Meet the writer who created this new genre of spine-tingling medical thrillers and find out why he feels he has affected the medical lives of more people through his writing than he ever did while in practice.

The Art and Science of Collecting

Watch now Morrison Heckscher ’62, Carl Crossman ’62 and Steven Alpert ’72, P’07

In planning for the care and preservation of Wesleyan’s many collections, Professor Paoletti has discovered a number of alumni and friends of Wesleyan who have built extraordinary art collections or have helped others build collections. Join four of these alumni to talk about their collections, their experiences collecting and working with other collectors, and about how their Wesleyan experience has informed their search for objects. Some of these collectors have traveled great distances to form their collections; others work with artists nearby. Some collect for themselves, while others collect for patrons; some collect for museums and oversee collections that have become among the most important public educational resources in the world.

Now and Then with David Brancaccio

Watch now Laura Fraser ’82, Julie Lasky ’82 and Jonathan Weber ’82

David Brancaccio, host of NOW on PBS, has won numerous awards for investigating what his former co-host Bill Moyers calls the &quo;untidy realities&quo; of politics and social issues. Join him as he talks with distinguished Wesleyan journalists about media, reporting, and the evolution of their careers.

Inside the Mind of Jules Feiffer

Watch now Jules Feiffer P’07

Jules Feiffer has spent a lifetime chronicling the anxieties of contemporary man as well as the hypocrisies of presidents and other politicians. His work has brought him an Oscar for best animated short-subject (Munro), a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival for I Want to Go Home, and most recently, the 56th Writers Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the National Cartoonists Society Lifetime Achievement Award. A man who was &quo;desperate to be a cartoonist,&quo; Feiffer produced a weekly comic strip called Feiffer, featuring presidents and other uniquely neurotic characters. He is the first cartoonist to be invited to appear regularly on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. Since ending his syndicated comic strip in 2000, Feiffer has increased his activity in other areas, including playwrighting, teaching, and writing and illustrating children's books. Join us for a conversation with this versatile artist and an exploration of his creative legacy.

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For more information about WESeminars, contact Gail Briggs, Associate Director of Alumni Programs at gbriggs@wesleyan.edu or (860) 685-3979.