Cuny Lecture Series Videos

In his breakthrough play Prophet (2005), Thomas Bradshaw captivated theatergoers with what The New York Times described as his lacerating satire. Since then, his politically incorrect plots and provocative themes have earned Bradshaw, an assistant professor of mass communications at Medgar Evers College, a devoted Off-Off-Broadway audience and a 2009 Guggenheim fellowship. In a conversation at the Graduate Center with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, member of the Soho Rep Writers/Directors Lab, Prof. Bradshaw discussed his latest drama, The Bereavement, and his vision of original productions. I don t go to the theater to see my everyday life mirrored back at me, Bradshaw said. That s what psychological realism seeks to do, and I reject that idea. Listen Now

No matter what platform one chooses, reading will remain an extraordinary adventure, according to Ann Kirschner, dean of the William E. Macaulay Honors College. It s all about reading the way you are transported to another place, said Kirschner in a panel discussion entitled Reading in a Digital Age, held at Macaulay. The goal is to figure out how technology can make creative content better not fight with it. Participants included New York Magazine Editor Adam Moss; Lisa Holton, former president of Scholastic Books and Fairs; and Ben Vershbow of Digital Ventures Group at the New York Pubic Library. Bill Goldstein, founding editor of nytimes.com/books, served as moderator. Listen Now

On July 15, 2009 Natalia Estemirova, human rights activist and prize-winning journalist, was abducted near her Chechen home and brutally murdered. At the time, according to the BBC, she had been investigating hundreds of cases of alleged kidnapping, torture and killings by the Chechen militia. In Bearing Witness in Chechnya: The Legacy of Natalia Estemirova, an event co-sponsored by PEN American Center, Human Rights Watch and the CUNY School of Journalism among others, and held at the CUNY Graduate Center, authors, journalists and educators gathered to honor her life. She could not watch people suffer, and she felt it was her obligation to do something even if she knew she was doing something risky, said Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch, participating along with former PEN President Salman Rushdie; Michael Arena, associate professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and a former investigative reporter for Newsday, and Russian journalist Elena Milashina. Listen Now

No matter what platforms people choose for communication, the business of public relations essentially remains the same, according to industry experts. You still need to build a personal brand that stands for something, says Don Middleberg of Middleberg Communications, whose client list includes American Express, Consumer Reports and Reuters. Whether it s personal contacts, bloggers, or journalists, someone still needs to pick up your phone call or answer your e-mail or tweet. Middleberg was part of a panel discussion at Baruch College that explored ways to meet the unique challenges brought on by the decline in print outlets and the rise in social marketing media tools such as Twitter and YouTube. Other participants included Peter Himler, founder of Flatiron Communications; Bill Southard, founder of Southard Communications; Jeff Gluck of IBM and Dave Armon, past president of PRNewswire, who served as moderator. Listen Now

The American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie believed his steel fortune should be used for the greater good, says David Nasaw, author of the biography Andrew Carnegie. At a roundtable discussion of how Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller shaped modern philanthropy, Nasaw, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Professor of History at the Graduate Center, described Carnegie s outlook: Without the tremendous rise in the population in the United States there would have been no need for his steel, which was used for the rails to bring Americans west so the money was not his, it was the community s. The event, Foundations of Modern Philanthropy, Private Wealth to Public Good, 1889-2009, was sponsored by the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in cooperation with CUNY Graduate Center, and featured Peter J. Johnson, author of The Rockefeller Century ; Patty Stonesifer, special advisor to the trustees, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Jean Strouse, author of Morgan, American Financier, and was moderated by Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Listen Now

In 1963, as a teenager fresh out of high school, Elizabeth Nunez came to the United States from Trinidad and began to experience the longing many immigrants have felt as they struggled to adapt amid changing traditional values and cultural upheaval. This theme is at the heart of her latest novel, Anna in Between, about a young woman returning home to the Caribbean island of her youth as her mother, battling breast cancer, faces her own mortality. The genesis of the novel came primarily out of a deep sadness and loss that I felt when i started to write it, said Nunez, Distinguished Professor of English and provost at Medgar Evers College. The author of five previous novels, Prof. Nunez reads from latest book as part of the Provost Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series at York College. Listen Now

For one of America s most beloved poets, writing poems is still a leap of faith. You hope that someone is going to read it, Billy Collins, who served two terms as the U.S. Poet Laureate, joked at a Book Talk lecture sponsored by City College s Center for Worker Education. A Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College, where he joined the faculty in 1968, the prolific Collins recently published his eighth volume of poetry, Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. Reading from his 2001 collection, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems, Collins discussed his technique. It s all very exploratory, said Collins. I think of the pen as an instrument of discovery or a flashlight, which may lead me somewhere. Listen Now

Constance Rosenblum s latest book, Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak and Hope Along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx , is a valentine to the neighborhoods around the Grand Concourse, whose distinctive Art Deco buildings were a sought-after address for upwardly mobile families during the first half of the 20th century. A long-time editor of The New York Times City Section, who currently writes the Habitats column for the Sunday real estate section, Rosenblum chronicles the evolution of this iconic boulevard, modeled after the Avenue Champs-Elysees by its French-born engineer Louis Risse, up to its decline in the 1960s. To talk about what it had been and then what became of it, in subsequent years, seems to be the perfect metaphor to speak about urban change, Rosenblum said in an book talk at the CUNY Graduate Center. Listen Now

Is there such a thing as a secular state? How can we find a way to mediate between religion and politics? In a conversation about the meaning of secularism and Islam today, moderated by John Torpey, professor of sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim and Patrick Weil tackle these and other controversial and relevant questions. A professor of law at Emory University and author of the recently published Islam and the Secular State, An-Naim joins Weil, a visiting professor of Yale University School of Law from the University of Paris, in a discussion at the Graduate Center. It is equally important to separate religion from the state as to acknowledge, regulate, and organize the connectedness of religion and politics, says An-Naim. Weil agrees, while pointing out the difficulties in achieving that. The secular state has to ensure the freedom of consciousness for the majority of the population and it s not always easy to find a way to ensure that freedom. Listen Now

An Afghan activist representing a Kabul-based human rights organization has a harsh message for the U.S. and its allies. Afghanistan is a free country, but only for rapists, said Zoya, who uses a pseudonym and won t be videotaped or photographed. It s free for the drug lords who have made the country the largest producer of opium, for the warlords to commit any kind of crime without the least concern, and for foreign troops to kill our civilians. Zoya spoke on behalf of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on a panel that examined the escalating conflicts in Afghanistan as the U.S. enters its eighth year of intervention. She was joined at the Graduate Center event by Nation columnist Jeremy Scahill, Bill Fletcher, Jr., executive editor of The Black Commentator, and Adaner Usmani of Action for Progressive Pakistan (APP). Listen Now

One of America s bleakest chapters produced some of the 20th century s most enduring cultural images, says critic Morris Dickstein. In his latest book, Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression, Dickstein, distinguished professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center, writes about this 1930s paradox. The arts provided a powerful psychological stimulus, he said, referring to the iconic film classics The Wizard of Oz and It s a Wonderful Life. They injected a potent dose of imaginative energy into a period or relative stagnation and inactivity. In a discussion moderated by jazz critic Gary Giddins at the Graduate Center, Making Sense of Hard Times: Cultural and Crisis in the Great Depression, Dickstein joined fellow panelists including film critic Molly Haskell and author Peter Conn. Listen Now

For more than three decades, Robert A. Caro has been one of the leading biographers of our time. He chronicled the political trail that defined Robert Moses as one of New York s most influential and controversial figures in The Power Broker, and traced Lyndon Johnson s rise from poverty to power in the three-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson, garnering two Pulitzer Prizes and three National Book Critics Circle awards. In this Leon Levy Biography Lecture at the CUNY Graduate Center, Caro who lived in the Texas Hill Country of Johnson s youth as he researched his biography discusses the critical role physical setting plays in nonfiction. For a book to endure, the sense of place must be present, Caro said, letting the reader see clearly enough, (so) the scene becomes more vivid and more real to him. Listen Now

The great influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed some 50 to 100 million worldwide, is considered the prototype for all flu outbreaks, says Philip Alcabes. But in his lecture The War Against Swine Flu: Who Loses? sponsored by The Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, he says the 1918 flu was unique, but not paradigmatic and that today s public-health approach to influenza is flawed because it provides no long-term solution. Professor Alcabes, who is a professor of urban public health at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, contends that drug companies and vaccine makers have capitalized on the infamy of the 1918 flu by offering expensive vaccines that only protect against the current year s strain. It s tragically simple-minded to imagine that human flu can be prevented with vaccines and Tamiflu, he said. The flu web is complex and humans are a small part of it. Listen Now

William E. Macaulay believes the Obama administration s focus on alternative energy, including solar and wind, should be expanded to other energy sources. The Bush administration was oil, he said, but the Obama administration has not paid attention to nuclear, and they haven t really pushed natural gas. Macaulay is the chairman, chief executive officer, and a managing director of First Reserve Corporation, a private equity firm focusing on the energy industry, which he joined in 1983. He is also a graduate of City College and the benefactor of the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, which hosted his lecture, World Energy: Current Outlook, Future Possibilities. Listen Now