Public Lecture Explores Historic Treatment of Pueblo People

Nora Naranjo MorseNora Naranjo Morse will deliver the annual Phi Beta Kappa lecture at Kalamazoo College on Tuesday, October 11, at 8 p.m. in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room. The event is free and open to the public. Morse Morse is a sculptor, writer, and producer of video films that look at the continuing social changes within Pueblo Indian culture.  Her talk, “Numbe Wahgeh,” focuses on the historical treatment of the Pueblo people and history retold by indigenous peoples.

An artist best known for her work with clay and organic materials, she has been trained in the Pueblo clay work tradition of the Southwest.  Her installation exhibits and large-scale public art speak to environmental, cultural, and social practice issues.  Beyond New Mexico, her work can be seen at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.

She studied at the College of Santa Fe, where she received her B.A. degree in 1980, and is the recipient of an honorary degree from Skidmore College.  In 2014 Naranjo Morse was awarded a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist fellowship.  She is the author of two books:  a poetry collection, Mud Woman: Poems from the Clay, and a children’s book, Kaa Povi.

Morse will spend two days on K’s campus. In addition to her public lecture she will visit four classes and meet with various faculty and students.

African Languages as Literary Medium

African Languages as Literary MediumKalamazoo College’s African studies program invites everyone to the public lecture, “African Languages as Literary Medium: Prospects and Challenges.” Dr. Abdou Ngom (Cheik Anta Diop University, Senegal) will deliver the address on Wednesday, May 11, at 4:30 p.m. in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room. The event is free and open to the public.

“The lecture addresses the distribution of indigenous languages in Africa, the negative impact of colonization on the promotion of indigenous languages, and the difficult choice made by governments regarding their official languages,” said Ngom. Ngom will discuss the controversial issue of the literary medium for African writers, especially the relationships between language and cultural identity. “The matter of authenticity and language (indigenous or non-indigenous) involves very difficult and interesting questions,” he said. For example, is literature written in European languages authentic African literature?  Should any literature written by an African scholar be considered African literature? What type of readership do African writers have in mind when writing literature and why? What are the main challenges posed by African literature written in indigenous languages? How does literature written in foreign languages affect African indigenous languages? “The lecture,” said Joseph Bangura, associate professor of history and director of the African studies program, “seeks to address these questions.”

Author and Journalist David Finkel Delivers Kalamazoo College Commencement Address June 14

Graduation caps tossed in the airDavid Finkel, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author of “The Good Soldiers” and “Thank You for Your Service,” will deliver the commencement address to the Kalamazoo College graduating class of 2015 on Sunday June 14 at 1:00 p.m. on the campus Quad, located at 1200 Academy St. in Kalamazoo.

Finkel will also receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the College. Asia Liza Morales ’15 will address her fellow graduates in the role of senior speaker. Attorney, author, and LGBTQ activist Urvashi Vaid, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from the College.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel
David Finkel

Kalamazoo College commencement is free and open to the public. Parking will be in high demand, so allow extra time. The College sets up about 3,000 folding chairs on the campus Quad and guests are invited to bring a lawn chair or blanket to stretch out on the grass. In case of rain, Anderson Athletic Center (1015 Academy St.) is the alternate site. Unfortunately, the gym can only accommodate the graduates, a few of their family members, and K administrators and faculty. K uses a special ticketing process for those seats.

For those unable to attend, K Commencement will be live-streamed via the Web.

David Finkel was the summer common reading author for the class of 2015 prior to their arrival at the College in fall 2011. He visited the K campus during students’ first-year orientation, giving a lecture and reading from “The Good Soldiers,” his bestselling account of a U.S. Army infantry unit during the Iraq War “surge.” The book earned the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and was named best book of 2009 by the New York Times.

Per K tradition, Finkel returns to deliver the commencement address to the same class of students he met in 2011.

Urvashi Vaid
Urvashi Vaid

Urvashi Vaid is director of the Engaging Tradition Project at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. Her most recent book is “Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics.” She was executive director of the Arcus Foundation from 2005 to 2010 and was instrumental in creating the vision for what is now Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Ms. Vaid received her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and her law degree from Northeastern University Law School.

Asia Morales has pursued a major in biology with an interest in environmental studies while at K. She has been a Peer Leader, President’s Ambassador, StuComm representative, and a member of multiple civic engagement programs and student organizations, including S3A (Sexual Safety & Support Alliance), which educates, advocates, and provides support for victims of sexual assault. A Posse Scholar from Los Angeles, Asia studied abroad in Spain.

Student speaker Asia Morales
Asia Morales ’15

Finkel’s most recent book, the critically acclaimed “Thank You for Your Service,” chronicles the challenges faced by American soldiers and their families in war’s aftermath. Among its many awards, the book was named a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Award in nonfiction and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. It was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2013 by Publishers Weekly, one of the top 10 books of the year by The Washington Post, and best nonfiction book of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews.

An editor and writer for The Washington Post, Finkel has reported from Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, and across the United States, and has covered wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He received the MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 2012 for “his long-form newswriting that has transformed readers’ understanding of military service and sacrifice.”

Finkel won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for “his ambitious, clear-eyed case study of the United States government’s attempt to bring democracy to Yemen.” He received his B.A. degree from University of Florida in 1977.

Where’s the Beef?

Kalamazoo College alumna Nicolette Hahn Niman
Nicolette Hahn Niman

Why would a vegetarian defend beef? Nicolette Hahn Niman ’89, environmental lawyer, rancher, food activist, and vegetarian, does just that in her controversial new book, Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production, The Manifesto of an Environmental Lawyer and Vegetarian Turned Cattle Rancher, published by Chelsea Green in October 2014. Hahn Niman returns to the Kalamazoo College campus on April 27 (7 p.m., Stetson Chapel) for a talk and discussion on sustainable food production and farm animal welfare. The event is free and open to the public.

Hahn Niman’s first book, Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (William Morrow, 2009), paves the path to her current work. Porkchop is an exposé of what ails BigAg, or big agriculture, the factory farms that Hahn Niman points out as major polluters across the planet, contributing to climate change, to the detriment of everyone’s health. It is also her love story, as vegetarian meets cattle rancher, Bill Niman, joining forces in marriage and business.

Defending Beef takes a further step. As Hahn Niman began her new life on the Bolinas, California, cattle ranch (the Nimans also raise heritage turkeys), she found herself drawn deeper and deeper into the lifestyle and the business. If at first she merely stood nearby and held out the tools for her husband to do his work, Hahn Niman gradually found herself in love with ranch life and fully involved with it. Her research into all things beef led her to write her manifesto.

“Environmentalists and health advocates have long blamed beef and cattle ranching, but it’s just not that simple,” she says.

With meticulous research, Hahn Niman addresses every concern commonly associated with beef: health issues, climate change, water supply, biodiversity, overgrazing, world hunger, the morality of eating meat.

“Meat, especially red meat, has been perceived as elitist,” she says. “It’s a strange way to view beef when about a billion of the world’s poorest people are dependent on livestock.”

Beef, Hahn Niman argues, can in fact play an important role in ending world hunger, even while helping to restore a balanced climate. She has presented her perspective in numerous articles in New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, CHOW, and countless others, frequently stirring up dust. She is a frequent speaker at various food and farming events and conferences.

Hahn Niman majored in biology and French at Kalamazoo College and went on to earn her law degree, cum laude, from the University of Michigan in 1993. She served two terms on the Kalamazoo City Commission, worked as an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, and later became senior attorney for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental organization where she was in charge of the organization’s campaign to reform the concentrated livestock and poultry industry.

“We’ve been told that beef isn’t good for us for decades,” Hahn Niman says. “But in fact, beef consumption is down 22 percent over the past three decades, saturated animal fat consumption is down 21 percent over the past century , while diabetes and cardiovascular disease have gone up. The perception that we are eating more red meat and animal fat is simply not correct.”

The culprits, Niman points out, are sugar, especially high-fructose corn syrup, and grain-based foods. Our consumption of sweeteners has spiked. While the great majority, around 70 percent, of heart attack victims have low cholesterol levels, usually associated with eating meat, many of these people are consuming much higher levels of sugar and processed foods.

“We’ve shifted how and what we eat,” Hahn Niman says. “We are eating a lot more fast food and processed food, and these are foods that are high in sugar and salt, another additive, and the body can’t metabolize these ingredients at these elevated levels. We’ve even changed how we eat—on the run, standing up, rather than at the dinner table. We need to reexamine how we eat in this country and get back to whole foods.”

In Defending Beef, Hahn Niman compares the grass-based, traditional family farm to the industrialized factory farms today. Family farms have not been able to compete, and many have bankrupted while factory farms continue to consolidate and grow ever larger. Not only are we losing a simpler, cleaner way of life, she writes, but with it we are losing the values of the traditional farmer and rancher. That includes sitting down at the dinner table in shared meals and conversation.

The grass-based farm should become the basis for a food revolution, Hahn Niman says. With industrialized factory farming come huge numbers of closely confined animals, and with that, crowding, disease, and lower (sometimes inhumane) standards of life. A corporation cannot care for a living animal in the same way that farmers and ranchers living alongside their animals can. The economics of the modern food industry, Hahn Niman states, require more and more processing. And while processed meat can indeed lead to health problems, unprocessed red meat, especially grass-fed, can contribute to good health.

“I believe strongly in good animal husbandry,” says Hahn Niman. “It ensures that life is worth living for that animal, but it also creates healthier food for us. Research shows that stress hormones affect the flavor and quality of meat. [On our ranch], we are there when the calves are born, we care for them and raise them, and we accompany them to the very end. Yes, it is difficult, but that’s why Bill, my husband, is present at the slaughterhouse, which reassures the animal, and making sure that we give our animals the respect they deserve. We have total oversight of the entire process and that’s why we have such confidence in the quality of our meat.”

On the Nimans’ BN Ranch, cattle are grass-fed only, grazing on approximately 1,000 acres of open pasture from the first to the last day of their lives. No chemical fertilizers, no pesticides or herbicides are used on the ranch, although the beef is not certified organic, primarily due to the prohibitive costs and burdensome processes required for certification. The Nimans supply their premium quality beef to high-end restaurants and specialty retailers.

“From the health standpoint, grass-fed beef has higher levels of omega-3s and other nutrients,” Hahn Niman says. “No weird additives or hormones.”

But then there is the health of the planet. Many environmentalists and vegetarians have argued against overgrazing, which disables land that might be used to grow more crops. They further contend that keeping livestock contributes to the carbon emissions and methane gases that lead to climate change. Hahn Niman disagrees.

Carbon dioxide, she notes, makes up the majority of agriculture-related greenhouse emissions. Keeping livestock on pasture, however, contributes little to such emissions because emissions come mostly from farm machinery and manufacture of agricultural chemicals, not animals. Absent the practice of crowding large numbers of animals together—which requires manure lagoons and has encouraged deforestation in order to clear areas for growing soy and livestock feed crops—animals actually contribute to sustainable living. Methane emissions from manure are minimal on traditional farms, where manure is not liquefied and quantities of manure, properly balanced with the amount of land, are worked back into the soil, enriching it.

The primary climate argument against cattle is enteric methane, in other words methane from their digestive processes. But Hahn Niman points out that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official figures show the entire greenhouse gas emissions of cattle (for both dairy and beef) are around 2 percent of all U.S. emissions. “Two percent is not something to be ignored, but it’s manageable,” says Hahn Niman. “Agricultural colleges around the world are studying enteric emissions and have already discovered several ecological ways to significantly reduce them.”

“With well-managed grazing, cattle contribute to soil quality,” she says. “We’ve heard about overgrazing for years, but cattle actually stimulate the growth of plants with their pruning. Their hooves press seeds into the ground. Research shows that where cattle are allowed to graze, biodiversity improves and carbon sequestration (taking carbon out of the atmosphere and returning it to the soil) is enhanced. Soil feeds many forms of life, starting with microorganisms, and there are countless positive downstream effects.”

Whereas growing crops destroys natural habitat and the wildlife living on it, grazing cattle is often the best use of land unsuitable for growing crops.

“For many of the poor in the world, keeping livestock is their most important food source,” Niman says.

Niman also addresses diminishing water supplies and how much of that goes for livestock (less than you might think), the need for a national food policy (we have a policy for most everything else), and why being a meat-eater is a morally legitimate choice (as long as the meat comes from sustainable farming practices).

As for being a vegetarian, Niman says it is a personal choice. “If you are choosing vegetarianism because of health concerns or concern for the environment, well, then your reasons are poorly grounded.”

Text by Zinta Aistars; Photo by Mitch Tobias

Kalamazoo College 2015 Thompson Lecture by Rabbi Rachel Mikva

Rabbi Rachel S. Mikva
Rachel Mikva, 2015 Thompson Lecturer

Kalamazoo College’s 2015 Thompson Lecture will be held Monday, March 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the Olmsted Room in Mandelle Hall with guest speaker Rabbi Rachel S. Mikva, Ph.D. Her lecture is titled “Fraught Justice: Is Reward and Punishment a Dangerous Religious Idea?” The lecture is free and open to the public.

Rachel S. Mikva currently serves as the Herman Schaalman Chair in Jewish Studies and Director of the Center for Jewish, Christian and Islamic Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary. The Center and the Seminary work at the cutting edge of theological education, training religious leaders who can build bridges across cultural and religious difference for the critical work of social transformation.

After 13 years in the congregational rabbinate, Dr. Mikva went on to teach and earn her Ph.D. at Jewish Theological Seminary, focusing on rabbinic literature and the history of scriptural interpretation. Her courses address a range of Jewish and comparative studies, with a special interest in the intersections of scripture, culture and ethics.

She is the author of Broken Tablets: Restoring the Ten Commandments and Ourselves (Jewish Lights, 2000) and Midrash vaYosha: A Medieval Midrash on the Song at the Sea (Mohr Siebeck, 2012), as well as a variety of articles and academic papers on Jewish exegesis and interreligious engagement. Her current writing project is entitled Dangerous Religious Ideas: A History of Scriptural Exegesis and its Impact in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The Paul Lamont Thompson Memorial Lecture was established by a gift from the sons and daughters-in-law of Paul Lamont and Ruth Peel Thompson. A committee of alumni and friends of the College worked diligently to build the fund with gifts from those many students whose lives were enriched by Dr. Thompson’s leadership.

Paul Lamont Thompson, Ph.D., was president of Kalamazoo College from 1938 to 1949. Dr. Thompson founded the Annual Fund at K helping to ensure the financial integrity of the College for years to come. Several buildings were added to the campus during his tenure, among them Harmon Hall, Stowe Stadium, Angell Field, and Welles Hall. He served as president of the Association of Church Related Colleges during his years at K. Dr. Thompson was known as an excellent speaker whose wit, wisdom, and gentle patient manner helped nurture generations of K students.

Weber Lecture on Detroit Bankruptcy

Gerald Rosen, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of MichiganThe Honorable Gerald Rosen ’73, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, will deliver the 2015 William Weber Lecture in Social Science at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 5. The lecture is free and open to the public and will take place in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room on Kalamazoo College’s campus. The lecture is titled “Detroit Bankruptcy: Lessons Learned” and will draw from Rosen’s experience as chief judicial administrator for the Detroit bankruptcy case, the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history.

At K, Rosen earned his bachelor’s degree in political science. He was the first K student to study abroad in Sweden (Stockholm), to which he returned in his senior year to complete his Senior Individualized Project, which focused on Swedish press coverage of the 1972 U.S. presidential election. He began his professional career as a legislative assistant to United States Senator Robert P. Griffin (R-Michigan), serving on Senator Griffin’s staff in Washington, D.C., from 1974 to 1979. During this time Rosen was involved in some of the most significant and challenging issues of the period. He also was attending the George Washington University Law School at night, and he obtained his J.D. degree in May 1979. (Today he is a member of the law school’s board of advisors).

For 20 years, Rosen has served as an adjunct professor of law for University of Michigan Law School, Wayne State University Law School, University of Detroit Law School, and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Throughout the years he has presided over a number of high-profile, ground-breaking cases, including the first post-9/11 terrorism trial, an early partial-birth abortion case, and one of the first physician-assisted suicide cases. Nevertheless, he describes his work on the Detroit bankruptcy case as “the most challenging and rewarding experience of my professional career.”

Rosen is involved with several charitable and community organizations, including serving on the board of directors of Focus: HOPE and the Michigan Chapter of the Federalist Society. He has written and published articles for professional journals and the popular press on a wide range of issues, including civil procedure, evidence, due process, criminal law, labor law, and legal advertising, as well as numerous other topics. He is also a co-author of Federal Civil Trials and Evidence, Federal Employment Litigation, and Michigan Civil Trials and Evidence.

The William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was founded by Bill Weber, a 1939 graduate of Kalamazoo College. In addition to this lectureship, he established the William Weber Chair in Political Science at the College. Past lecturers in this series have included David Broder, Frances Moore Lappé, E. J. Dionne, Jeane Bethke Elshtain, William Greider, Ernesto Cortes, Jr., John Esposito, Benjamin Ginsberg, Frances Fox Piven, Spencer Overton, Tamara Draut, Van Jones, and Dr. Joan Mandelle.

With/Out ¿Borders? Opens Thursday

Two social justice advocates attend Without Borders ConferenceMore than 500 social justice advocates, scholars and leaders ranging from civil rights icons and eccentric artists to young organizers and poet laureates will be on the Kalamazoo College campus, as well as locations throughout the city, this weekend, Sept. 25-28 to participate in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) “With/Out ¿Borders?” conference.

Attendees will engage in questioning–and openly attempt to complicate –the political, ideological, cultural, and social barriers that make up our world. Thought-provoking plenary sessions, participatory think tanks, and moving and entertaining artistic performances are just some of the diverse and engaging platforms that will be used to question the borders that surround so much of our world today–and develop paradigms and strategies to break them down.

Well-known performance artists and cultural workers Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot, whom make up the performance troupe La Pocha Nostra, will be on stage on Friday afternoon with Adriana Garriga-López, the Arcus Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of Anthropology. The trio will discuss, instigate, and agitate on the meaning of border politics, performance, and the role of art in the process.

Later that day, the conference will take on a more poetic note, as two well-known poets read form their work and engage with local poet and activist Denise Miller and Lisa Brock, academic director of the ACSJL.

Nikki Finney, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry, and Keorapetse “Willie” Kgositsile, former poet laureate of South Africa, will bear witness to history and exile and set the stage alive with “truth telling” and love poems crafted out of the struggles of black people from both the southern areas of the United States and South Africa.

Civil rights icon Angela Davis will take to the stage on Saturday morning, along with distinguished African American studies expert Robin D. G. Kelley, peace activists Lynn Pollack and Leenah Odeh and academics Alex Lubin and Saree Makdisi, to discuss the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Movement emerging globally in support of the Palestinian people, who live in walled, or “bordered” territories.

Participants in this plenary session will ask if the BDS movement is the next critical solidarity movement of our time, who it’s for, who it’s against, and why.

Cities will take center stage later Saturday, when a plenary of scholars and organizers examine resistance movements in cities today. Organizer and writer Kali Akuno, Detroit-based activist shea howell and David Stovall, professor of African-American studies, will discuss teacher protests in Chicago, water rights issues in Detroit, city planning strategies in Jackson, Miss., and minimum-wage increase advocacy efforts nationwide at this plenary moderated by Rhonda Williams, associate professor of History at Case Western University.

The future of various social justice movements will be on display in the Hicks Center Banquet Room Sunday morning, where a host of young social justice advocates and organizers will discuss their own projects, talk about the need for more youth to become involved and analyze the New Youth Movement.

Civil rights organizers Phillip Agnew and Charlene Carruthers, undocumented immigrant advocate Lulu Martinez, climate change organizer Will Lawrence, sexual assault awareness organizer Zoe Ridolfi-Starr and voting rights advocate Sean Estelle will be in on the discussion, moderated by the Mia Henry, executive director of the ACSJL.

For a full list of events, go to the conference’s schedule page.

Cities in Revolt: Ferguson and Beyond — Conference at Kalamazoo College Will Explore Complex Threads of Racial Injustice, Reconciliation, and Healing

Advertisement for the 2014 Without Borders ConferenceThe complex issues surrounding the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., are sure to be discussed and analyzed for years to come. The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College is making an early contribution to the discussion by convening leaders from many social justice fields—including some who have been on the ground at Ferguson and sites of other civil engagement—to explore policing, restorative justice, and resistance movements that are growing in American cities today.

Two major discussions are offered as part of the “With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference” hosted by the Arcus Center that will also explore other hot–button issues such as youth immigration and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

On Thursday, Sept. 25, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., a think tank titled “Policing, Racial Profiling, and Restorative Justice” will be held at the Douglass Community Association, 1200 W. Paterson St. in Kalamazoo. Discussion leaders include:

  • Frank Chapman, Chicago Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression
  • Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Cooperation Jackson
  • Patrisse Cullors, Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in LA Jails
  • Ria Fay-Berquist, Leadership from the Inside Out
  • Mia Henry, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
  • Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, co-executive director of Youth Safety and Violence Prevention, YMCA, Metro Chicago

On Saturday, Sept. 27, from 1:40 to 3:10 p.m., a plenary session titled “Cities in Revolt!” will look at a range of racial and urban concerns, including policing, racial vigilantism, privatization, and political and economic disenfranchisement. Participants include:

  • Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Cooperation Jackson
  • shea howell, Detroit activist, professor, and chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich.
  • David Stovall, education activist and associate professor of educational policy studies and African-American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago
  • Rhonda Williams (moderator), founding director of the Social Justice Institute and associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

“Borders are being questioned and, in some cases, challenged, everywhere,” said Lisa Brock, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Kalamazoo College and academic director of the Arcus Center. “Globalization and privatization are creating new borders between those who have access to education, food, clean water and those who do not.

“Do all citizens have equal right to participate without threat of a militaristic response?” she asks. “Scholars and grassroots activists working on these questions will address these and other issues facing cities today.”

All activists, artists, students, researchers, and others are invited to attend the “With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference.”

Preregistration is required to attend these events. Registration is on a sliding scale from $35 to $125 and registration closes Monday, Sept. 8. Space is limited, and interested persons are urged to register as soon as possible.

Accessibility and translation services can be made available upon request.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is to support the pursuit of human rights and social justice by developing emerging leaders and sustaining existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering a more just world.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.

“Conference/Un-Conference” at Kalamazoo College To Examine Political, Ideological, Cultural, and Social Borders

Advertisement for 2014 Without Borders ConferenceKalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is still accepting registrations to the “With/Out – ¿Borders? Conference” scheduled for September 25-28, 2014 at the College. Registration information and a conference schedule can be found at https://reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/withoutborders, or by contacting Lanna Lewis at slewis@kzoo.edu or 269-337-7398. More than 250 people have already registered toward a cap of 350.

“This will be a convergence of activists, scholars, and artists representing diverse issues, disciplines, generations, and locations,” said Arcus Center Academic Director Lisa Brock. “They will examine and question the many borders—political, ideological, cultural, social, and beyond—that make up our world.”

Key scholars, writers, and artists who will present or perform include civil rights icon Angela Davis, poet and National Book Award recipient Nikky Finney, South African Poet Laureate Willie Kgositsile, MacArthur Award recipient Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and filmmakers Gloria Rolando and Grace Lee.

Only conference registrants may attend conference events.

“With/Out – ¿Borders?” is billed as both a conference and ‘un-conference,’ according to Brock, “because in addition to formal presentations, there will be performances, films, and informal spaces where attendees may share learning, give impromptu demonstrations, begin public discussions, stage a performance, and more.”

Plenary sessions, roundtable discussions, and workshops will cover a range of topics including current activism around power structures within cities and schools in the United States, identity formation at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, LGBTQ refugees in Canada, the land conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon, and more. Presenters include activists and academics from across the U.S. and the world, as well from Kalamazoo, Detroit, and Chicago.

Conference co-sponsors include Kalamazoo College departments of Theatre Arts, Anthropology and Sociology, Music, Political Science, and Media Studies, along with Kalamazoo People’s Food Coop, YWCA of Kalamazoo, Douglass Community Association, Hispanic American Council, Kalamazoo County Public Arts Commission, Western Michigan University Center for the Humanities, Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership in Detroit, and other organizations.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is to support the pursuit of human rights and social justice by developing emerging leaders and sustaining existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering a more just world.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.